{"id":676,"date":"2007-11-05T02:40:34","date_gmt":"2007-11-05T07:40:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=676"},"modified":"2018-08-15T20:31:00","modified_gmt":"2018-08-16T00:31:00","slug":"15349-%c2%a0%c2%a0-lawrence-h-keeley-war-before-civilization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=676","title":{"rendered":"15349. (Lawrence H. Keeley) War Before Civilization"},"content":{"rendered":"

I rec\u00adom\u00admend this study of war\u00adfare in pre\u00adhis\u00adtoric soci\u00adeties, based on archae\u00ado\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal work and com\u00adpar\u00adisons with anthro\u00adpo\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal stud\u00adies of non-state (trib\u00adal and hunter-gath\u00ader\u00ader) soci\u00adeties. When Kee\u00adley began his work, his field was dom\u00adi\u00adnated by a kind of \u201cneo-Rousseau-an\u201d ortho\u00addoxy that in pre\u00adhis\u00adtoric soci\u00adeties with\u00adout cen\u00adtral\u00adized states, war\u00adfare was unim\u00adpor\u00adtant, triv\u00adial in its effects, and, if extant, more rit\u00adual than in earnest. This ortho\u00addoxy was not based on any\u00adthing more sub\u00adstan\u00adtial than wish\u00adful think\u00ading. Even when it held sway, the weight of archae\u00adl\u00adog\u00adi\u00adcal and anthro\u00adpo\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal evi\u00addence con\u00adtra\u00addicted it. But it was so strong a notion that Kee\u00adley could not get a grant to study pre\u00adhis\u00adtoric fortress\u00ades, with clear\u00adly evi\u00addent moats, pal\u00adlisades, and skele\u00adtons of bat\u00adtle vic\u00adtims, until he renamed them \u201cenclo\u00adsures\u201d.<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Kee\u00adley\u2019s work was part of a move\u00adment to ques\u00adtion some of the more naive notions about pre\u00adhis\u00adto\u00adry and anthro\u00adpol\u00ado\u00adgy that had fixed them\u00adselves in the litur\u00adgy after World War II<\/span>. We like to imag\u00adine that some\u00adwhere, some\u00adwhen, peo\u00adple lived in a par\u00ada\u00addis\u00adi\u00adcal state of peace\u00adful\u00adness and serene \u201cone-ness with nature\u201d. This dream is used to pro\u00advide a con\u00adtrast to the per\u00adceived faults of \u201cus and now\u201d. When this kind of myth-mak\u00ading occurs, objec\u00adtiv\u00adi\u00adty usu\u00adal\u00adly goes out the win\u00addow. The truth, which is hard for many to face up to, is that mod\u00adern indus\u00adtri\u00adal soci\u00adeties tend to be less vio\u00adlent, both in terms of death by war\u00adfare and in terms of per\u00adson\u00adal crime and mur\u00adder, than any tra\u00addi\u00adtion\u00adal soci\u00adety in pre\u00adhis\u00adto\u00adry, record\u00aded his\u00adto\u00adry, or in the remote areas stud\u00adied by social anthro\u00adpol\u00ado\u00adgists. The evi\u00addence for this has always been there. It has sim\u00adply been ignored. Peace and har\u00admo\u00adny are some\u00adthing we will have to build, by look\u00ading into the future. It isn\u2019t in the past. The tools for it are avail\u00adable to us, if we use courage to face facts, and rea\u00adson to change our bad habits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kee\u00adley also dis\u00adpels the notion that non-state war\u00adfare is tac\u00adti\u00adcal\u00adly defi\u00adcient, strate\u00adgi\u00adcal\u00adly inef\u00adfi\u00adcient, or car\u00adried out for strict\u00adly sym\u00adbol\u00adic rea\u00adsons. When ancient humans clubbed each on the heads or skew\u00adered each oth\u00ader with spears, they prob\u00ada\u00adbly did it for exact\u00adly the same rea\u00adsons that mod\u00adern humans lob hand grenades and fire Exo\u00adcet missiles.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I rec\u00adom\u00admend this study of war\u00adfare in pre\u00adhis\u00adtoric soci\u00adeties, based on archae\u00ado\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal work and com\u00adpar\u00adisons with anthro\u00adpo\u00adlog\u00adi\u00adcal stud\u00adies of non-state (trib\u00adal and hunter-gath\u00ad\u00ader\u00ader) soci\u00adeties. When Kee\u00adley began his work, his field was dom\u00adi\u00adnated by a kind of \u201cneo-Rousseau-an\u201d ortho\u00addoxy that \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[946,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-b-reading","category-bt-reading-2007"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8799,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/8799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}