I’d like to start by just quoting Tim Ingold’s opening paragraph here, as he offers a very succinct summary of a few points I’d like to tackle throughout this post.

First of all, this post is disjointed and it’s by design—because I’m the discussion leader this week, I tried to phrase as much as I possibly could in the form of a question. What I couldn’t implement into a question I tacked onto the beginning.

I found Bulliet’s ideas about predation and its role in domesticity very interesting, but not particularly revolutionary. What I did enjoy were his references to benefits of domestication; namely going back to our Endangered Species conversation in which there are nonmaterial benefits to be had for domesticating a species.

One thing that did bother me (But not enough to write 1000 words about) was the way Bulliet handled ancient peoples. I think it’s very easy to peer into the looking glass and see ancient civilizations as overly simplistic, even though there are quite a few fields that they knew more about than the average person living today like, for instance, astrology and astronomy. In other words, I feel as though Bulliet discounts how much they really about the world they lived in. He contests that it’s impossible for an ancient civilization to see the immediate benefits in milking cows. Maybe it’s true that they had no idea how nutritious milk is—but is it also fair to say that they were incapable of milking cattle or seeing the use in it? I will come back to this shortly.

With my miscellaneous musings aside, here are some questions to frame our discussion on Tuesday. I seriously doubt that we’ll get to everything—I write down all of the questions that I ask myself during the readings. I’ll pick the ones I think are most important and pose them to you when we meet, but in the meantime feel free to approach any of them for comments.

1. Was domestication accidental or intentional? Is there such a thing as a universal process of domestication, or are there many paths that lead to the same place? Is the intent behind domestication even something we can theorize about without being inside the heads of our ancestors? To that end, is intent as important, more important, or less important than the end result?
2. In the first part of our HHH reading, Bulliet clashes with Jared Diamond in regards to whether or not species who have yet to be domesticated can, in fact, be domesticated. Diamond argues that a lack of economic motive prevents these species, such as Bison and Moose (Mooses? Meese?), from being widely domesticated. He also goes on to say that these undomesticated species have inherent qualities that prevent them from being susceptible to the process. How much truth is there to Diamond’s claims? Bulliet counters by citing several hypotheticals and studies. Did he convince you that Diamond is wrong?
3. Mostly a fun question, but Bulliet has some interesting ideas about the role of predation in perceived docility. For him, animals that live in a predator-free environment become less excitable over time, and this can give the impression that such animals are tame. Do you think that the squirrels on Virginia Tech’s campus fall into this category?
4. Though Bulliet only mentions it in passing, I thought it was interesting enough to pose again here; Are humans a domesticated species? Personally, I have no idea but I think it’d be fun to talk about.
5. Bulliet spends a long time talking about primary and secondary motives for domestication. What do you think about that? What possible reason could early peoples have had for taking care of animals that they could not milk or shear for wool, even though today that is their established “purpose”?

My personal opinion is that Bulliet over-thinks the issue and in doing so underestimates both the ability of ancient peoples to find uses for animals and the temperament of the animals in question—I don’t think it would have taken as long as Bulliet suggests for an animal to become comfortable enough around humans to let them shear or milk it, especially if the animal were raised by humans from birth. That doesn’t even necessitate domestication, only taming. And surely even ancient peoples could have realized the benefits of, for instance, shearing sheep for their wool. Is that really as big of a logical leap as Bulliet seems to think.

6. After a brief overview of other people’s posts, I noticed an interest in the part of the reading about sacrifices. Though that chapter did not pique my interest as much as it did the interests of others, I think it’s worth discussing. What is the relationship between domestication and animal/human sacrifices?

7. We got into this a little bit last week with the idea of stewardship, but it was raised again in the Ingold article. Do humans and animals exist in different worlds? He discusses humans and nature as almost a master-slave relationship, in which humans dominate nature. Is this quality, as Ingold seems to imply through his references of Darwin’s time in the Tierra Del Fuego, acquired by us over time or is it somehow inherent?

8. What do you think about Ingold’s idea that the relationship between one of hunter and prey is one of trust? The first time I read it, it struck me as a little too romantic and while I think that a lot can be said regarding the idea that our relationship with animals today is one of domination (Look at the meat industry), I’m just not convinced that there is all that much to the “Trust” side of his essay. Though he describes it as a relationship between hunter and prey, it seems more to me like he’s describing a unilateral relationship between people and nature.

I hope my questions were on the mark more often than not. There’s so much material for this week so it’s a little daunting to frame by oneself.

Until Tuesday,

Bill

Hunter-Gather Relationships

It was quite the realization to understand that hunter-gathers model their relationships with their environment on the institution of sharing, also the basis of interpersonal relationships in the community. Likewise they value trust, “to trust someone is to act with that person in mind, in the hope and expectation that she will do likewise – responding in ways favorable to you. That favorable response is what you depend on and it comes entirely on the initiative or violation of the other party.”

It was earlier this week that I digested this facebook post from Que Lo Que, a Non Goveremental Organization with mission is to, “To reduce ethnocentrism and cultural misconceptions in the United States by building relationships and communication networks that tell the true story of those living in the developing world.”

It stands to reason that reducing ethnocentrism, or our cultural bias, can come from increased awareness about the way things could be by learning lessons of practicing ideas of trust and confidence inherent in communities who do depend on one another for food and everyday services. However it is becoming clearer that our ethnocentrism comes not from a lack of understanding of trust but from our relationships with animals and the environment based on domination.

Domination and humans separate from nature

I would like to first consider a book I’ve read recently, Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. For millions of years, Homo Sapiens and our predecessors lived sustainably as a part of earth’s ecosystem; it has only been for a few thousand years, since the agricultural revolution, that we have continuously overstepped our means and entered into a war of sorts with earth. Our culture of “takers” (as named by Quinn) assumes that we have dominion over earth and its life and resources. This viewpoint of dominion places us into a community of rulers who must extend control over the earth, but simultaneously takes us out of the community we previously belonged to – the one that everything belongs to. We have tried to escape from the community of earth and rule over it without being a part of it and this could be considered impossible. Fundamentally, I think for us to connect community, sustainability, and environment, we must come to identify ourselves as equal players in the game, and therefore subject to the same rules of the game as all other life on earth.

The Mayan Apocalypse 2012

The 2012 Story asks the question, “What happens to a culture that forgets the center, denies the transcendent perennial wisdom, and becomes married to an ant traditional philosophy in which ego, consumer materialism, and self-interest run the show? What happens is the fulfillment of the Maya prophesy for 2012.”

In short, the Maya (and just go with me here) seem to have understood the nature of cycles, integrating celestial cycles with culture and conscious here on earth. They understood how and why 2012 would signal a time of great change. The teaching for the end of the long-count calendar cycle (the one that recently ended) spoke of individual spiritual transformation beginning from within, springing with the free-will choice to set aside personal ego to be connected to a higher purpose. The main idea was somewhat illustrated in that, “The most fully actualized potential of each human being is to realize that the limited ego is a temporary extension of the external, divine self.” What should naturally follow, the book argues, is the organization of life and human culture around this truth, with decisions and goals being made in deference to this whole-consciousness perspective.

There is much to discuss and consider in regard to our value and responsibility for the commons of the world and the social inequities of today.  For now, I’ll keep it brief. The “ideal” we are searching for can be met not in material objects or deprivation of animals and others.

Milk

According to Chapter six in Fresh: A perishable history Freidberg explains that humans have relied on other animals’ milk for food since at least 5,000 BC. In regions too cold or arid for agriculture, like the Sahara and parts of central Asia, milk was the food of nomadic peoples, providing far more sustenance than meat. Across Eurasia, milk-bearing animals ranked among peasants, “treasured possessions, turning otherwise useless forage into much-needed fat and protein.” Freidberg paints a picture of dairy peoples across the pre-industrial world showing their appreciation for milk in their creation myths, in their literature and art, and in their protection of the animals themselves.

Although Fresh is discussing a time period much after the initial period of domestication it provides insight to two fundamental questions / problems I have with Bulliet’s assertions. First, just because the domestication of animals was arguably an intentional human process that took long periods of time does not necessitate that this condition of valuing and using milk animals is inherently unnatural. Friedburg explains its importance to peoples of the past. The Trust to domination reading further brings to light that there might be something different about milk-producing animals if dairy peoples truly treasured their animals like Freidberg suggests. This idea is expressed in hunter-gathers relationships to their environment in that, “people have to look over and care for the country in which they live… This means treating the country and the animals that dwell in it with due consideration and respect.”

The term domestication implies domination and force to control another. I think it would be a narrow and misinformed view however to assert the subsidence provided to people by animal milk came secondary to its religious and artful purposes. It is rational to believe  that milk was valued for its nutritional value first (because let’s be serious, there was probably not much food variety on the dinner spread of early humans) and was so important that religious and cultural practices centered around it.

I would like to lastly address the misplaced statement about bacteria in milk during the industrial revolution as evidence for early humans not drinking milk. The industrial revolution began an era (come-on Bulliet, use your categories!) of food standardization and global distribution. Despite improvements in sanitation, water supplies, and health care babies stood much less chance of surviving in cities than in rural areas. It is also true that cow milk ranked among the primary possible culprit. The question is WHY are these deaths happening? A 1903 NYC study confirmed the view that dysentery-related deaths escalated in the summer, when milk was not properly chilled either in transit or at home. The problem was not the milk. The problem was the increasing distance between the cow and the consumer that made the bacteria count in the milk skyrocket in warm weather but it also passed through more environments and hands thereby increasing its opportunity for contamination. What’s more, wrote Rosenau in The Milk Question, “It is human nature to concern ourselves more about things we make for our friends and neighbors, whom we know, and see frequently, than it is for some far off foreigner.”

I have jumped the categorical lines of time but only to illustrate Bulliet’s claims and evidence for dismissing adult human consumption of animal milk, the idea infants drank milk (more unlikely than adults, honestly) , and for being unnatural to the human experience were perhaps not based in true understanding or full consideration.

Ingold hit the nail on the head with the idea, “Nature has to be thought of as separate from man before any questions of intervention or command and the method and ethics of either can arise. The more separation man is from animals and nature the more nature becomes viewed as raw materials to human construction projects. These projects are what establish the division between the natural and the artificial, the pristine and the manmade, nature-in-the-raw, and nature transformed.” It is then logical to understand early human relationships with milk-producing animals from as more natural than artificially created. Human’s relationship with early milk animals perhaps could have manifested from peaceful coevolution rather than strict human domination.

Reading Ingold’s article about trust and domination made me think about an issue that has come up in many of my classes and in conversations with people outside of class.  This happened during our first discussion as well.  The issue is a problematic idea of what progress is and what it means and implies.  I apologize in advance if this doesn’t make much sense, but I’ll do my best.

Progress is a term that has many ideas wrapped up in it that don’t seem incredibly obvious at first glance.  Progress implies a movement toward in a direction that is better than the current state of things.  The better that is implicit in this turns the idea of progress into a value judgement.  Progress is a good thing because it leads to something better.

The problem with this idea is that the way that we, being us in the class, define better is very subjective and based on our own cultural experiences.  Our idea of better is not the same as another culture’s idea of better.  Therefore, our ideas about progress can not be applied to other cultures because of the disconnect between idea’s of what is good.  When we lose sight of this disconnect, we try to superimpose our idea’s of progress on other culture’s and end up being judgmental in an unfair way.

Ingold mentions this in the first part of his article.  Darwin talked about the hunter-gatherers he encountered on his voyage around the world and compared them to the culture he knew and deemed them backwards and without many redeeming qualities.  The rest of Ingold’s article discusses why this is an unfair judgement.  Hunter-gatherers were and are not any worse than other cultures because they lack technology, they simply live differently.  Judging their progress as a culture or civilization based on the Western standard of how much can they produce is unfair because, as Ingold describes, production as we see it is irrelevant to the hunter-gatherers.  Their conception of nature as something to be trusted to provide as opposed to something to be dominated is so different from what Darwin knew as good, that his judgements ultimately do not mean anything.

Unfortunately, unfair judgements like Darwin’s are not limited to 19th century naturalists.  It seems that many people in the present day do the same thing to Native Americans.  In my experience, many people think Native Americans were backward because they did not have the technology that colonists had.  The colonists helped Native Americans progress by introducing their technology to North America.  They helped the Native Americans progress beyond their unsophisticated hunter-gatherer ways.  This narrative is unfair because it imposes a Western cultural standard on the Native Americans.  It is also unfair because Native Americans lived much better than early colonists.

I don’t think that people do this purposefully.  I think it is mostly that people don’t think about the implications of the word “progress.”  By more closely examining what we say in class, I think we can better analyze the arguments that we read.  Again, I apologize if this seems like a rant.