So Wood and I went alleyway foraging today, and I had some thoughts while foraging blackberries, apples, plums, hibiscus flowers and mallow flowers.....sorta random thoughts, but all related too..here there are:
1) did you know Native children in many parts of this country used to find wolf dens and play with the pups and then put the pups back? This shows a couple remarkable things...first off, they knew wolves well enough to know where their relatively small dens are...secondly, they trusted both the adult wolves and the pups...they weren't scared of wolves the way civilized folks usually are..the adult "babysitter" wolves must have trusted the children as well.
2) did you know that all bears, with the exception of polar bears, eat less meat per body mass then the fox does? Bears actually primarily live on vegetation.
3) did you know that in most tribal situations, mental illness is an almost unknown concept, as is rape, child abuse, domestic violence and murder? That is because the job of the shaman, or at least one of his jobs, was to pull people aside when he saw problems forming, well in advance of any conflict, and he would help people to work their problems out on the spot. Things never got to the point of physical violence. However, this does mean people had to spend a lot of time talking and discussing things, something we are not used to in our culture. I remember the first time I saw Dances with Wolves, I was shocked by how much deliberation the tribe did before doing anything; now that I've lived in some community situations, I'm realizing that endless deliberation is necessary, and actually can be fun.
4) did you know that most hunter/gatherers do 3-4 hours of "work" a day (and of course, their "work" is fun, so even that is debatable). That means, they spend 3-4 hours doing things like hunting, gathering, mending tools, gardening, gathering firewood, things like that. The other 20 hours? You'd spend it sleeping, cuddling, talking, debating, sitting around the fire, playing instruments, flirting, playing with kids, telling stories, nursing babies, telling your dreams, making art, watching the clouds, planning for the next day. When I think about that, I say to myself "what are we waiting for?"
5) did you know orca whales are going to be extinct in the next 10-20 years because of the levels of mercury in the ocean, not to mention that many of the fish they live on are disappearing? The orcas aren't the only whales disappearing, but that makes me especially sad because I fell in love with orcas after seeing the movie Free Willy.
6) did you know there is a glob of plastic in the Pacific Ocean the size of Texas? (literally, the size of Texas! So that is where all of my used condoms end up....hu....)
so what are we doing still being civilized? Maybe I should just throw this computer out my bedroom window, leave my house, and really go be feral....but instead, I'll probably watch Desperate Housewives on DVD and get up tomorrow and go to work...damn civilization...making resources hard to get, so I've gotta work for money to get them...
Love ya,
Carrot
There is a really compelling theory in the less explored corners of environmental economics that's called "subsistence theory." It basically says that it is our Western drive for more that is fueling environmental degredation (which is true) and that if we could encourage developing nations to ensure that their people have the ability to make a living for themselves and their families rather than allowing multinational corporations in to boost the GDP, they would have a healthier environment and economy. There's a lot to be said about it, and if you have access to any peer-reviewed journal database, you should look it up. It's really interesting and makes lots of sense.
That's really really sad about orcas, though, they're by far my favorite whales! The poor things! I hope that somehow we can help them.
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Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress. --Mahatma Gandhi
My Blog: http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/kablock
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and as long as greed exists, it won't, unfortunately work.
People are not living self-sufficient lives not because they don't want to, nor because they don't know how, but rather because what was once their community land is now being held hostage by international superpowers who once colonized the indigenous and now claim they owe them tons of money for "improvements" made while they where enslaved in the colonial system.
ALL OF THIS IS COMPLETE BULLSHIT! IT IS THE SAME AS IF I WHERE TO MOVE INTO MY NEIGHBORS HOUSE WITHOUT HIS OR HER PERMISSION, AND THEN, I START DEMANDING MONEY FROM THEM FOR THE JOY OF HAVING ME THERE.
Sorry for the caps, but it really pisses me off how crazy this is...would we be ballsy enough to demand money from the decedents of slaves in this country because we paid for their passage from Africa and fed and clothed them while they where enslaved? No? Well then how does the World Bank get away with the same thing?
Love ya,
Carrot
...that led you to these conclusions. I must admit that I am rather skeptical of some of your claims (especially 1, 3, 4 and 6).
TTFN,
Blackout
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Yes, I've changed my username from "percivale" to "Blackout." Go here if you want to know why.
I'm gonna answer each number with a large amount of factual articles...I'm gonna start with number 4, since that is the most interesting to me. The advent of agriculture, it seems, was the beginning of the sunup to sundown workday...previously, people only worked 3-4 hours a day. Of course, it can be debated that hunter/gatherers never worked at all, since some people wouldn't define hunting and gathering as work, since these activities are usually group activities, which allowed for socializing and fun during the "work day," as it where.
so, articles...
http://www.theecologist.org/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=623
http://books.google.com/books?id=PKRKp78mhjcC&pg=PA134&lpg=PA134&dq=hour...
http://www.primitive.org/nothing.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer
In the Wikipedia article, (which I especially liked,) there is a section highlighted in blue which says "Notes on the Original Affluent Society," a paper which was written by Marshall Sahlins, which was a paper he wrote to refute the notion that hunter/gatherers where lazy brutes who weren't as high on the evolutionary hierarchy as the so-called "civilized" are. He says the mark of the truly affluent are those people who have enough resources that they have many hours of leisure a day. He points out that most groups of hunter/gatherers had somewhere around 17-20 hours of leisure per day.
This all lead to an interesting debate in my anthropology class, because it was pointed out that when anthropologists would explain the concept of "work" to hunter/gatherer folks, it was a hard concept for them to understand, since they have some connection to everything they do, therefore, even the most mundane of tasks gives them some level of joy. So, it is really hard to quantify what should be counted as "work" among hunter/gatherers. Obviously, hours spent in the bush, actually hunting and gathering should be counted. But should building a fire, nursing a baby, cooking food? In "civilized" society, these would be part of our "leisure" activities, but since a hunter/gatherer might spend ten minutes shooting something, another 45 minutes dragging the animal home, another 45 minutes socializing with friends once he got home, then he might get back to skinning the animal, then he might gather firewood, then he might take a break to play with kids while someone else chops the animal up, etc, etc....my point is, where do you draw the line between work and leisure. Because when he is socializing, he is no doubt also discussing the movements of animals, the types of fruit that are ripe at the moment, etc, so in a sense, this could be considered a "business meeting." When he is playing with the kids, that might be considered "schooling" or "childcare."
My point is, with no time clock to punch, leisure activities blend in with "work", so again, it becomes difficult, if not impossible to quantify the amount of work the hunter/gatherer did. But, when anthropologists watch different groups closely, they observe that somewhere around 4 hours a day on average are spent in serious "survival", work-like tasks.
Women, as in our culture, tend to spend slightly longer a day then the men of most groups "working," but again, it all depends on who is quantifying what as work...
I love anthropology, it is all very interesting to me...(and I desire a four-hour work day...)
Love ya,
Carrot
What did you think of those articles? Did anyone actually read them? I'd love to have an anthropological debate with someone...any takers?
Anyway, the plastic the size of Texas one...gross hu? (You have to remember that plastic is essentially oil in a different form, and then it seems even grosser...) Here are some articles to back that one up:
http://oceana.democracyinaction.org/o/209/t/6234/petition.jsp?petition_K...
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Moore-Trashed-PacificNov03.htm
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Ocean/Sea-Plastic-LN-PG5oct05.htm
http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/travel-leisure/Our_oceans_are_...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2007/1...
Love ya,
Carrot
I certainly believe that there is enough plastic floating in the ocean to cover Texas, but the image I got from your description was a kind of film of trash or "island" of trash the size of Texas. That doesn't seem to exist, but that's mostly my own minds inaccurate interpretation of your words.
I imagine trash does collect in a certain area of the ocean, but it were forming some kind of Texas sized film of solid garbage then I wouldn't be seeing pictures of little jars full plastic bits, but horizons full of plastic bits, and I don't see it.
Like I said, it isn't that I don't believe the essential truth of what you say, it's just that the image you conjured in my mind doesn't quite seem to line up with what is actually out there.
“Existentialism means that no one else can take a bath for you” - Delmore Schwartz
"Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real-estate above principles." - George Jean Nathan
I haven't forgotten that I have some unanswered questions in this article still, but in the meantime, I need to finish up my series on wild ricing, before I forget everything that happened at rice camp! (I also have research to do on the environmental impact of baby formula; that article was suppose to be done like four months ago or something!)
Love ya,
Carrot