Historical change and evolutionary theory: From hunter-gatherer bands to states and empires

Politics and the Life Sciences

Volumn 26, Issue 2, 2007, Pages 46-74

  Masters, Roger D ^a  

^a Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ALTRUISM; ARTICLE; ECONOMICS; ETHNIC GROUP; EVOLUTION; GAME; GOVERNMENT; HUMAN; INFORMATION SYSTEM; JURISPRUDENCE; LEADERSHIP; POLITICS; RELIGION; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL CHANGE; WAR;

ALTRUISM; ECONOMICS; ETHNIC GROUPS; EVOLUTION; GAME THEORY; GOVERNMENT; HUMANS; INFORMATION SYSTEMS; JURISPRUDENCE; LEADERSHIP; POLITICS; RELIGION; SOCIAL BEHAVIOR; SOCIAL CHANGE; WAR;

EID: 55249121944     PISSN: 07309384     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2990/26_2_46     Document Type: Review

References (100)

1. Michael S. Gazzaniga, ed., The Cognitive Neurosciences (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1995);
2. Michael S. Gazzaniga, Richard B. Ivry, and George R. Mangun, Cognitive neuroscience, (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998);
3. Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature (New York: Viking, 2002).
4. For example, studies of ADHD have identified the D2, D4, and D5 dopamine receptor genetic mutations as likely reasons for the inheritance of a condition that is today viewed as a disability even though a number of the traits in this "spectrum disorder" (such as hypersensitive responses to sensory stimuli, learning primarily by visual images rather than language, and high energy) would have made an ADHD individual the most valuable member of a prehistoric hunter-gatherer band. David E. Comings, Thomas J. H. Chen, Kenneth Blum, J. F. Mengucci, S. H. Blum, and B. Meshkin, "Neurogenetic interactions and aberrant behavioral comorbidity of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD): dispelling myths," Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling 2:50-70, http://www.tbiomed.com/content/2/1/50 (23 December 2005); David Miller and Kenneth Blum, Overload: Attention Deficit Disorder and the Addictive Brain (Duarte, CA: Hope Press, 2000). More broadly, see: Ira Carmen, Politics in the Laboratory: The Constitution of Human Genomics (Madison, WI: Wisconsin University Press, 2005).
5. David M. Buss, Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind (Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon, 1999).
6. E.g., Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998).
7. E.g., Debra Niehoff, The Biology of Violence: How Understanding the Brain, Behavior and Environment Can Break the Vicious Circle of Aggression (New York, NY: Free Press, 1999). See also Paul B. Stretesky and Michael J. Lynch, "The relation between lead exposure and homicide," Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, 2001, 155:579-582; and the references in note 6.
8. Joan Marie Cranmer, Lynn R. Goodman, Donald R. Mattison, and Deborah C. Rice, eds., "Infant and child neurotoxicity studies," special issue of Neurotoxicology, August 2005, 26:477-737;
9. R. Masters, B. Hone, and A. Doshi, "Environmental pollution, neurotoxicity, and criminal violence," in Environmental Toxicology: Current Developments, J. Rose, ed. (London, U.K.: Gordon and Breach, 1998), pp. 13-48;
10. Roger D. Masters, with Baldwin Way, Brian T. Hone, David J. Grelotti, David Gonzalez, and David Jones "Neurotoxicity and violence," Vermont Law Review, 1998, 22:358-382;
11. R. D. Masters, M. J. Coplan, B.T. Hone, and J. E. Dykes, "Association of silicofluoride treated water with elevated blood lead," Neurotoxicology, 2000, 21:1091-1100;
12. R. Masters, and M. Coplan, "A dynamic, multifactorial model of alcohol, drug abuse, and crime: Linking neuroscience and behavior to toxicology," Social Science Information, 1999, 38:591-624.
13. Roger D. Masters, The Nature of Politics (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
14. Robert H. Blank and Samuel M. Hines, Jr., Biology and Political Science (London: Routledge, 2001);
15. Bradley A. Thayer, Darwin and International Relations: On the Evolutionary Origins of War and Ethnic Conflict (Lexington, KT: University Press of Kentucky, 2004).
16. Peter A. Corning, Holistic Darwinism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), p. 2.
17. For the "signs which show us that a state is coming into existence" (which are varied since "States have flourished which meet none of the criteria of the political scientist"), see Joseph R. Strayer, On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1970), pp. 5 ff.
18. The U.S. Constitution can serve as an archetype because it was so explicitly directed to uniting related but distinct "states" in a manner open to further expansion.
19. On the difference between European beliefs about the New World and political realities before 1492 in Native American societies - including the existence of some large state systems based on raised bed, irrigated agriculture - see Charles C. Mann, 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005).
20. In many respects, conflicts within Indian society provide invaluable perspective on the aggressive behavior of Islamist movements in the Middle East, where the target has been identified by Osama bin Ladin as "apostates and crusaders" (that is, Jews and Christians respectively). Pakistani Islamists who target Hindus in India in the name of Kashmiri militants who want their community joined Muslim Pakistan. That this process depends on self-identification even more than material goods is evident among the young Muslim immigrants in Great Britain (see next note).
21. Gautam Malkani, "Sounds of assimilation," New York Times, 19 August 2006, p. A25.
22. On the distinctiveness of the "modern" state formed in Western Europe after 1300, see Strayer, Medieval Origins, esp. ch. 3.
23. Richard Conn Henry, "The mental universe," Nature, 7 July 2005, 436:29.
24. Heinrich Meier, Leo Strauss and the Theologico-Political Problem (New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006). For an example of the vacuous results of a recognition of the need to abandon "Newtonianism" as the paradigm for political science when not accompanied by a concrete focus on human needs and values, see Sun-Yun Ma, "Political science at the edge of chaos? The paradigmatic implications of historical institutionalism," International Review of Political Science, 2007, 28:57-78. Without recognition of the problem Strauss found in "Historicism," Ma is reduced to the concept of "complexity" as a paradigm for political science. Even a passing acquaintance with any of the contemporary natural sciences should disabuse us of this concept, since it is hardly specific to politics and could apply to virtually any religious or cultural system of beliefs.
25. The classic statement of this problem is Mancur Olson, Jr., The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1965, 1971).
26. Personal communication from Henry Likers of the Awasasne Mohawk tribe in northern New York State. It's occasionally said that this understanding of human behavior has been expressed by members of other Native American tribes.
27. Napoleon Chagnon, well-known for his studies of the Yanomomo, recently described a visit to a headman of this tribe who showed him proudly a leg bone of a deer that had been sharpened to a point at one end and carefully polished. The headman then told the visiting anthropologist how he had invited three men from the neighboring clan to his home, and having made them drunk, killed them by beating them with the leg bone while they were sitting where Chagnon was.
28. The violent behavior of the headman described in the preceding note illustrates aggressive behavior toward outsiders that signals the ability to protect members of the clan. Much the same was characteristic of the Native Americans in North America. We've all seen the elaborate feathered headdress of the "Indian chief." But I've been told that in many tribes using this headdress, the choice of a new chief was accompanied by a ceremony at which one feather was presented for each man the new chief had killed.
29. Roger D. Masters, "Evolutionary biology, political theory, and the state," in Law, Biology, and Culture: The Evolution of Law, Margaret Gruter and Paul Bohannan, eds. (Santa Barbara, CA: Ross-Erikson, 1983), pp. 171-189.
30. See also: Wilson's Sociobiology (n. 30 below); David Barash, Sociobiology and behavior (New York, NY: Elsevier, 1977);
31. Hans Kummer, "On the Value of Social Relationships to Nonhuman Primates: A Heuristic Scheme," in Mario von Cranach, Wolf Lepenies, D. Ploog, K. Foppa, eds., Human Ethology (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 381-395.
32. Biruté Galdikas-Brindamour, "Orangutans, Indonesia's 'People of the Forests,' " National Geographic, 148 (1975), 444-473;
33. Roger D. Masters, "Political Behavior as a Biological Phenomenon," Social Science Information, 14 (April, 1978), 7-63; and idem., "Jean-Jacques is Alive and Well: Rousseau and Contemporary Sociobiology," Daedalus (Summer 1978), 93-105, as well as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality, part 1 and note j, in Roger D. Masters, ed., Rousseau's First and Second Discourses (N. Y.: St. Martin's Press, 1964), pp. 104-40, 203-213.
34. What anthropologists call "stateless societies" are cultures without a state with complex relations between kin-groups. A good example is a culture called the Ifugao in the Philippines, which provides an example of the modern survival of a "stateless society" that has retained many of the attributes of its traditions. In this culture, an isolated individual seems exceedingly rare because members of the community are embedded in a kin-group and its rituals/ culture/identity: "Each sibling group is the center of an exogamous, bilateral kindred, which is reckoned vertically to great-great-grandparents and laterally to third cousins.... Government institutions are poorly developed among the Ifugao, and chiefs, councils, and politically defined districts or other units are lacking in the traditional culture. 'The functions of government are (or were) accomplished by the operation of collective kinship obligations, including the threat of blood feud, together with common understanding of the adat or custom law given the people by ancestor heroes, in particular the inviolability of personal and property rights.' ... Informal arbitrators (monbaga), who are 'respected men of wealth skilled in knowledge of genealogy and adat,' and whose decisions can be backed up by a large and powerful kin group, serve as go-betweens who 'negotiate and witness property dealings, marriage transactions and the like, and who are paid for their services' (LeBar 1975: 81). Avery loose type of community leadership has traditionally been achieved, however, through the role of the 'rice chief,' one of the leading priests of the area, to whom members of the community give voluntary obeisance. The principal function of the "rice chief" was merely to determine on which days certain religious customs of common interest to all should be observed." EthnoAtlas. Internet site: http://lucy.ukc.ac.uk/EthnoAtlas/Hmar/Cult_dir/Culture.7848. Citation is from Frank M. LeBar, ed. and comp., Ethnic Groups of Insular Southeast Asia, vol. 2 (New Haven, Human Relations Area Files Press, 1975). See also Fred Eggan, "Some aspects of bilateral social systems in the northern Philippines," in Studies in Philippine Anthropology in Honor of H. Otley Beyer, Mario D. Zamora, ed. (Quezon City: Alemar-Phoenix, 1967), 186-202.
35. "Anglo-Saxon apartheid?" in Constance Holden, ed., "Random samples," Science 313 (28 July 2006), 419. Focusing on distinctive genes among the invading Anglo-Saxons, "Y chromosome studies show that they contributed up to 70% of the modern English gene pool." Computer models of Mark Thomas and colleagues cited in this note show that: "For example, even if the invaders were only 5% of the population, their Y chromosomes would reach the 50% mark within 15 generations if they were 1.4 times as likely as the locals to reproduce and the intermarriage rate was 7%." While dominance can explain higher reproductive rate, the lower intermarriage rate seems impossible to explain without linguistic markers of the in-group and out-group.
36. For a recent statement, see Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate (New York, NY: Viking Penguin, 2002); extending the approach of his earlier study of The Language Instinct (New York: Harper Collins, 1994) and other works contrasting "language learning" with "linguistic development." The approach to gene-environment interaction central to this work is generally accepted among biologists and cognitive scientists who study human behavior, but remains anathema in most social scientific departments. See Matt Ridley, Nature via Nurture (New York, NY: Harper Collins, 2003).
37. For a recent report on some of the mechanisms involved, see J. Crinion, et al., "Language control in the bilingual brain," Science, 9 June 2006, 312:1537-1540.
38. Rex Dalton, "Decoding our cousins," Nature, 20 July 2006,442:238-240. If successful, the project to decode the Neanderthal genome, described in Dalton's report, may well lead to more precise dating of the origins of linguistic evolution among hominids. Since Neanderthal fossil assemblages provide evidence of tool-making and use (e.g., the "spear points, hand axes, scrapers and animal bones" found at the site near Jonzac, France) and a researcher has claimed there's evidence of cannibalism at the Moula-Gercy cave (ibid., citing Alban Defleur, Science, 1999, 286:128-131), the latest research already confirms that Neanderthals were an intermediate step in the progression of both social cooperation and competition from non-human primates to contemporary humans.
39. The principal point is probably not the precise date of linguistic communication, but the emergence of humming and tonal (or "musical") modifications of the nonhuman primate signals, permitting local variations in signals which could then evolve into naming and grammatically structured speech. See Steven Mithen, The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind and Body (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007). The link between music and language is relevant because it should remind us of the central role of singing in social identity - as epitomized by the powerful emotional responses of solidarity and reassurance elicited by a national anthem like "La Marseillaise" in France, "God Save the King" in England, or the "Star Spangled Banner" in the U.S.
40. Recent detailed observation and analysis of evolution by natural selection of beak sizes in finches (Geospiza fortis) in the Galapagos confirms the error of claiming the evolution by natural section is only a "theory" and not an empirically observed process. See Peter B. Grant and B. Rosemary Grant, "Evolution of character displacement in Darwin's finches," Science, 14 July 2006, 313:224-226. Comparison of the human genome with that of other primates demonstrates even more strongly than fossil evidence that this process occurred in the evolution of our species.
41. One recent example on educating offspring is Alex Thorton and Katherine McAuliffe, "Teaching in wild meerkats," 14 July 2006, Science 313:227-229. For the broad theoretical statement that founded this scientific approach to social behavior, see Edward O. Wilson, Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1975). This edition can be found under ISBN 0674816218, but is also available as a 25th anniversary edition (Harvard University Press, 2000), listed as ISBN 0674000897. Despite the immense scientific influence of this work, which has been called "the most influential book on animal behavior," it is disparaged more than read by most conventional social scientists. Today, it is necessary to focus on empirical evidence (such as the study of Thorton and McAuliffe just cited) instead of repeating abstract arguments that reflect a conflict between the paradigms of traditional social science and contemporary life sciences.
42. E.g., Ridley, Nature via Nurture (note 12 above). Developments in decoding the human genome make recognition of these changes an urgent necessity. Given evidence that such behavioral traits as autism, ADHD, and Alzheimer's Disease are related to specific genes often triggered by environment events, this point is no longer merely "theoretical."
43. For this and other theoretical and empirical evidence linking inclusive fitness to human social and political behavior, see Roger D. Masters, The Nature of Politics (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989).
44. Roger D. Masters and Baldwin Way, "Experimental methods and attitudes toward leaders: nonverbal displays, emotion, and cognition," in Steven Peterson and Albert Somit, eds., Research in Biopolitics, vol. 4 (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press, 1996), pp. 61-98;
45. Baldwin Way and Roger D. Masters, "Political attitudes: Interactions of cognition and affect," in Motivation and Emotion, 1996, 20:205-236;
46. Baldwin Way and Roger D. Masters, "Emotion and cognition in political information-processing," Journal of Communication, 1996, 46:48-65;
47. Denis G. Sullivan and Roger D. Masters, "Nonverbal cues, emotions, and trait attributions in the evaluation of political leaders: The contribution of biopolitics to the study of media and politics," in Research in Biopolitics, Albert O. Somit and Steven Peterson, eds., vol. 2 (Greenwich, CT: JAI Press), pp. 237-273;
48. Roger D. Masters and Denis G. Sullivan, "Nonverbal behavior and leadership: Emotion and cognition in political attitudes," in Explorations in Political Psychology, Shanto Iyengar and William McGuire, eds. (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993), pp. 150-182;
49. Denis G. Sullivan and Roger D. Masters, "Nonverbal behavior, emotions, and democratic leadership," in Reconsidering the Democratic Public, George Marcus and Russell Hanson, eds. (University Park: Pennsylania State University Press, 1993), pp. 307-32.
50. For a review, see Glendon Schubert and Roger Masters, eds, Primate Politics (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994).
51. Jonathan Turner and Alexandra Maryanski, Incest: Origins of the Taboo (Boulder, CO: Paradigm, 2005). Given the evidence of rudimentary tools in species ancestral to humans, the emergence of the social norms of incest avoidance are far more central to an account of our species social evolution than has generally been thought. As a result, the account of human evolution in this volume is in some respects far superior to many conventional accounts based primarily on physical traits and material objects. As a result, the account of Turner and Maryanski should have, for political scientists, an influence parallel to the findings described in note 5 above.
52. It is often assumed that the pigment was blown over the hand through a hollow reed. Whether this was done by the individual whose hand was outlined or by another person cannot of course be determined.
53. For a survey linking these varied cultural norms with political behavior, see Ronald Cohen and John Middleton, eds., Comparative Political Systems: Studies in the Politics of Pre-Industrial Societies (Garden City, NY: Natural History Press, 1967).
54. In particular, since the presence of a martyr in a family increases the kin-group's status, mating opportunities of the martyrs' collateral relatives may well be enhanced. Whereas it is rare that humans consciously calculate long-term reproductive success (and there is no evidence of such calculations on the part of suicide bombers in Iraq), such behaviors are typically fostered by traditional practices that elicit positive emotional responses. For example, a rare case of an Islamic woman who was apprehended before her planned suicide bombing could be carried out provides confirmation: When asked why she had volunteered for a deed not normally committed by Islamic women, the captured terrorist explained that an American soldier had put his boot on her husband's face when interrogating him; since this action brings severe shame on the family of the victim of a cultural outrage, she felt martyrdom in killing infidels was essential to restore her family's honor. Whereas ancient philosophers include thymos and honor among the powerful motives for human behavior (e.g., Plato and Aristotle), contemporary rational choice theorists who ignore such intangible motives cannot appreciate their effects on the kingroup's long-term reproductive success.
55. E.g., Exod. 19: 3-8; 34:10-28 (King James Version). Note especially the divine promise to "cast out the nations before thee, and enlarge thy borders: neither shall any man desire thy land, when thou salt go up to appear before the Lord thy God thrice in the year." (Exod. 34: 24). Moreover, the punishment for disobeying the divine commandments will be pestilence, destruction, and exile (Lev. 26:14-48): e.g., "And I will make your cities waste, and bring your sanctuaries unto desolation ... And I will scatter you among the heathen, and will draw out a sword after you: and your land shall be desolate, and your cities waste" (Ibid 26:31,33). Conversely, the reward for obeying "all the ways which the Lord your God hath commanded you [will be] that ye may live, and that it may be well with you and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess" (Deut. 5:33). Unlike the New Testament, but comparable to many other religions throughout the world, the rewards of belief are this worldly and linked to protection against outside enemies of a named society and population. Indeed, the occupation of the "promised Land" is based on an explicit command that the Hebrews take Canaan by force with the promise of divine assistance conditional on showing no mercy to the defeated inhabitants: "When the Lord thy God shall bring thee into the land whither thou goest to possess it, and hath cast out many nations before thee ...And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee; thou shall smite them, and utterly destroy them; thou shall make no covenant with them, nor shew mercy unto them" (Deut. 7:1-2). The Koran presents a similar relationship between obedience to divine commandments and the promise of military protection as long as rival peoples are "annihilated" when they fail to adopt Islamic law (e.g., for "annihilation" of the Jews who do not accept Islam, see Koran, Surah 17).
56. The Ten Commandments (Exod. 20:2:17) are followed by the comprehensive laws articulated in the remainder of the books of Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy. Many of these laws promote increased reproductive success either by providing assurances that parental investment will not be lost due to the sexual behavior of others or by directly encouraging r-selected reproductive behavior. Precisely because these laws are available in the nearest copy of the Bible yet rarely considered in the light of contemporary evolutionary theory, detailed analysis follows.
57. Deut. 19:21.
58. A recent report on ethnic violence in Kenya illustrates the danger of escalating vengeance: "A Kikuyu man in Naivasha, wielding a club and roaming the streets yesterday, called for revenge for the recent deaths of Kikuyus in other parts of the country. 'For every one Kikuyu killed, we shall avenge their killing with three,' he told The Associated Press." Edmund Sanders, "Up to 30 reported killed in Kenyan fighting," Los Angeles Times, in Valley News, Lebanon, NH, 28 January 2008, p. B1.
59. Deut. 19:4-5.
60. Deut. 19:11-12.
61. Deut. 21:15-16.
62. Deut. 21:18-21.
63. Deut. 22:1.
64. Deut. 22: 15.
65. Deut. 22: 17-21. Note especially that a false claim of premarital sexuality is punished because it attributes evil to "a virgin of Israel" (explicitly stating the collective benefit involved).
66. Deut. 22:23-29.
67. Deut. 22:22.
68. As one scholar put it privately, "the nature of politics comes down to fucking, fighting, and - to facilitate both - money (that is, sex and cooperation with family and friends, competition with rivals and enemies, and resource acquisition)."
69. The incest taboo plays far greater role in this evolutionary explanation of the spread of diverse human cultures because it enforces exchanges of mates between nuclear families (see notes 22 and 24 above).
70. See Helen Fisher, Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love (New York, NY: Henry Holt, 2004). This work is so important, and its survey and integration of contemporary research so compelling, that I will not pretend to summarize it here: rather, interested • readers should devote the time to study this remarkable book with care.
71. For a good survey of this emerging discipline, see Michael S. Gazzaniga, Richard B. Ivry, and George R. Mangun, Cognitive Neuroscience: The Biology of the Mind (New York, NY: W.W. Norton, 1998). For the latest work, focused on the roles of emotion and cognition in decision-making, see notes 1 through 7 below. It is worth adding that the disjunction between long-term effects on reproductive success (the objective measure of costs and benefits in evolutionary theory) and these neuroscientific studies of cognition poses a more serious challenge to "rational choice" models than outlined above. Inclusive fitness (a concept only recently developed and still little known by social scientists) is quite obviously not consciously salient in normal cognitive assessments, but established emotional responses and traditional legal norms are often shaped by natural selection. As a result, future social scientists might replace models of "rational choice" with models focused on "emotional choice" if such a theoretical change didn't threaten to undermine the perceived economic benefits of higher education in our students.
72. For a compelling review of this factor in the history of our own civilization, see Victor Davis Hanson, Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (New York, NY: Doubleday, 2001).
73. See Margaret Gruter and Roger D. Masters, eds., Ostracism: A Social and Biological Phenomenon. (New York, NY: Elsevier, 1984; this book was also published as vol. 7, number 3 (1984) of the journal Ethology and Sociobiology.
74. Note that this model of a hunter-gatherer band or other small social group assumes there are dominant individuals in the group whose actions are known before their followers' decisions are made. Olson's "logical" model (above, note 7) ignores facts like this even they are ubiquitous in human social life. While a collection of individuals of roughly equal status who are unknown to each other often approximates the purchasers in the competitive markets of a large industrialized society, it is unrealistic to apply the sociological assumptions of such "rational choice" models to the political decisions of most actual human societies.
75. In Table 2, this is the equivalent of some players perceiving the cost of non-provision of the collective good as minimal (say 25 units instead of 9000 units). In this case, should both players contribute, the public good has a net benefit for each of-50 units (the cost of 75 is only reduced by a benefit of 25). Since each individual will lose 75 units if others don't contribute and the benefit is so much less than the individual contribution, there will be an overwhelming temptation to construct rationalizations confirming the limited utility of the proposed expense. In the modern state (Table 3), an example is provided by some expensive military technologies, such as the anti-missile missile, whose value as a collective good was strongly attacked.
76. This unique institution (HC72 Box 45001, Deep Springs, CA via Dyer, NV 89010-9803) has been described as follows: "Deep Springs is an all-male liberal arts college located on a self-sustaining cattle-ranch and alfalfa farm in California's High Desert. The 27 members of the student body form a close community engaged in an intense educational project delineated by what Deep Springs' founder, L. L. Nunn, termed the "three pillars": academics, labor, and self-governance. The principle underlying the three pillars is that manual labor and political deliberation are necessary supplements to the liberal arts in the training of future servants to humanity. Students attend for two years (after which most transfer to a four-year institution) and receive a full scholarship valued at over $50,000 per year." David Richter, Internet site: http://www.deepsprings.edu/about/index.html.
77. See note 23 above. For the models and data analysis to which this note refers, see Mark Thomas, et al., Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 19 July 2006 (on line).
78. See Charles Mann, 1491. Although the Maya and Inca are obvious states requiring attention, the most striking example is probably the account of the indigenous population of the Amazon basin (ch. 9, pp. 280-311).
79. Ibid., p. 292. Anna Roosevelt, whose work first challenged earlier views of the ecological limits on agriculture and population in the Amazon, concluded this culture was "One of the outstanding indigenous cultural achievements of the New World,' a powerhouse that lasted for more than a thousand years, had 'possibly well over 100,000' inhabitants, and covered thousands of square miles" (ibid.)
80. Benedetto De Martino, Dharshan Kumaran, Ben Seymour, and Raymond J. Dolan, "Frames, biases, and rational decision-making in the human brain," Science, 4 August 2006, 313:684-687.
81. Zimbabwe (the former Rhodesia) had highly productive farms that were owned by whites and produced a surplus for export; the crucial practice has been the forcible seizure and redistributing of these farmlands to President Mugabe's political allies (with devastating effects on output). See the Wikipedia entry for Zimbabwe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Zimbabwe#Currency_Change) and below, note 67.
82. For a fuller analysis of the role of these innate emotional responses to political leaders in modern states, see Masters, The Nature of Politics, esp. part 2.
83. For religious "laws of warfare," in addition to the passages from the Old Testament and Koran cited in note 39, consider this passage in Deuteronomy: "When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.... And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it: And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword: But the women, and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies, which the Lord thy God hath given thee." (Deut., 20: 10, 12-14).
84. William A. Masters and Margaret S. McMillan, "Climate and scale in economic growth," Journal of Economic Growth, 2001, 6:167-186;
85. William A. Masters, "Climate, agriculture, and economic development," in Land Quality, Agricultural Productivity, and Food Security, Keith Wiebe, ed. (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2004), pp. 166-183. Although early civilizations in the Amazon may seem to be an exception, their agricultural productivity was a complex adaptation to an environment ill-suited to agriculture. The poverty of Amazonian soils and resulting need to base agriculture on planting crop trees whose leaves shelter the soil from the physical effects of heavy rains explain why the introduction of the steel axe by European explorers had such devastating the ecological consequences. (See Mann, 1491, ch. 9 - summarized briefly in notes 60-61 above.)
86. For a current summary, see Wikipedia, Zimbabwe. Apart from hyperinflation (1,000% in 2006), the most telling statistics are average life expectancies of 37 years for men and 34 years for women (in a country with rates of education that are higher than other African societies). See also note 63.
87. Having taught ancient and modern political philosophy in the Ivy League since 1961 and translated as well as analyzed the works of Rousseau (whose concept of the "general will" focuses on the need to make manifest support for collective goods), my response could be attributed to a professional specialization in the study of justice and morality in civilized societies. Even so, scenes like those just described were unheard of fifty years ago. As every thinking adult is well aware, the behavioral standards of our society have been radically transformed since our victory in World War II and the Cold War.
88. E.g., Daniel Gross, "The U.S. economy faces the guillotine," [cover story], Newsweek, 4 February 2008, pp. 39-42.
89. Rousseau's fame began with the publication of his prize-winning First Discourse, written in response to the essay contest of 1749 in which the Academy of Dijon asked "Has the restoration of the sciences and arts tended to purify morals" and Jean Jacques replied with a resounding negative: "When there is no effect, there is no cause to seek. But here the effect is certain, the depravity real, and our souls have been corrupted in proportion to the advancement of our Sciences and Arts to perfection. Can it be said that this is a misfortune particular to our age? No, Gentlemen; the evils caused by our vain curiosity are as old as the world. The daily ebb and flow of the Ocean's waters have not been more steadily subject to the course of the Star which gives us light during the night than has the fate of morals and integrity been subject to the advancement of the Sciences and Arts. Virtue has fled as their light dawned on our horizon, and the same phenomenon has been observed in all times and in all places." Jean Jacques Rousseau, "Discourse on the sciences and arts," in Roger D. Masters and Christopher Kelly, eds., Collected Writings of Rousseau, vol. 2 (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1992), p. 7.
90. This remark from a personal e-mail is best presented anonymously, not only because its author has not given permission to be identified, but above all because it reflects a concern of a citizen who is not an academic, a journalist, nor public official (i.e., an individual who has no professional experience addressing the public for rhetorical purposes, but who merely expressed a strong emotional concern of the sort that deserves scholarly attention).
91. George Weigel, "The war against Jihadism: Why can't we call the enemy by its name? We're going to have to in order to win," Newsweek, 4 February 2008, p. 49.
92. Roger D. Masters, "Entre le meilleur des mondes et le fin de l'état-nation," Futuribles, February 1998, 228:pp. 51-62.
93. Strayer, Medieval Origins, p. 5. Note that the same can be said for the value of money issued by any one state (such as the U.S. dollar).
94. Ibid., pp. 6-9.
95. Ibid., p. 3.
96. Corning, Holistic Darwinism, p. 3.
97. Ridley, Nature via Nurture (op. cit., n. 23); Masters, The Nature of Politics (op. cit., n. 7).
98. Roger D. Masters, Beyond Relativism (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1993).
99. Leo Strauss, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953, 1965), pp. 7-8.
100. Ibid., p. 8. The wording of another passage on this page has persuaded me that Strauss himself realized that a more comprehensive understanding of recent scientific research on human nature would be absolutely essential for the survival of philosophy: "The fundamental dilemma, in whose grip we are, is caused by the victory of modern natural science. An adequate solution to the problem of natural right cannot be found before this basic problem has been solved."