Later That Night

It's late, I'm tired even though I slept maybe 5 hours in the middle of the day. Slept on the ground last night, curled about the campfire with nothing but my poncho; haven't done that in quite a while and it felt good though also painful, cold.

These woods in Western Oregon are fine places for camping.

I would like to tell you everything that happened all weekend but I'm afraid I drank too much whiskey and forgot it.

I jumped in a river and you know how perfect cold water is. Another time Megan punched me and I spilled Jim Beam all over her pants. Gabe fell over into some trees; Mike was there and you know what he does with his time. But Janice's dad was my favorite: I like how he says the word "cool" in that long, slow voice. Coooool.

Probably I offended Mike's friend Gym Teacher, but only because I was trying to make him argue about politics.

Maybe the funniest result is that I earned the nickname Spider, variants Drunken Spider or Spidey.

The second funniest result is Last night I had this dream that these South Park-like cartoon children were getting on a bus to go to school but then they found out that the stupid kids had to get on different buses and they weren't going to school, they were going to concentration camps. Hahaha, hahaha, haha, it's a dream so you can't get offended. Retard.

***

On a related note.

(Warning: the following tirade is irrelevant to non-anarchist/primitivists.) (But read it anyway and learn something, fucker).

So many primitivists argue that "health" in hunter-gatherer societies was as good, or better, than health in modern industrial societies. (Random example: Paul Shephard in Coming Home to the Pleistocene.) I wrote a paper on this for a medical anthropology class some years back. I wish I had it now: it is a demonstration of the worst sort of cherry-picking of data and bad logic.

The basis of the argument that everyone uses goes something like this: Health declined in populations the world over following the adoption of agriculture (obligatory link to Jared Diamond). Crowding allows epidemics to proliferate. The switch to a diet based on grains erodes dental health. The combined effects of social stratification and overhunting lead to the majority of the population having little or no access to meat. Living in close proximity to various domestic animals introduced all kinds of awesome new diseases to humans, including perennial favorites polio, smallpox, and the Black Death.

The constant need for workers to farm the fields and build the chief's pyramids and fight the chief's wars meant that women were encouraged to have as many children as possible, which was of course crazy-dangerous back then; the constant need for warriors to fight in wars to get more land for agriculture meant that men were constantly getting killed too. (Not coincidentally, the highest levels of Aztec heaven were reserved for women who died giving birth and men who died in battle). And of course, that giant population dependent on one or two crops for food (instead of every plant in the forest, as in hunter-gatherer times) meant that every time there was a drought or a blight or a bug or whathaveyou, there was a famine, and everybody died.

All this is true. Life as a peasant in an incipient agricultural kingdom was shit. Agriculture probably was "the worst mistake in the history of the human race."

But this idea that hunter-gatherers 12,000 years ago were as "healthy" as we are today is just silly. It comes from a place of fear, and our inability to let go of our civilized values.

I find that usually when this argument comes up, the first thing that's mentioned is life expectancy. & in this case the usual quote comes from Richard Lee; something to the effect of life expectancy among the Kalahari !Kung people "comparing favorably" to industrial societies.

If I wanted to I guess I could do some research and refute this idea that way. But that's not where my mind's at right now. I'd rather say: Spend a weekend in the woods. Just a weekend; just a regular American-style beer and buddies camping trip: You have your own food, purchased at the supermarket; cast-iron skillets for cooking; metal knives, saws, and axes; water-proof tents; decent weather (cause you checked the forecast beforehand); a first aid kit.

I bet it'll be a good time. It doesn't get better than camping. And I bet you'll come back totally exhausted.

Okay, now go again next weekend. Only this time, pretend it's 12,000 B.C. Even though you can identify every plant in the landscape, it still takes some work to go and collect them (and Marshal Sahlins may have been wrong about just how easy this is); even though fish and game are vastly more plentiful, you still put yourself at risk every time you go looking for them, cause predators are more plentiful too-- and if you want to preserve them you can't just put them back in the cooler.

Keep going with it. It's not just for the weekend; this is your life. Every morning you wake up o the ground with the sun and the clamor of birds. The air is clean, you are at no risk of the perpetual cancers of industrialized life. The ten or twenty people around you are all friends, family -- I bet there is constant drama between you all, but none of them is your king and no one is ever going to force you to go fight a war for him. It's a good life. Free, human -- but also, pretty dangerous, and probably, pretty short.

And does that matter? All animals live longer in captivity. Of course: They're in captivity. Wouldn't it be enough to wake up alive in a world of life unmediated everyday, without having to tack on all this extra stuff about living to be one hundred in perfect health? Aren't we using Industrialism's model of "health" (ability to do productive work) anyway, and is that really the proper standard to apply?

Isn't it midnight, and haven't I been typing this rant for an hour?

Yes. Good night.