Primitive Communism: A mutual exchange of gifts

The mutual exchange of gifts between individuals and groups represents the heart of archaic economic activity. When food was available everybody had food; the hunter, who returned with food, distributed it among the rest of the community. If someone had something someone else wanted, it was given to them. This represents the core of primitive communism.

The common attitude in modern sapiens regarding income might well be expressed as “I’ve upped my income, now up yours”. Such was not the case in early times. The process of freely giving and freely receiving of gifts was embedded in an important cosmological perception.

Primitive human life had a perception that wo/man owed a great debt to invisible powers. These early humans were conscious of the need for a vigorously maintained balance sheet. Primitives recognized man’s essential relation to nature. Nature gives freely of her bounty to humans and humans were beholden and grateful. They demonstrated this essential truth with fellow human creatures, with nature, and with the invisible world of the dead and the gods.

“In the archaic consciousness the sense of indebtedness exists together with the illusion that the debt is payable; the gods exist to make the debt payable. Hence the archaic economy is embedded in religion, limited by the framework, and mitigated by the consolation of religion—above all, removal of indebtedness and guilt.”—Van der Leeuw

Why can humans neither now nor long ago, be comfortable and satisfied with a bountiful nature, which can easily supply all our needs? We cannot because both primitive and modern men and women require an economic surplus; the surplus is necessary so that s/he can have something to give to the gods.

The ceremonial destruction of mountains of food was a religious act. It was an attempt to keep “the cycle of power moving between the invisible to the visible world”. Could this same motive explain our modern inclination for war?

Quotes from “Escape from Evil”—Ernest Becker

Questions for discussion

Why can humans neither now nor long ago, be comfortable and satisfied with a bountiful nature, which can easily supply all our needs?

The ceremonial destruction of mountains of food was a religious act. It was an attempt to keep “the cycle of power moving between the invisible to the visible world”. Could this same motive explain our modern inclination for war?

satisfaction.... cannot be found...

BUT HUMANS... are ever looking for it.

Coberst:

What are the anthropological sources for your claims of early man's social system?

For from what I gather, man very soon classified himself according to heirarchies, as developed in tribes. He also waged constant war against other men from the earlier period of bands to the present.

Coberst:

What are the anthropological sources for your claims of early man's social system?

For from what I gather, man very soon classified himself according to heirarchies, as developed in tribes. He also waged constant war against other men from the earlier period of bands to the present.


Quotes and ideas come from “Escape from Evil”—Ernest Becker


Ernest Becker (1924-1974) won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for the “Denial of Death”. A distinguished social theorist and a popular teacher of anthropology, and sociology psychology.

This is reductionism.
However cosmology may have played a role there were deep interpersonal feelings between members of tribes. Also their mutual survival depended on sharing. I help you now, you help me later. So there are altruistic motives and there are selfish or one could say practical motives for doing these things and this cannot all be reduced to a kid of guilt or debt to nature.

You can, by the way, tell that Becker is fairly dated by the way he uses 'primitive' and uses it in ways that show he followed some of the problematic connotations of that word.

Could this same motive explain our modern inclination for war?

Some people encourage wars because the destruction benefits them financials. The 'food' does not go to the Gods, it goes in their pockets.

Coberst:

I know who he is, but does he give you any references in the book about where he got the info? Because again, it doesn't jive with what I know regarding human history.

Also, we must speak of kin-ties in primitive cultures.

Coberst:

I know who he is, but does he give you any references in the book about where he got the info? Because again, it doesn't jive with what I know regarding human history.

Also, we must speak of kin-ties in primitive cultures.


Becker is a synthesizer of many of the great thinkers in the sciences of sociology, psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and psychoanalysis. I have read most of four of his books all of which have an extensive bibliography.

Ya I don't buy that everyone was so co-operative in the cave. They competed for status just like we do now. The alpha male still got the lion's share back then as they do now. The inheritance was much smaller though.

Coberst:

On this level, I think he is profoundly off-base. Anthropology tells us that such sharing was only found amongst kin-groups and warfare was a common and horrifically brutal practice even amongst bands.

Also:

The ceremonial destruction of mountains of food was a religious act. It was an attempt to keep “the cycle of power moving between the invisible to the visible world”. Could this same motive explain our modern inclination for war?

War has a foundation in far more concrete things. Land, power, et cetera.

Becker is a synthesizer of many of the great thinkers in the sciences of sociology, psychology, psychiatry, anthropology, and psychoanalysis. I have read most of four of his books all of which have an extensive bibliography.

A bibliography indicates that he read a lot of books. it does not show how he sythezsized the ideas, how he was influenced by them or even if he used them in ways that the authors would have respected.

He also died in 1974 was it?

There have been enormous changes in more than one direction in the way people in those fields looks at humans, indigenous societies, brains, minds and our relationships.

I will just quote a few of Becker’s statements to give you an idea of his sources.

“It often happens that we get our most important insights from people outside a field, and anthropology is no exception. J. Huizinga, as mentioned, is one such outsider who has helped us understand primitive society. Norman O. Brown is another; his analysis of primitive economics literally brims with insights…Marcel Mauss …in his famous study “The Gift”. There he showed, from a sample of many diverse societies, that giving of gifts between groups and individuals was the heart of archaic social systems.”

This idea of sharing in a society is not primitive in the sense of being in the past.

I live here in Thailand and a large part of this culture [rural farm families mostly] still lives by a tribal strategy for survival. That is you go out and get what you can from the world/society and bring it back and share it will all. This way everyone is insuring everyone else's survival.

Men/Expats who live here go out with bar girls or office girls or professional ladies and the overwhelming percentage will expect you to give them money for their companionship. Not for clothing or goodies for themselves, but to send back to their families; mom, pop, sisters, brothers, uncles, or children from previous marriages. It is a cultural survival method that works given the huge population that earns on average $200/month.

This is always difficult to impossible for newbies here to understand since our Western values of competition, self reliance, independence and status are so deeply ingrained.
In addition, most have no idea of
1/ what it is like to live in poverty or
2/ the pain and destruction of self esteem that it causes.

Primitive Communism: A mutual exchange of gifts

The mutual exchange of gifts between individuals and groups represents the heart of archaic economic activity. When food was available everybody had food; the hunter, who returned with food, distributed it among the rest of the community. If someone had something someone else wanted, it was given to them. This represents the core of primitive communism.

The common attitude in modern sapiens regarding income might well be expressed as “I’ve upped my income, now up yours”. Such was not the case in early times. The process of freely giving and freely receiving of gifts was embedded in an important cosmological perception.

Primitive human life had a perception that wo/man owed a great debt to invisible powers. These early humans were conscious of the need for a vigorously maintained balance sheet. Primitives recognized man’s essential relation to nature. Nature gives freely of her bounty to humans and humans were beholden and grateful. They demonstrated this essential truth with fellow human creatures, with nature, and with the invisible world of the dead and the gods.

“In the archaic consciousness the sense of indebtedness exists together with the illusion that the debt is payable; the gods exist to make the debt payable. Hence the archaic economy is embedded in religion, limited by the framework, and mitigated by the consolation of religion—above all, removal of indebtedness and guilt.”—Van der Leeuw

Why can humans neither now nor long ago, be comfortable and satisfied with a bountiful nature, which can easily supply all our needs? We cannot because both primitive and modern men and women require an economic surplus; the surplus is necessary so that s/he can have something to give to the gods.

The ceremonial destruction of mountains of food was a religious act. It was an attempt to keep “the cycle of power moving between the invisible to the visible world”. Could this same motive explain our modern inclination for war?

Quotes from “Escape from Evil”—Ernest Becker

Questions for discussion

Why can humans neither now nor long ago, be comfortable and satisfied with a bountiful nature, which can easily supply all our needs?

The ceremonial destruction of mountains of food was a religious act. It was an attempt to keep “the cycle of power moving between the invisible to the visible world”. Could this same motive explain our modern inclination for war?Hmmm....The act of giving gifts can also be a primitive communication method (which was my first thought when I read your post, I'm from Sweden so I thought you meant "communication" with "communism").

Since that wasn't your intention I wouldn't give you credit for the great idea you have stumbled upon. The act of bringing gifts can have been one of the top reasons why people found trust in eachother when there was no other communication. Not so strange that they would use that same methods to find trust with the invisible world.

You have found negativity where I found positivity. Which do you prefer?

You don't think that people had other things to do than gather food? You don't think that hierarchy gave a sense of meaning, and that some people have a gift of hunting while some have a gift of building or harvesting and that all those peoples motives should be satisfied in order for a society to function (to even exist, as the society is to give us what we need for a satisfying life).

To go from there to war is a long stretch.

Cyperium

Becker is giving us a synthesis of the views of many thinkers. It appears to me that he is giving us a great insight into what the human sciences have discovered about human motivation.

Ernest Becker has woven a great tapestry, which represents his answer to the question ‘what are we humans doing, why are we doing it, and how can we do it better?’

Becker has written four books “Beyond Alienation”, “Escape from Evil”, “Denial of Death”, and “The Birth and Death of Meaning”; all of which are essential components of his tapestry. Ernest Becker (1924-1974), a distinguished social theorist, popular teacher of anthropology and sociology psychology, won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for the “Denial of Death”.

Many weeks ago a forum member suggested that I might be interested in the author Ernest Becker and I was given the following web site.
http://faculty.washington.edu/nelgee/hidden/solomonsound.htm This is a great one hour audio about Becker’s ideas given by a very good lecturer.

Becker provides the reader with a broad and comprehensible synopsis of the accomplishments of the sciences of anthropology, psychology, sociology, and psychiatry. Knowledge of these accomplishments provides the modern reader with the means for the comprehension of why humans do as they do.

Becker declares that these sciences prove that humans are not genetically driven to be the evil creatures that the reader of history might conclude them to be. We humans are victims of the societies that we create in our effort to flee the anxiety of death. We have created artificial meanings that were designed to hide our anxieties from our self; in this effort we have managed to create an evil far surpassing any that our natural animal nature could cause.

Becker summarizes this synoptic journey of discovery with a suggested solution, which if we were to change the curriculums in our colleges and universities we could develop a citizenry with the necessary understanding to restructure our society in a manner less destructive and more in tune with our human nature.

The only disagreement I have with Becker’s tapestry is in this solution he offers. I am convinced that he has failed to elaborate on an important step that is implied in his work but not given sufficient emphasis. That step is one wherein the general adult population takes up the responsibility that citizens of a democracy must take on; adults must develop a hobby “get a life—get an intellectual life”. In other words, it will be necessary that a significant share of the general population first comprehend these matters sufficiently to recognize the need for the proposed changes to our colleges and universities.