“So, yes, larger cultures have a more difficult time staving off dominance-based hierarchies, but there are ample examples of rather large cities who managed to do it — mostly with local councils that hashed out the needs of those in their particular constituency.”
Çatalhöyük is a fascinating study. All of the buildings were residential. They were entered through rooftop entrances accessed from the ground by ladders (I wonder how those of us with arthritis would manage; I struggle to climb stairs). There were no pathways between buildings. People in the interior had to hop from roof to roof to get to the outskirts.
Complex governing systems did not just pop up out of nowhere. As populations grew, people continued to manage them as they were used to, through tradition and peer pressure. As problems associated with large, compact populations arose, structures developed to cope with those problems. The process occurred through trial and error. It took time for the structures to develop. The process is probably still occurring in modern societies.
Cuneiform, the world’s first writing system, appeared around 3500 BC.
That is about 5000 years after the appearance of agriculture. It corresponds to the presumed 5000-year gap between the appearance of agriculture and the appearance of sociological patriarchy. Coincidence?
Before that time, written law was impossible. Writing opened the door to written law, which began to appear about 1000 years later.
Written law would facilitate formal governance with bureaucratic structure and enforcement mechanisms.
Each time a system is created to solve the problems associated with rising populations, the system encounters new issues to resolve. New solutions must be devised. It is a never-ending process that is still occurring.
“ larger cultures have a more difficult time staving off dominance-based hierarchies”
Were they “staving off” hierarchies, or had they not yet invented them? Did rulers lack enforcement authority because they hadn’t yet envisioned the kinds of structures necessary to execute enforcement?
It’s as if there were a force that draws populations towards stratified structures with some form of central government. Call it social gravity. Like physical gravity, the strength exerted by social gravity is a factor of the total mass of the population divided by the distance from the population center.
The force is easily overcome in a small population mass. It is more difficult to overcome in a massive population. The force can be overcome, but it is always there, drawing the system back to ground (central government and stratification). In a population of very small mass, the force is weak enough to be continuously resisted. In a massive population, it can be resisted, but only temporarily.
We have neighborhood councils in the form of local governments.
Neighborhood councils probably worked well until conflict arose between neighborhoods. Then they would need to establish a council of neighborhood councils. They would need to reach agreements between neighborhoods to settle disputes.
Do you think the United States or any other modern nation could be effectively organized through neighborhood councils alone?
Where there is a surplus of luxury resources, there is a fair chance that some greedy individual will be tempted to accumulate luxury.
A greedy individual lusting for power will endure a good deal of fasting and deprivation to gain power and wealth. If even one greedy, shrewdly manipulative individual manages to work his way into a neighborhood council, it contaminates the entire system.
One might say: Add a drop of greed to a sea of egalitarianism, and it becomes a sea of greed.
Stratification based on race, ethnicity, skin pigment, etc. is ultimately less effective than specialization based on actual merit. It excludes talent where it is needed and useful. It allows less competent individuals to assume positions instead of others who may be more competent. It wastes talent.
Is civilization a good thing or a bad thing? It would seem to be a matter of personal preference. From time to time, back-to-nature movements arise. Participants may be those who seek to escape the disadvantages of civilization. Such movements rarely persist beyond the founding generation. Apparently, given the choice, most conclude that the advantages of civilization outweigh the disadvantages.
One of the more persistent cultures that eschew modern civilization is the Amish community.
We have at least two fundamental disagreements:
1) Nurture is nature.
2) You attribute injustice to a system and refer to it as patriarchy.
I attribute injustice to human character flaws such as greed, jealousy, envy, fear, and sloth, to name a few. Those flaws are characteristics of individuals and would manifest in any system.
