Good article from Cafe Hayek:
Pre-Columbian peoples lived simply, to be sure, but let’s stop mistaking ignorance and poverty with harmony. ... To dance to imaginary rain gods or to chant and pray for a child dying of bacterial infection is not to live harmoniously with nature; it is to live most inharmoniously. Nature is doing its thing – failing to water the crops, growing bacteria within a child’s lungs – while human beings who are as ignorant of nature as nature is of human beings, moan, chant, pray, dance, build totems, burn leaves and twigs, all in fruitless, inharmonious efforts to solve the problems.
What the author is upset about is the moral determination that's been made: primitive cultures vs modern society. That Natural = Good and anything else = Bad. His argument is that modern progress is just as natural as any historic suffering.
I would modify the argument slightly: primitive peoples were doing what they felt most obviously addressed their problems given insufficient information. Nature certainly doesn't imply rationality and life, for the most part, is "nasty, brutish, and short". On the other hand, some of us are fortunate to be able to mitigate the nastiness with technology and medicine. One fact of life doesn't have to disparage the other to make the point that 'nature' can be a loaded term.
Posted by eric at April 18, 2005 03:33 PM
Comments
1. It’s foolish to employ the word "harmony." Any definition given of that term is going to be vastly different depending on who you ask. Your friend has merely defined "harmony." The equivalent argument would be saying that A = B therefore A =B. Wait, but that’s not an argument? Precisely.
I’m not suggesting that a person can’t put forth an argument which is for a specific definition of a term. “X ought to mean Y, and this is how,” is a valid way of argumentation. However, that is not how the writer approaches the topic; he avoids arguing for his definition. He merely thinks it is self evident that harmony means that we moderns fulfill it better then backward civilizations. Mr. Boudreaux does offer- “To live harmoniously with nature is to understand and accept natural forces.” But then doesn’t defend this understanding of the term. My point is simply this: This is not an argument, so there is no way to significantly address it if you disagree.
2. Perhaps you think I’m being harsh on the guy. Not really. He is not only saying that ancient civilizations are less harmonious but that present populations, which are not as technologically advanced, are also inferior. The author is not only chronocentric but ethnocentric.
CHRONOCENTRISM: The self-indulgent tendency of the most recent era (and its history, values, etc.) to see itself as more important, more highly developed, or more relevant to human experience in general than any other era.
Posted by: Edwardo at April 19, 2005 01:11 AM
Isn't it possible that chronocentrism will exist only as long as quality of life continues to improve? Whoever was left in Rome at, say, 500AD can't possibly have thought that they were better off than at the height of the Roman empire.
Posted by: Eric at April 19, 2005 09:03 AM
It will always be reletive to the individual. Insofar as you see life as "improving" you will likely be chronocentric. Of course this chronocentrism is limited to what you think is improving also. A native american who wishes that we never bothered to cross the Atlantic will likely not be chronocentric, whereas you would be.
Posted by: Edwardo at April 19, 2005 05:57 PM
Um, I'm not proficient in arguments of logic, but I like this post. I like learning different ways to think about things, especially different ways to relate to our world. So thanks for the thought-provoking post.
Posted by: d2ana at April 19, 2005 06:19 PM