rogerhicks

Thanks for your welcoming words, xelent. I'm pleased to have discovered Stefan's site. I take it as given that Homo sapiens is an inherently and intensely tribal animal, which is so evident in our behaviour and motivations. It is not without significance that we have a culture which inclines us to trivialise, ridicule or demonise our inherent tribalism, so that the state and capital are free to manipulate and exploit for their own ends. Clearly, there are now far too many of us for us to be able to return the kind of tribal society that existed before the advent of civilisation, which it is properly not a good idea to idealise anyway. Archaeological evidence suggests that life back then could be pretty brutal. We need to reinvent society, so that it caters for the human nature (personal, social and tribal) of all its members, rather than just for its privileged elites, which, because we are now so numerous (I consider myself a privileged member of society) is totally unsustainable (quite apart from all the injustice and inhumanity).

I've just discovered this website and Stefan's ideas about the state, which have much in common with my own, which I have derived from taking a human-evolutionary, i.e. Darwinian, view of human nature and the situation (states and civilisation) it has over the centuries given rise and shape to. The state, it seems to me, conflates and confounds very different aspects of the original, natural and very tribal environment, in which human nature evolved, long before the advent of civilisation and the state, which now poses, deceitfully, as our tribe or nation (intra- and inter-tribal environment), while at the same time facilitating society's self-exploitation (as an extra-tribal environment) to the advantage of its ruling elite and their favoured clients. I think this goes a long way towards explaining Stefan's observations relating to the state. It also explains the paradoxes and dilemmas that confront and confuse our brain, which evolution adapted to deal with a very different kind of environment from that of civilisation, which has been shaped over centuries to serve the interests of society's ruling elite and their favoured clients at the expense of society at large. What makes the democratic state so special, but inherently unsustainable, is the fact that we are now ALL its clients, albeit very unequally. In order to get our support, politicians have to try, or pretend to try, to satisfy us all, which, of course they cannot possibly do, certainly not on a finite, vulnerable and already overpopulated planet. We have a short window of opportunity, it seems to me, within which to use our hard-won freedoms to make truly radical changes to the state, which I don't believe we can do without completely (some authority has to enforce the rule of law and non-violence which otherwise tends to characterise all tribal societies), before it closes and these freedoms are lost. I elaborate on these ideas on my own blog, The Perverted Darwinian Nature of Civilisation: http://philosopherkin.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/civilisation-evolutionary-cul-de-sac.html

That is a very interesting question which has often inhibited me from saying that I'm an "atheist", because others tend to assume a particular kind of atheism, which is cold, loveless, materialistic and mechanical, and devoid of purpose and meaning. My atheism is really a rejection of other people's concepts of God, especially established religions' with their "sacred scriptures", the principal purpose of which is to effect social and political control over believers. I have my own concept of God, which I know is a product of my own imagination, but which I find very useful indeed, and comforting. The great thing about my God is that he is always on my side. Otherwise he gets a bollocking from me! I like to think that there may be a deeper reality behind my imaginings of God, although I have no way of knowing whether there really is or not.We need some kind of religion (L. religare = to bind together), in order to function as a society. It is the lack or inadequacy of religion (especially a shared moral code) which makes modern society so disfunctional. We need to create new, rational religions adapted to the needs of modern society (once we have decided what these are), and I see no reason why these religions should not employ concepts of God, just as I do.Whether it objectively does or not, I need to FEEL that life, especially my own life, has meaning and purpose. Religion and a concept of God, provided they are freely conceived, rather than imposed from the top down, can play very important roles in this regard.