LBW: The argument as to why we have States
and why we have societies in the fashion
that we do is that there's a biological
element to it that this is something
that is deeper than states this is
deeper than capitalism this is something
that is innate in the human being and
I've always felt that there was
something a bit off about that because
as you point to and I think many other
anthropologists people that are looking
at it for maybe a very anthropological
perspective are examining all kinds of
different forms of societies and they're
seeing that no that human beings
are actually quite diverse or capable of
organizing ourselves in so many
different ways would you say that that
the state is a natural function of human
beings and that we have to kind of
counter it with certain maybe a kind of
an egalitarianism that's almost I
remember hearing this term from some
anthropologists describing a fierce
egalitarianism and they were studying
hunter-gatherers and the these
very nomadic tribes and they had these
mechanisms within their societies within
their cultures to kind of de-emphasize
the ability for certain individuals to
gain leadership right so that
they basically had these mechanisms in
their societies to inhibit this desire
that certain people might have to to
build hierarchies to maintain control
over other human beings and and I feel
like I have this contention within
myself whether human beings are more
prone towards egalitarian social
structures or towards more hierarchical
social structures and that if we're more
prone to hierarchy we still should
desire egalitarianism but we have to
build maybe a societal or cultural
mechanisms in order to to inhibit that
element of our nature does that make any
sense I feel like I just wondering if
you had any insights into that
PETER GELDERLOOS: Yeah the argument that humans have a
biological need or drive for the state
makes about as much sense as an argument
that humans have a biological need for
the Internet it just doesn't make sense
because the the vast majority of human
history there's been no state and and
also in recent history there have been
many stateless peoples there are
constantly moments in which state
authority fails and people do just fine
so it just can't really be taken
seriously as as an argument it's I mean
it's like phrenology or or all of these
other scientific arguments which really
have one purpose it's not to interpret
any body of evidence because there is no
evidence that supported it it's simply
an attempt to justify hierarchy that
exists within our society it's also I
think implicitly a white supremacist and
colonialist argument because if you look
at that argument historically you have
the British Empire the Spanish crown
French Empire the United States all
these other settler States Australia etc
going in and just unleashing this wave
of genocide against any society
that was different
killing them off or enslaving them and
then and then their scientists come
along and say claim some universal human
nature or wipe out they they help
to erase the memory of the wave the ways
of being as other societies you mention
that maybe there's a need for cultural
mechanisms to prevent hierarchy I don't
think there's any that such thing as
human nature I think we can only talk
about human capabilities or potentials
humans have the capability of creating
in egalitarian horizontal societies and
humans have the capability of creating
hierarchical oppressive exploitive
societies we can we have the whole range
you know we can paint in the entire
palette and ultimately it's a collective
question of what we want to do every
single human society
has cultural mechanisms that encourage
certain behaviors and discourage other
behaviors every single one so it only in
a sense that the society that doesn't
want to be ruled a society that doesn't
want to have masters in the slaves would
develop cultural mechanisms that
encourage egalitarianism that
encourage suspicion of leaders or people
trying to accumulate power or resources
however I also think it's safe to say
that when you talk about these these
anthropological theories of sort of like
willfully egalitarian societies
that gets studied and end up in these
lists of characteristics of stateless
societies I think it's safe to say that
the vast majority of those societies are
post-state societies they're societies
that already have had contact with
States either neighboring states that
they've had - they've had to fight fight
off and a resist or run away from due to
that that kind of age-old state activity
of kidnapping people and and forcing
them to to work or there even
societies that had a state and then got
rid of that statement one way or another
and learns and evolved and became
smarter so I wouldn't at all be
surprised to find and if we're gonna
talk about anthropological evidence
and whatnot it seems to be suggested
that actually the the most actively
anti-authoritarian societies in human
history have been the post-state
societies these these are societies that
have wised up that had learned at least
with regard to regard to states and so
they've probably developed more cultural
mechanisms to prevent the reemergence of
the state and that's exactly what we
would have to do if we were able to
overthrew the state and and horizontally
organize our own societies we've all
been trained in
reproducing oppressive systems
reproducing hierarchies whether by
obeying or leaving I mean our
society will have generations and
generations of trauma to work through
it's not a change that can happen in just one
generation so we would have that data
very urgently to come up with cultural
mechanisms that did encourage healing
and encourage anti-authoritarian
behaviors and that discourage oppressive
and exploitive behaviors and these are
mechanisms that you can see being developed in
anti-authoritarian movements across the
globe
