Traditional man and country

[Haykakan]

Re: Traditional man and country

EVERYBODY has a religion... not having a religion is a religion. It's like someone saying I'm on a "diet". Everybody is on a diet.

Religion is a set of believes that help people explain the unexplained(especially what happens after life) and in some cases these believes also dictate how one should live his mortal life as well. I prefer to use science and rational thinking to explain the unexplained and i use my own set of values (not based on religion) to guide me through life.As for the afterlife if there is one we will know about it soon enoughf.If you really want to press the issue and say that science is then my religion then so be it, i have no problem with that.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Traditional man and country

Read my posts before commenting please.I clearly stated that i am not saying we should get naked and go live in a forest and that my whole point is that we should better understand our humanity(ourselves) and consider living in a more human way.If you need religion to keep you in order then do it but i don't feel the same way and am quite capable of keeping myself in order.I know what money is and i already stated how it creates materialism and effects society in a negative manner.As for liberalism, i am not sure why you bring it up but i will say that it was created in a feudal society not capialistic one.

EVERYBODY has a religion... not having a religion is a religion. It's like someone saying I'm on a "diet". Everybody is on a diet.

[Haykakan]

Re: Traditional man and country

So what you're saying is we should live like Adam and Eve ala the movie "The Blue Lagoon". Or maybe more like the kids in the "Lord of the Flies". Religion just didn't appear from thin air, it was developed over time to bring order to society.... to suppress mankind's animalistic and egoistic traits. As we move away from order, we create chaos, and revert back in time. Money wasn't created out of thin air (however, the federal reserve IS creating it out of thin air), it is a means of measuring the value of labor put into creating goods and services that other people need/want. Like you stated, social norms are just traditions/roles that encompass how we tie money, religion, etc. together. Liberalism only works in a Capitalistic society because Conservatives(wealthy people) pick up the slack and dictate what kind of jobs/pay rates the working class/liberal people should receive.

Read my posts before commenting please.I clearly stated that i am not saying we should get naked and go live in a forest and that my whole point is that we should better understand our humanity(ourselves) and consider living in a more human way.If you need religion to keep you in order then do it but i don't feel the same way and am quite capable of keeping myself in order.I know what money is and i already stated how it creates materialism and effects society in a negative manner.As for liberalism, i am not sure why you bring it up but i will say that it was created in a feudal society not capialistic one.

[KanadaHye]

Re: Traditional man and country

Outside factors like religion,money and social norms based on these and other concepts prevent us from living the human way.If this means to you that "environment determines our consciousness' then so be it i couldn't care less.

So what you're saying is we should live like Adam and Eve ala the movie "The Blue Lagoon". Or maybe more like the kids in the "Lord of the Flies". Religion just didn't appear from thin air, it was developed over time to bring order to society.... to suppress mankind's animalistic and egoistic traits. As we move away from order, we create chaos, and revert back in time. Money wasn't created out of thin air (however, the federal reserve IS creating it out of thin air), it is a means of measuring the value of labor put into creating goods and services that other people need/want. Like you stated, social norms are just traditions/roles that encompass how we tie money, religion, etc. together. Liberalism only works in a Capitalistic society because Conservatives(wealthy people) pick up the slack and dictate what kind of jobs/pay rates the working class/liberal people should receive.

[Haykakan]

Re: Traditional man and country

I'm sorry, I left my blah blah blah translator in the car. But from the looks of it I think it's more vagueness, unsubstantiated assertions and the way you think the world 'ought' to be. I can't discuss with minds that are more closed than the usual, who hide behind the mantle of "science."

You keep saying the same thing over and over.Really? blah blah is all you can come up with?If you can't discuss then please don't, no one is making you.

[Haykakan]

Re: Traditional man and country

So you're theory suggests that religion, money and some other arbitrarily picked social norms are outside of this "human way"? Doesn't that strike you somewhat as a bad way of accounting for the whole of human behavior and interaction in communities? To place only our most primitive setting in the forest or jungle, where we only recently discovered money, as the most natural, rudimentary expression of "the human way"?

Doesn't this strike you at all as cherry picking taken to an extreme? I mean afterall, it is just one tribe on the earth you've found. On top of this, you are implying that the rest of the world isn't remotely anywhere near the level of non-materialism this tribe previously knew, perhaps because they 1. Use money, 2. have father-son relationships, or 3. because they have sexual taboos.

I dunno... It's just not a very convincing argument for me.

Geneticly humans are the same as they were when we all lived in hunting and gathering societies.This means we are still hardwired the same way we were back then and modern day society and its influances are what make us different today from our ancestors.To be even more accurate human genetic diversity is very much limiteed when compared to other animals including chimps, this is because not so long ago we almost went extinct and are all decendents of the few survivors of that era.This is not cherrypicking because they were probably the last such tribe left to discover and we wont see them or their kind again, plus plenty of other tribes discovered before them lived a similar lifestyle.Everything that we know in our world today(money,modern social norms,modern religion..) is relatively a new idea when you compare it to the millions of years humans have been around.Civilization is only 3 or 4 thousend years old, now take into account that there are a thousend thousend years in one million and also the fact that humans are about 3 million years old and you can see that everything we know today (farming,metalworking,modern religion,social norms..) are really quite new.Please don't take my word for it but go ahead and research it yourself.You should always try to verify information when possible.People have not changed significantly in the physical form and what came naturally to a human back then would come naturally to a human today if not for the effects mentioned.I am not suggesting that we all get nakid and go live in the jungle but i am suggesting that our present way of living is artificial to us and perhaps we can find a better way by understanding ourselves better.

[jgk3]

Re: Traditional man and country

Outside factors like religion,money and social norms based on these and other concepts prevent us from living the human way.

So you're theory suggests that religion, money and some other arbitrarily picked social norms are outside of this "human way"? Doesn't that strike you somewhat as a bad way of accounting for the whole of human behavior and interaction in communities? To place only our most primitive setting in the forest or jungle, where we only recently discovered money, as the most natural, rudimentary expression of "the human way"?

Doesn't this strike you at all as cherry picking taken to an extreme? I mean afterall, it is just one tribe on the earth you've found. On top of this, you are implying that the rest of the world isn't remotely anywhere near the level of non-materialism this tribe previously knew, perhaps because they 1. Use money, 2. have father-son relationships, or 3. because they have sexual taboos.

I dunno... It's just not a very convincing argument for me.

[Haykakan]

Re: Traditional man and country

I don't think you know much about actual research procedure, science is not "subjective like anything else" and if a researcher is not being objective then he is not doing science! I stated earlier that research often reveals surprising findings and this is impossible to get if you are not objective and openminded.I absolutely stand by my absolute statement! There is curruption in some fields of science but that is bad science and it should not be used to discredit all scintific work because most of it is done by well meaning and ethical scientists.Look if you really want to compare me to Marx then go ahead i couldn't care less hell ill even grow out my hair and grow a beard for you.To argue with you seems pointless but ill try to clear this up one more time, my hypothesis is that humans have a innate (which means not effected by environment!) preferance/tendency to live life in a specific human way(which i already have described).Outside factors like religion,money and social norms based on these and other concepts prevent us from living the human way.If this means to you that "environment determines our consciousness' then so be it i couldn't care less.If Marx said "environment determines our consciousness" ( i dought he did,his work is all about class struggle) then so be it again i could't care less.My main point is to understand humans for what we really are and if in doing so my conclusion looks similar to Marx or Hitler or i dont give a xxxx who then so be it, i arrived to my conclusion independent of them and it is only in your mind that i am preaching marxism.You and some others in here seem to have a dislike and distrust to science and this is truely unfortunate.

[Haykakan]

Re: Traditional man and country

The south american tribe was not my research.It was done by anthropologists over a decade ago and it was on the discovery channel i think.The most striking part of that case was how peacefull and content people were before the introduction of money into their society and the amazing transformation of it once materialism took hold. The sexual freedom for both sexes was also very interesting and refreshing to witness.The acceptance of all the childeren by the men of that society was also cool to witness.Their belief system was a mild form of animal worship which is typical of hunting/gathering societies.A tragic scene unfolded while the study was going on, a child was taken by a large snake into the river while the mother tried to fight off the giant snake.The mother and child lost the battle with the child disapearing into the river along with the snake while the mother cried and moaned on shore.The actual scuffle was not on film cause no one got there to help in time or to film it but the mother would not leave the riverside and kept weeping and asking the snake to bring back her child, it was very emotional to watch her in such agony but there was no pleas to any god or higher power for the return of her son since they do not have such beliefes.Unfortunatly societies such as this one are probably extinct now and i dought we will be able to find anymore new tribes such as these who are unspoiled and retain their truely human nature.Almost forgot to mention that (maybe this should have been in the armenian womens discussion thread) the women in that society flirted openly with the men, there was no taboo in a women openly expressing her sexual desire twords a man.My own background is more in psychology/sociology/biology and i have done research in all these fields (some of the more interesting of which involved studying differences in behaviour between men and women).Now i am working on my MBA and am doing tons of research in bussiness related
fields.I did not think research in this field would be interesting but as usual research continues to surprise me.My research on economic cycles not only turned out to be interesting but rather profitable as well.These courses are very intence since they are condenced into 6 week semesters and i don't enjoy it as much because i have to rush to get it done in time but i learn what i need and thats what matters.Wether it is business,social science or biology the scientific method remains the same(articulate a hypothesis, test it and see if the test supports or does not support it).I hope i have not bored you too much with my longwinded responce.

[jgk3]

Re: Traditional man and country

Haykakan, in your scientific research, how do you approach the belief systems and rituals of the people being studied in your research? Could you elaborate a bit on how the South American tribe you brought up interpreted the world they lived in, how they understood the balance of nature, what kind of gods they had, etc... How does your science interpret their mythology and rituals?