For most of human history, we were nomadic. We lived closer to Earth, according to her rhythms and cycles. We took what Earth provided, recognizing that we were dependent upon, and naturally limited by, the gifts of nature. Life was more precarious. We were physically on the move, following the seasons and the migration of wild animals and plants. This was before the advent of the agricultural era and the settling down of the human species. We learned to domesticate the land and animals. It was inevitable that our own wild nature would be domesticated. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. We’re evolutionarily wired for safety and security. Learning to exploit our environment to these ends was natural and inevitable. However, something essential has been lost in our domestication and consequent disconnection from Earth.
At a visceral level, we miss our wild nature, our inner nomad. It’s built into us. The more we organize our lives around pension plans, insurance products, and long term security, the more we become alienated from this evolutionary inheritance. We’re hyper-domesticated. Our dreams drop us into our sensual, intuitive way of orienting our lives to reality. They tend to compensate for our waking personas. Wild animals brush by us or chase us, indicating dissociated energy that wants back into the game.
I’ve written elsewhere about how my own nomadic nature shows up as an irrational urge to start walking and not stop—my inner Forest Gump. I want no maps, no itinerary, and no forethought for where I’m going to end up. A different kind of guidance systems kicks in, sensual and intuitive. When I’ve given myself the opportunity, the synchronicities never fail to amaze. My soul feels liberated. Guess this is a scaled down version of the Maori walkabout or finding one’s own song line.
Scripture captures the cost of this loss in stories about the transition from the nomadic to the domesticated agriculturalist (which is typically associated with a violence that is enacted against our wild nature). In the story of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4:1-12) Abel is a keeper of sheep (semi-nomadic) and Cain is a tiller of soil (farmer). Notice that G_d prefers Abel’s offering. Cain pouts. The Lord asks him what his problem is, assuring Cain that he’s going to end up ruling over Abel ( a nod to historical reality). But Cain murders his brother anyway. Cain is cursed by G_d (and yet paradoxically defended against retaliation). Out of this act of violence Cain builds the first city, naming it after this firstborn son, Enoch.
As I read this it seems clear that the author laments the emergence of agricultural society (along with the city culture that is built upon an original violence). Yet s/he sees it as an historical inevitability that is necessary to come to terms with. It is an expression of humanity’s fall from grace, but still falls under divine providence.
Again, in the story of Jacob and Esau we see this transition played out. Esau is a hairy man, who lives in the fields. Jacob is a “plain” man, dwelling in tents. Jacob and his mother, Rebbecca, are portrayed as cunning, the predisposition of those who live, not instinctually like Esau, but for a future security. They collude to trick Esau out of his natural birthright. The hairy (wild) man is betrayed and dominated by the plain (domesticated) man. It’s a story that expresses the inherent violence against the birthright of own nature, (and culturally against our indigenous peoples) when instinct is dominated (rather than integrated) by reason. Jacob eventually is required to do the work of reintegration by reconciling with this brother, which is one way to understand where we are in the 21st century—needing to reconcile with the hairy man.
Finally, when the Hebrew people are settling in the Promised Land, there are two traditions portrayed in scripture. One is all for instituting a monarchy and building a temple for the Lord—just like all the surrounding nations. The other is against it. The G_d of this tradition asks “Who told you I needed a house to live in?” This G_d had no interest in being domesticated. He was happy wandering around in the wilderness with the arc of the covenant, a portable tabernacle, and sacred rituals-to-go.
Jesus himself was nomadic. (“The son of man has no place to rest his head”). He was an itinerant preacher, teacher, and healer. He travelled from town to town, owned no property or home as far as we know, and depended upon the hospitality of strangers. He was anti-Temple and opposed Rome’s imperial agenda to transform (domesticate) the conquered cities into mini-replicas of Rome.
As I considered this loss of our nomadic, wild nature, I wondered whether an evolutionary worldview represents one attempt to interiorize and re-integrate the nomadic impulse. The fundamental insight of this orientation is that reality is on the move. Everything is in motion, from the sub-atomic to galaxies to consciousness. Everything is coming into being and passing out of being in every moment, including what we call the “self”. Absolute security is an illusion. The only security, in truth, is in the whole-hearted embrace of an emergent process. There are no buffers against this arising and dying. Easy come. Easy go. The practice truly is to be at ease with this coming and going. As we remove the buffers by which we’ve attempted to achieve the illusion of control, we slip into the stream of becoming. In this stream, we seek not to control the future, but to participate in its emergence by consenting to be lived by this nomadic, primordial impulse to be on the move. Part of what it means to me to be “in Christ” is a radical willingness to submit to walk ecstatically into the unique future that needs us to emerge.
In response to this post I am wondering about the transference of context and whether it fits. I’m no sociologist but it would seem that being nomad back then was in part out of necessity for survival. Not so today. Perhaps survival in todays context requires the domesticity of a steady job to afford to eat, maybe the domesticity of healthy community is the best means of providing the healthiest container for an individual to emerge and not succumb to isolation and depression. Maybe the nomad has emerged into something new and maybe what’s new is that the nomad no longer needs to be a nomad to emerge. In my opinion, for what it’s worth, choosing to be a nomad is a means of control. To stay and suffer through something is also to be out of control and maybe sometimes, more so than choosing to walk. It too will birth a new future. The future is the given, not the means to get there. Domesticity or travel, both will work to produce emergence.
Thanks Jill,
I like this. Both orientations represent our best attempt at security. My only point is that there is a loss that needs to be gathered in, a way of incorporating the best of each.
Yes, I think so too.
Did Jesus come easily and go easily? I think many suffered at his physical death, and he had great compassion for those he was leaving. His Mother, Mary, Mary of Magdela, Peter, even Judas, all suffered even some unto death. Inthe midst of this he was called to be “The Christ” still the presence of God to all around him. Some believed, some didn’t but he was still teaching until the moment of his death and after. Yes sometimes we need to clear the deck, and move on and emerge into something new. I wonder if ” the whole hearted embrace of an emergent process” is the only thing that is our true security. If this ” process” as in process theology is exactly the same as “The Christ” to you, maybe that works for you. For me “Christ” is more than process, it is the loving , compassionate face of God, the charged atmosphere of the totality of Love, moving through our neurons and dendrites and very bodies. Our body, the church body, the body of Christ, the universe all wound into one. We are all one. What we are called to be is to be in the body of “the Christ” in a very radical way. With every person we meet, connect to , read about in the past, present and future we are called to step inside of their shoes for a moment and see from their eyes why they are thinking the way they are. We are called to use discernment and wisdom and look at them from “Christ “eyes” . This is a very radical “call” to follow the path of Christ, and we certainly need Gods help to be able to even attempt to do this.
Thanks Sally,
Buddhists are wise, I think about suffering. The competency is to feel the pain, and let the pain come, observe it, and watch it pass. When we label it “suffering”, especially as an orientation in life, it becomes an idol, something we hold on to. I know you know this.
I don’t think our calling is to a life of suffering, but a life of attending deeply in any given moment to what is there for us, and having attended to it, inhabited it, to release it. Jesus’ calling, for me, was not to a life of suffering, but to the Kingdom of God, where we align ourselves, relationships, and social structures with the love of G_d. Yes, that involves a lot of emotional pain, and moving compassionately in the world. In Cockburn’s words, we’ve got to “take our place in grace and be on our way”. The last thing that moving on means, to me, is avoidance of suffering. It means inhabiting the movement of suffering itself.
Your blog reminded me of a Peter Mayer’s song “Running with the Buffalo”.
For some class work a few years ago, I made this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHzGvfl8wIs
Wow! Thanks for this post, Bruce, and the video, Don. It all comes somehow as counterpoint to the parable – of the lost son!! or better the waiting father!!
Di, that’s interesting.
I’ve often felt like the homecoming of the son, isn’t a coming home to what was…he’s been on the move, underwent a profound shift in identity, from entitled firstborn, to humble servant. So, following his nomadic impulse changed “homeplace” for him, at least within. And probably shifted everything in the field at home. Elder brother’s going to have to change.
Is it the tension between the ‘now’and the ‘not yet’?
Interesting, Hilary, let me think on it. Can you say a little more about how you got there?
what next?
I rest when I need
to eat and to sleep
whilst following the flow
and the lie of the land
Sometimes, when all
is hospitable, I stop
and graze longer
and linger in such
places of beauty and peace
Other times, I stretch
onwards
with a deeper
hunger
even in days
when I am served
a large helping of life on a plate…
this nomad feels small now
being so small in such a large life
so I sit still and quiet awhile
in the solid warmth and steady glow
of loving companionship…
and so will the next step be lightened
and true,
lightened and true.
Beautiful Gabrielle, Thank you.
Hi Bruce, thanks for this post, it’s really great stuff and it sparked a bunch of different things for me. I’m going to relay some of that now, I’ll try and group them together and keep it as tight as possible, although I think this is going to be a whopper of comment, so I apologize for that in advance! ?
1) Cosmos and Psyche
The first association I had was how this new view among cosmically oriented evolutionary philosophers, mystics etc., is that the cosmos is dynamic and going somewhere, and that our experience is somehow intimately bound up with this whole process. I love this quote by the evolutionary theologian John Haught:
“The root of our restlessness is the whole evolution of the cosmos itself. Thus when we think about ourselves and our destiny, we can’t dissociate them from the destiny of the whole universe”. (http://www.enlightennext.org/magazine/j35/haught.asp)
I wrote an article about all this back in the day (2 years ago! ?) where I outlined a bunch of different thinkers who have come to this same view, and also explored what happens when this desire for movement and evolution is repressed and goes into shadow. It’s my view that our culture is choking on this desire deeply, and the ways it’s finding to come out or express itself are very negative and destructive. Here’s that post:
http://www.beamsandstruts.com/articles/item/398-unique-shadow-fubar-culture-and-the-evolving-cosmos
2) Pilgrimage
This piece also reminded me of the ancient spiritual practice of pilgrimage, which I think fits in well with the overall theme of the piece. As synchronicity would have it, I just met with a friend last night who recently finished a 70 day solo pilgrimage in the eastern US, walking a trail that other men in his family had once also walked. He’s a student of Thomas Hubl, and had left a PhD behind to embark on this journey and follow some inner visions and intuitions that he must do this. What he experienced on his journey was remarkable to hear, and it was interesting to hear him tell- given this post- how many Americans (he’s Canadian) lit up when he told them what he was doing. It stoked something in them big time. Food for thought. He wrote about it all on a blog during the journey, and I’ve directed him towards this post, and hopefully we’ll hear something from him about that experience and what you write here. I don’t know much about pilgrimage, but William’s story certainly testified to it being something very powerful and (inwardly) fertile.
http://williamtimothywalker.wordpress.com/
3) The Transition to Agriculture and Sedentary Life
I’ve spent a fair bit of time researching this period, so I thought I’d throw out some thoughts and resources around it. According to the current research, we lived as nomadic (with some groups moving more than others) hunter-gatherers for 200,000 yrs as identifiable Homo sapiens, with another 1-2 million years before that in our lineage of ancestors. (“Sometime between 1 and 1.8 million years ago, a group of hominids we call Homo erectus left Africa and began to spread out over the rest of the Earth”. Cynthia Stokes, ‘Big History- From the Big Bang to the Present’). So we’ve been on the move for a while, to say the least.
We started to settle down with advent of agriculture (8000-3500 BCE), which brought with it certain advantages, but also many hardships and disadvantages. One major study of this transition is Jared Diamond’s ‘Guns, Germs and Steel’, and there is a 2-part Origins of Agriculture on the ideas podcast Entitled Opinions that is excellent (http://bit.ly/13X4R96, episodes 143 and 144).
I loved your exegesis around this period as represented in the Hebrew Bible Bruce, and I think you’re on to something important in how this was experienced and what might’ve been lost. Here’s a couple of other resources. The sociologist Michael Mann writes in his book ‘The Sources of Sociological Power Vol. 1’:
“Civilization was an abnormal phenomenon because it involved the state and social stratification, both of which human beings have spent most of their existence avoiding…The ultimate significance of alluvial agriculture, present in all “pristine” civilizations, was the territorial constraint it offered in a package with a large economic surplus. When it became irrigation agriculture, as it usually did, it also increased social constraint. The population was caged into particular authority relations” (p.124).
So you have that theme of entrapment again. Now here’s something I found really interesting. In his book ‘War’, Gywnne Dyer (who’s read a lot of the anthropological and sociological literature for these periods) writes about how in the earliest city settlements, groups of people who tended to the domesticated animals outside the agricultural ring (outside the city) eventually broke away from sedentary life and became what we know as pastoralists or nomads. He writes:
“Faced with the end of the hunter-gatherer way of life, the pastoralists chose the alternative that still left them some freedom and some dignity. It meant material poverty and endless hardship, but they willingly paid the price and despised those who would not pay it. At various points between the sixth and third millennia BCE, whole pastoral societies were breaking away from the nascent farmer communities throughout the Middle East. They would never remotely rival the farming societies in numbers- pastoralism cannot support millions of people- and they would always depend on the settled societies for their higher technologies, including their metal weapons. But they were a culturally credible alternative to the cramped farming lifestyle, and from the beginning they were imbued with a deep contempt for the settled folk. In fact, they quickly came to see farmers not just as enemies but as prey. It was the beginning of a confrontation that lasted for several hundred generations, down to the final defeat of the nomads only a few centuries ago. Over the millennia millions died in the unceasing (but always ephemeral) incursions of the pastoralists into the settled lands, and in the course of it the farming peoples of Eurasia were forced to militarize themselves and learn a way of war as ruthless as that of the herders” (p.116).
So all that’s a little more context to add for the general historical thrust of the piece.
4) Nomadology
Lastly, I just wanted to mention that there is a movement in contemporary Left political philosophy called Nomadology (http://wikis.la.utexas.edu/theory/page/nomadology). It begun with the French philosophers Deleuze and Guattari, and has been picked up by many others including the political philosophers Hardt and Negri, who use the concept/modality in their trio of texts they’ve written together (which were very inspirational for the Occupy movement and other of the global protest movements of the past few years). I’m guessing you’re not familiar with this stream Bruce, but if you aren’t then that’s even more interesting to me. You’ll notice that Vanessa Fisher describes herself on her site as an “Activist, Artist, Global Nomad” (http://www.vanessadfisher.com/ ). I spoke to her about the nomad part, and she picked it up from a feminist philosopher who in turn was inspired by Deleuze and Guattari, which is what I figured.
So something is obviously up these days with all this Bruce, and as usual your intuitions are spot on in terms of the zeitgeist and the rumblings of spirits next move. Thanks for this post, keep them coming, I always find them very inspirational and generative to read, thanks as always for the offering, cheers!
Thank you, thank you, Bruce and Trevor — you riff beautifully together on these very important topics. Expressed this way, they help us to locate our authentic depth within the collective movement of immense growth and change that we have never been separate from. What a ride!
Thanks Laura,
Trevor, I have my reading cut out for me for the next year or so. Thanks for drawing out and amplifying my intuition around this stuff. I appreciate the time you’ve taken with this. Really great stuff.
Thanks Laura and Bruce, glad you dug it. I wanted to add a few others things that have been further sparked by this post.
i) Pilgrims of the Future
After I’d already written my comment above, I picked up my copy of Carter Phipps’ book ‘Evolutionaries’ yesterday to see if it had anything to say on the debate around scientism that’s currently raging (around Thomas Nagel’s book, and with TED taking down talks by Rupert Sheldrake and Graham Hancock- http://bit.ly/13Yj8lO), to see if Carter had any insights on that front. And in the last chapter, which I hadn’t actually read (a danger of the very ‘generalist’ that he writes about!), I found this:
“Pilgrims of the future [in italics]- this is the perfect way to describe the Evolutionaries of this book. A pilgrim means a person who comes from afar, traveling on a quest to a sacred place. In this case, the pilgrimage destination is not a physical place but a psychic, cultural, and cosmic possibility- the as-yet-unrealized potential of the future. To be an Evolutionary means to reach out beyond the edges of what has already occurred, to see oneself as journeying into uncreated territory. And I think all the Evolutionaries in this book, whatever their spiritual or religious convictions, would feel at home with that characterization of their life and work”. (p.367)
The whole last chapter is actually entitled Pilgrims of the Future and it has more to say on that topic.
ii) Rob Bell
I also came across a review of the latest book by author/pastor Rob Bell. Now, I don’t know much about Bell, and haven’t read any of his books, but I gather from the Homebrewed Christianity podcast that he’s a significant figure in the Christian conversation at the moment, and quite a controversial one too. All the interviews I’ve heard with him on Homebrewed I’ve really liked (such as, http://bit.ly/iICXIE). According to Wikipedia, he was named by Time magazine in 2011 as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. I think a lot of the controversy is that he came out of conservative-evangelical circles, and has been challenging several orthodoxies in those spheres. At any rate, given that background, and with this post in mind, it struck me that notions of process, movement and emergence are increasingly influencing Bell’s work. I pulled out some passages from the book review that I thought reflected that:
“Bell has morphed from a colorful and powerful conservative Christian to a new type of believer that refuses labels—but is clearly distant from his early evangelical roots. He sees himself following in Jesus’ footsteps, refashioning—and in some ways updating—the faith to attract new followers, even as some attack his work…
He continues to assert both that the universe is open and that, as the Congregationalists like to say, “God is still speaking.”…
Bell goes on to show that scripture—both in its own context and even in our time—demonstrates a multiplicity of ways that God is “ahead” of us. The Bible makes a break from “tribal-consciousness,” by arguing that God is not in one place and at one time, but in all places and all at once. This God, whose center is everywhere, does not pick favorites, and neither should we…
At this point, we are a long way from the evangelicalism of Bell’s past or the kind of biblically centered God of present day evangelical Christians. Bell is suggesting, by summarizing modern discoveries in physics in pithy and popular ways, that the universe is much “weirder” than we are able to fathom, and that this “weirdness” must lead to a kind of distrust of certainty and more importantly to an openness to surprises”.
http://www.patheos.com/Progressive-Christian/Rebranding-God-James-Wellman-03-14-2013?offset=1&max=1
So I thought it was interesting to notice other places where these themes were also up and arising at the moment.
iii) Wanderlust
I also circled back around and re-listened to the Origins of Agriculture podcasts. (I take the bus a lot, I got time
). I knew there was a particular section in there that was especially pertinent to the post and I found it (part 1, 45:16). Leading up to it archaeology professor Michael Shanks talks about the rise of interest in cosmology, astronomy and other worlds in agricultural societies, and after that he and Harrison have this exchange:
Robert Harrison- “I’ve often wondered if settlement, and being blocked in one place, if you wanna look at it in that way, didn’t actually activate or energize some sort of interest in or nostalgia for elsewhere-ness, even more than for hunter-gatherers, and therefore cosmology and other worlds and so forth were almost a kind of response to the fact that one couldn’t physically oneself move that easily anymore.
Michael Shanks- “There, what I think what you’re touching on, certainly for me, is the relationship of architecture, of building, to notions of home base. That is, this is your base, whence you go out into the world. You’re leaving home, you’re leaving the security of the system, of the community, to discover. Here again we’re into all sorts of components of mythology, of the traveler, the wanderer, the journey away and, as important, the nostos, the homecoming. Coming back to the base. And what you bring with you when you come back, and it is often the experience of course of other worlds, of otherness, of other peoples.
Harrison- And stories. Because one has to do something in the evenings and in the nighttimes, and nothing is more important perhaps than the poet, who if not literally the one who is the wanderer, who sets out and then comes back, at least he’s the voice of the wanderer, and tells the stories of other worlds and other places and fantastic occurrences, so that the people at home may hear them”.
So I thought that was more food for thought worth adding to this general topic. Thanks again Bruce for this post, and for the fruits it keeps producing for me. Look forward to the next one!
So helpful, Trevor. Love the connection between the wanderer and the poet, returning with stories of otherness, of places, people, things, ideas, and ways of being that are foreign to the culture s/he left.
Thank you Bruce and Trevor and to all of you who have contributed to this very alive discussion.
Pilgrimage and the nomadic impulse is close to my heart right now. I completed a 68 day ancestral pilgrimage just over one month ago and I am now in Spain writing a book about my experience where I had the original ecstatic compulsion to do a pilgrimage exactly one year ago. Your article Bruce, and everyone’s comments, are feeding my inner fire to share what I was gifted with on my journey. Thank you!
I agree with Trevor that “something is definitely up here”. What I mean is, more and more people are feeling the inner nomad impulse or the pilgrim call. Evidence of this is the dramatic rise in pilgrimages on the Camino de Santiago over the past 20 years. There is a new wave of inspired Souls called to walk.
I also feel that there is something instinctual around this impulse that is ‘natural’ to us and that wants to be integrated. I know this is true for myself. My own nomadic and pilgrim impulse was nagging me so strongly that I left my life as it were to honor these impulses and learn what they had to teach me. But this was also very personal. And I like how new possibilities of pilgrimage are being framed here and I respect that the inner nomad call may be stronger for some than others.
In response to Jillian’s comment, the choice to control our lives can happen with anything, whether that is choosing a nomadic way, to walk away from struggle, or choosing to ignore an authentic call to walk. Both are control. What I want to add here is that I believe the essence of pilgrimage and the way one embarks on a pilgrimage (whether that pilgrimage is to move or to stay) is inspired by a call. If the call is authentic, the question of control isn’t relevant, because as many of us know, the call is really choiceless. It is chosen for us. And in my own experience, the universe gives very attuned and intelligent feedback to inform us if our response is aligned with the call. What I learned on my own pilgrimage is that responding to this call is just the beginning. This call and response cycle is there to learn for the whole time and for us to deepen our relationship to it and bring it back into our daily lives with more awareness.
I can connect strongly to your sharing and framing of the nomadic impulse Bruce. For me, following this impulse was liberating and showed me the miraculous. It deepened my commitment to life, stoked the fire in my heart to give my life to the future that wants to emerge through me. And it was also a personal journey. We all in our own life must listen and respond, moment to moment, day by day, to what calls us most–that is our pilgrimage.
Thanks for this Bruce. I’ll be coming back to it and these comments over the next while for sure.
William
Wise words, William, born of deep listening to the call. I appreciate in particular your take on control and its irrelevance if we are listening for and inhabiting the call. Thanks for sharing with us.
http://tuvalu.santafe.edu/~bowles/AltruistsAtWar.pdf
Santa Fe Institute (Geoffrey West & Co.) has done research on scaling in early human communities that you might find interesting. In looking at Holocene climate change, increases in CO2 were the major factor in potential increases in agricultural productivity starting 11,000 years ago (end of the last ice age).
Dual inheritance theory (gene-culture coevolution) is the basis of the scaling work done by West’s group. During most of human evolution 200,000 to 50,000 to 11,000 years ago, parochial altruism and shared learning formed the basis of human cultural evolution. Our DNA is deeply wired for tribal/clan cultures and low density population with a hunt/gather economy. War is part of tribal culture. War provides the incentive for in-group compassion, altruism and shared learning and shared value commitments. Tribal societies were generally egalitarian and lacked widespread slavery. Spirituality was based on “magic” and the Divine Feminine. (Trevor can presumably provide insights into this from Integral theory.)
Agricultural/urban cultures had to “scale up” tribal culture for form “super-tribes”. Rigid hierarchies required patriarchy and a “strict daddy” god in order to bring law and order to the dense urban populations made possible by agriculture. Slavery and oppression became widespread. Unfortunately all such “scaled up” super-tribes are highly unstable, and require the use of state-power and religion to impose control over urban populations and irrigation systems. Thus we have the well known histories of the “rise and fall” of various civilizations. The thundering sky god evolved into the transcendent/mystical “universal” god of the great empires.
Modernism and the industrial revolution required a new set of psychological archetypes and cultural forms to match new economic and technological realities. Eventually the god of agrarian empires was pronounced “dead”.
Thanks for the context Eric
The advocates of dual-inheritance theory state that human beings evolved to be “superb, but sometimes reluctant” cooperators. There is some evidence that the entire early human population that we are descended from (we are the one surviving lineage of four or five lineages of humans) was reduced to as low as 400 breeding individuals at one point during a prolonged period of extreme climate change (drought) in Africa.
Also see:
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/318/5850/636.figures-only
And:
http://www.umass.edu/preferen/gintis/SocJusticeRes.pdf
excerpt:
Abstract
Human morality is a key evolutionary adaptation on which human social
behavior has been based since the Pleistocene era. Ethical behavior is constitutive of
human nature, we argue, and human morality is as important an adaptation as
human cognition and speech. Ethical behavior, we assert, need not be a means
toward personal gain. Because of our nature as moral beings, humans take pleasure
in acting ethically and are pained when acting unethically. From an evolutionary
viewpoint, we argue that ethical behavior was fitness-enhancing in the years
marking the emergence of Homo sapiens because human groups with many altruists
fared better than groups of selfish individuals, and the fitness losses sustained by
altruists were more than compensated by the superior performance of the groups in
which they congregated.
Thanks for that Eric
Bruce, Thank you! That’s very much how I read those stories. I think you are right on target when you locate the meaning of these stories in the transition from nomadic to agricultural based society. That theme is so important to Israel’s mythology.
I’m not completely sold your idea that there is a psychological “loss of nomadic, wild nature”, but it is worth considering. I think the more likely concerns of the authors are not so much an emotional frustration with being stationary, but with the socioeconomic changes that stationary life brings to social order and hierarchy. The most significant changes between nomadic culture and agricultural based culture is the ability (necessity) to acquire wealth, store and protect the wealth (you must survive the winter without moving), create expensive infrastructure, and have the power to control labor markets. They would have a growing need to own more and more land, harness a cheap work force (slavery), and build armies to acquire and protect and their wealth and infrastructure that would certainly become central to a stationary agricultural based society. Agriculture was the prime reason for slavery, which is the basic foundational problem for the old testament. Nomads don’t need slaves, but pharaohs (land barons) do. I don’t know if people would necessarily lament the end of nomadic life or have a psychological yearning for that hard challenge of wandering from place to place, but they would certainly struggle with the reality of forced labor and the growing armies of rich land owners. The oppression, war, and slavery that agriculture made possible was more likely the real reason for the authors’ lament, but you are right to point out that the author clearly located the origins of this problem in this transition away from nomadic life.
Thanks Mike,
Great insights. I think that psychological/emotional yearning to be on the move is located inside of me actually. Actually, I think it’s a fundamental cosmological/biological/spiritual impulse that is thwarted in some ways by the assumptions, worldview, and systems of modernity. For me, it’s also an interior impulse. I think you are right though that for the biblical writers the associated problems with the transition to agriculture were rooted in injustice. Jesus was all over this too…parables about storing up goods for tomorrow, gaining the whole world but losing your soul, having no place to rest his head…etc.