Fields Recordings From The Sea

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TomBo T
TomBo Apr 20, 2004 23:35:29
Replying to nigelswift

"I was out on the hills today, away from the modern crap, and I could feel the difference. What's more, I was a lot more contented. There has to be a reason for that."

Others, by the same token, are distinctly uncomfortable out in the hills. They are not truly at home unless in a city. I know plenty of people like this, although my own character is closer to what you describe.

I'm not denying that our consciousness has been molded by evolution. Clearly it has. But some things have undeniably changed in our psyche, and not because of evolution. Its hard to deny that today we (as a culture) believe ourselves nature's master. I'm sure that hunter-gatherers felt very differently. It certainly not good for us to consider ourselves master in this way, but its undeniable that we do.

F FourWinds
FourWinds Apr 21, 2004 00:18:12
Replying to TomBo

There is a growing school of thought that says there are Settler genes and Hunter Gatherer genes, and that these can still be seen today in our modern society.

I am sorry to be the one to tell some folk on here that us obsessive-collective train-spotters are hunter gathers and those happy to stay in the office or the house all day and watch tv are the farmers.

But sometimes a cigar is just a phallic symbol, U-Know!

N nigelswift
nigelswift Apr 21, 2004 00:55:42
Replying to TomBo

"Its hard to deny that today we (as a culture) believe ourselves nature's master."

Probably. But that's not necessarily a change of attitude, merely an observation of our apparent success. Trying to harness nature is a very human ambition, that goes right back. Was there an earlier point where there was an Eden where we didn't need to do that? Not in this latitude I'd have thought. If such a situation existed you'd have to go back a lot further than the coming of agriculture to Europe to find it wouldn't you, and look for a climatic zone of ease.

Assuming there was, then the suggestion that many people seem to imply is that there was a corresponding Eden of the mind, where we were at one with Nature? To test it, all I can do is look at my own psyche, to see if it's there, and I don't see in that form. My sense of harmony on the hills relates to a modified landscape. I think I'd be a lot less neurosis free if it was original dense and forbidding forest. That also must come from somewhere, mustn't it?

T TomBo
TomBo Apr 21, 2004 00:57:18
Replying to TomBo

"I'm not denying that our consciousness has been molded by evolution. Clearly it has. But some things have undeniably changed in our psyche, and not because of evolution."

This isn't what I mean, I've got myself across badly.

Evolution surely must have a part to play in the changes in our psyche that I refer to. The ability to use fire conveys a survival advantage, for a start, to use a more clear-cut example. What I'm arguing is that in parallel with the process of physical evolution (ie. of the sort that means the fire-users' descendants have a survival advantage and therefore come to dominate) there's a psychological process at work. Evolution's all about the survival of the fittest. Our increasing level of control over our environment, with tools, the use of fire, farming, etc., has made us more able to survive, materially speaking. But psychologically speaking, it has also created an ever increasing belief in an illusory mastery over and separation from nature.