Evidence of conflict.
On Monday night, I attended a town hall with Democrat Senator Ron Wyden here in Sisters. The crowd was massive for a small town — 800-900 people overflowing our high school auditorium. The crowd was overwhelmingly a friendly one; only one Trump supporter spoke up, although there were certainly a few in the audience sitting with their arms crossed, watching dourly as the auditorium erupted in cheers when Wyden or an audience member spoke critically of Trump words, actions or policies.
Divisions in our town and in our country are pretty stark. A friend says that we’re in the midst of a “cold civil war,” and I think that’s true. Another friend shared an article that posits that the election of Donald Trump has injected a level of “toxic stress” into the lives of many citizens. I’d say that’s true, too. Some folks I know seem on the verge of chopping off their hair and sawing off a finger or two in some version of a Lakota mourning ritual.
I get it. And yet I don’t.
People seem to think that the post-World War II period of relative consensus (itself largely mythical) is a norm. Call me a cockeyed pessimist, but I think that history — and pre-history — teaches a different lesson. We are hard-wired to divide into us vs. them, to cooperate within our in group and fight with — or even try to eliminate — the out group. Trade — a mutual interest — can mitigate group conflict (all the way from biker gangs to nation-states and empires) but it doesn’t eliminate it. And points of abrasion inevitably develop and conflict, sometimes explosively violent, erupts.
Which brings me to the California Indians. People of my generation were raised to believe that the California Indians were a peaceful lot, living peaceful lives in a peaceful paradise until the white man came and fucked it all up. A totally fanciful picture, as the anthropological and archeological record demonstrates.
Using an archeological database of human burials of remains from thousands of Central California inhabitants going back more than 1,000 years, Allen and his fellow researchers looked at the wound marks from physical traumas they suffered. They also compared that evidence to the environment and looked at the way the communities were socially organized, he says.
They found that California had the highest population density in all of North America, with lots of small groups living in close proximity. There were approximately 100 different languages spoken in California at the time. The data showed how the scarcity of resources and violence correlates.
“When people are stressed out and worried about protecting the group, they are willing to be aggressive,” he says. “Violence is about resources for the group.”
The data related to the remains showed that about 7 percent of the population at that time had evidence of forced traumas, whether they were shot by an arrow, stabbed or bludgeoned. For females it was 5 percent and for males it was 11 percent, a percentage of violent trauma not even reached during World War II, Allen says.
In a 2014 article, Western Digs notes that:
From shooting their enemies with darts and arrows to crushing their skulls and even harvesting body parts as trophies, the ancient foragers of central California engaged in sporadic, and sometimes severe, violence, according to a new archaeological study spanning 5,000 years….
…These grim findings illustrate the periodic conflicts that took place among California’s prehistoric groups in response to the historical, environmental, and social circumstances around them, said Dr. Terry Jones, an anthropologist at Cal Poly who co-authored the new study.
“Many people still seem to think that prehistoric California was a violence-free paradise, but the archaeological record shows clearly that that was not the case,” he said in an interview.
“People are people, and most of us believe that an inclination to resort to violence in certain situations is part of the human condition.”
Such findings often elicit obligatory pieties about how we “should have moved beyond all that” or that “we have to understand it in order to stop it.” Good luck with that. We’re in a period of relative resource scarcity right now, and we’re only going to see more and more conflict. That freaks some folks out, creating “toxic stress” in their lives. As someone whose world-view was formed by Robert E. Howard, Cormac McCarthy and James Carlos Blake, I don’t find this a stressful thought at all. We’re just living in the normal human condition. It’s kind of exhilarating, actually, because it clarifies matters, and helps to cut through the cacophony of political and cultural noise we are daily subjected to . Best to prepare for the fallout of inevitable conflict, protect your people — your people, not a vague polity of “the people” — and recognize that man and all his works are ever doomed to rise, fall and die.
Craig Rullman says
Great post. There is tremendous benefit to adopting a Han Solo approach to life. Fly the falcon, get a big hairy buddy, blow the checkpoints, anger smugglers and princesses alike. Empires and rebellions come and go, and Han Solo–the ultimate frontier partisan–lives on in infamy.
JimC says
Hah! Ain’t it the truth? I was 11 when Star Wars came out. I didn’t care a whit about Luke Skywalker. I wanted to be Han Solo!
lane batot says
The heck with the human characters; I wanted to be a Wookie! And after I had perpetrated quite a few Bigfoot sightings with my shabby(and shaggy) handmade gorilla suit(MY form of high-risk teen-age shenanigans), I feel I fulfilled that desire completely(and somehow survived, in a day when everyone in the South where I lived had a pick-up with a fully occupied gun rack in the rear window! One must indeed be invincible while still a teen-ager!). Please take any Sasquatch reports from North Carolina and Georgia circa late 1970’s /early 1980’s with a large grain of salt…….
JimC says
i’m glad to have all of that finally explained…
deuce says
‘Such findings often elicit obligatory pieties about how we “should have moved beyond all that” or that “we have to understand it in order to stop it.” Good luck with that.’
Exactly. They need to throw away their Locke, Rousseau and Marx — none of whom they’ve likely read directly — and read Jack London and Robert E. Howard (or Margaret Mitchell). If they want the straight science, just read Pinker’s THE BLANK SLATE. Human minds aren’t tabula rasas, not by a damned sight. We’re hardwired to be heirarchical, tribalistic and violent. Ignoring that just rolls the grenade down the road…to an ammo dump.
JimC says
Should have included London in my list. Love the “rolling the grenade down the road into an ammo dump.”
deuce says
I put Mitchell in there for readers from the distaff side. O’Hara in the novel is actually a pretty tough broad living through very rough times.
On an upbeat note, humans are hardwired to find certain things beautiful:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/books/chapters/chapter-art-instinct.html
Unfortunately for the modernists, it ain’t what they’re peddling. Humans can’t be scolded into finding ugliness appealing. Not in the long run.
JimC says
Excellent and salient point, Deuce.
Matthew says
When I was younger, I wanted to be Luke Skywalker. Nowadays, I want to be Han Solo.
American politics has always been messed up. Oh, it almost always been better than most countries, too. I’m not sure it’s even going to be as bad people say. Just because things aren’t perfect people get upset.
Before working on Jonah Hex, Timothy Truman worked with John Ostrander on a comic called Grimjack. There’s a line in the comic where Grimjack is being threaten by some one in a powerful position. He tells him…”Where I come from, we protect ourselves and our own, from any and all comers, with whatever means.”
JimC says
Truman comes from the hills from frontier stock. he describes his politics as 1920s liberal, which makes sense. And he means what he says through that character.
Matthew says
It was actually probably John Ostrander who came up with the line. Though Truman was a bigger influence on the character than many comic artists. Though Ostrander has always maintained that Truman had an influence than just designing the character (which is pretty important in itself.) I believe he actually had his contract rewritten so Truman could get co-creator credit.
deuce says
The article linked reminds me that I need to try and narrow down where “Swords of the Red Brotherhood” took place. Black Vulmea is easily one of the great “American” fictional frontier partisans. From the Gulf of Mexico to the California coast. On foot and without a pistol. REH actually raised the odds against him compared to Conan in “The Black Stranger”. Conan crossed one-third the distance and spent part of it a captive.
JimC says
Yes you do. I’ll publish that!
Matthew says
I read the first Black Vulmea tale somewhere and of course The Black Stranger, but Red Brotherhood. I need to read that and Ilse of Pirate’s Doom.
Valeria was also the Red Brotherhood and it apparently lasted until long after the Hyborian Age. Does anyone know if Red Brotherhood was a real term for Pirates?
deuce says
You can read the two Vulmeas and “Isle” here:
http://freeread.com.au/@rglibrary/RobertEHoward/REH-Vulmea/@Vulmea.html
I think the chances of the Red Brotherhood lasting from the Hyborian Age to the 1600s is mighty slim. As in anorexic. REH liked to reuse terms sometimes. I’ve never found a historical use of “Red Brotherhood” in relation to the pirates of the Main, but REH might’ve found an inspiration in the term, “Brethren of the Coast”.
Matthew says
Thanks.
Thom Eley says
Great article. There is a paper that I have somewhere about Lewis & Clark and game abundance. In the Great Plains they found lots of food–bison, deer, pronghorn, etc. and the Indians were at War so no one was out hunting as you’re liable to end up dead. When L&C came down the Columbia River, they found little game and local folks were not willing to share their food. The local people were at peace so people went out hunting for game, thus the lack of game. L&C had to eat dogs and almost starved along the Columbia.
JimC says
You’ve mentioned that book before. Sounds fascinating.
Greg Marshall says
Did they not also have some fairly rigid dietary prejudices that almost killed them when they wintered over at the mouth of the Columbia?
I seem to remember that they wouldn’t consume fish or shellfish in the quantities needed to sustain themselves, preferring instead to hunt for almost non-existent deer.
Or is my memory failing.
On the plains, if I recall correctly, they were eating meat in immense quantities that we would not even consider today.
JimC says
I dunno about that Greg. I can put away a LOT o’ meat! Some of the descriptions of mountain man buffalo feasts are like food porn…
Think I’ve read something about L&C and shellfish. Will check it out. Think I’m going to pick up that book Thom has mentioned.
Brent McGregor says
The older one becomes the less important the image in the mirror becomes. We humans measure time in a funny way.
deuce says
Jim, it just occurred to me that Earle’s “Ashes to Ashes” gives Shelley’s “Ozymandias” and Howard’s “The Dark Barbarian” a run for their money, rough-hewn as it is.
It’s a pity that Tolkien, who was a fair poet, never put into verse his belief that all the works of Man are doomed to fall. We do have this:
“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo.
“So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
JimC says
One of my favorite passages.
deuce says
Oops. Rahter than “The Dark Barbarian”, I meant “A Word From the Outer Dark”, which has the phrase, “the dark barbarian” within it.
http://howardworks.com/versew.html#A_WORD_FROM_THE_OUTER_DARK
Paul McNamee says
I think a lot of our “toxic stress” is a simple result of putting this toxicity in our societal bloodstream 24hrs per day via Internet headlines and cable news.
I’ve been divided about this since Trump took office. On the one hand, we ignore him at our peril. On the other hand, he thrives on attention. He is absolutely of the school ‘any publicity is good publicity.’ So, maybe the best way to deal with him is to ignore him (for the most part) and let him stamp his feet in the corner.
https://nyti.ms/2luuWIW
We make our own monsters.
JimC says
It’s a tough line to walk. For me, it comes down to “What actually effects my people — family, friends, community — and what can I actually DO that is productive?” Toxic stress does come from the constant drip (or deluge) — and also from a sense of inability to act to alter the circumstances that are stressing you. At least for me, ACTING both alleviates and inures me against stress. And, it turns out, the things that I can act upon on the national stage are virtually zero — so it behooves me to focus less on them and more on things I can reach.
I don’t want to pretend like I’ve got this knocked. I can get spun up about the character and temperament of Doneald the Unready with the best of ’em, and throw a good rage at Cultural Bolsheviks while I’m at it. And it accomplishes nothing and leaves me feeling physically ill (toxic). For me, the best thing I can do is to live my life and produce my work in a manner that serves as a rebuke to the cultural forces I despise (left and right) and also serves as inspiration and reinforcement for the like-minded and like-souled. I choose to believe that this has a positive effect — and I KNOW I feel much, much better when I follow that path.
Paul McNamee says
“For me, the best thing I can do is to live my life and produce my work in a manner that serves as a rebuke to the cultural forces I despise (left and right) and also serves as inspiration and reinforcement for the like-minded and like-souled. I choose to believe that this has a positive effect — and I KNOW I feel much, much better when I follow that path.”
I am moving in that direction. 🙂
pirateking says
Cultural Marxism is kinda a ridiculous concept; I get that liberals can be weenies and a wee bit obnoxious (I’m one) but there’s no conspiracy to spread communism in education. That reeks of conspiracy theory nonsense to me.
Also as blasphemous as it sounds I rather liked Luke. Luke has reasons to be whiny but he grows magnificently and is in a great place. He realizes the world can be a shitty place but he still has his idealism. That’s actually a good stance. Believe in the best of people (we kinda need to cooperate and get along or else we all die) but be willing to acknowledge the ugliness
JimC says
Have to disagree with you there, PirateKing. There WAS, during the Cold War, a deliberate effort on the part of Soviet-aligned ideologues to undermine capitalism and the West through the education system. It’s not an organized or directed thing now, but the outlook and some of the methodology has persisted; it has become part of the atmosphere.
Also, look into the Frankfurt School — critical theory.
It is not necessarily “conspiracy,” per se, but a convergence of interests among ideologically aligned elements hostile to capitalism and the West.
Brian says
I’ve been reading your blog for a few weeks since a google search for John Milius led me here. I’m also a huge fan of Robert E. Howard and Simon Kenton.
This post (and several of the comments) are exactly what I’ve needed lately. Thank you, and keep up the great work!
JimC says
Welcome, Brian. Thanks for stopping by the campfire.
john roberts says
Note that they could only analyze trauma that left marks on bone. An arrow in your liver might not leave lasting marks, but you die just as dead. A flesh wound almost anywhere could lead to death from infection or blood loss. The death rate from violent trauma may have been far higher than the 11% cited in the article.
JimC says
As always, an excellent and pertinent observation. Punch the number up to 15-17 percent and it’s kind of horrifying.
Wayne says
Find a copy of Under the Mountain Wall: A Chronicle of Two Seasons in the Stone Age by the late Peter Matthiessen. It’s the story of true Stone Age people encountered by the Harvard-Peabody Expedition to New Guinea in 1961. Intertribal conflict is as old as, make that older than, our species, and has been well documented. Keep your powder dry.
JimC says
Excellent.
Wayne says
You can watch the companion documentary at: http://www.fandor.com/films/dead_birds
JimC says
Thanks for that.
J.F. Bell says
If you’ll forgive what may be a diversion…
There’s an interesting conundrum I’ve encountered in my years poking around in the history of American West. I’ve run into this in discussions, during stretches of research, and more than once in a semi-diligent effort at putting together works of fiction. It’s difficult to nail down at times exactly what the problem entails. My suspicion falls largely to a half-century of popular culture on which I’d like to focus for a minute
To wit…there seem to be multiple camps where Westerns are concerned. There are those who want their black hat/white hat showdown on main street. There are those who want a revisionist story of the underdog against forces that will eventually overwhelm and very likely destroy the hero. And in the smallest minority are those who’ll accept a good story, regardless its makeup, tropes, or ideology.
The problem with the first two is the need for a clearly-defined party of the righteous – there’s a designated Good Guy, whomever he may be, and so every hand set against his must by default be that of the Bad Guy.
To be Good, the Good Guy must qualify against a litany of factors and attributes; he must be morally upright, bathe weekly, express proper deference to the womenfolk, attend church every Sunday, feed stray dogs, mentor an orphan, donate most of his proceeds to charity…ad nauseum ad infinitum. The Bad Guy doesn’t have to do much but exist. The Good Guy slot already filled, he defaults to become evil and can spend the remainder of the plot glaring and twisting his mustache until his appointed time of death at the hands of Our Hero, the Good Guy.
This is fine, save it overlooks the simple point that beyond a certain level people are bastards. That most of us can probably count on fingers and toes the number of people that matter enough we’d shed blood defending, or drive all night across the state to help, or buy a hamburger with our last five dollars.
Some would argue this is modernity at its worst. That somehow in the past twenty or thirty years we’ve wandered out of Eden to become cynical and jaded and untrusting of strangers.
Except that anybody with a genuine love for history will know otherwise. How many small civilizations disappeared because their conquerors didn’t bother to commemorate their vanquished? In turn, how many of those were vanquished themselves and lost to the modern record? How did the stone-age equivalent of gang warfare shape the world we know today? Surely the dead preferred existing to not, whatever good that did them.
Or we could continue looking back and westward through Technicolor lenses and sigh about the way things used to be, those few decades back on lot in Hollywood. Except we can’t ever seem to place this missing Golden Age of ours. Not our time. Our parents? No, they suspect it must have been during grandpa’s day. Only grandpa doesn’t think so. His parent’s time, perhaps. And so on and so forth until we run out of first-hand references and realize our search has landed us in the middle of a war, or an Inquisition, or a potato famine during which we can say life was decidedly NOT better than now.
This is particularly well demonstrated by the character of Ellis (Barry Corbin) in No Country for Old Men, put rather succinctly late in the movie when Sheriff Ed Tom Bell goes to ask after a violently dispatched relation and ponders whether or not the world has gotten worse. In response, Ellis can only shake his head and surmise that no…we’ve pretty much always been this way.
Of course humanity’s bastardly tendencies ought not be the sole focus of storytelling or history either, but the unwary and willfully uneducated ignore them at their own peril.
JimC says
Much to chew on — and nicely written as well. In the next couple of days I’ll have a post on my own “loss of innocence” in the arena of frontier history. What happens when a little kid who loves Davy Crockett starts reading…
Lines up very well with your comment.
J.F. Bell says
I’m just glad I found a place that lines up with my interests and where that kind of thinking doesn’t put one on the wrong side of the fence. I’ve been a couple of boards where that wasn’t the case.
I’m afraid y’all might be stuck with me a while.
JimC says
Most pleased to have you at the campfire.