(For the next few weeks, I will be writing only in English. A professor I had told me - about a zillion years ago- that writing was the second skill you lose more easily if you don't practice: she was right. So hey, if you are going to read the whole entry, feel free to comment AND correct any mistake you find - I will be grateful. And sore).
Nowadays our identities are incredibly complex: we are defined by our gender, our work, our sexual option(s), the place we were born, the political party we support, the authors we read, the TV series we follow... The list could go on and on ad infinitum. And many of these items change from (little) time to (little) time. In the Neolithic Age, your options were much fewer: you were male or female, young or old, a hunter or a gatherer. Generally, you were an experienced old/ promising young male hunter, or a young female gatherer/ wise old female gatherer. Life was so simple back then (also brutally short, of course). Hunting must have been an often frustrating, life-threatening task. Imagine facing a mammooth/sabre-tooth tiger with a six-feet wooden spear with a sharp stone attached to it, while your mates nod encouragingly behind the rocks. But something of what has reached us tells us about the beauty, the seriousness and the spirituality which surrounded the experience. You cannot have a look at the animals in the cave paintings without feeling there was respect and even some kind of link between the hunters and their prey.
In a family of hunters and specialized gatherers (committed gardeners), I belong to gatherers. I know it is hard to say (if I really had to, would I kill something to eat it?*), but in these modern and comfortable (and totally unfair to the question) circumstances, I am a gatherer. I will never be able to understand how someone can find killing another creature exhilarating and enjoyable. Sympathizers of hunters out there (should there be any), just three words: sublimation of instinct. Absolutely beaten by Oedipus's complex in popular knowledge terms, Freud's other theoretical construct is used to refer to the means culture offers to human beings in order to deal with instict. This instict, otherwise focused, could lead to potentially disruptive or dangerous behaviour. Competitiveness, will to win, "in-your-face"attitude could end in physical confrontation. When sublimated, it is called sport. Talking about potentially disruptive or dangerous behaviour, now think about who has kept on hunting, together with heavy drinking -and abusing more sophisticated substances-, and of course, having sex to non-reproductive ends. Hunting, drinking and sex have been the pastimes of the males of the higher classes since the very beginning. When sublimated, it is called "looking for porn while having a beer". Just a thought.
* Does earthworms and insects count? Not that I am a vegetarian, but I am really slow.
2 years ago
2 comments:
Hi there, I came to feed your goldfish and realized you've just posted!
I agree about the writting and will give it a try (actually I'm trying to impress your goldfish) and want to share with you some thoughts too...
Briefly:
I've always felt uneasy with the commonly accepted idea that all the gender differences are based on few thousands of years of gender-based chores... honestly? wouldn't it be easier to blame side-effects of different hormonal levels? or anything else?
No anthropologist know what life was like in that time... haven't we been chimps for a longer time? Even among hunter-gatherers living nowdays, aren't there huuuuge differences among groups to cause a selective pressure?
Secondly... it has been suggested that the status of women was higher before the Neolithic, pre-indoeuropean times and such, before the twisted obsession about herding cattle (holy cow!), herding more cattle (sacred bull!) and avoiding your cattle from getting stolen, needing the so-called warriors to defend it ("a man is a sabertooth to another man". -H. neanderthalis).
Third: we've survived a glaciar period, cave bears, cave lions, hyenas... with just sharp stakes and a flint to make fire, and yet in the frigging SPACE ERA unseen demons hunt us every night, like the vicious "recession", the "unemployment", crouching behind every corner, mighty "supermicroorganisms"... I guess there were quite more real dangers before, but once a lurking predator was killed the stress was gone. You'll think about food tomorrow. I guess is all about priorities. Perhaps people try to get that relieving with adrenaline-releasing sports and such (don't know if hunting will release much adrenaline since you don't move around, in my opinion should be the same excitements as getting bulls-eye in darts... or perhaps killing something beautiful will make you feel like a super-macho, I don't know). Sublimation of instinct as you say.
Anyways, I lost my point if there was any.
My best regards and a big big hug for you! Please forgive me if this comment is longer than your post.
Anonymously yours,
Anonymous
P.S.: is there anything more sublime than a guy watching porn and drinking bear? ;)
P.S.2: I haven't rechecked my grammar, my apologies for the outrageous mistakes! please, don't poke your eyes out! what's that's noise? is the Oxford Dictionary crying? Sorry!
Thanks for your lovely long comment, A. I read something about evolution during coffee break today (am I an intellectual or what?), and a sentence caught my attention: "... when was a human born from something/someone not strictly human?". So, yes, we have been chimps for far a longer time, and yes, I do not subscribe the opinion which says that tasks back then were a question of gender (that's why I used the adverb "generally"). And yet, I listened to two paleonthologists who work in Atapuerca the other day, and they assumed quite naturally that men = hunters and women = gatherers. Made me think. I agree: life was simpler and it must have been lovely some times, but still... Imagine having to pee in the middle of the night knowing that outside there may be mighty beasts waiting to get you. OK. Stupid question :)
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