Are Modern Humans Domesticated?

[Col. Tartleton]

An interesting thought I had. Thought it might make an interesting discussion about nature, nurture, and selective breeding.

[Earl Dibbles Jr]

Domestication is part of civilization. We are domesticated as we don't resort to our animal instincts on most matters. We also don't use reasoning in most manners, we go with what our 'masters' tell us, be it our circle of friends, the government, etc. Every generation becomes more and more domesticated. We're almost at the point of the "hive mind", being told what to like, what to wear, etc.

I'm completely against it. The whole idea of collectivism and 'domesticating' the populace doesn't sit easy with me. If you have the time I'd suggest reading this, http://www.nasonart.com/personal/lif...ntainhead.html

“The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary."

[Gaidin]

Domestication is part of civilization. We are domesticated as we don't resort to our animal instincts on most matters. We also don't use reasoning in most manners, we go with what our 'masters' tell us, be it our circle of friends, the government, etc. Every generation becomes more and more domesticated. We're almost at the point of the "hive mind", being told what to like, what to wear, etc.

I'm completely against it. The whole idea of collectivism and 'domesticating' the populace doesn't sit easy with me. If you have the time I'd suggest reading this, http://www.nasonart.com/personal/lif...ntainhead.html

“The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary."

For someone who's totally against domestication you live a pretty damn domesticated life. I, for one, love the irony.

[Earl Dibbles Jr]

For someone who's totally against domestication you live a pretty damn domesticated life. I, for one, love the irony.

I wasn't aware that you know every facet of my life.

[Roma_Victrix]

I tell ya, I'd like to domesticate that gorgeous little Eva Green you've got there in your avatar pic, Colonel.

[sumskilz]

I think some of the genes that contribute to recklessly violent behavior may have been selected against by civilization. For example, the two repeat version of the so-called warrior gene occurs the least in populations that have had longer histories of well-developed centralized states. Certain populations have also become more adapted to eating farmed rather than hunted food.

[Condottiere 40K]

Predictability, both in behaviour and the ability to forecast likely outcomes. Predictable behaviour allows the creation of a social structure, and forecasting deciding the best course of action to get the desired results.

[Lord of Lost Socks]

If you consider this an interesting topic I'c suggest reading Black Man by Richard K. Morgan. A sci-fi cyberpunk novel about this topic exactly. It's called Thirteen in USA because Black Man is too awkward a title there.

[sumskilz]

It's called Thirteen in USA because Black Man is too awkward a title there.

[SinerAthin]

Domestication and collectivism aren't necessarily bad traits.

After all, the nation with a higher level of solidarity is more likely to survive disasters that would break the back of weaker nations.


Humans conquered the world not just due to their intellect, but due to their ability to work together on such an effective scale. It's something to be proud of

[RubiconDecision]

Technically speaking, the postmodern period is the 1920's and beyond. The modern period is from the 1600's up to the 1920's. It's why I mention postmodernism a lot while other people use the "modern" term in an incorrect manner.

I'd say that 21st Century man is quite a bit different than his 1920's ancestor and so that creates very genuine issues in his soul. A discussion of women from both periods would be quite different as that's a return to some semblance of freedom apart from the term of domesticity, but not without a lot of new problems. I'm a feminist in that I believe in autonomy and self-determininism for women (have to be one as a father to many daughters), but also see that it's a misshapen pearl as a paradigm that sees no linkage to men as part of that emancipation.

So, let's talk about guys:

Guys are not domesticated in the postmodern period, but emasculated. So it's precisely like a neutered Tom cat who scowls when married because he remembers that he once felt freedom, albeit for a extraordinarily brief period from age 16 - 22, but then he immediately lost that freedom once working for the Man and selling out for better economic security, and perhaps part of this was in order to wed someone.


It's entirely possible to be a free man but it means a lot of hard labor, both sweat and effort, but also literally giving birth to a new creation. We're not intended to work in offices, but to sweat, grow things, raise animals, be able to ride a horse, swing a sword, shoot a rifle, build a house, paint a picture, etc. What we settle for is an abomination for it's nothing like manhood in history.

One can easily allow themselves to be castrated but why do so? Is cable or satellite television, all the porn you can find, burgeoning bellies because of excess enough to assuage the instinct of being a man? No, but most guys don't get that until they get past 40.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man
The Man is a sixties term for an authority figure that humanity worked for, but that we forgot (at least in America) that we were a Republic and that power flowed from our natural rights to the government, not the other way around. It's why "Hey, Man." was used as a greeting, for it was a reminder that a young person was a Man, not a disempowered neutered being as a worker bee, not a mindless automaton in a factory assembly line, but as a person who saw their power and would take it back. Something that was very important to every minority group, but also to young men in general who saw themselves being cannonfodder in Vietnam.

Robert Bly wrote about this in Iron John, a book that was despised by the Left because the Left hates men and most often emasculates men, especially those of Western European ancestry who are men, for they feel that white men are the oppressors or women and minorities. What garbage. Read it yourself and see why Robert Bly was trying to recapture Iron John for a new generation.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Jo...Book_About_Men

The Tale of Iron Hans can be freely read here and I think as a postmodern guy, the story will resonate with you:
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/grimm136.html

Now it's 2014, and honestly we're beyond postmodernism, and ready for a new paradigm for men. It's possible we could appropriate the old ideas of being a man, still accept civilization as part of our identity, and forge a new amalgam identity.

[sumskilz]

Guys are not domesticated in the postmodern period, but emasculated.

[Copperknickers II]

Technically speaking, the postmodern period is the 1920's and beyond. The modern period is from the 1600's up to the 1920's. It's why I mention postmodernism a lot while other people use the "modern" term in an incorrect manner.

Now it's 2014, and honestly we're beyond postmodernism, and ready for a new paradigm for men. It's possible we could appropriate the old ideas of being a man, still accept civilization as part of our identity, and forge a new amalgam identity.

Last I checked, 'modern' means relating to present times, in the lower case.

And no, we are not domesticated, we have never been consciously selectively bred. This said, we do require house training.

[Nikitn]

Unless some kind of master is using us for his purposes, no we are not domesticated per definition.

Though thinking about it, perhaps somebody who follows the rules solely because he fears the consequences of not following them, can be seen as "domesticated" by society.

[RubiconDecision]

As long as people think that freedom merely means having the purchasing power to buy more gadgets like Google Glasses and not have true self-determination, then they are not really free. They are debt-slaves who have been entirely domesticated to work for the Man and not men themselves. You're naive to think you're free if you cannot grow food, own a home, live out your passions in a moral way, complete an education of strong critical thinking, can defend your natural rights, practice your beliefs, etc.

I don't want to live in a world where we're neutered house pets who only pretend to be free. If you think you're free, you're probably not free. If you can't exist on your own in the wild, you're not free. If you can only live at the mercy of others, or live in such a way as to be truly restricted by others, then you're not free either.

Only someone who's been deprived of their freedom, or at least seen a taste of it, can probably achieve freedom by seizing it. You can't make another a free man; they must earn it for it to be meaningful.

[RubiconDecision]

People who claim not to be domesticated, probably are. If you picked your spouse based upon what pleased your parents and upbringing, then you probably are a product of selective breeding and might perpetuate the cycle.

Look in the mirror and do some real self-examination about your abilities as a Man. You're not a man if you can't fulfill the requirements that Men had for the millennia before you came into existence. How many can you tick off as plausible qualities of being a man that a pioneer man could do?

Some postmodern people with a phallus will alter the attributes and abilities and say they are men. I scoff at this. Sure new things come about, but are they masculine attributes at all?

If a father to a son or sons, please help them recapture their masculinity, not in an anachronistic way, but a genuine way. For society loathes men while raising up the feminine, so much so that it's almost criminal to be a man today. If you're a Man, then people will likely think of you as a criminal or a sociopath when actually you're the very image of masculinity throughout time.

Being a Man is not a curse, but a blessing.

If you're a young man and reading this, learn the facts about history, and don't accept another idiot who tells you to check your privilege or some other nonsense.

[Himster]

If you picked your spouse based upon what pleased your parents and upbringing, then you probably are a product of selective breeding and might perpetuate the cycle.

Look in the mirror and do some real self-examination about your abilities as a Man. You're not a man if you can't fulfill the requirements that Men had for the millennia before you came into existence.

That is precisely what our ancestors did for Millennia, organized marriages was standard practices.

Anyway, yes, we're domesticated, most essentially through linguistic conditioning, we can't even conceptualize beyond our language, which is in turn a product of our society, our history, our culture. Our morals, science, art....... everything we think and do is not a product of the individual, we're funnels through which our history and culture is shoved and pushed by merciless, relentless time. The individual, the true individual with no influence from companions or human/social/cultural contact has no language, has no capacity for conceptual thought or a need for expression of any kind and is truly free, truly undomesticated: We are not true individuals, we're shaped by parents, friends, language, society, history. We are shaped individually by individual experiences, sure, but we're not free from certain universal societal "norms" to which we must conform, we can barely even conceptualize an existence without these shaping forces because we can only conceptualize with human language, the main force by which we are all shaped by.

[RubiconDecision]

That is precisely what our ancestors did for Millennia, organized marriages was standard practices.

Anyway, yes, we're domesticated, most essentially through linguistic conditioning, we can't even conceptualize beyond our language, which is in turn a product of our society, our history, our culture. Our morals, science, art....... everything we think and do is not a product of the individual, we're funnels through which our history and culture is shoved and pushed by merciless, relentless time. The individual, the true individual with no influence from companions or human/social/cultural contact has no language, has no capacity for conceptual thought or a need for expression of any kind and is truly free, truly undomesticated: We are not true individuals, we're shaped by parents, friends, language, society, history. We are shaped individually by individual experiences, sure, but we're not free from certain universal societal "norms" to which we must conform, we can barely even conceptualize an existence without these shaping forces because we can only conceptualize with human language, the main force by which we are all shaped by.

Such is the double edged sword of civilization, which results in specialization in order to best fit the needs of the community. You can go back to medieval serfdom and see that arise in the capitol cities at a real cost to being well rounded. Some would probably argue that this specialization is a good thing that emancipates us from that drudgery, but to me it actually weakens men.

We've recreated the nobility as a result of education and capitalism. We just don't call it that. We pretend that everyone is free and on an even playing field. A cursory look at politics demonstrates the fallacy of that with major representation of the same families over and over again.

Specialization is a curse especially present day. The separation of various jobs like butchering animals means a detachment of the cost of raising animals or hunting them. It's meat as a commodity instead of at a cost to the individual. When men stopped working outside, finding their way in the wilderness, then they became detached to it. The wilderness became scenery not the ecosystem in which they lived. There's no respect for Nature.

Postmodern man is persistently depressed by his situation. We take mood elevating drugs, drink, watch mindless entertainment, in order to forget how unhappy we all are. In previous history we would have made attempts to remedy that situation by adventures and homesteading.

Think about it this way: how many drug addicts or drunks are there when you have to raise the drugs or harvest enough crops and distill or ferment them in order to get high? Not many. Those industries came with specialization in order to create docility among the worker bees.

From the period of 1947-2000, for the most part, men had much more income and an ability to save it, purchase real estate, take vacations, and this managing of wealth made the common man feel more free especially in Western Civilization. Now post-GATT and NAFTA, with high persistent unemployment, no jobs over the horizon, less and less ability to purchase homes, then postmodern man is in a terrible position regarding their freedom. The illusions that made people feel free through the perceived autonomy of middle class wealth is being eradicated. Specialization results in the unemployed having little to zero practical skills to care for themselves. Persistent unemployment fosters a welfare state and a decline in home ownership results in lower property taxes and lower income taxes.

It's ain't good, folks. That's not freedom.
...
Look at this article about the change in postmodern male strength versus the ancients. It's no comparison. Domesticity and emasculanization has resulted in overall weakness. You would think in terms of better nutrition, vitamin and mineral supplementation, more access to protein, etc that we would be healthier. Wrong.
http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/f...ars-of-farming
http://www.outsideonline.com/fitness...as-Fallen.html

[Ima Farmathar]

Think about it this way: how many drug addicts or drunks are there when you have to raise the drugs or harvest enough crops and distill or ferment them in order to get high? Not many. Those industries came with specialization in order to create docility among the worker bees.

I agree with your post, but this is , I am acquainted with the forests of Mexico and their people, places deep in the mountains with no electricity, barley any roads, were water comes from wells, streams, and natural springs. Regions so remote the locals first language is Nahua. Their livelihood consists of farming, seasonal gathering of forest products, and eventual production of oak charcoal for sale in nearby towns. Alas a large majority are already drinking by noon. Pulque is extremely cheap to make, and when your main activity consist on growing corn on 1 or 2 hectares, and exploiting a similar stretch of forest you have a lot of free time.
On the plus side some of the forest products they gather would be quite costly for a civilized person to acquire, like for example tricholoma fungi, river shrimps, etc...

[RubiconDecision]

I agree with your post, but this is , I am acquainted with the forests of Mexico and their people, places deep in the mountains with no electricity, barley any roads, were water comes from wells, streams, and natural springs. Regions so remote the locals first language is Nahua. Their livelihood consists of farming, seasonal gathering of forest products, and eventual production of oak charcoal for sale in nearby towns. Alas a large majority are already drinking by noon. Pulque is extremely cheap to make, and when your main activity consist on growing corn on 1 or 2 hectares, and exploiting a similar stretch of forest you have a lot of free time.
On the plus side some of the forest products they gather would be quite costly for a civilized person to acquire, like for example tricholoma fungi, river shrimps, etc...

I believe these circumstances are the exception and not the rule. Back in the eighties there was a book about a young man who elected to live among the pygmies for a couple of years, and he reported a similar incident of natives creating a fermented brew from a tree. Such fermented beverages tend to be of low proof and lack preservatives in order to keep them. Higher proof beverages will of course cut down on spoilage but this requires thermometers for distillation, with dangerous alternative substances besides ethanol "coming over" and blindness resulting from biochemical conversion to formaldehyde in the optic nerve (methanol poisoning was common).

Most of the indigenous and the pioneers didn't ferment but seasonally fermented products that resulted in less than 10 percent ethanol, and only by doing a lot of work harvesting it. Why? Those homesteading folks or rural villagers knew that if they drank the fermented beverages they couldn't eat the starchy foods instead or the fermented fruits that allowed them to be made. For all practical purposes, the amount of beverages that can be made are small in most cases.

Think about it this way, prior to this level of domestication creating specialization, then a villager would largely be responsible for growing or raising the amount of food they needed. That's a lot of work. Certain villagers excelled at making some material, and so people who made charcoal by starving burning hardwood, then watching it for days in a buried smoldering mound would then subsequently trade it. Still they did that SEASONALLY based upon being freed up from other seasonal harvest of materials. Any specialized task requires it be to harvested, and since it's used up then deciding how much time to invest in it and determining the best way of managing the time, talent, and materials to produce it.

Sure, one could raise opium, but unless one has a market for it, can transport it, and fend off robbers of it, then it's fruitless. It's only fruitful when organized human activity through domestication. By analogy, there was no pharmaceutical business truly in America prior to say 1910, with most materials being spurious or at least of dubious medicinal value. On the other hand, herbalism from common locally grown plants was an important aspect of the local healing within families, for the local midwife, and if lucky, then the occasional doctor who brewed up his/her own herbal products.

Lots of herbalists discovered intoxicating effects, but actual experimentation often brought about severe illness, toxic long lasting effects, or death through misadventure. Some rather common substances were used to get high, but not to the detriment of actually day-to-day work. If one didn't work, then one starved.

Every Peace Corp volunteer likely knows how to make raisin wine. It's not in the best interest of a volunteer to purchase intoxicating substances from the locals as it could detract from their mission, and being three or four days from the nearest city by canoe, horse, much less actually catching a ride in vehicle, then purchasing ethanol is unlikely. Again, this is very limiting activity based upon low ethanol produced versus the calories lost in the endeavor versus the cost in trade items.

Early pioneers right away experimented to make their mash if they had the know-how, but most often created low proof ethanol from wine sources, even using maple syrup, persimmons, berries, wild grapes, apple scrumpy, or bringing over plants from the Old World. All of which is very limited in resources as it takes time to grow an orchard and very limited amounts of locally found wild edibles can be utilized to produce wine. You drank what you made as glass bottles and corks are not locally found materials. So they could get a mild buzz, but in a very limited way and seasonally, and for a brief amount of time. What little you made was of a value that unless one had an endless amount of material, it didn't make sense to trade.
...
Organized human activity that allows but a few cash crops for trade is the worst kind of domesticity, as it often creates the horrible situation that local villagers are competing against one another to grow those few cash crops (like coffee), results in toiling towards that money in the hopes of trading for their food and supplies, and plant diseases and famine can wipe out those villagers.

Again, this degree of specialization is the worst of domestication. Those same villagers could easily grow their food, and had done so, but they believed that a single cash crop would better their lives. Likewise postmodern humans believe that becoming very specialized leads to financial success, but at the cost of knowing the old skills that might save them when unemployed. Do it for a few generations, and the present generation has no idea how to build a fire, grow a crop, irrigate it, harvest it, build a shelter, build baskets, waddle and daub, dig a well, purify water, etc.

It's not that we shouldn't specialize and get very good at a task, but that we shouldn't lose what our ancestors worked so hard to learn. It's a respect of both, but realizing that domestication is going on...and that we've become just as domesticated as house cats.

Are you stronger if you can do both or do one specialized thing? Both of course. A wise human being lives in harmony with the Earth and sees the value of knowing how to do ancestral skills, but also educates themselves to suit their passions. The most feeble idea is one can learn a trade or occupation well enough to get wealthy. Very few professionals can do this and that's entirely based upon the need for their position and paid for by the shrinking middle class.

The fact of the matter is that someone like a physician once could get wealthy by diversification of services and having a practice with multiple physicians and with physician's assistants. Post-Obamacare more and more physicians are elected to retire and I seriously doubt that this once noble profession which demanded 100+ hour weeks will be as fruitful an occupation. In reality, a good majority of physicians made money not from their practices, but from their lines of credit and investments, and their frugality and willingness to delay their normal adult lives (married and having children) post-30 as they finally graduated and able to make an amount of money to support that effort.
...
So what's the answer? Probably local production of materials from specialized labor results in the greatest amount of economic success. That's true for America and that's true for China. When one region can produce materials at a much cheaper rate, then in the past some level of protections meant a much higher prices for those products but the stability for the workers. If another country wants success, then the slow rise of their own industry to produce locally is the most stable way of economic success as well.

How will China fare if the USA's middle class dwindles to nothing? Sure they can sell their products elsewhere, but at a certain point the loss of jobs results in the death of the customer base. It's extremely short-sighted thinking.

Buying and investing locally is going to the best strategy most of the time, with exchange of raw materials occurring.

As it stands now, the average wages of an American do not amount to a sufficient level to purchase a median home. That's a reversal of the 1947-2000 period and truly the death knell of the middle class. So either one can reject this paradigm, pray to be one of the lucky ones (probably in healthcare occupations or engineering) and perhaps have home ownership, or perhaps decide upon old ways of creating wealth slowly to pass down real estate in order to preserve wealth as well.