Chapter One. The original position and nature of man.

Title of book: Man’s Infinite Agony.

[b] Chapter One. Original Position And Nature Of Man.

                               By Joker.

" All men are born free, but everywhere they are surrounded by chains."

" Like the statue of Glaucus, which was so disfigured by time, seas, and tempests, that it looked more like a wild beast than a God, the human sould altered in society by a thousand causes perpetually recurring, by the acquisition of a multitude of truths and errors, by the changes happening to the constituion of the body, and the continual jarring of the passions, has, so to speak, changed in appearance, so as to be hardly recognizable."

  • Jean Jacques Rousseau.

In ancient societies all able bodies searched for food with everything being shared with individuals by hunting and gathering. There was almost no private property other than clothing if any existed at all with relatively few personal items due to the fact of a social existence that had a relatively small surplus to none at all.

The few things that existed for any length of time was shared through the social collective where the subject or notion of the state was non existent.

Unlike our present there was no obssesion with objects as they would dispose of items quickly in order to move about easily in their nomadic travels. The apparatus of work or production is unheard of as they work by their leisure in sharing everything they posses.

They are entirely prodigal as they consume everything immediately making no economical calculations beyond the momentary necessities that confront them everyday.

The hunter gatherer knows no economics and consequently cares nothing about the exploitation of human energies, natural resources or the possibilities of them as they hold no immediate necessity to their survival.

Their community is one largely of trust in comparison to a state society operated by constant despair and insufficient wild uncontrolable desires.

In contrast our modern economy is filled with radical anxiety in comparison with our value market system.

The improvidence of ancient man with his prodigal characteristics shows real affluence in comparison to our “would be” state systems.

Even through hunger do we see a life fulfilled by our primitive ancestors working together strengthening their social collective ties. The economy of the gift or nature, there only exists the finitie quantity of goods which is sufficient to create communal wealth that constantly passes from on person to another.

Wealth is not extended from the basis of goods but instead exists in the exchange between people.

In the time of ancient man every relationship adds to the communal wealth, where in contrast our state societies that are differential social relationships adds to the individual lack of since all possesions is relativized in the relation to others.

In comparison affluence is destroyed in our present societies with true abundance being entirely lost. The lost affluence will never be restored or created by mere increase in productivity nor will will it happen by unleashing newly inventive productive forces.[/b]

[b]Discussing the origins of ancient man we may say that the first scenario where men came to be active with each other is through geographical territory.

Although they are constantly vulnerable to attack with all pleas being annihilated by others there exists no moral idealisms to stop instant retaliation which is seen as a daily ordinary motion of survival surrounded by the reality of success or failure.

All parties are essentially disinterested in each other beyond survival necessities as noone is willing to have their interests sacrificed to others.

Since there exists no facts at this time of historical consciousness consequently there isn’t much to agree upon beyond survival.

Noone knows their place in society, their class position, or social status; nor does anyone know the distribution of natural assets or abilities.

Noone knows a conception of the good. There exists no particulars of a rational plan of life nor is there any special psychological features such as the aversion to risk or liability- to optimism or pessimism.

All ancient peoples of a commune know nothing of the particular circumstances surrounding their own society beyond tribal lore.

They know nothing of their society’s economical or political situation nor the level of civilization and culture it has been able to achieve.

Since noone knows their situation in society or their assets there can be no position to formulate principles to their advantage.

Somone of power may hold out on goods unless others agree to principles favorable to them but, how do they know which principles are in their interests? The same could be said for groups of power.

Ancient man knows that they themselves have a rational plan of life but knows nothing of the details nor the particular ends or interests it is to promote.

How then do they decide justice amongst themselves? They inflict justice amongst themselves through immoral brute necessity and upon later when the world enters the neolithic age it is transformed by religious custom.

All agreements between ancient peoples become reduced to be unanimious in perpetual motion around appearance.[/b]

[b]Although modern man assumes original man’s main attribute to be passionate giving modern man’s passionate individualism a free pass due to the erroneous view of primordial human passions the modern account is not exact since although the original condition was individualistic it lacked the malicious passion along with all passion in general.

While many deny a original nature in man completely , how can they deny the changes of his constitution?

How can they deny a original nature while describing a fundamental description of man from so many changes and additions added on throughout history?

It becomes clear that they cannot.

In a final description of ancient man we may say that original man had no forms of public life to consider his self entitlement over others because self entitlement beyond his will of survival simply didn’t exist.

It shouldn’t be thought of seeing ancient man as more noble, righteous, or good in a typical romantic way because on the contrary he was amoral and very tied into his predatorial instinct.

In his predatorial instinct amongst prey and his own species there occured not even the slightest emotion or spite, not even the feeling of guilt as morality was unknown since when violence did arise it was nothing more than a mere ordinary natural occurence that happened frequently.

Ancient man’s greatness comes in his unbridled unrestrained freedom to do as he pleased so long as his personal strength persevered in contrast to our passive weak induced moral idealism of our own day that hides behind a million monopolies and several forms of cowardice.

Our age is filled with millions of restrictions and regulations where one is always bombarded to ask special permission for everything in considerance of simply living. From all morality and idealism comes suffering.

In contrast ancient man is naturally good for himself and happily self sufficient. None of his natural inclinations is destructive that is, harmful, illusory, impossible, or contradictory.

Every desire is proportioned to his need and every faculty is proportioned to his desires. All that existed was the joy or grief of success and failure.

The free man only considers his standard of value and in the veil of ignorance that is all ancient primitive man contributed to his existence.

The primitive man always lives in himself readily accepting the world that “Is” the cosmos in comparison to modern man the idealist who always suffers within his constant strife or anxiety through his head staring into the clouds of imagination as to what the cosmos “ought” and “should” be in the total conformance of his sporadic uncontrollable whims.

There is indeed a reality beyond idealism and morality which ancient primitive man illustrates by his living and that reality is primal instinct or emotionism.[/b]

Thoughts would be appreciated. [-X

Joker, I kinda like what you are doing here but I need to go over it again as I’m not totally concentrating right now.

However, so far so good.

Thanks for your compliments.

I hope to see more comments.

Interesting. It’s very Rousseauian in its description of early man.

I particularly liked this bit:

I would also add any conception of ‘static knowledge’ to morality and idealism. Although, ‘static knowledge’ is implicit in your point of morality and idealism, I would encompass more than just morality and idealism in what leads to suffering.

As soon as human beings ground an absolute truth, they trap themselves inside a man-made cage and the inner torment begins. Remember Nietzsche’s description of the man gnawing himself raw in a cage in On the Genealogy of Morals at the inner torment of trying to conform to the ‘social straight-jacket’?

many people say never start a book with a ‘quote.’ Im just joking with you…but ‘they’ really say that.

anyways…

from my take on it you refer to the nomatic ‘man’ as primitive and lacking greed

while modern ‘man’ as those who first settled down, which was about 10,000 years ago.

is this correct?

Yes.

I am sure there is more to our suffering than morality and idealism but I would have to say that they are implicitly a large sum of it.

I like the analogy you used in reference to Nietzsche.

Do you site any sources (other than Rousseau) in the first chapter of your book?

either way

it sounds like a legitament possision to me.

however, I consider ‘man’ to still be ‘primitive’ after ‘man’ ‘settled down’ 10,000 years ago.

“4. Anthropology: Of or relating to a nonindustrial, often tribal culture, especially one that is characterized by a low level of economic complexity”

thefreedictionary.com/primitive

but I will subscribe to the idea of ‘settling down’ leading to man’s charateristic of greed.

Along with Rousseau I am a big fan of John Rawls for two reasons.

  1. His concept of the veil of ignorance.

  2. His account of the original position.

You can find the subject in his book " On the theory of justice."

What I have done here is taken Rousseaunian thought and added it in with Rawls form of thinking along with my account of social nihilism in regards to history.