Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting my cousin in San Francisco, and he took me to the Greek Theatre in Berkeley to see the band Rüfüs Du Sol. I am not really much of a concert person, so this was a fairly new experience for me. One of the biggest impressions it had on me was that a modern concert is a highly refined experience. It left me thinking about the cultural origins of that kind of thing.
Shortly after this experience, some of my questions were answered in a review of the book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test recently written by Scott Alexander. What a stroke of coincidence that this review by one of my favorite bloggers about a book chronicling important events in the history of San Francisco drug culture comes out right after I start thinking about the subject!
Anyway, read it, highly recommended.
But I want to go in a slightly different direction. This kind of thing seems to have its origins in the 50’s and 60’s, but I think it actually goes further back than that…much further back.
In fact, the whole experience reminded me of vague recollections I have of various accounts of the Medicine Dance rituals of various hunter-gatherer cultures. If you want to catch up a little bit more about what a Medicine Dance is, take a look at this article. But, in short, it used to be a mainstay of many hunter-gatherer cultures that people would get together around a big fire, to sing, dance, take drugs and sometimes go into a trance.
Sounds kind of like a modern concert, right? So why did these things kind of disappear and then reappear in the 60's?
My answer is that the agricultural revolution happened. See here for my recent article that goes into more detail about that. Anyway, once people started living together in bigger groups, with more established hierarchies, a few things happened that made the authorities look down on the Medicine Dance.
First, the whole experience is kind of antithetical to the hierarchy. A Medicine Dance does not promote the kind of Conscientious, submit-to-the-hierarchy mentality. Second, being exposed to a whole crowd of intoxicated young sexual people that are all bumping into each other isn’t a good atmosphere for maintaining strict control of human sexuality.
There is some evidence that our ancient ancestors were perhaps a bit more like bonobos than chimps. In other words, strict monogamy may not have been a universal thing prior to the agricultural revolution (although cultural norms like that probably varied quite a bit). My theory is that once wealth (i.e., land) and status became more heritable, it becomes more important to keep track of genealogy and family identity.
So why the re-emergence of the Medicine Dance now? Well, for one thing, humanity recently discovered a whole bunch of new drugs and the concert scene can be viewed as an offshoot of drug culture.
On the other hand, social conventions are changing because the underlying technology of our culture has changed. The agricultural revolution that led to a 10,000 year rise in hierarchy has recently given way to the information revolution. Now wealth is kept in the form of money and information. Social relationships are much moire fluid, and people aren’t really expected to pass on land and social status to their children (although they still do). So rituals that celebrate wider connections among mankind are all of the sudden relevant again.
Of course, if one looks a little closer you find that these kinds of things have always existed in the background. For example, during the age of the Greek and Roman empires people engaged in Mystery Cults like the Dionysians. Although a lot has been lost regarding the specifics, I think it is safe to say that there was some music and dancing and drugs going on there.
But those kinds of things were done in secret (even if they were wide spread). By the time the 60’s rolled around, the emergence of new stimulants and psychedelics threatened the hierarchy so much that they declared a war on drugs, which still continues to this day.
Still, it seems the tide has turned. The increasing legalization of marijuana is probably going to lead to increasing acceptance of other drugs. Recently, the citizens of Denver voted to decriminalize psychedelic mushrooms. I am pretty sure other communities will follow. But it isn’t just drugs that are being legalized. It’s drug culture, which as I now understand, isn’t just about drugs.
The culture that goes along with drug use, like the ancient Medicine Dance, is associated with certain personality traits and social concepts that just didn’t make sense in the hierarchical society that resulted from Peak Agriculture. It’s a culture of tolerance, openness and transience that made sense in a world of roving bands of hunter-gatherers, and just might make sense again in a world defined by two-year stints at major corporations.
But how does it fit into the world I want to build? Honestly, I’m not sure. One thing I have realized after thinking about these things is that the tribal model I have been developing includes elements of both pre- and post-agricultural models. In a way I have envisioned capitalism to be like a vast Savannah, and a modern tribe wanders through like an ancient hunter-gatherer band.
Inside the tribe, we can pretend we are back in the Stone Age, along with our pre-agricultural brains. But the tribe itself is designed to wander the vast landscape of a modern information-based economy looking for economic opportunities.
What I have realized is that my emphasis on family identity is strongly associated with a sedentary and hierarchical culture. I want to create a farm that can reliably produce the happiest, most intelligent and personality integrated human beings in the most reliable way possible.
So which is it? Is my vision that of a wanderer or a cultivator? If I want a dynasty, then I must embrace the hierarchy. If I really want to buy into the Stone Age, I need a Medicine Dance.
