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Rating: 
Summary: Tough Reading, Great Bottom Line, a Classic
Review:
This is tough reading, in part because the publisher's choice of paper and font are not the best. As one who has previously recommended such books as Lionel Tiger's "The Manufacture of Evil: Ethics, Evolution, and the Industrial System", Norman Cousins "The Pathology of Power", and many other books on the pathologies of treating man as a "good", of scientific objectivity as "value neutral" and therefore bad, of secrecy as counter-productive to "precautionary principle" decision-making, I immediately recognized this book as an integrative work, possibly supplanting all those other books by bringing the various arguments together in one place.
This is indeed a brilliant product by a towering intellect, and it has the bibliography and index that one would expect from a world-class endeavor. I recommend it together with Philip Alott's "The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State", Stewart Brand's "Clock of the Long Now", and John Lewis Gaddis "The Landscape of History". The author's bottom line: not only must we come to grips with how power is managed in every nation and organization, but also we must manage at the *global* level if we are to succeed in optimizing fulfillment at the *individual* level.
Rating:
Summary: Tough Reading, Great Bottom Line, a Classic
Review:
This is tough reading, in part because the publisher's choice of paper and font are not the best. As one who has previously recommended such books as Lionel Tiger's "The Manufacture of Evil: Ethics, Evolution, and the Industrial System", Norman Cousins "The Pathology of Power", and many other books on the pathologies of treating man as a "good", of scientific objectivity as "value neutral" and therefore bad, of secrecy as counter-productive to "precautionary principle" decision-making, I immediately recognized this book as an integrative work, possibly supplanting all those other books by bringing the various arguments together in one place.
This is indeed a brilliant product by a towering intellect, and it has the bibliography and index that one would expect from a world-class endeavor. I recommend it together with Philip Alott's "The Health of Nations: Society and Law beyond the State", Stewart Brand's "Clock of the Long Now", and John Lewis Gaddis "The Landscape of History". The author's bottom line: not only must we come to grips with how power is managed in every nation and organization, but also we must manage at the *global* level if we are to succeed in optimizing fulfillment at the *individual* level.
Rating:
Summary: Powerful analysis of the evolution of human civilization
Review: If I were to list the top ten books of the century, this book would be one of them. Why? Because it dares to answer a question that few others have attempted, a question that is fundamental and vital to our future. It is the question: "What determines the direction in which civilization evolves?" Or, "What explains the overall thrust of history?" Or, "Are we shaping our own destiny, and if not, what is?" Not only does Schmookler dare to address the question, but the answer he comes up with is equal to the dimensions of the task. If you think that the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is adequate for explaining the history of civilization, this book is not for you. If you think that everything is made crystal clear by the Marxian analysis of the "material conditions" of life, this book is not for you. If you believe that spirit-beings elsewhere in the universe are guiding us toward some wonderful end, this book is not for you. But if you think big, and are ready for a magnificent, breathtaking, and sobering view of humanity's course, based on best-science research into prehistory and panoramic interdisciplinary insights, you will come to cherish this book. I, for one, am glad that it has a poetic title, The Parable of the Tribes, and not just an academic title such as its subtitle, The Problem of Power in Social Evolution, because the sweep of the book includes but encompasses more than straight intellectual analysis. It tells the human story, our story, with all the poignant, tragic, and hopeful implications. The stroke of genius that powers this book is Schmookler's insight into the broader applicability of Darwin's categories of "diversity" and "selection." In effect, Schmookler has shown that these are categories from the discipline of logic. Darwin's genius was to take these purely logical categories and show how they could be applied to, and did apply to, the natural world, resulting in biological evolution. Schmookler's genius is to free these categories from their usual ties with biology, and to show us how they have operated in human history as the fundamental underlying forces shaping our destiny, for good or ill. Just one of the many themes in this book is that there is a commonsense view that human creativity is what accounts for the diversity in variations of forms of civilization, and that human choice accounts for which of these variations get selected. Hence the idea of simple progress. But we live in a disenchanted era that knows better. Schmookler reminds us that "For a story of improvement, the history of civilization makes rather dismal reading, and as the culmination of ten thousand years of progress the twentieth century is deeply disappointing." (p. 7) Similarly, the "invisible hand" of the free market, where human choice is supposed to reign sovereign, has led to only pockets of prosperity in the world (granted that some are big pockets), and even that prosperity is itself rent with stress. What is it that is systematically distorting our cultures, our civilizations, in directions that we are not deliberately choosing? If we don't gain comprehension of it, how can we ever alter it toward selection of more humane, more intelligent, more loving, more fun variations? The "parable" is that once some human tribe becomes habitually aggressive toward other tribes, all others are eventually forced to adopt the "ways of power." "Eventually" can mean a long time, but the systematic distortion is there. The ways of power seep into every aspect of human life, from relations between men and women to harsh upbringing of children to weapons development to forms of economic exchange. It is part of the wondrousness of this book to make your way through section after section, discovering how yet another broad area of human life is illuminated by the quiet or not-so-quiet struggle for power. In the end, it is a noble vision that is offered by The Parable of the Tribes. It simultaneously engenders compassion for the human race (trapped in the struggle for power), and clears away the confusion and the obfuscation that is part of the problem. The ability to see the human race in its last ten-thousand-year development has only recently become possible, and Schmookler has made it actual. His book gives me hope that we humans can understand our own long history and begin to shape our own destiny for good.
Rating:
Summary: The Origins of Violence
Review: Imagine a group of tribes living within reach of one another. If all choose the way of peace, then all may live in peace. But what if all but one chooses peace? So begins this paradigm-bending book, an elegant theory of social evolution, as well as a brilliant prescription for modern peacemakers. Schmookler not only accounts for the origins of the ancient cycle of human violence, he provides a path from domination, competition, and unilateral decision-making to partnership, cooperation, and multilateralism. As Schmookler guides the reader through possible answers to the parable, it becomes clear that, when faced with violence, whether one chooses to fight back, surrender, or run away, each "solution" tends to spread the power dynamics of violence through the system. Even the most peaceful culture, when forced to defend itself, must shift to that degree of militarism deemed necessary for survival. The liberating message for peacemakers is that violence is neither a hard-wired aspect of human nature nor God the Father's indelible curse on humankind; rather, violence arose as a regrettable solution to human conflicts and has since spread from person to person and culture and culture like a social virus, or meme. By focusing on what Schmookler calls "the problem of power in social evolution," we can chart a new course through personal and political conflicts and find lasting, nonviolent answers to the parable's dilemma. A vital book in the peacemaker's library.
Rating:
Summary: Arguably the Greatest Non-Fiction Book Ever Written
Review: THE PARABLE OF THE TRIBES is an awesome achievement that will completely restore your faith in human nature. The book presents a stunning theory of social evolution every bit as revolutionary as Einstein�s theory of general relativity or Darwin�s theory of natural selection. Like those two previous theories, the PARABLE represents a paradigm-shift in thinking. (My jaw hung open the whole time I was reading.) The book provides a path beyond guilt, shame, and hostility toward love, compassion, and wholeness within the human condition. Ranging over the subjects of psychology, anthropology, religion, and sociology, the book�s implications could not be more sweeping and profound. It presents a breathtaking critique of civilization that shows us how humankind is more the victim and less the instigator of history�s violence and oppression. It disproves the erroneous commonsense view that civilization is merely human nature and human choice writ large. It leads us to understand fully our predicament so that we might solve our problems intelligently. For a couple million years, humanity lived within a fairly circumscribed biological niche. Culture evolved slowly and was in step with biological evolution. Suddenly with the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, social evolution began to outstrip biological evolution. In an unprecedented way, our genetic inheritance came to be out of joint with our environment. Schmookler�s book shows that with the advent of large-scale agriculture, suddenly anarchy came to characterize the inter-societal system. Societies began to compete using the vast new possibilities offered by civilization. A process of selection began, continuing to this day, which favored the ways of power--a process that is utterly indifferent to natural human needs. Ways of being that had been inherently more humane and more sustainable were slowly but surely swept away in favor of cultures and societies wielding ever greater power. Schmookler reveals how Power is a contagion that leaves destruction, despoliation, and misery in its wake. The book also presents possible solutions to this problem of power. The PARABLE will definitely be one of the greatest, most liberating books you'll ever read.
Rating:
Summary: Arguably the Greatest Non-Fiction Book Ever Written
Review: THE PARABLE OF THE TRIBES is an awesome achievement that will completely restore your faith in human nature. The book presents a stunning theory of social evolution every bit as revolutionary as Einstein's theory of general relativity or Darwin's theory of natural selection. Like those two previous theories, the PARABLE represents a paradigm-shift in thinking. (My jaw hung open the whole time I was reading.) The book provides a path beyond guilt, shame, and hostility toward love, compassion, and wholeness within the human condition. Ranging over the subjects of psychology, anthropology, religion, and sociology, the book's implications could not be more sweeping and profound. It presents a breathtaking critique of civilization that shows us how humankind is more the victim and less the instigator of history's violence and oppression. It disproves the erroneous commonsense view that civilization is merely human nature and human choice writ large. It leads us to understand fully our predicament so that we might solve our problems intelligently. For a couple million years, humanity lived within a fairly circumscribed biological niche. Culture evolved slowly and was in step with biological evolution. Suddenly with the agricultural revolution 10,000 years ago, social evolution began to outstrip biological evolution. In an unprecedented way, our genetic inheritance came to be out of joint with our environment. Schmookler's book shows that with the advent of large-scale agriculture, suddenly anarchy came to characterize the inter-societal system. Societies began to compete using the vast new possibilities offered by civilization. A process of selection began, continuing to this day, which favored the ways of power--a process that is utterly indifferent to natural human needs. Ways of being that had been inherently more humane and more sustainable were slowly but surely swept away in favor of cultures and societies wielding ever greater power. Schmookler reveals how Power is a contagion that leaves destruction, despoliation, and misery in its wake. The book also presents possible solutions to this problem of power. The PARABLE will definitely be one of the greatest, most liberating books you'll ever read.
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