When Friedrich Engels referred to hunting and gathering societies as "primitive", it was in the technical sense only. Of course, the words "savage" and "barbarian" had unfortunate connotations no matter the intentions of people such as Engels.
In seeking to destroy the myth of Rousseau's "noble savage", Diamond resorts to the teachings of Thomas Hobbes in "Leviathan":
It may seem strange to some man, that has not well weighed these things; that Nature should thus dissociate, and render men apt to invade, and destroy one another: and he may therefore, not trusting to this Inference, made from the Passions, desire perhaps to have the same confirmed by Experience. Let him therefore consider with himselfe, when taking a journey, he armes himselfe, and seeks to go well accompanied; when going to sleep, he locks his dores; when even in his house he locks his chests; and this when he knows there bee Lawes, and publike Officers, armed, to revenge all injuries shall bee done him; what opinion he has of his fellow subjects, when he rides armed; of his fellow Citizens, when he locks his dores; and of his children, and servants, when he locks his chests. Does he not there as much accuse mankind by his actions, as I do by my words? But neither of us accuse mans nature in it. The Desires, and other Passions of man, are in themselves no Sin. No more are the Actions, that proceed from those Passions, till they know a Law that forbids them; which till Lawes be made they cannot know: nor can any Law be made, till they have agreed upon the Person that shall make it.
The world of the evolutionary psychologist is dark, evil, and grubby both in the earliest stages of history and in the contemporary world.
Indeed, the best thing that can be said about our evolution is that we have drawn on the power of the state to control our worst instincts.
As Jared Diamond says in his New Yorker article,
the Papuan New Guineans practically got down on their hands and knees to thank the colonizers who finally were able to bring peace and stability to the highlands where tribal wars had left so many dead.
So bad was the fighting that Diamond was led to conclude that primitive peoples were more genocidal than the Nazis, if not by absolute numbers killed then by percentage.
Of course, given his tendency to make things up, we have no confidence in his assertions. [End of excerpt from "The Woolly Mammoth and the Noble Savage", by Louis Proyect]
Conclusion
Louis Proyect's conclusion on the Pleistocene extinctions and how to transcend the noble savage versus Hobbesian jungle dichotomy reflects his socialist ideology:
"Put simply, a hunting and gathering society had little need to kill animals except to satisfy such needs as food, clothing and shelter--all of which a bison could supply.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
