Understanding Different Worlds: The Premise of Most Hypotheses

UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENT WORLDS:  A MODERN THEME

            People are different, and as individuals sometimes quite unique.  You can say this about whole cultures, societies and nations every bit as much as with individuals.  But on the flip side you’ll hear people say that human nature, or many other things about human beings, is the same anywhere in the world.  “People are people,” is a common saying, and maybe on some level it is true.  Can both be true?  In a way they are both true:  people are the same and they are different.  But how this is true is what is important and what will be reflected in the definitions below. 

            What years of research has revealed (and not all historians would follow these ideas) is that people bear out similarities and differences based on the basic values they possess.  The culture any person lives in represents the collective choices made by people, which, in turn, shapes and molds values over time.  Therefore, it’s logical to assume that cultures can also be similar and different based upon the values formed in their peoples.  This means that cultures thousands of years apart can be more similar (or different) than some that exist at the same time.  When these cultural value systems are examined it is possible to break them down into really basic elements as to concepts of self, time, education, work, place, and what the world is and how it works.  All cultures share these basic concepts, but it appears that there are different ways these concepts are developed depending upon where and when that culture existed.   Some cultures share common concepts of time (they think it moves forward), for example, while other cultures might view time in altogether different ways (they think it moves in circles). 

            To start our analysis we will define three general cultural concept groups, or worlds, which developed in the past, and which still exist in the present.  These worlds we call, The Natural World, The Archaic World and the Modern World.  At times these worlds interact and do affect each other, but for the most part they exist separately, both in time, and in place.  What is most important to understand is that some of the values of these worlds may be similar, but the basic means of life, and the understanding of what that life means are fundamentally different in these worlds.  This means that people in the Modern World and the Archaic World, or people in societies with a different value systems, are not the same, and neither do they think, act or believe in the same way.  Below we will list the basic definitions and features of these three worldviews and general modes of human life.  We will define these worlds in terms of basic physical, spiritual, and mental orientations by which we believe people live.  Following these definitions we will lay out a few general rules of human relations, by which we will be able to note changes in various forms of consciousness. 

            Since our focus is on the transition made by some societies from what we will describe as Archaic values to Modern ones, we will make more concrete our definition of these worlds, as opposed to the short synopsis of the Natural World.  Scholars almost always address this question of how and why they choose to develop some topics and not others, and it is a valid question for students to keep in mind.  Why choose to use one event, or person, as an example and not something, or someone else?  Our answer that we are focusing on a transition, primarily, of Archaic values to Modern, keeps our focus driven towards a certain point, which will make it easier for students to see, and understand our interpretive points.  Also, our focus on this transition will also enable us to broaden our perspective to interpret facts not only in terms of their immediate significance, but also within a long term span of time.

The Natural World

            Historians used to use terms like "pre-historic peoples," and even before that, "barbarians," to denote a certain system of human living which pre-dated what was termed "civilized" society.  In the twentieth century modern scholars, with a modern value system, became more accepting of other ways of life (something that non-modern cultures do not do), and realized that all human cultures are valid on their own terms, and simplicity of form does not mean backwardness or a lack of worth.  Today, on every continent, there are still cultures and societies of people who live what can be termed a Natural existence.  The study of Natural peoples is more commonly associated with anthropology, than with history, partially because even modern historians do not see natural societies as important in human development. 

            The method and mode of Natural life conforms to the earliest patterns and associations of human beings.  The twentieth century variety, whether in the Arctic, the Amazon or some Pacific Island, is not the same as existed one, ten or twenty thousand years ago, because even these remote peoples are affected by global developments in other societies, and live in an altered natural environment.  Still, there are some basic similarities between peoples of the Natural World, whether living now or in the past. 

            The most common similarity is the lack of a formal state structure with set and established boundaries, formal legal systems, and in some most cases no permanent location.  Natural societies' lack of a formal state apparatus, which could also include not having commercial or manufacturing systems, religious institutions, like churches, mosques or temples, or even social hierarchies, used to be seen as primitive by most scholars.  But primitive seems to be a bit judgmental for the tastes of many scholars.  Natural societies being the earliest form of human groupings depend on hunting and gathering, much as our first ancestors Homo Sapiens Sapiens did when they emerged as the dominant hominid on the planet some 35,000 years ago. 

            HSS replaced other Homo Sapiens, like Neanderthal, either through brutally slaughtering the competition, of which there is some evidence to support, or because the competition was not fit enough to survive by some other cause.  The life that emerged for these first humans, who dominated the planet until at least 10,000 years ago, was primarily nomadic, hunting and gathering, and from our perspective, perhaps, very animal like.  But then after all, humans are animals.  In the Natural World, humans have existed in small, subsistence oriented, mobile villages, often with very little social differentiation.  Classes or castes are relatively non-existent because of a lack of surplus resources.  Most of the whole community's time is spent providing for the most basic human necessities, food, clothing, and shelter.  We can assume, because these people are human that they have self-awareness, but what are their ideas about whom and what they are.  While this is not the place to develop fully the lives and patterns of the Natural World, it is important to attempt to assess just what their own identity patterns, meaning how they saw themselves, were possibly like. 

            To give you an idea of what Natural people may have thought about themselves, and therefore what their sense of consciousness might have been, consider the famous images that Natural man left behind.  The most famous is, of course, cave paintings and other drawings found in many sights around the world, and most especially those cave paintings found in Lascaux, France known as the Hall of the Bulls.  If this were all that could be known about life in the Natural World what might these elegant pictures of bulls tell us?  And more importantly, what might it tell us about how these people may have defined human being, the self?

            To answer the first question, most anthropologists list reasons behind painting bulls as homage to their food source, or as a fertility symbol.  A bull as representative of fertility could also indicate a spiritual connection between these creatures and humans, and help us define what their religious life may have been like.  Alternatively, these pictures are thought by some scholars to have a less symbolic or spiritual place in Natural societies, but rather they believe such images may have been emblems of families or clans who inhabited those caves.  Another practical idea is that these paintings may just relate information about patterns of migration of the herds.  Such information would certainly be important to a hunting and gathering society. 

            But let's look at it another way.  Animals in these painting are often depicted with great detail, and when humans are represented they are often amorphous (lacking precise definition), and stick like.  What might it mean for a society to draw bulls and not representations of themselves?  A conclusion that many students make, and it is a reasonable one, is that Natural man's idea of self was in some way defined through the bull.  The bull symbolized the group, and in turn gave meaning to each person.  The bull, and not a human face, or character, therefore, was their conception of self, was their collective identity -- the bull was the self, in every bit the same way people now derive identity and meaning in modern American society from their personality, or a unique name -- the self is the self.  And in a society, like that of Natural peoples, where the bull was food, fuel, clothing, shelter, where the bull was life, it is very easy to see how people would derive consciousness through the symbol of an animal, and not directly from being human.

            Between about the years 8,000 b.c.e. and 5,000 b.c.e., several places around the planet, the natural world began to settle down because of the discovery of farming, and domestication of animals.  In settling people began to refashion their societies and their mentalities.  Between the Natural and Archaic Worlds there is not so much a difference in values, but rather a difference in the context by which those values are understood.  Stable agriculture allowed societies to develop more complex systems of life based, primarily, on Natural values, which resulted in the formation of state societies in some cases, and also stable non-state societies.   Establishing permanent settlements and attaining small surpluses of resources provided the basis for new general patterns of human life to emerge which we have labeled the Archaic World.

The Archaic World

            If you've taken an early civilization course, or Civilization I, you know that "History" usually begins with the development of stable agricultural societies, with a focus mainly on those societies with formal state systems.  What will be offered here is a basic definition of the general values which make up the Archaic World.  By these definitions the student of history can compare and assess differences in ideas, events and actions with those occurrences that will be associated with the values of modernity. 

Five Facets of the Archaic World:

Communal:  The orientation of people in the Archaic world, both in terms of self reference and in relation to others can be defined as communal.  The definition of self, people's own description of who and what they are, comes from being part of a particular group with a certain set of cultural features, e.g. the way they wear their hair, the type of clothing they use, the shape of their homes, the language or dialect they speak, etc.  Scholar's sometimes say that such a definition of self is externally derived.  What this means, in general, is that Archaic societies do not place emphasis on the importance of individual being.  As a concept, most Archaic societies do not have the same sense of "individual" life, as will develop in the Modern World.  Therefore, in relation to other people, sole persons do not accept an inherent worth for human life, but rather understand the value of others in terms of their connection to the community.  The Archaic World, and its societies, both state and stateless, is not very accepting of outsiders.

Traditional:  Historians used to describe ancient, or tribal, or primitive cultures as unchanging and static societies.  Human societies, however, do not exist without some form of change.  Change is an inherent part of life, but how people will deal with change can be very different, and is often determined by a cultures orientation of time.  Archaic societies' orientation of time can be termed traditional, for two similar reasons.  First, Archaic societies have a fundamental reverence for the past, particularly in maintaining ancestral forms.  Maintaining continuity with the past makes sense for peoples who derive their identity from external forms.  For example, if styles of clothing are changed in a society that connects who and what they are with traditional forms of dress, then the definition of self also changes.  In other words, Romans, for instance, cannot wear pants; Romans wear togas.  Second, change for changes sake, innovation in other words, is not valued, and is often feared, unless absolutely necessary.  Traditional does not just entail reverence for the past; it also entails a fear of what is new, and in part a fear of a future that does not base itself on the past.  If meaning of life, and of self, if consciousness, therefore, is derived in part from external factors, a reverence for past habits, and a fear of alteration, change will also usually only occur very slowly.

Hereditary/Caste:  Following the train of thought of communal and traditional values, the orientation of work and economy, and more specifically, the organization of labor in the Archaic World, is most likely to involve hereditary patterns to determine who will perform what function in society, and what position or rank that function will bring a person, family or clan.  In general, birth determines social rank, and also determines the functions of a person’s life, the things they will do to stay alive.  There is little room in most Archaic societies for social mobility, meaning changing what you do is a rare achievement, and changing how you are viewed within the community seldom occurs.  This means that, technically, the Archaic world was ordered by static castes, instead of classes.  Scholars sometimes describe social rankings in the Archaic world in terms of classes, as in ancient Greece and Rome, which were still normally determined by birth, but even here their is far less mobility, the possibility for change, than in the modern world where class is commonly associated with degrees of wealth and possibility of power.

Supernatural:  Some contemporary scholars are often wary of terms like supernatural, or superstitious when describing general features of a society, because they believe it could reflect a bias of their own forms of understanding and put down the belief systems of other societies.  But this is a possibility inherent in any generalization made by one culture, or set of values, onto another culture.  From our frame of reference, and from the values of twenty first century modern society, people in the Archaic world based their understanding of nature, and the accumulation of knowledge on supernatural premises, and quite often on superstition.  Better or worse?  That's a question that really can't be answered, and in some ways is irrelevant because we will never know what it is to live in a supernaturally determined world.  What is relevant is that the Archaic orientation to science and the geophysical world was what one student has called, "an intertwining of the real and the divine."  A great phrase that still needs to be made clearer.  What that student meant was that spiritual beliefs and systems had as much effect on Archaic peoples in their understanding of how the world worked, or what we call science, as did observation and the use of reason.  Reason and spirituality were intertwined, and wisdom was a function of both.  Some societies in the past came very close to what might be called secular understanding, reason without the divine, such as the Greeks, but even then their principles of mathematics and philosophy were not mutually exclusive of religious belief.  Reason in the Archaic world at times functioned despite the divine, but not in spite of the divine.

Agrarian/Tribal:  In general, most people in the past have lived in highly homogenous communities.  It was the exception to come in contact with someone outside of the communities, genetic, ethnic, religious group.  The orientation of space and living patterns in the archaic world reflected this reality, as most communities were agrarian villages based on the tribal affiliations of its members.  Of course, tribe does not have anything to do with the level of technology a community has, but merely means that members of a community live in extended family groupings.  Several related family groups form clans, several clans often compose a tribe, and several tribes compose a people.  To simplify we use the term tribe to mean an association based on genetic or ethnic similarity, where communities are often composed of blood related units.  Tribes usually live in rural villages, small enclaves based on subsistence agriculture and/or domestication of animals.  In state societies, governments often use the meager surpluses of the rural villages to support the development of administrative centers, Cities.  Cities in the Archaic world, however, most often replicate similar patterns of village life by separating tribal, ethnic or religious groups.  Trade and interaction between villages, most usually of related tribal groups, does happen, but it is the exception.  The agrarian village composition of the Archaic world means not the absence of trade, but, with an emphasis on subsistence agriculture, in tandem with other Archaic values, little surplus existed to create extensive commercial activity.  More extensive commercial patterns did at times occur which caused greater diversity in populations, the breakdown of tribal patterns, and the development of new commodities.  Such patterns still did not affect the vast majority of people in the archaic world who lived relatively isolated, meager lives -- all those things which can be attributed to urban life.

            At some point, these facets of the Archaic World began to alter, and new general facets began to become apparent as significant trends of human living.  That is not to say that the new, Modern, trends did away with Archaic patterns.  On the contrary, not all societies around the world embraced or reflected Modern values, and not all modernizing societies became totally free of Archaic values.  Another possibility is that Modernity might compose a different set of values depending upon cultural differences, or even the incorporation of a few of the facets but not all.  The interesting debate lies in defining how and when the Modern World began to rise, and if it really made a substantive impact on the way human beings really live.

The Modern World

            Make sure you understand that the values of the Archaic World did not end, but just as is implied by the word, Archaic means old, or from an earlier period and replaced by something new, is still the basic value system of many of the world's cultures, nations and societies.  Modern values, likewise, did not just all of a sudden replace those of the Archaic (or even the Natural) World, merely because a certain date on the calendar arrived.  Modernization is a process, which has transformed some societies and affected others over the last thousand years, and most particularly within the last 500 years.  But note, it is a process, and therefore, the facets of the Modern World are words, which entail an ongoing change, and a movement toward a particular idea. 

Five Facets of the Modern World:

Individuation:  Individuation means almost what it seems like, individualism of some sort, but it is a little more complex when talking of values which whole civilizations or societies might have in common.  The orientation of the Modern World toward the self and persons in a society increasingly depended less on external definitions in support of a communal identity system, but, rather, internally derived definitions of self, and identity systems which support a novel social being, the individual.  An individual, as you may well take for granted since you live a society which is individuated, is perceived as an independent and self sustaining person.  Internal self-definition is what supports the idea of people as individuals, meaning that each person defines who and what they are based upon their own point of view.  Many students liken this to the personality defining what makes you, rather than belonging to a group, taking part in a common ritual, speaking a certain language, and things of this nature.  But besides the existence of self-sustaining, internally defined and derived individuals, individuation also entails something more, and something much more important when talking about whole groups.  Individuation entails a process whereby society will place an inherent value on individual life which is as great as or greater than the good of the whole community.  Indeed, in most cases in the Modern World the needs of the individual, in the abstract, represent the good of the whole.  Because there is this inherent belief that all humans are important and valuable, the Modern World will begin to incorporate more diverse and tolerant societies.  But make sure you realize that just because individuation may lead to tolerance and diversity, it does not mean that all individuals will be open and accepting of people they define as different and therefore not as individuals.  Here, then, lies the central paradox of the Modern World:  the creation of all people as individuals, and the ability of individuals to keep some people outside this definition.

Innovation:  Innovate means to introduce something new, and, therefore, entails acceptance of new things, or at the very least acceptance of the alteration of old things.  Now, just think for a second about the possibilities of what that will mean in terms of how a person or a people will view the world around them?  What sort of view of past present and future might they have if change is not only accepted, but embraced and pursued?  Return to the definition of traditional in the Archaic World.  This facet held that these societies hold on to the past, and the ways of the past in honor of ancestors, but also because of a fear of the unknown, and therefore a future without continuity and replication (remaking) of the past.  Societies where change is sought out seem to then hold a different view of how change will affect their future.  The future doesn't need to be feared in societies where innovation becomes an integral part, because change itself does not bring fear.  Societies oriented towards time through innovation, then, can also look to the future, just as the Archaic World looked to the past, as a source of inspiration.  Innovation as a general feature of the Modern World has also introduced a progressive ideal into humanity, meaning that people in the Modern World inherently believe that tomorrow will be a better place than today, and societies in the future are better than the past.  Again, a paradox, Modern societies should be able to accept differences owing to their own changing nature, and yet look down upon their neighbors in the Archaic World, a world from which the Modern World developed.

Industrialization:  Most students, and scholars alike, use the term industrial to denote the giant factories of machines which developed in the last hundred and fifty years since the time of "The Industrial Revolution."  With good reason that definition is applied, because those factories are industrial sites, which developed because of the process of industrialization.  But industrialization as a general feature, or facet, of civilization is more than just smoking pipes, assembly lines, and blast furnaces.  It also entails an orientation towards work and economy which is markedly different from the standards of the Archaic World.  With industrialization work is less associated with social rank, as in the hierarchal nature of Archaic societies, than it is with producing commodities. 

            In essence work itself is a commodity, which like most commodities can be traded, altered, and changed.  So, Modern work patterns begin to allow for some mobility, change of status, and change of job.  Work can be compensated through other commodities, or by wages.  The system of industrialization, therefore, can include both free and slave labor systems, but generally industrialization, because of its reliance on creating commodities rather than satisfying subsistence needs, will usually cause the development of free wage labor systems in favor of slave systems.  Slave systems can be more closely associated with the hereditary nature of Archaic patterns, though there is a hold over of this system in the Modern World.  The biggest difference between Archaic and Modern Work patterns, and productive capacities, however, is that the Modern mentality less constrained by tradition and hierarchy, more tied to individual need and desire, has formed work habits (industry) which allow for mass production and mass consumption of commodities, both necessary and luxuries. 

            In the Archaic World, manufacturing processes were often secret, and commodities were not produced for everyone.  Chariots were not made for the poor.  With that mentality, where goods and services are not open to everyone even if they can pay, consumption and production will be low, and protected.  The Archaic World's economic processes and the mentality which drove the economy cannot be thought of in the same ways that we think of our own economic indicators.  Demand (meaning the desire and the means to accumulate essential and non-essential goods) worked differently in the Archaic World. If birth determined social position it also determined the ability to have more things, and also the idea that more personal things should be acquired.  Those who were born to privilege had the privilege to demand, and those who were not, could not demand, and hence most likely would not have developed the sort of desire that makes people in our society want a new and better car every year.  It was utterly alien to most people who lived in the Archaic World.   Those at the bottom rungs of society most likely would not have desired to accumulate wealth, because they knew the possible repercussions too much accumulation for their position in life might entail.  The Modern World began to break those rules with an emphasis on individual importance and expression, and therefore patterns of work and economy were altered to fit a growing demand.  Unlike the regulated hierarchal demand of the Archaic World, the Modern demand system was increasingly open to a growing population of consumers.  This relationship of demand and consumption leads us back to the proposition that the worker is not commodified, only his labor, and therefore, his cash can overcome his birth.

Secularization:  Societies which bear out the process of secularization have an increasing understanding of the difference between divine and human.  In the Modern World there is a differentiation between divine and real, but this does not necessitate a total separation of the two.  The orientation of knowledge, scientific understanding and how the world works according to the standards of the modernizing world, is a product of rational responses learned and appreciated without divine intervention.  Therefore, in secularizing societies there will be less reliance on divinity to legitimize government, to cause rainfall or make the sun rise each day.  Instead, the stuff of everyday life is seen as a product of human inspiration, and understanding.  In a secular world, the sun rises not because of the orbiting earth and its spinning axis, like you learned in science class, but because humans defined it that way, and other humans accepted it. Thus, the prevailing trend in the Modern World is a consciousness that depends on a secular understanding of material processes, even though spirituality and religious belief systems are still part of modern cultures.

Urbanization:  Urbanization, of course, is the process of developing cities, but what we are interested is in defining it in terms of more general processes and relating it to other patterns.  In the Modern World there has been a trend towards increasing percentages of people living in cities, and, therefore, as a question of orientation to space and land usage their has been a breakdown in Modern societies of tribal/familial oriented communities, and a movement away from subsistence based living arrangements.  That is not to say that their exists no connections between extended family in the Modern World, rather, family or tribe is just not the sole determiner of whom will dwell in a given area, region or village as in the Archaic World.  The Archaic subsistence oriented village must by necessity have open, and, or, arable land in order to sustain a population.  The land can be used to grow food, hunt for it, or raise it in the form of livestock, but most of the land will be used towards the day to day task of staying alive.  Urban areas of the Modern World are not based on agrarian, or subsistence patterns, but are based on systems which allow for greater population densities, and a more diverse land usage.  The primary system of modern urban areas is commercial, with the production capacity of a variety of commodities.  Some cities are purely living areas -- these are sometimes called suburbs, and no one living in the suburbs produces any of their own necessities of life.  Cities can have highly diverse populations, at times integrated (a more modern pattern), and at times segregated (perhaps a holdover of Archaic patterns), but the high amount of differentiated space also corresponds to features of the Modern mentality, and in part shows a certain willingness to disconnect dwelling space with self-definition.  In the modern World, in a way, home is where the heart is, not on a particular piece of earth.

            The Modern World is here now, but may very well be changing into some other form which will be completely different in the next five hundred or so years.  There is no way to know, and no way to be that precise.  These facets of the Modern World are generalizations, just like those of the Archaic World, which can be used to describe the basic patterns of aspects of life throughout time.  The definitions offered are not completely comprehensive, nor are they the only possible ways in which to describe each facet, but they are a starting point for you the student to make comparisons, and to do the type of analysis which you will be required to make in interpreting history.  So why do we even bother with generalizations?  Precisely because any historian has a lot of background information on many different subjects upon which they can draw to make comparisons, contrasts, to analyze and differentiate -- in essence, to make history.  You don't have the years of training a historian goes through, and so students need some sort of general basis upon which to make conclusions.  That is what the characterizations of the Natural, Archaic and Modern World can do for you.  But before we start examining historical sequences, and begin to develop interpretations about the past, we have a few general rules regarding human life and behavior which will also help you in your investigations.

Historical Rules

            Like the general facets these historical rules will help with background information which you can use to understand how and why historical events happened, and maybe even more importantly what was their possible significance.  These rules are based on general historical patterns of human development.  But remember, human kind spent more time in the Natural World, and our most basic patterns of life conform to man as a natural animal.  From the dawn of our species about 40,000 years ago until only about 8,000 years ago, when settled, agrarian societies emerged-- the Archaic World -- humanity developed certain tendencies.  These tendencies are what can be called normal, in the Freudian sense, meaning usual, for our species.  The Archaic World incorporated those patterns of thought and action into its societies and the Modern World, for all our faith in our own sophistication has had to confront those general, human patterns.  First we'll give the rule, to which you can refer to in your general reading, and then the basic logic behind that rule's meaning.

Rule #1:          Humans live in groups with varying degrees of organization

            If we were to liken man to the animal kingdom, of which he is a part even if we don't really like to think so, his most primal form of life mode is to belong to a pack.  A pack is usually a family grouping, or related families, small at first and broadening into larger clans, and tribes.  As far as anthropologists and historians are concerned this is human's basic existence in the Natural World.  The Archaic World did not do away with the tribe, but did consolidate it in places, and organize it to produce a modest amount of excess resources.  Those resources enabled cities (large villages), which served as regional centers of administration (government), both civil and religious.  Areas with such centralized administrations, which control a region's resources and maintain set and established boundaries, we call state societies.  Societies without such controls, but still maintaining groupings of humans, we call stateless societies:  both exist in the Archaic World, both exist primarily on agriculture, and both are similar to the basic values of the Natural World.  In some ways the biggest difference between the Natural and Archaic Worlds is the degree of permanent settlement more prevalent in the Archaic World.  Permanence also implies a greater amount of resources, and the accumulation of resources will affect the basic values of any society.  Needless to say, the Modern World also has its forms of organization, which develop out of Archaic state societies.  The Modern World follows Rule #1, even though its organizations will be different in value structure than the Archaic and Natural Worlds.

Rule #2:       Equality is inversely proportional to access to, or the accumulation of resources

            For most of human history, our ancestors lived in a world of very limited resources.  Natural humans devoted most of their waking hours to finding, getting, and maintaining the resources by which they could stay alive.  There social organization was quite simple, and their technology was also simple, only developed enough, usually, to meet their everyday needs of staying alive.  In such a situation, Natural societies, and their cousin Archaic stateless societies, had little social differentiation.  Maybe their was a chief who acted as general, or leader, and maybe even a priest, shaman, or witch doctor who read the signs of the spirit world, but since all hands were needed to obtain the limited resources available, there was in these societies a built in equalizer.  Everybody works, or everybody dies.  That's equality. 

            Increased organization in the state societies of the Archaic World, afforded humans the ability to take advantage of settled agriculture, and begin to accumulate (small) surpluses of goods.  Surpluses had to be managed by someone, and those managers may be, in theory at least, the ancestors of all governors.  Why did some become managers and others not?  Remember the playground bully?  He might give you the answer, if you pay him your lunch money.  You get the idea; it's at least one possibility.  Anyway, those who manage resources are also likely to keep a little more for themselves -- responsibility is worth something isn't it?  The equality of everyday getting and living, has given way to the inequality of resource management.  As more resources accumulated in a society, there became more resources to manage, and more for the manager to keep.  Inequality is eventually substantiated by religion, so the priests become important, and also by law, and so the record keepers (ancestors of lawyers) become important.  Now there exists social hierarchy, and the inequality of state societies.  Modern values, with their emphasis on the individual, on change and industry, will challenge some forms of inequality, but .... inequality of resources will still exist.

            Corollary to Rule #1:  Most people in state societies (Archaic World) either lived as slaves in name, or in a state of life equivalent to that of slavery, and bondage was seldom questioned.

Rule #3:          Humans need resources to survive; if no resources are available humans will seek                                                           them out.

            This is seemingly a very simple and common sense rule, but there are some consequences to this rule which make it much more interesting.  We need resources -- if we don't have them, we'll get them.  What does that really mean?  If we are the only humans, it means nothing we simply gather what we need, but if there are other groups of humans it means a lot more.  If we have nothing, because remember resources are scarce for most of human history, and go over the metaphorical hill where the grass is greener, we will most likely find another group of humans.  This group of humans is like wise connected to each other, just as we are by family units, and so, what might happen?  Two tribes have come together, both needing resources.  Several possibilities exist as to what will come next.  It is possible that they will all join hands, sing together, and share what resources exist around them.  Possible, but not probable, after all humans are animals who will, like most animals, protect and preserve their genetic pool. 

            It is, of course, more likely that these groups will compete for resources in some way.  You know how we do.  This competition does not automatically necessitate fighting, but it is the most common form among animals -- some display of strength where there is a winner and loser.  That does not mean death and devastation.  It is possible that the winning side will incorporate the losers into their tribe, thus forming a new people out of the two groups.  Possible, but not probable.  Yes, it is more likely that the humans will war over their resources and the loser will either be killed or forced to flee to another area (to begin their own quest for resources again).  In the history of our species this scenario, in a variety of shapes and forms, has been frequent -- on every continent, among all peoples.  The implication of this most human of actions is that humans will connect with those similar to themselves, and will generally compete with those different from themselves.  Of course, similar and different do not always have to be genetic, they can be linguistic or religious, or even whether or not you have a star upon your belly -- for that see Dr. Seuss' Star Bellied Sneeches.  So to this rule we will add two corollaries, which follow directly from the logic of Rule #1.

            Corollary to Rule #3:  Migration of human communities happens regularly in human history.

            Corollary to Rule #3:  Humans like those most like themselves, and dislike what is different.

And this rule the Modern World ought to have the most trouble keeping, but as we know what ought is hardly what is .... and that is a hypothesis that probably doesn't need proving.