The ABC’s of Communism Bolshevism 2011

Jason W. Smith, Ph.D.

 

Part I

Pre-Socialist Humanity

 

Chapter 1: The Hardware

For the purpose of this summary presentation I have left out the story, as it is understood today, of the origin of our universe, our solar system, the Earth, life upon it and the subsequent evolution of life  - as fascinating as these topics are - to begin with the origin and emergence of Homo. Those of you who understand the importance of these former topics, as the framework for understanding cultural evolution, are referred to the many textbooks in astronomy and subatomic physics. Among them my own monograph “New Perspectives in Physics, 1999, Jason W. Smith, Premier Books, Boise, 160 pp.” for a new account of the Big Bang, and the creation of the fundamental particles that constitute force and matter and their antimode.- And, of course, there are many excellent textbooks in palaeontology and geology which will bring you up to date on modern conceptions of the origin and evolution of life on Earth and the plate tectonic history of the Earth itself.

Because of space and time limitations I have to skip over these now fairly well understood stages in the origin and evolution of life on Earth, before and after the advent of hard-part fossils, even though the entire matter is directly germane to the way in which the biological foundation for “culture” came about. Suffice it to say that this evolution created the parameters upon which a, new, “third” form of matter came into existence. What anthropologists call “culture.” Serious students must always keep in mind that to understand how cultural “software” functions, one must also understand first, the biological “hardware” upon which culture is based. So, the evolution of invertebrate and vertebrate life is not a peripheral subject. Is is simply beyond the scope of this summary. The requirements of compact presentation are best served when we begin by coming directly to the evolution of the Order of Primates. For practical purposes this begins with the extinction of the dinosaurs, and the creation of vast new ecological niche opportunities, following the asteroid impact some 65 million years ago.

The dialectics of human sociocultural evolution require an understanding of the dialectics of human biological evolution so I want to begin with some commentary on our earliest relatives and how the biological where-with-all came into existence to support culture. Then we shall proceed directly to the key questions of causality and process in the evolution of cultural matter - i.e., people and their humanity.

Preparation for the Human Era of Necessity

We know there have been extraterrestrial contacts of the asteroid impact category, and these have created a series of sudden wrenching changes in the course of the evolution of life on Earth. Also, at the end of the pre-Cambrian there was a mass extinction of still uncertain cause (perhaps the global snowballing of Earth). Another event of geologic proportions occurred at the end of the Palaeozoic when Siberia was literally split apart as a dome some 1200 miles across began to build in its center. Out of that dome came perhaps the greatest outpouring of mantle rock (as lava) in the Earth’s history occurring over many tens of thousands of years, leaving behind 60 mile wide and 1000 mile long seismic fissures in the surface. After the collapse of oxygen levels and the emergence of a new fauna (dinosaurs, birds, mammals) we have the Mesozoic and its Age of Dinosaurs (Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous).

The most famous of all the catastrophic changes is the one defining the end of the Mesozoic, caused by the asteroid impact centered near contemporary Merida, Yucatan, Mexico. - And, with it came the extinction of the dinosaurs and all forms of animal life weighing more than about 60 pounds in adulthood on land, and huge numbers of species of plant and animal life in the oceans. – And a dramatic renovation of the botanical landscape of the entire world.

What is most important to us is the fact that the insectivore/prosimian complex of tiny animals radiated throughout the world in the Palaeocene. The palaeocene is the first geologic period in the Cenozoic (or most recent geologic epoch.) These small animals, of the size of prairie dogs, filled the ecological niches left after the sudden massive extinction of so many life forms 66 million years ago. If not for that the carriers of culture might have been the dinosaurian “raptors.”

- And, it is time to memorize the geological periods below. Also, to put some landmark sociocultural features firmly in your memory bank. I suggest these, from most recent to the most ancient:

The Cenozoic Era

Years AgoGeological Period

~10,500Holocene <-Agricultural Revolution (Bands & Tribes)

           Chiefdoms emerge and give rise to the Servitude

Epoch (c.4500 BC Old World 1000 BC New World)

~1,000,000     Pleistocene <---archaic and modern humans {H. erectus ;

  H. sapiens} Living in Band and Tribal Societies.

Pliocene <---the first (ape-like) humans {Homo australopithecus)

         Living in Band Societies.

Miocene <---Old World Apes {Dryopithecus; Ramapithecus}

Oligocene <---Old World Monkeys {Aegyptopithecus}

Eocene <-Prosimians become monkeys {Northarctus}

Palaeocene <-Prosimian primates radiate worldwide {Plesiadapis}

The Mesozoic Era

~66 million     Cretaceous <-----------ends with asteroid impact at Merida, Yucatan.

Jurassic

Triassic

The Palaeozoic Era

! -----------Siberia split in half by mantle eruption

Permian

Pennsylvanian

Mississippian

Devonian

Silurian

Ordovician

Cambrian

Pre-Cambrian

Origin of the Earth ~4.6 billion years ago.

The dialectics of primate biological evolution feature contemporary natural selection producing biological alternatives, as usual, for eventual adaptation to future changing environmental conditions. This time, however, emerging in the primate line is the potential for the ability to use an entirely new way of adaptation which, in form, is the dialectical opposite of traditional natural selection. (Those primates that make the entire trip outlined below become human. Those who do not make the trip will not get further than where they are, more or less, in the evolutionary schema of primate speciation.) Now adaptation takes the form of “controlling” environmental change. This new way of adaptation is what we call the “cultural” way in anthropology. Thus you can see why we can say cultural matter is the “third form” of matter (the physical and biological forms preceding). - And, its precursor requirement is an expanded (human) brain capacity of the right type that is, organized in a special way. Currently substantial progress has been made in isolating those human brain genes that are accelerated in their evolutionary change rate over those of the chimpanzee. But, however this biological factual foundation is laid, so to speak, human evolution of the biological type will be seen to be decisively changing course because of the evolution of a complex of behavioral proto-traits. The behavioral traits include collective tool use and defense, and thinking and symbol-use. The complex is acting as the prime director for natural selection; not natural selection operating directly for genetic features of fleetness of foot, keenness of eyesight, etc. But natural selection for bigger and better brains, in the sense of abstract thought capability. Brains that allow cultural evolution to take over the direction to be taken in the future evolution of Homo sapiens as a species because this thinking, collective, tool using proto-activity, is what is giving them the ability to survive and reproduce consistently effectively. This is the first key for you to understand, and this is a rather well agreed upon anthropological principle (if not always well explicated.)

During the Palaeocene, and Eocene, the consequences of a life in the bushes and trees brought about a new kind of prosimian. You want to remember that the Palaeocene begins immediately with the wreckage of this planet created by the asteroid impact. The foliage that survived, mutated, and spread throughout the world, was quite different than that preceding it. Now there were a great many small bushes and trees of all sizes and grass (there were antecedent grass forms before the asteroid impact but they were few and far between). In this environment are our earliest ancestors among the primates, and they flourished.

This is the phase called the arboreal adaptation period in physical anthropology. Our basic body plan emerges at this time. Hands and feet that are prehensile, arms and legs, binocular vision and a rotating neck, expanded cerebral cortex, ability to assume upright posture, and so forth.

Recently discovered early Palaeocene fossils from China show a chipmunk sized mammal coexisting with giant 7 foot tall Carnivorous birds extant over most of the Earth by 9 million years after the asteroid impact. These tiny mammals had clearly developed primate prehensile hands.

 One of the early fossil prosimian primates is an early Lemur called plesiadapis. These arose after Tree Shrews, which still had claws instead of flat nails. Other than a few of these prosimians, all other primates lost claws in favor of flat nails.

We see the change of the location of the eye orbits beginning to occur, so that binocular stereoscopic vision replaces the lateral orbit monocular eyesight of the insectivores and the lower prosimians. But flat nails, precision grip, and binocular vision, are simply associated features of arboreal adaptive anatomy. What is really important is that there is an enlarged cerebellum associated with this increase in the visual and motor cortex. These traits were obviously caused by the rigorous natural selection that accompanied life in the trees and high bushes.

Why is this important? Because abstract thought appears initially among primates as a product of the same part of the brain as that responsible for motor control in precision manipulation and with vision.

The Family Adapidae is the second level of fossil Lemur and is important to us because it shows the eyes truly in a forward position, meaning that the transition to binocular vision was complete. - And the fossil family Northartidae shows excellent prosimian to monkey characteristics by middle Eocene times.

So, the brain was expanding and in the area most important to our analysis - that associated with abstract thought.

Of course, not all individuals in a species continue to evolve. For as long as there is no challenge to their genetic make-up they are perfectly free to continue as they are; they will survive until some great environmental change comes along that they can not tolerate.

However, since erroneous DNA duplication keeps throwing up variation in the form of abnormal individuals, each species will generate aberrant forms; some of these will prove adept at living within some particular environment. Some will not. When environmental change does come there is a broader spectrum of responses proposed by biology to the dispositional effect of nature. Thus, the increasing reliance upon the new and improved primate brain led onward and upward among some individuals to monkeyhood.

Fully developed fossil monkeys have been excavated in Egypt and are now known from many localities. These are called Aegyptopithecus. They have the best organized brains of any animal then extant, and are by far larger than the lower prosimian primates from which they evolved. We find them in Oligocene times. These are the fossil Old World Monkeys.

The Old World Monkeys gave rise to the early Apes. Fossil specimens include the Dryopithecines and the Ramapithecines.

From these kinds of apes emerged the first human-like primates.

Human-like apes gave rise to ape-like humans. We call these the Australopithecines!

Brain Changes in Favor of Abstract Thought

The important ball to keep your eye on is brain reorganization in favor of abstract thought. This is the  really important change going on in the line leading to humanity. Once humans are extant on the face of the Earth it will be the continuing expansion of the brain to handle culture which is the most important thing changing.

The split of the hominoid elements out of the anthropoid ape stock probably occurred between 10 and 7 million years ago. The term hominoid I use to include the still largely missing fossil data that links the anthropoid apes to the hominids. There is a lot of sloppy terminology in both professional and popular literature, but for your purposes think of hominid as the line beginning with Homo as a genus. So, we have:

    Modern Humans H. sapiens

Gorillas, Orang-utans, Chimpanzees

GibbonsArchaic Humans  Homo erectus

   Early Humans {Hominids} Homo australopithecus

Human-like Apes {Hominoids}

   Anthropoid Apes

         Monkeys

The hominoid transitional step is not yet very well known in the fossil record; we have not yet been able to identify stone tools for them. Although, logically, we must assume they at least used rocks to throw, cut and crush (in their natural form,) so that we may be able to find some stones of this sort in sealed and well dated stratigraphic components.

A chart of the overall stages of sociocultural evolution can be seen on page 316 of this book.