The Trash Heap of the Heapers' Hangout

Misery · 2013-04-19 05:24:23

utoob

Misery · 2013-04-19 05:24:53

A bakening has started

Misery · 2013-04-19 05:29:48

Is it just me or video game commercials are getting rarer?

Salix Babylonika · 2013-04-19 06:20:24

Princess Alice · 2013-04-19 07:45:50

Something about the dark, rainy sky combined with the sound of that weird-ass train horn (which seems to be the only one they use now) is kinda eerie, in a cool way.

Also the streetlights were off for the morning but now they're lit again. Weird.

Princess Alice · 2013-04-19 08:21:58

Number plates were traditionally made by the motor vehicle's original supplier, and replacement plates could be made by anybody with the correct equipment. (Some people even had street address numbers made up this way for affixing to their houses.) Under the new law, plates sold in England and Wales can now only be supplied by a supplier registered by the DVLA - The Register of Number Plate Suppliers (RNPS). The supplier needs to confirm that the person is the registered keeper or other authorised person and verify their identity.^[56] The name and postcode of the supplier must be shown at the bottom of the plate.^[1] Number plates in the UK are in general flat and made of plastic, embossed aluminium plates are available from specific suppliers.

This is bizarre to me on multiple levels

sunn wolf · 2013-04-19 08:23:29

Miss Miko Mayonegg · 2013-04-19 08:48:25

yay I get to be happy today

Miss Miko Mayonegg · 2013-04-19 08:48:37

in your gloomy 32-bit faces

Miss Miko Mayonegg · 2013-04-19 08:48:53

lol j/k

Miss Miko Mayonegg · 2013-04-19 08:49:19

really though today can be pleasant-ish I guess?

Miss Miko Mayonegg · 2013-04-19 08:53:36

danger rumpus

dangle runner

dingdong rope

doggone romp

daguerreotype rumpelstiltskin

dumber ronald

donkey rack

Princess Alice · 2013-04-19 10:31:00

I can't stop watching the news

I'm just sort of awestruck at how massively this whole ordeal's escalated

Also WBNS-TV keeps flipping between their regular programming and the CBS News feed...they're not handling this very well

Imipolex G · 2013-04-19 11:03:35

moo

Imipolex G · 2013-04-19 11:19:03

moo, you nonexistent people

Yarrun XIX · 2013-04-19 11:20:02

!

Imipolex G · 2013-04-19 11:24:04

Nonexistence speaks! Or at least posts an exclamation mark

Princess Alice · 2013-04-19 11:24:20

MOO WITH ME!

avenuepoints for anyone who gets that reference

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 11:26:26

sunn wolf said:

i was feeling sad and hopeless

now i am not

Imipolex G · 2013-04-19 12:01:40

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 12:05:24

gee i sure have been listening to a lot of metal over the past month

Section42L · 2013-04-19 12:05:45

Imipolex G · 2013-04-19 12:08:57

10,000 Maniacs are metal?

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 12:10:43

no

i just had the mental image of natalie merchant in corpse paint

pfft

Imipolex G · 2013-04-19 12:21:38

off to work go I

ho hi, ho hi

Sredni Vashtar · 2013-04-19 12:47:49

Naney said:

sunn wolf said:
i was feeling sad and hopeless

now i am not

Sredni Vashtar · 2013-04-19 12:48:59

Naney said:

gee i sure have been listening to a lot of metal over the past month

I have noticed. 'Tis curious.

Sredni Vashtar · 2013-04-19 12:53:41

And the question of the day is: "Why am I still awake?"

Alduin · 2013-04-19 13:02:48

Is it OK if I vent a bit?

Alduin · 2013-04-19 13:07:29

Aw hell, I'm going to vent anyways.

As someone who doesn't believe in God, I am frankly sick of condescending atheists. Whoop dee doo, you don't believe in God. Can you please please PLEASE stop wagging it around like it's a goddamn substitute for your penis? Not believing in God does not automatically give you any superiority, intellectual or otherwise, to Christians. In fact, by rubbing it in other peoples' faces, you're actually making yourselves look stupider!

And while I've definitely encountered my share of ignorant, intolerant and generally hateful Christians in the past, I've met waaaaaaaay more asshole atheists.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:07:53

no

Aliroz · 2013-04-19 13:10:27

It's okay to vent, Acerak.

And, well, I agree with you about jerkface atheists; but some atheists are awesome. I just wish that Atheists could accept that Atheism is a religion (kind of) and religions are awesome and religious people are awesome; and thus, atheists are awesome and have no need to be snooty to those of other religious beliefs.

An octopus has eight tentacles; and each tentacle has 220 to 280 suckers on it. Each sucker is independently movable, can manipulate objects and is an independant sensory organ capable of taste and smell; in addition to being sticky and sucking.

Each tentacle is amazingly flexible and quite strong; since the Octopus has no bones nor cartilage nor any hard part other than its beak; it has no practical limit to how flexible it can be.

If an octopus can fit its beak through a hole, it can fit its whole body through the hole.

The Octopus is claustrophilic, it likes tight spaces; and it likes to squish itself small and hide in small things. That's the reason that aquariums have not so very big enclosures for the Octopus, if the enclosures were larger, the Octopus would feel scared and threatened; and would hide all the time. The enclosed space is comforting; and it allows the Octopus to comfortably not-hide and be visible.

Another favorite trick of the Octopus is to take a coconut; break it into pieces with its beak; and then put the pieces together and hide inside the reconstructed coconut shell; with suckers sucking it together. The pieces of the coconut fit like a jigsaw puzzle; so it forms a sort-of shell for the Octopus; which it really needs since it has no hard parts except its beak.

Often, the Octopus will travel and take its coconut along in pieces; hanging on to it with suckers and tentacles; and reconstructing it when it gets to its destination.

It's hard to accurately estimate the size of the larger specimens of Octopus because of how they tend to hide at the bottom of the ocean.

Aliroz · 2013-04-19 13:13:36

Alduin · 2013-04-19 13:14:41

Rrrgh, I'm just...Yeah, I know a bunch of douchebags.

It just amazes me how insensitive some people are towards the relatives of a recently deceased person who they have never even met simply because said deceased person is getting a Christian burial.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:19:57

http://arstechnica.com/science/2013/04/poor-cute-bunnies-likely-to-get-eaten-when-the-snow-melts-early/

8<

Alduin · 2013-04-19 13:27:04

And, well, I agree with you about jerkface atheists; but some atheists are awesome.

Not all atheists are r/atheism posters, yeah. It's just that the atheists who are are really really vocal about it and hurt other peoples' feelings along the way.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:32:00

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:51:28

The institution of a leisure class is found in its best development at

the higher stages of the barbarian culture; as, for instance, in feudal

Europe or feudal Japan. In such communities the distinction between

classes is very rigorously observed; and the feature of most striking

economic significance in these class differences is the distinction

maintained between the employments proper to the several classes.

The upper classes are by custom exempt or excluded from industrial

occupations, and are reserved for certain employments to which a degree

of honour attaches. Chief among the honourable employments in any

feudal community is warfare; and priestly service is commonly second to

warfare. If the barbarian community is not notably warlike, the priestly

office may take the precedence, with that of the warrior second. But the

rule holds with but slight exceptions that, whether warriors or priests,

the upper classes are exempt from industrial employments, and this

exemption is the economic expression of their superior rank. Brahmin

India affords a fair illustration of the industrial exemption of both

these classes. In the communities belonging to the higher barbarian

culture there is a considerable differentiation of sub-classes within

what may be comprehensively called the leisure class; and there is a

corresponding differentiation of employments between these sub-classes.

The leisure class as a whole comprises the noble and the priestly

classes, together with much of their retinue. The occupations of the

class are correspondingly diversified; but they have the common economic

characteristic of being non-industrial. These non-industrial upper-class

occupations may be roughly comprised under government, warfare,

religious observances, and sports.

At an earlier, but not the earliest, stage of barbarism, the leisure

class is found in a less differentiated form. Neither the class

distinctions nor the distinctions between leisure-class occupations are

so minute and intricate. The Polynesian islanders generally show this

stage of the development in good form, with the exception that, owing

to the absence of large game, hunting does not hold the usual place of

honour in their scheme of life. The Icelandic community in the time of

the Sagas also affords a fair instance. In such a community there is

a rigorous distinction between classes and between the occupations

peculiar to each class. Manual labour, industry, whatever has to

do directly with the everyday work of getting a livelihood, is the

exclusive occupation of the inferior class. This inferior class includes

slaves and other dependents, and ordinarily also all the women. If there

are several grades of aristocracy, the women of high rank are commonly

exempt from industrial employment, or at least from the more vulgar

kinds of manual labour. The men of the upper classes are not only

exempt, but by prescriptive custom they are debarred, from all

industrial occupations. The range of employments open to them is rigidly

defined. As on the higher plane already spoken of, these employments are

government, warfare, religious observances, and sports. These four lines

of activity govern the scheme of life of the upper classes, and for

the highest rank--the kings or chieftains--these are the only kinds of

activity that custom or the common sense of the community will allow.

Indeed, where the scheme is well developed even sports are accounted

doubtfully legitimate for the members of the highest rank. To the lower

grades of the leisure class certain other employments are open, but they

are employments that are subsidiary to one or another of these typical

leisure-class occupations. Such are, for instance, the manufacture

and care of arms and accoutrements and of war canoes, the dressing

and handling of horses, dogs, and hawks, the preparation of sacred

apparatus, etc. The lower classes are excluded from these secondary

honourable employments, except from such as are plainly of an industrial

character and are only remotely related to the typical leisure-class

occupations.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:51:45

If we go a step back of this exemplary barbarian culture, into the

lower stages of barbarism, we no longer find the leisure class in fully

developed form. But this lower barbarism shows the usages, motives,

and circumstances out of which the institution of a leisure class has

arisen, and indicates the steps of its early growth. Nomadic hunting

tribes in various parts of the world illustrate these more primitive

phases of the differentiation. Any one of the North American hunting

tribes may be taken as a convenient illustration. These tribes

can scarcely be said to have a defined leisure class. There is a

differentiation of function, and there is a distinction between classes

on the basis of this difference of function, but the exemption of the

superior class from work has not gone far enough to make the designation

"leisure class" altogether applicable. The tribes belonging on this

economic level have carried the economic differentiation to the point

at which a marked distinction is made between the occupations of men and

women, and this distinction is of an invidious character. In nearly

all these tribes the women are, by prescriptive custom, held to those

employments out of which the industrial occupations proper develop at

the next advance. The men are exempt from these vulgar employments and

are reserved for war, hunting, sports, and devout observances. A very

nice discrimination is ordinarily shown in this matter.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:52:14

This division of labour coincides with the distinction between the

working and the leisure class as it appears in the higher barbarian

culture. As the diversification and specialisation of employments

proceed, the line of demarcation so drawn comes to divide the industrial

from the non-industrial employments. The man's occupation as it stands

at the earlier barbarian stage is not the original out of which any

appreciable portion of later industry has developed. In the later

development it survives only in employments that are not classed as

industrial,--war, politics, sports, learning, and the priestly office.

The only notable exceptions are a portion of the fishery industry

and certain slight employments that are doubtfully to be classed as

industry; such as the manufacture of arms, toys, and sporting goods.

Virtually the whole range of industrial employments is an outgrowth of

what is classed as woman's work in the primitive barbarian community.

The work of the men in the lower barbarian culture is no less

indispensable to the life of the group than the work done by the women.

It may even be that the men's work contributes as much to the food

supply and the other necessary consumption of the group. Indeed, so

obvious is this "productive" character of the men's work that in the

conventional economic writings the hunter's work is taken as the type of

primitive industry. But such is not the barbarian's sense of the matter.

In his own eyes he is not a labourer, and he is not to be classed with

the women in this respect; nor is his effort to be classed with the

women's drudgery, as labour or industry, in such a sense as to admit

of its being confounded with the latter. There is in all barbarian

communities a profound sense of the disparity between man's and woman's

work. His work may conduce to the maintenance of the group, but it is

felt that it does so through an excellence and an efficacy of a kind

that cannot without derogation be compared with the uneventful diligence

of the women.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:52:40

At a farther step backward in the cultural scale--among savage

groups--the differentiation of employments is still less elaborate

and the invidious distinction between classes and employments is less

consistent and less rigorous. Unequivocal instances of a primitive

savage culture are hard to find. Few of these groups or communities

that are classed as "savage" show no traces of regression from a more

advanced cultural stage. But there are groups--some of them apparently

not the result of retrogression--which show the traits of primitive

savagery with some fidelity. Their culture differs from that of the

barbarian communities in the absence of a leisure class and the absence,

in great measure, of the animus or spiritual attitude on which the

institution of a leisure class rests. These communities of primitive

savages in which there is no hierarchy of economic classes make up but a

small and inconspicuous fraction of the human race. As good an instance

of this phase of culture as may be had is afforded by the tribes of the

Andamans, or by the Todas of the Nilgiri Hills. The scheme of life of

these groups at the time of their earliest contact with Europeans seems

to have been nearly typical, so far as regards the absence of a leisure

class. As a further instance might be cited the Ainu of Yezo, and, more

doubtfully, also some Bushman and Eskimo groups. Some Pueblo communities

are less confidently to be included in the same class. Most, if not all,

of the communities here cited may well be cases of degeneration from a

higher barbarism, rather than bearers of a culture that has never risen

above its present level. If so, they are for the present purpose to be

taken with the allowance, but they may serve none the less as evidence

to the same effect as if they were really "primitive" populations.

These communities that are without a defined leisure class resemble one

another also in certain other features of their social structure

and manner of life. They are small groups and of a simple (archaic)

structure; they are commonly peaceable and sedentary; they are poor; and

individual ownership is not a dominant feature of their economic system.

At the same time it does not follow that these are the smallest of

existing communities, or that their social structure is in all respects

the least differentiated; nor does the class necessarily include

all primitive communities which have no defined system of individual

ownership. But it is to be noted that the class seems to include the

most peaceable--perhaps all the characteristically peaceable--primitive

groups of men. Indeed, the most notable trait common to members of such

communities is a certain amiable inefficiency when confronted with force

or fraud.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:53:28

The evidence afforded by the usages and cultural traits of communities

at a low stage of development indicates that the institution of a

leisure class has emerged gradually during the transition from primitive

savagery to barbarism; or more precisely, during the transition from

a peaceable to a consistently warlike habit of life. The conditions

apparently necessary to its emergence in a consistent form are: (1) the

community must be of a predatory habit of life (war or the hunting

of large game or both); that is to say, the men, who constitute the

inchoate leisure class in these cases, must be habituated to the

infliction of injury by force and stratagem; (2) subsistence must be

obtainable on sufficiently easy terms to admit of the exemption of

a considerable portion of the community from steady application to a

routine of labour. The institution of leisure class is the outgrowth

of an early discrimination between employments, according to which

some employments are worthy and others unworthy. Under this ancient

distinction the worthy employments are those which may be classed as

exploit; unworthy are those necessary everyday employments into which no

appreciable element of exploit enters.

This distinction has but little obvious significance in a modern

industrial community, and it has, therefore, received but slight

attention at the hands of economic writers. When viewed in the light of

that modern common sense which has guided economic discussion, it seems

formal and insubstantial. But it persists with great tenacity as

a commonplace preconception even in modern life, as is shown, for

instance, by our habitual aversion to menial employments. It is a

distinction of a personal kind--of superiority and inferiority. In the

earlier stages of culture, when the personal force of the individual

counted more immediately and obviously in shaping the course of events,

the element of exploit counted for more in the everyday scheme of life.

Interest centred about this fact to a greater degree. Consequently a

distinction proceeding on this ground seemed more imperative and more

definitive then than is the case to-day. As a fact in the sequence of

development, therefore, the distinction is a substantial one and rests

on sufficiently valid and cogent grounds.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:53:51

The ground on which a discrimination between facts is habitually made

changes as the interest from which the facts are habitually viewed

changes. Those features of the facts at hand are salient and substantial

upon which the dominant interest of the time throws its light. Any given

ground of distinction will seem insubstantial to any one who habitually

apprehends the facts in question from a different point of view and

values them for a different purpose. The habit of distinguishing and

classifying the various purposes and directions of activity prevails of

necessity always and everywhere; for it is indispensable in reaching a

working theory or scheme of life. The particular point of view, or the

particular characteristic that is pitched upon as definitive in the

classification of the facts of life depends upon the interest from which

a discrimination of the facts is sought. The grounds of discrimination,

and the norm of procedure in classifying the facts, therefore,

progressively change as the growth of culture proceeds; for the end for

which the facts of life are apprehended changes, and the point of view

consequently changes also. So that what are recognised as the salient

and decisive features of a class of activities or of a social class at

one stage of culture will not retain the same relative importance for

the purposes of classification at any subsequent stage.

But the change of standards and points of view is gradual only, and it

seldom results in the subversion or entire suppression of a standpoint

once accepted. A distinction is still habitually made between industrial

and non-industrial occupations; and this modern distinction is a

transmuted form of the barbarian distinction between exploit and

drudgery. Such employments as warfare, politics, public worship, and

public merrymaking, are felt, in the popular apprehension, to differ

intrinsically from the labour that has to do with elaborating the

material means of life. The precise line of demarcation is not the same

as it was in the early barbarian scheme, but the broad distinction has

not fallen into disuse.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:54:22

The tacit, common-sense distinction to-day is, in effect, that any

effort is to be accounted industrial only so far as its ultimate purpose

is the utilisation of non-human things. The coercive utilisation of man

by man is not felt to be an industrial function; but all effort directed

to enhance human life by taking advantage of the non-human environment

is classed together as industrial activity. By the economists who have

best retained and adapted the classical tradition, man's "power over

nature" is currently postulated as the characteristic fact of industrial

productivity. This industrial power over nature is taken to include

man's power over the life of the beasts and over all the elemental

forces. A line is in this way drawn between mankind and brute creation.

In other times and among men imbued with a different body of

preconceptions this line is not drawn precisely as we draw it to-day.

In the savage or the barbarian scheme of life it is drawn in a different

place and in another way. In all communities under the barbarian

culture there is an alert and pervading sense of antithesis between

two comprehensive groups of phenomena, in one of which barbarian

man includes himself, and in the other, his victual. There is a felt

antithesis between economic and non-economic phenomena, but it is not

conceived in the modern fashion; it lies not between man and brute

creation, but between animate and inert things.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:54:44

It may be an excess of caution at this day to explain that the barbarian

notion which it is here intended to convey by the term "animate" is not

the same as would be conveyed by the word "living". The term does not

cover all living things, and it does cover a great many others. Such

a striking natural phenomenon as a storm, a disease, a waterfall, are

recognised as "animate"; while fruits and herbs, and even inconspicuous

animals, such as house-flies, maggots, lemmings, sheep, are not

ordinarily apprehended as "animate" except when taken collectively.

As here used the term does not necessarily imply an indwelling soul or

spirit. The concept includes such things as in the apprehension of the

animistic savage or barbarian are formidable by virtue of a real or

imputed habit of initiating action. This category comprises a large

number and range of natural objects and phenomena. Such a distinction

between the inert and the active is still present in the habits of

thought of unreflecting persons, and it still profoundly affects the

prevalent theory of human life and of natural processes; but it does not

pervade our daily life to the extent or with the far-reaching practical

consequences that are apparent at earlier stages of culture and belief.

To the mind of the barbarian, the elaboration and utilisation of what is

afforded by inert nature is activity on quite a different plane from his

dealings with "animate" things and forces. The line of demarcation may

be vague and shifting, but the broad distinction is sufficiently real

and cogent to influence the barbarian scheme of life. To the class of

things apprehended as animate, the barbarian fancy imputes an unfolding

of activity directed to some end. It is this teleological unfolding of

activity that constitutes any object or phenomenon an "animate" fact.

Wherever the unsophisticated savage or barbarian meets with activity

that is at all obtrusive, he construes it in the only terms that are

ready to hand--the terms immediately given in his consciousness of his

own actions. Activity is, therefore, assimilated to human action, and

active objects are in so far assimilated to the human agent. Phenomena

of this character--especially those whose behaviour is notably

formidable or baffling--have to be met in a different spirit and with

proficiency of a different kind from what is required in dealing with

inert things. To deal successfully with such phenomena is a work of

exploit rather than of industry. It is an assertion of prowess, not of

diligence.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:55:10

Under the guidance of this naive discrimination between the inert and

the animate, the activities of the primitive social group tend to fall

into two classes, which would in modern phrase be called exploit and

industry. Industry is effort that goes to create a new thing, with a

new purpose given it by the fashioning hand of its maker out of passive

("brute") material; while exploit, so far as it results in an outcome

useful to the agent, is the conversion to his own ends of energies

previously directed to some other end by an other agent. We still speak

of "brute matter" with something of the barbarian's realisation of a

profound significance in the term.

The distinction between exploit and drudgery coincides with a difference

between the sexes. The sexes differ, not only in stature and muscular

force, but perhaps even more decisively in temperament, and this must

early have given rise to a corresponding division of labour. The general

range of activities that come under the head of exploit falls to the

males as being the stouter, more massive, better capable of a sudden

and violent strain, and more readily inclined to self assertion, active

emulation, and aggression. The difference in mass, in physiological

character, and in temperament may be slight among the members of the

primitive group; it appears, in fact, to be relatively slight and

inconsequential in some of the more archaic communities with which we

are acquainted--as for instance the tribes of the Andamans. But so soon

as a differentiation of function has well begun on the lines marked

out by this difference in physique and animus, the original difference

between the sexes will itself widen. A cumulative process of selective

adaptation to the new distribution of employments will set in,

especially if the habitat or the fauna with which the group is in

contact is such as to call for a considerable exercise of the sturdier

virtues. The habitual pursuit of large game requires more of the manly

qualities of massiveness, agility, and ferocity, and it can therefore

scarcely fail to hasten and widen the differentiation of functions

between the sexes. And so soon as the group comes into hostile contact

with other groups, the divergence of function will take on the developed

form of a distinction between exploit and industry.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:55:44

In such a predatory group of hunters it comes to be the able-bodied

men's office to fight and hunt. The women do what other work there is

to do--other members who are unfit for man's work being for this purpose

classed with women. But the men's hunting and fighting are both of the

same general character. Both are of a predatory nature; the warrior

and the hunter alike reap where they have not strewn. Their aggressive

assertion of force and sagacity differs obviously from the women's

assiduous and uneventful shaping of materials; it is not to be accounted

productive labour but rather an acquisition of substance by seizure.

Such being the barbarian man's work, in its best development and widest

divergence from women's work, any effort that does not involve an

assertion of prowess comes to be unworthy of the man. As the tradition

gains consistency, the common sense of the community erects it into a

canon of conduct; so that no employment and no acquisition is morally

possible to the self respecting man at this cultural stage, except such

as proceeds on the basis of prowess--force or fraud. When the predatory

habit of life has been settled upon the group by long habituation, it

becomes the able-bodied man's accredited office in the social economy

to kill, to destroy such competitors in the struggle for existence as

attempt to resist or elude him, to overcome and reduce to subservience

those alien forces that assert themselves refractorily in the

environment. So tenaciously and with such nicety is this theoretical

distinction between exploit and drudgery adhered to that in many hunting

tribes the man must not bring home the game which he has killed, but

must send his woman to perform that baser office.

As has already been indicated, the distinction between exploit and

drudgery is an invidious distinction between employments. Those

employments which are to be classed as exploit are worthy, honourable,

noble; other employments, which do not contain this element of exploit,

and especially those which imply subservience or submission, are

unworthy, debasing, ignoble. The concept of dignity, worth, or honour,

as applied either to persons or conduct, is of first-rate consequence

in the development of classes and of class distinctions, and it is

therefore necessary to say something of its derivation and meaning. Its

psychological ground may be indicated in outline as follows.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:56:24

As a matter of selective necessity, man is an agent. He is, in his own

apprehension, a centre of unfolding impulsive activity--"teleological"

activity. He is an agent seeking in every act the accomplishment of some

concrete, objective, impersonal end. By force of his being such an agent

he is possessed of a taste for effective work, and a distaste for futile

effort. He has a sense of the merit of serviceability or efficiency

and of the demerit of futility, waste, or incapacity. This aptitude

or propensity may be called the instinct of workmanship. Wherever the

circumstances or traditions of life lead to an habitual comparison

of one person with another in point of efficiency, the instinct of

workmanship works out in an emulative or invidious comparison of

persons. The extent to which this result follows depends in some

considerable degree on the temperament of the population. In any

community where such an invidious comparison of persons is habitually

made, visible success becomes an end sought for its own utility as a

basis of esteem. Esteem is gained and dispraise is avoided by putting

one's efficiency in evidence. The result is that the instinct of

workmanship works out in an emulative demonstration of force.

During that primitive phase of social development, when the community is

still habitually peaceable, perhaps sedentary, and without a developed

system of individual ownership, the efficiency of the individual can

be shown chiefly and most consistently in some employment that goes to

further the life of the group. What emulation of an economic kind there

is between the members of such a group will be chiefly emulation in

industrial serviceability. At the same time the incentive to emulation

is not strong, nor is the scope for emulation large.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:56:55

When the community passes from peaceable savagery to a predatory phase

of life, the conditions of emulation change. The opportunity and the

incentive to emulate increase greatly in scope and urgency. The activity

of the men more and more takes on the character of exploit; and an

invidious comparison of one hunter or warrior with another grows

continually easier and more habitual. Tangible evidences of

prowess--trophies--find a place in men's habits of thought as an

essential feature of the paraphernalia of life. Booty, trophies of

the chase or of the raid, come to be prized as evidence of pre-eminent

force. Aggression becomes the accredited form of action, and booty

serves as prima facie evidence of successful aggression. As accepted at

this cultural stage, the accredited, worthy form of self-assertion

is contest; and useful articles or services obtained by seizure or

compulsion, serve as a conventional evidence of successful contest.

Therefore, by contrast, the obtaining of goods by other methods than

seizure comes to be accounted unworthy of man in his best estate. The

performance of productive work, or employment in personal service, falls

under the same odium for the same reason. An invidious distinction

in this way arises between exploit and acquisition on the other hand.

Labour acquires a character of irksomeness by virtue of the indignity

imputed to it.

With the primitive barbarian, before the simple content of the notion

has been obscured by its own ramifications and by a secondary growth of

cognate ideas, "honourable" seems to connote nothing else than

assertion of superior force. "Honourable" is "formidable"; "worthy" is

"prepotent". A honorific act is in the last analysis little if

anything else than a recognised successful act of aggression; and where

aggression means conflict with men and beasts, the activity which comes

to be especially and primarily honourable is the assertion of the strong

hand. The naive, archaic habit of construing all manifestations of

force in terms of personality or "will power" greatly fortifies this

conventional exaltation of the strong hand. Honorific epithets, in

vogue among barbarian tribes as well as among peoples of a more advance

culture, commonly bear the stamp of this unsophisticated sense of

honour. Epithets and titles used in addressing chieftains, and in the

propitiation of kings and gods, very commonly impute a propensity for

overbearing violence and an irresistible devastating force to the person

who is to be propitiated. This holds true to an extent also in the more

civilised communities of the present day. The predilection shown in

heraldic devices for the more rapacious beasts and birds of prey goes to

enforce the same view.

Obā-san · 2013-04-19 13:57:31

Under this common-sense barbarian appreciation of worth or honour, the

taking of life--the killing of formidable competitors, whether brute

or human--is honourable in the highest degree. And this high office of

slaughter, as an expression of the slayer's prepotence, casts a

glamour of worth over every act of slaughter and over all the tools and

accessories of the act. Arms are honourable, and the use of them, even

in seeking the life of the meanest creatures of the fields, becomes a

honorific employment. At the same time, employment in industry becomes

correspondingly odious, and, in the common-sense apprehension, the

handling of the tools and implements of industry falls beneath the

dignity of able-bodied men. Labour becomes irksome.

It is here assumed that in the sequence of cultural evolution primitive

groups of men have passed from an initial peaceable stage to a

subsequent stage at which fighting is the avowed and characteristic

employment of the group. But it is not implied that there has been an

abrupt transition from unbroken peace and good-will to a later or higher

phase of life in which the fact of combat occurs for the first time.

Neither is it implied that all peaceful industry disappears on the

transition to the predatory phase of culture. Some fighting, it is safe

to say, would be met with at any early stage of social development.

Fights would occur with more or less frequency through sexual

competition. The known habits of primitive groups, as well as the habits

of the anthropoid apes, argue to that effect, and the evidence from the

well-known promptings of human nature enforces the same view.

The Trash Heap of the Heapers' Hangout

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