burnafter184

Today's labor is different in that the individual is commoditized. You're indentured to your client, who then accrues a debt to be discharged in an agreed upon time with various contingencies appended, like showing up on time and regardless of completion of your given task (10 baskets/8h) you're nonetheless expected to put in your contracted time.

Basket weaving done in your home, with performance left to your own scruples, and a personalized schedule is leagues different than slaving away for someone else.

I'm no historian, so this is a very rough synthesis:

In history there's a handful of cases where there have been what are viewed as probably warless societies. Honestly I wouldn't say they fared any worse than warring states. Indus Valley Civilization, Rapa Nui Civilization, Early Sumeria... I'm sure there's countless others in reality but those are what I recall off the top of my head.

I find it difficult to actually piece together a narrative where war is actually a necessity. Empire itself, abstracted, is really just the displacement of toil which isn't a "necessary evil" by any means. And by far and large that is what virtually all war has been predicated on up to World War 2 which justified itself with teleological underpinnings like Marxism and Fascist ideologies; perhaps a few exceptions being outright hostilities triggered by emotional kings.

Ultimately it's survivorship bias, but the surviving population is selecting for all the worst conceivable parameters, which in turn has perverted our whole understanding of civilization. It's made it seem as if war is necessary, that defense strategies and assets must be in place, etc... I don't think this is really the case, but creating a policy system that is totally forbidding of the powers necessary to conjure the public force is a difficulty in and of itself.

I do also suspect that people who do tow the line of government aren't self-contained individuals, they do themselves require laws, governance, and espouse things like inevitable war are exactly those predisposed to causing it, and they're projecting themselves.

I feel like I have to drop "Technopoly" here, because that's promoting similar concepts. Postman calls out our bias towards adopting new technologies without any reluctance, and without consideration of the hazards of deploying it. He also espouses the view that once a technology is adopted it will self-proliferate up to the point where it becomes wholly outmoded, which at least as far as I can tell appears to be true. So there's this natural blindspot for technology where mankind seemingly sees only upsides, judges it fit for use. Eventually an overarching technic emerges where it's not mankind that is using the technology, but rather technology is using mankind. Like most of Postman, it's a very compelling criticism, and despite its age the points he made are remain salient.

Do you actually have anything to back that up? I'm not being antagonistic, but the impression I've gotten is that education was largely done for the sake of itself, like if you read Les Miserables the collegiate cast was largely poor - with the exception being those of high birth. Which I mean, take that for how you will, it is a fictional work. But then in Ancient China we see stuff like the Imperial Exam, which does sort of direct the education->wealth, but you still see the pattern of high birth being the ultimate determinant of success in most cases. Which to me says there is a paternal drive to have your kids educated, but for the sake of education itself, since ostensibly the family unit is already well established.

But I'm actually really interested in reading a historical perspective of education, so if you've got some sources I'd appreciate your sharing them.