The Social Order

I think that most of us, most of the six and a half billion or so people in the world, want little more than a sense of independence and security. I think most of us are grateful if we are healthy, well fed and reasonably autonomous within a larger social context.

That said, it’s bible story time and let’s start with Cain and Abel: Cain grew great veggies, but Abel raised tasty lambs. It seems that in those days g-d preferred lamb chops to Waldorf salad, so when the brothers made ritual sacrifices, g-d preferred the blood. I guess that’s just the kind of g-d he was. Or maybe walnuts gave him gas. Whatever. The time came when Cain was just tired of having the second best sacrifice and he killed Abel. Made sense in a binary kind of way: now g-d would have to enjoy the veggies because there wouldn’t be any meat at the altar.

Sadly, this is the old testament and g-d isn’t that easily redirected. “Murder,” g-d says. “You’ve murdered your brother. That’s as wrong as sex, maybe even wronger.” (The ancient g-dsprache was short on irregular comparatives). Cain says, “Sh-t, g-d, I was just trying to look a little better in your eyes. Why, for today’s sacrifice you’ll notice we have a fine tossed green salad, mesclun with minced scallions, a little cilantro, a few raisins and a handful of cherry tomatoes all tossed in a sweet rice vinegar with a little olive oil.”

“Tasty,” says g-d. “But have I told you about the Mark of Cain?” “D-mn,” says Cain. “You’re gonna make me wander the f-cking earth with some kind of tat on my forehead or a piercing or something?”

“Worse than that,” says g-d. “I’m gonna give you red hair.”

Flash forward a few pages, maybe twenty chapters or so of Genesis… along comes Esau, a red-head, and Isaac’s first born, but not by more than a minute or two. The whole Smothers Brothers “G-d always liked you better” routine is played out here for a second time. Esau was the first born, but he has kind of a laid back approach to his patrimony. “Trade you my birthright for some of that great lentil stew, Jake,” says Esau, and Jacob, not one to miss a chance to be the founder of the entire Israelite thing, says “You’re on, bro’,” and he serves up Esau a mess o’ pottage. Now this is a cheap shot and you saw it coming but what Esau did NOT get was a Mess o’ potamia. That was saved for the Hittites and is the subject of another story. Anyway, turns out that the tension in the Jacob/Esau story also had something to do with their father Isaac enjoying Esau’s venison more than he enjoyed Jacob’s lentils, (sort of an echo of the Cain and Abel thing but more down to earth) but the bible doesn’t make too big a thing about that because it would be a millenium or so before the Greeks got down with all that Oedipal stuff, and more than a couple millenia after that before the Smothers Brothers came on the scene, so our assessment of Esau wandering on-stage for a moment in order to swap a bowl of legumes for his birthright and legitimize Jacob’s role as progenitor of the twelve tribes of Israel is probably just overwriting on the part of the author of Genesis.

So it goes.

Jacob, also known as Israel after his win that night at the first WWF bout, had twelve sons and each of them formed a tribe and the tribes were united, give or take that little split into two kingdoms in 920BCE.

And it is perhaps out of that early tribalism that grew a consciousness of the protection that leaders bring to followers, hence our tolerance of them, and of the privileges they receive, hence their willingness to expose themselves as leaders.

This vision of a nomadic culture and early agriculturalism seems like a good foundation for a study of oligarchy and the rise of corporate petroculture, the Cali cartel as a countervailing force on Venezuela’s west flank and a better understanding of Marvin Bush. But first I think we’ll want to address the Roman Empire, the dark ages, feudalism, the renaissance and mercantilism, the rise of industrial capitalism, the decline of the monarchy, democracy, naturalism, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Ani di Franco, and then we can get back to Marvin Bush.