He's roughly correct. Yet if warrior societies are so bad, why are they so common? The answer is that they used to work. In low tech warfare, the fiercest and most cohesive side wins, even if they're outnumbered 10 to 1. So for most of history warrior aristocracies have controlled territories way out of proportion to their numbers.
Industrialization changed the balance. If you have guns and your opponents have spears, it doesn't matter how fierce they are.
The traditions of warrior socities may be obsolete, but it seems provincial to call them "toxic." Members of those societies would be equally contemptuous of our traditions. For example, our lack of loyalty. We're nicer to women, but would we be as willing to die to save a friend? We're more sensitive, but are we as honest?
"In low tech warfare, the fiercest and most cohesive side wins, even if they're outnumbered 10 to 1.. Industrialization changed the balance."
I'm not sure who's more 'fierce' between the Romans and the Germans. Technological advantage existed long before industrialization: the macedonian pike, the persian archers, the roman phalanx.
I'm not sure who's more 'fierce' between the Romans and the Germans.
That's why I said fiercest and most cohesive. There's no single word for it, but the key to winning in ancient warfare was never to run away.
Ancient battles usually lasted one day and continued till one side broke, whereupon a rout ensued. So the way to win was to be willing to stay at your post and fight to the death. If you were willing to, you didn't have to.
Perhaps the closest thing to a one-word recipe would be "steadfast."
There is always technological advance, but the examples you give are really more social than technological.
I consider the way of life Macedon constructed -- allowing superior funding and training of armies -- a technological/logistical advantage accompanied with more rapidly-evolving tactics. You call it just 'social'. It is a minor disagreement.
I agree: For most of history battles were not based on technological advantage against superior numbers, but were simple wars of attrition between increasingly equal opponents in numbers and technology. (That mindset culminated in WWI.) Warrior aristocracies did control territories out of proportion of their numbers. Especially in times of peace, when subjugating their own populations.
Being more steadfast can't defeat 10-1 odds (that requires significant technological advantage), but it was still worth a lot.
---
I wasn't sure how to talk about cohesiveness. Cohesive can be just stubborn persistence, or it can be more harmonious tactics.
Technology always has a social component. For the macedonian pike to arise you needed the social infrastructure around it that allowed Philip to train soldiers, then send them out to become battle-hardened defending trading routes from pirates. (That's a pretty common pattern, and explains why islands often grow into great powers; the right social infrastructure for warlike technology often arises after trade for several generations.)
But by no means is it so simple a matter as just being more steadfast. I can't think of a single battle that was won against 10-1 odds in numbers without technological advantage (including dramatically superior generalship and training). In fact, it's battles like in WWI or involving General Marlborough that relied on steadfastness and attrition because there was no other advantage, of technology or of generalship or of numbers.
Here's how joining an ancient army is like joining a contemporary startup: your goal is to compete with more numerous enemies by means of superior technology. You mobilize a group of people with promises of loot, rape and pillage, a share of the profits. The people around you take on risk for a chance to make it big. It's not as volatile as before, of course. Instead of losing your life you take a paycut, a hit in opportunity cost.
Here's how joining an ancient army is not like joining a contemporary startup: then your goal was to destroy and assimilate the enemy. Now it is to be happily assimilated.
---
People tend to consider the feudal system a step back from the glorious states that were ancient Greece and ancient Rome. In reality it's a step forward, employing standing armies in a decentralized 'p2p' organization rather than mobilizing armies for specific invasions.
Taking away loot as the primary incentive makes becoming a soldier more of a 'normal' career and less of a risk, more stable and less reliant on big payouts. This in turn gives a society as a whole less incentive to go marauding against its neighbors. The stability we have today in the west began then, with the barbarian Germanic tribes that later came to have knights and chivalry. Before we could have stock markets and acquisitions we had to stop fighting among ourselves.
> the key to winning in ancient warfare was never to run away.
Not really true. "Hold the line" battle is practically a modern invention. Battle for most of human history looked more like guerilla campaigns and surprise massacres.
The Vikings, Mongols, Iroquoi and so on had no problem with the "He who fights and runs away..." sentiment. Thinking strategists win wars, not pumped up jocks.
You can defend territory with guerilla techniques, but not conquer it. An aggressive warrior society has to be ready to fight pitched battles. And if you try to run away in a pitched battle, the cavalry rides you down and you get a spear in the back.
The best book I know of on this subject is Hanson's The Western Way of War. Though frankly for such a basic point any book on ancient warfare would do.
Hoplite battle is specific to a time and place. The Mongols conquered more territory than anyone, ever, with mounted archers and ready retreats. Accounts of battle in the French and Indian War probably best represent the norm when it comes to human warfare. It was characterized by raids and slaughter of civilians, not pitched battle with no retreat.
I have to agree with kingkong here. Organized Horse Archers cannot be beat by any pre-gunpowder army. People like to the label the mongols as "The Horde." But a Mongol Army of 25k consistently beat armies 5 times its size. It basically comes down to the fact that they have faster horses than you, and their composite bows have 150% the distance of even the English Long Bow (and can be fired from the saddle). If your army had these two qualities, what would you do?
The downside is that its hard to defend the empire that you've conquered using horse archery.
Alexander the Great reputedly defeated Scythian horse archers, but he left no records as to how this is was achieved. He probably used his companion cavalry to chase the horse archers against a river or into a forest. Like what the romans did to Hannibal's father. I think the Egyptians were able to beat the Mongols ONCE but only with superior numbers and a lot of preparation.
Anyway, it is USUALLY true that winning a war is about who's side has stronger will to fight. Who said that? Xenophon?
But tactically, horse archers that always run away cannot be beat. They rain arrows down upon you, burn your farms and supply lines, and taunt your huge 200,000 man armies out to be crushed in a simulatenous attack on all sides by 5 different columns of Horse Archers all arriving at the same time. They are will-breakers. Like startups picking away at slow thinking corporations.
This is similar to how the Athenians eventually defeated the Spartans by never engaging them in close combat and raining arrows and spears on them. Tactics. Not exactly the bravest thing, the Spartans would have called this Womanly fighting.
With the advent of gunpowder, artillery, and combined arms. You can't pull this off anymore. Thank god.
Lesson: Mongols only fight pitched battles they've already won.
Although for us startup guys, the point that PG might be impressing is that, its the company with the most determination that wins. Not the one with the most money/people.
kingkong here is implying that tactics and adaptive thinking is the key, not just having a hard head and tunnel vision.
Interesting. However, the author did point out a culture similar to 'thar' values without its toxicity -- Japanese bushido. It may have helped that the bushi-class outlawed the use of guns for a good while, and they were essentially warrior-bureaucrats.
As a counterpoint to what I just said, the original Bushido code was codified by a ronin, and the most recent literary work on the Bushido code, the Hagakure was written when the Japanese warrior class was already on their way out ... and the author thought the greatest shame was to meet his death in soiled underwear.
Like any career path in any culture, you'll find people who obediently obey the well-worn paths. The warriors of a warring culture is no less the same. They were fertilizer then, and they are fertilizer now. And there's always the minority who are aware of their cultural blinders. The old initiations were meant to give this gift of awareness to the perceptive. In the old days, these were the warchiefs or the shaman; today, they are the military apprentices and the hackers.
Japan at that stage seems to have had a kind of degenerate warrior culture, where warriors still ruled, but because there were no really dangerous enemies left, etiquette was starting to replace effectiveness. Something similar was happening in the France of Louis XIV-- which was likewise a better place for women than the France of Charlemagne.
Are we as willing to die to save a friend? Are we as honest?
Yes.
In fact, no matter what your opinion of the current politics vis-a-vis Iraq, it seems that not only would we die to save a friend, we would die to save an enemy, or an idea. We've done it time and again. As far as I know, no other culture is like that. As far as honesty, societies with "thar" mentalities are some of the most dishonest societies on the planet, whereas western societies a lot of business can be conducted on just a handshake. Ever try a handshake at a bazaar?
I think western civilization stacks up quite well against those questions. It's not a relative thing -- certain ideas make cultures better than other ones. Societies are all not equal -- that's a late 20th-century mode of thinking that's non-operative.
I've tried them with people working on my car transmission,
my real estate agent, and various/sundry people in my path I thought I could trust. I would trust a stranger at a bazaar more than any of those parasites.
I'd trust the Real Estate agent to not kill me... but I certainly think the random person at the market's interests are more aligned with my own than any real estate agent's interests are.
Real estate agents want the house to sell quickly at the highest price possible (to increase both their deal throughput and commission). This serves neither the buyer (who should be looking for lowest price of whatever it is he wants) nor the seller (who gets to pay an absurd commission for what amounts to secretarial work).
So yeah, this is completely off topic, but at least the person in the open air market just wants to sell something, and by being there you must want to buy it, so I don't see the swindle.
So the person in the market is unknown to you. He has something, you have something. You trade, life is good.
But how do you know when you give your money you'll get something? How do you know it's the thing you asked for? How can you be sure the trader isn't just trying to lure you back to some back room where you can be mugged or worse? While haggling at a bazaar can be great fun, there's a lot of risk involved. Financial transactions do not like risk. That's why we don't sell houses using the bazaar format.
I'd like to point out that houses sell and are bought for all kinds of reasons aside from price. So I believe your reply to be a little weak in that regard. Whatever the case, the position of "real estate agent" in our society confers all kinds of things. If the house is not the seller's, then you are covered. If the agent runs off with your down-payment, you are covered. If the agent knowingly misrepresents the house, you are covered. In fact, the idea is that the risk is reduced to simply: is it worth what I am paying for it? Financial markets like this.
There's no problem with multiple parties all having somewhat conflicting interests. Financial transactions occur when parties find some subset of aligning interests in which to trade around. Not total alignment -- that doesn't exist. Once you have enough alignment for a trade, you've got to reduce risk. Some of these cultures, for instance, refuse to use a banking system, believing it to be immoral. While I deeply respect the right of any individual to believe any dang thing he wants, cultures that do things like ban banking, private property rights, etc. greatly increase the risk during financial transactions. That's why I'd never get involved in Russia, for instance -- never can tell when the ruling party might decide just to take over your entire business. You can't have a highly-functioning society like that.
"How can you be sure the trader isn't just trying to lure you back to some back room where you can be mugged or worse?"
Like I said, I'd trust a Realtor more to not kill me (or perpetrate some other act of violence). Was just saying Realtor has much more financial incentive to screw me over in a legal, but still unkind, way.
"I'd like to point out that houses sell and are bought for all kinds of reasons aside from price. So I believe your reply to be a little weak in that regard. ... In fact, the idea is that the risk is reduced to simply: is it worth what I am paying for it?"
I totally agree that houses are bought for a number of reasons, but I was discussing the dimension involving getting the best price. If you love a house because it has fluffy pink toilet seats and are willing to pay any amount of money for that comfort, then you aren't getting screwed. On the other hand, if you live in the real world and have a maximum budget for a house, the realtor will always show you things just above your range, in the hopes you will splurge on it. Sure, you can find another realtor that won't do this, but most people won't. It's not illegal, and only slightly immoral, so I can't say I blame the realtor. They are just working within the system they are given to maximize personal gain, like anyone else. The problem I was pointing out is that the system is not well aligned with the needs of either the buyer or seller.
"Some of these cultures, for instance, refuse to use a banking system, believing it to be immoral. While I deeply respect the right of any individual to believe any dang thing he wants, cultures that do things like ban banking, private property rights, etc. greatly increase the risk during financial transactions. That's why I'd never get involved in Russia, for instance -- never can tell when the ruling party might decide just to take over your entire business. You can't have a highly-functioning society like that."
"Like I said, I'd trust a Realtor more to not kill me (or perpetrate some other act of violence). Was just saying Realtor has much more financial incentive to screw me over in a legal, but still unkind, way."
I'd rather have an equal playing field and do my own worrying about the realtor screwing me over than about my physical safety. The economy works great with people looking after their own financial interests, but not so well when things like contracts, personal safety, banking, or insurance bonds are non-existent.
Still like that idea of a bazaar being better than dealing with a professional in a western culture? From where I'm sitting it's not looking so hot. Remember -- the guy in the bazaar can still screw you the ways professionals in the west can -- but he can screw you in a lot more ways, too.
I was talking about the honesty of the ruling military aristocracy. I wouldn't put a lot of trust in the honesty of a merchant in a warrior society, because merchants are usually a despised class, and behave correspondingly despicably.
Robert Sapolsky has a short but interesting discussion of what leads to the development of warrior-class cultures and what makes them so common in his book "Monkeyluv and Other Essays on our Lives as Animals". The chapter is "The Cultural Desert."
My brief, gross over simplification is that the local ecology is the driving factor: the warrior cultures (more thar-ish and more monotheistic) develop in deserts, while polytheistic, somewhat more egalitarian cultures develop in rain forests.
He says "ours is a planet dominated by the cultural descendants of the desert dwellers. And "most evidence suggests that the rain-forst mindset is more of a hosthouse attribute, less hardy when uprooted."
I'm not doing him justice. The essay, and the rest of the book, is classic Sapolsky: well-written, entertaining, and fascinating.
I don't know, toxic seems like the right word after reading the conclusion.
The bulk of this piece is a build-up to his final warning that "advanced" cultures must be vigilant to avoid slipping [back] into warrior-esque social dogma.
What the author describes is the most basic form of a pattern which can emerge in societies at any level of advancement. The metaphorical problem is the implicit assignment of hierarchy and title, whereas a successful and fluid society will only grant these things explicitly as a result of behavior beneficial to all.
I'm sure you are not suggesting that the average overall culture of 300+ million people changed after 9-11 to include things like honor killings, oppression towards women, clans instead of families, etc. I mean, that would be a miracle of miracles. Cultures change only slowly over time, right?
And you can't be suggesting that societies that adhere to things like, say, no banking, enslaving half the population, anti-rationalism, etc are successful ways to run a culture? Perhaps you are confusing stagnation with things that most any person would agree to be good: modern medicine, free markets, ability to form private contracts, etc.
These aren't values that are owned by one society that somehow we arbitrarily use to judge other societies. These are good ideas that occur time and time again no matter what the original culture. Some cultures work better than others. Some cultures are better at things like feeding their people, making them happy, and understanding the universe than others. Everything is not more or less the same.
"In low tech warfare, the fiercest and most cohesive side wins..."
That is true of modern warfare, as well.
"If you have guns and your opponents have spears..."
Sure, in an extremely asymmetric war, the folks with the missiles can relax the fierceness a bit.
"Industrialization changed the balance."
As war becomes more about tools, the economic efficiency of the underlying society matters more. However, very early in history it was the case that he with the best toys wins. Swords were never cheap, nor was the time it took to learn to use them. The importance of technology in pre-industrial societies can be understood by the frequency and severity of arms control in China and Japan. A bunch of motivated peasants with hoes are in a bad place vis-a-vis a few gentlemen with swords and steeds.
Faith in brands has replaced faith in our neighbors. If honor is obsolete, it's because the individual is obsolete; corporations (and government) have eclipsed the individual as the primary change agents in people's lives. Who cares if my spouse is unfaithful as long as I can trust Apple and Coca-Cola.
> In low tech warfare, the fiercest and most cohesive side wins
I don't think there's any evidence for this, and certainly no evidence that Thar is related to battlefield cohesion. Battle has always been about tactics, technology, and men & materiel. The relevance of a "RAWR! we are fierce!" culture to victory is unsubstantiated BS, claims of B movies and high school football coaches to the contrary.
The Romans and Mongols weren't Thar and they militarily dominated neighboring Thar cultures with superior tactics and technology in a relatively low-tech environment. Bantu and Arab Thar people have always been relatively incompetent at war.
So why are Thar cultures common? It's simple and has nothing to do with military prowess: high birthrates. Thar cultures displace non-Thar cultures with a flood of human beings. There are expansionist cultures and cultures geared to limiting the population to a sustainable level. The expansionists always over-run the sustainables, at least in the intermediate term.
You can see this all over the world. In Africa Thar Bantu people have almost eradicated non-Thar indigineous cultures like the San over the last century. Thar Lebanon has overwhelmed non-thar Lebanese culture in just the last 50 years by way of birth rates. There are many, many examples.
Some of what you say sort of makes sense -- perhaps the subjugation of women is necessary for a high birth rate culture. But where do blood feuds and easily insulted honor come into this?
I might guess it has to do with places where life is hardscrabble and one is more successful largely by having more sons out there herding more goats. Presumably there just aren't enough resources out there to make temporary economic alliances more important than long-term familial ties. Fierceness and honor might indeed be the most important thing, because without good marriages for your sons, and when your neighbors don't fear you, the clan is doomed.
And then this strategy meets modern technology, and it gets really fun!
But I offer this with a caveat: just-so stories about culture are dime a dozen.
Industrialization changed the balance. If you have guns and your opponents have spears, it doesn't matter how fierce they are.
The traditions of warrior socities may be obsolete, but it seems provincial to call them "toxic." Members of those societies would be equally contemptuous of our traditions. For example, our lack of loyalty. We're nicer to women, but would we be as willing to die to save a friend? We're more sensitive, but are we as honest?