Jared Diamond, in his argument against what he terms a “progressive” perspective, takes full advantage of the luxury of speculation as regarding humanity’s evolution. He loses no time in pointing out how ordered civilizations invariably produce, at one time or another, disastrous consequences. Plainly speaking, people settle in an area and then become completely dependent on what the area can offer. Moreover, they enable disease to strike a confined population, and they have leisure to devise religious structures demanding conformity.

The mistake Diamond makes in his assertion is, ironically, based on that speculation he enjoys. It is one thing to look at surviving examples of hunter/gatherer cultures and point to how healthy their diets are and how free their living is. It is another to then divest them of the undesirable traits that humans demonstrate in ordered societies. For example, Diamond exposes how only an agricultural community could be sustaining enough to produce a class system, and consequently the evils inherent in them. However, this by no means proves that hunter tribes were exempt from making such distinctions; it is only that, as wanderers, we have little to no evidence of the social components they held to. That is to say, if there is in humanity a desire to create levels within a society, as we certainly do know from history, it is extremely likely that this impulse to “rank” existed in some form in hunter populations. If the farming civilization had a king, it is only logical, given the basic nature of man to compete, that the hunting tribe had a dominant male or “chief”.

The parallels go to religion, as well. Monotheism flourishes in a stable society, but that in no way precludes a hunter tribe from carrying with them superstitions as deeply felt. Diamond ultimately blames forms and chosen modes of living for the human characteristics which must inevitably manifest themselves within any mode of living.