Julian Cope presents Head Heritage

Steven Pinker has an interesting theory in a couple of his books, particularly 'The Blank Slate'. His claim is that people in the humanities (including archaeology but in particular anthropology) tend to be more left/liberal and are slow to recognise or even flat out deny that prehistory was violent and chaotic. He cites instances of where funding for excavations or publications were threatened unless defensive features or evidence of conflict were re-interpreted as ritual or more non-descript features.

According to his theory, people on the left and on the right have two very different origin stories. The right/conservatives generally subscribe to what he calls the 'Tragic Vision', people are, and always have been, born with flaws and selfish motives that society has to counter with strict traditions, strong institutions and socialisation that values restraint and public duty.

The left/liberals have a different origin story, which he calls the 'Utopian Vision'. According to this view people are naturally born good and selfless, it is modern society and the inequalities of civilisation that are the cause of violence and social problems. Traditions, institutions and religions are actually the problem, not the solution.

Obviously, if Pinker is right, progressives that lean left will be slow to accept that violence could be as old as the most simple human groups. It doesn't fit with the story of violence and social problems arriving only after inequality, organised religions and exploitation become rigid and inescapable.

I think maybe as post-modern thought has seeped in to the general consciousness this is beginning to be less relevant in actually interpreting the past, if society can take any form and patterns of development or theories of evolving cultures are rejected outright then it matters less what was actually going on in the past.