0205 When historians speculate about the origin of states for ancient Mesopotamia, India, China and Peru, they project these three principles backwards, in time and location. They presume that each path culminates in a state2b, emerging from the potential of order1b. “Order1b” is confounded with policing power, administration and competitive politics.
0206 Or, should I say, that “order1b” is confounded with domination2, according to the following definition.
0207 Graeber and Wengrow explore the concept that a state could arise from one or two of the potentials1 underlying the term, “domination”2 in the normal context of defintion3.
0208 Well, the Olmec and the Maya may have started with competitive politics. They play “ball games” where the “ball” is a human skull (or something like that). No wonder everyone wanted to follow the winner.
0209 What about the early large-scale societies that appear in the Peruvian Andes and adjacent coastal drainages, long before the Inca?
Monumental architecture appears in the Rio Supe region between 3000 and 2500 B.C. Then, between 1000 to 200 B.C., a single center, Chavin de Huantar, is founded in the northern highlands of Peru.
To me, this suggests exposure to speech-alone talk before 3000 B.C., with full adoption by say, 2800 B.C. I wonder, “Could some speech-alone talking person have made it to the coast of Peru two thousand years before the official start of the Lapita horizon in the eastern Pacific, around 1600 B.C.?”
Hmmm, the establishment of large settlements in China’s Shandong province, on the lower reaches of the Yellow River, date to no later than 3500 B.C.
0210 Graeber and Wengrow dwell on the Chavin horizon. Its art appears across a wide region. Some of the pottery figures are monsters. Do the monsters have a purpose? Perhaps, they offer visual clues for remembering complicated mythologies, such as genealogies or shamanic journeys. Some carved figures hold plants known for their hallucinogenic properties. Can a “state” come together on the administration of psychoactive substances? I suppose so. What about today’s psychoactive propaganda? Do our televisions offer the same appeal as the representatives of the Chavin horizon? Come experience the illusion. Watch and enter the delusion.
0211 Graeber and Wengrow label the early civilizations of the Americas, “first order regimes”, because they seem to be organized around only one of the three elementary forms of domination.
0212 This implies that the term, “state”2b, directly emerges from and situates the potential of “domination”1b. Plus, the potential of the term, “domination” arises from three independent sources, which look increasingly like meaning (exclusive control of violence), presence (various ministries trafficking in information) and message (honor our heroic deeds).
0213 Here is a picture.
