Letter from a reader
What I Learned in Reading Ardea Skybreak's Of Primeval Steps and Future Leaps and Why I Strongly Recommend This Book to Others
February 7, 2014 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us
Available at Revolution Books - New York City. Also available at amazon.com.
I recently had the privilege of reading the book, Of Primeval Steps and Future Leaps: An Essay on the Emergence of Human Beings, the Source of Women's Oppression, and the Road to Emancipation, by Ardea Skybreak, with a veteran revolutionary, and the understanding I have gained on the origins of women's oppression is truly life changing. I am a member of the Revolution Club as well as Stop Patriarchy, so I have been trying to deepen my understanding of the history of women’s oppression, and this book was recommended to me by many comrades. When I first got into the book, I knew the importance of gaining this knowledge for my own understanding, and for future use in arguing out with others the true reason human nature does not play a decisive role in the division of society into masters and slaves. What I did not know, was the understanding I would gain in terms of method; what I mean by this is the way in which Skybreak uses science as a method of getting at what is actually true, using all available evidence and drawing conclusions from that. And that this is something that is not just science that can be applied to this topic, but to be continuously utilized in understanding anything and everything else.
Some points which really struck me about this book were:
Natural Selection—Skybreak thoroughly breaks down how so many scientists have gotten this all wrong, in terms of finding conclusions based on what is true today, i.e., a hand being used to manipulate tools, and proclaiming the behavior to be the reason the hand evolved the way it did. Skybreak gives many examples of why this kind of method is all wrong, and brings the reader through the actual history, based on all the available evidence, of how and why human beings evolved the way they did. That it was actually the interplay of accident and necessity that contributed to human beings becoming what they are today, in terms of bodily structure.
Hunter-Gatherer vs Gatherer-Hunter—Most people think the first communal societies survived primarily through hunting and therefore call these societies the hunter-gatherer societies. However, Skybreak explains how, in reality, meat was extremely rare and gathering was the main source of sustenance. This distinction is extremely important as it gives a basis for men to be more out in the world, sometimes taking days out before they even caught anything, and during this time interacting with other peoples. Men being the main hunters, although there was no real reason the women could not also hunt beyond the need to stay closer to the young while nursing, allowed men to have control over the distribution of meat as well as over the relations between their tribes and outside tribes. This laid the foundation for men to have more say in tribal matters, even as the children were allowed a place in a tribe according to their relation to the mothers since it was obvious who the mothers were, and there was no need to know who the fathers were; it did not determine whether a child would have a place in a tribe. Nor did the relation to the father determine whether a child would eat or be taken care of. The whole tribe contributed to the rearing of children.
Understanding the relations between men and women in the most primitive societies matters a great deal, because it tells us that the way in which men and women relate today is in no way human nature. Only when people began to understand the land on a deeper level, how to work it, and how to create a surplus, did there arise a need to control distribution and conservation of this surplus. It is what gave rise to the division of society into those who worked the land, and those who organized and controlled the means of production and the distribution of the products. This did not necessarily need to be an oppressive relation between these two sections of society, but with a very basic understanding of how to organize society, with a surplus that wasn’t in any sense an immense surplus, competition beginning to arise, and no real science yet, this is how things did develop and along with this developed the institution of the family, which then would maintain the property relations. This forced women into a totally subordinate position in society, where their lives, as well as their children’s lives were totally dependent on the men/husbands and the level of their work.
Throughout this book, I was brought into a deeper understanding of why society has become what it is today. That it was not the will of some ‘god’ or anything like that, nor of human nature. Instead, things have developed into what they are today due to a lot of necessity, and a lot of accident. Very similar to the way in which human beings developed; a way that was not at all linear or predetermined, society developed.
It is very easy to look out into the world and say WOW what a bunch of selfish, inconsiderate, corrupted people! It is why when someone does something nice for you, just because, it stays with you for so long! For far too long, people have been kept in the dark. People have been lied to, that this is just the way it is, and has always been; there has always been exploitation, there has always been male domination, and the fact of the matter is, this just is not true. And to take this even further, we are at a point in history where we could organize society in a way in which everyone’s needs would be met. If all people were contributing what they could in the realm of physical labor, it would allow these same people to contribute to the organization of society, as well as contribute in the realm of theory, art, culture, etc., and even just relax! There is a basis to do this today, and through getting into this book I have come to understand even more deeply why it is possible to break out of this set-up, because it truly hasn’t always been this way, and we really can do so much better than this. I strongly encourage others to read this book, get into this understanding, because it matters that we understand the method that is needed to get to the truth, in relation to history, but also in relation to the present and future we need to bring into being through revolution in order to truly flourish as human beings.
If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.