States of nature: Geographical aspects of current theories of human evolution

Abstract

The paper is the 2018 Political Geography invited lecture. I discuss the geographical component to early state formation and its impact on theories of human nature. Ever since Rousseau accused Hobbes of taking post-state passions as constitutive of human nature and projecting them onto pre-state peoples, the question of whether or not early state formation produced qualitative changes in human emotional and cognitive structures has been debated in anthropology and philosophy. The work of James C Scott, especially in The Art of Not Being Governed and Against the Grain has emphasized the geographical component of early state formation and the concomitant and often futile attempts of states to stop flight from states as in the proverbial "run for the hills!" I will put Scott's work in dialogue with the philosophical work of Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, as well as with new anthropological theories of human evolution, including the Human Self-Domestication thesis of Brian Hare, and the obligate collaborative foraging thesis of Michael Tomasello. At stake will be attempts to account for prosocial egalitarian sentiments and their conflict with hierarchical states.