[RedskinRat]

Neuro-throwback

The essence of the Hunter vs. Farmer hypothesis is that behavior associated with ADHD helps people such as hunter-gatherers and pastoral nomads, and others who lead a peripatetic life. Since today’s sedentary city dwellers are recently descended from such people, natural selection may not have had time to purge the genes that cause it.

Let me construct a narrative as to just how might this have happened. For much of recent human history there has been the State. Powerful Political polities, that have effected recent human evolution. In the language of French Philosopher Gilles Deleuze, the State “over codes” everyone, and thus People aren’t self existent human beings in their own right, but cogs in a vast utilitarian machine. Those born to eccentric shapes are soon pounded into concentric shapes. It’s an extractive process akin to sculpting: People don’t become more under the influence of civilization, they become less.

Not everyone bears the yoke gladly and there are those who resist. Historically there have been wastelands on the periphery of Civilizations. Rebellious and enterprising souls, escaped slaves, criminals, religious ascetics and other misfits have taken to these areas to make lives for themselves. The Steppe areas around the Baltic Sea and Central Asia have been such a place. Nomadic cultures, organized around pastoralism (and also piracy and brigandry) formed again and again.