Below is a summary of my research in 2023 for my ongoing Art of Violence project.
- Total Pages Read: 21,575
- Average pp/week: 413
- Average pp/day: 59
- # of Books Completed: 59
- Avg. length of books completed: 336 pages
(Note that many of those books’ pages were read in 2022 and weren’t added to the 2023 number, and many books in progress weren’t finished in 2023)
Topics studied and number of books each:
- Anthropology: 6 (2 on China, 1 on Africa, 1 on the Bible)
- Autism: 7
- Bible: 3 (1 on the Supplementary Hypothesis)
- History: 12 (I started Thorndike’s History of Magic and Experimental Science earlier in the year and nearly completed all 8 volumes, but I’ll cover the whole deal in 2024, as it’s over six thousand pages)
- Kinship: 4
- Language: 4
- Martial Arts: 4 (all on China)
- Media Studies: 9 (including mythology)
- Philosophy: 1
- Psychology: 3 (primarily regarding the Spiritist movement in the late 1800s)
- Schizophrenia: 2
- Evolutionary Science: 4 (The Selfish Gene is fantastic, as is The Hand)
Biggest Book: The Rise of American Civilization by Charles A. Beard, 1927 – An extremely thorough look at American history from the settlement period. Beard layers on the causes of events like brickwork, with economic, cultural, political and other factors overlapping. Of particular interest is his interpretation of the American Civil War as primarily a war of economics. The case is well made. At 1,661 pages, it took me 2 months to read, averaging 27 pages per day, often only getting through maybe 1 page every 3 minutes due to its density.
Relevance: When we understand the origins of cowboys and general mid-western American hardiness, we get at the roots of early gunslingers and stuntmen. These were not your “typical Americans” by modern standards. These were some tough bastards who were on the one hand fighting off some equally tough European bastards, and on the other dealing with equally tough native bastards. Everyone was ready to kill each other, but also ready to strike deals when necessary. Behind the deal was the implicit threat of the gun. This framed the entire scene. Natives could use guns, but they couldn’t make ammunition, and this was how the Euro-American won. This isn’t to politick, but rather merely to show that gunpowder framed the entire scene. The horse was a vital addition to this as well.
Biggest Surprise: Witchcraft: Oracles and Magic Among the Azande by E. E. Evans-Pritchard, 1937 – It wasn’t easy to find this book, but the search was worthwhile. Renown British anthropologist Evans-Pritchard stayed with the Azande in South Sudan during British occupation and records the elaborate system of witchcraft used by the people there, which over the course of 560 pages reveals a complex economic system at play. Not only do his subjects prosecute witchcraft when they detect it using the poison oracle, but those accused 1) would never have purposefully have done it, and so the accusation tends to be one accusing fellow villagers of friendly fire, and 2) the fine tends to be paid in spears. Before the British, witchcraft was occasionally punished with death, and the poison oracle was performed on a human who might die in the service of this unique justice system. Evans-Pritchard also details where the poison oracle originated in recent history and the highly flexible system of magic among the Azande that make their culture so fascinating.
Relevance: Designing action or animation involving magic. The aesthetics of Azande magic have real roots involving chickens, hunting out poisons, invisible witchcraft, and various oracles. Rather than falling back on generic magical maneuvers from Dr. Strange or Chinese wushu, consider what the intent of the magical system under question is. Imagine that there was a physical ritual involved in the processing of this magic. Then imagine this ritual projected forward hundreds of years when it is done for performative purposes in order to gather payments at festivals and the like. We might imagine “snake” martial art systems originated as poison oracles or curse doctors instead of some hermit watching a snake fight. The gestures should follow the application of the magic, with whatever aesthetic flourish is necessary.
Another Pleasant Surprise: The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins, 1976 (40th Anniversary Edition) – Dawkins’ “story” of the gene is incredibly well argued. His reasoning is so tight that, though it clearly contradicts young earth theories, it otherwise translates easily into a theistic view of the universe. That Dawkins sees here evidence for an atheistic viewpoint might be evidence that this difference in viewpoints is merely one of semantics.
Worst Book: The Shaolin Grandmaster’s Handbook, 2004 – I’ve never been sold on the myth that Chinese animal styles were derived from various Shaolin gurus learning from animals, but that’s the myth this book attempts to propagate. I believe this was a myth concocted by Buddhist and Confucian scribes as a way to retcon magical, totemic belief systems. The Dragon “martial art style” seems to retain its originary, magical properties most closely, perhaps because it’s so obviously a mythical style. Dragon schools would compete for status as the best fortune tellers, and their “martial arts” were geared toward the Dragon dance primarily, and yet the authors here claim that the arts are first and foremost for self defense. Seven Star Praying Mantis also retains some of its astrological qualities, since the very phrase seven star is retained in its name, which is obviously an allusion to the big dipper. These totemic, astrological, Taoist clans (Snake, Tiger, etc.) likely had a kinship system of matrilineal descent, as most totem clans do, which requires marrying outside of the clan. This means each generation has the potential of introducing a new totem clan into its midst, which over time amalgamates into the a pantheon of totems, which become horoscopes such as Bagua’s 8 animals or the mainstream Chinese 12-animal horoscope. This was at odds with the Confucian patrilineal descent system which began pushing for intra-clan marriage, and we begin to see last names determining China’s regions, which is evidence that the Han’s patrilineal system prevailed. It’s no surprise Buddhism would have complied with the Confucian scribes in trying to eradicate evidence of the matrilineal system, since not only were the local sacrifices of Taoism in direct competition with the centralized sacrifices of the Confucian system, but the matrilineal system made for ideologically weak communities. You can see the exact same pattern in the centralized priesthood of Leviticus and 1-2 Kings attempting to weed out the local Canaanite “high places.”
All this is to say that the Shaolin Grandmaster’s Text is another piece of post-patrilineal propaganda that pushes a damaging, rationalist narrative of Chinese martial arts which has made them the laughing stock of the modern world. I made an entire video essay about it which you can watch below:
Second Worst Book: Pattern Seekers, The: How Autism Drives Human Invention by Simon Baron-Cohen, 2020 – Baron-Cohen’s analysis of Autism is tired and, now, degraded. His earlier book Mindblindness is actually better, but still off base. Baron-Cohen judges the traits of Autism based on expressed behavior. He claims that Autistics are “systemetizers” who help transition civilization out of magic and into technology, but he ignores the fact that magical systems like the Azande’s are highly systemitized as is and an Autistic player can and probably does thrive in such a system. It seems more likely that technological society, which comes due to patrilineal descent systems creating huge surpluses, and then corporate bilateral descent (BLD) which interconnect those surpluses, that’s where Autistics thrive. He claims that humans diverged from animals due to our “evolving” the empathy circuit (EC) which gives us Theory of Mind and claims this is missing from Autistics, which is a ridiculous idea. It’s only the expression of empathy that’s different in Autism. His S (systemitizer or, in my terminology, Introvert/Autistic) and E (emotive or Extrovert/Manic) brain type questionnaire asks whether people have a hard time with social situations. Autistics have figured out systems for social situations and so they might score high on E, but unlike E brains, Autistics rely on rote learning and making elaborate behavioral theories. The best of these fail us, but they require Theory of Mind, and they require empathy. It’s just learned and expressed differently.
Baron-Cohen’s Achilles heel is that he tests for Autism in a laboratory environment. If you stand in front of an Autistic and ask him to reciprocate an emotion, or conjure one up, you’re likely to get the opposite response. Your subject knows exactly what you want, and you will not get it. If you diagnose him as disabled now, fine. He’ll work with that, but the more you drive him into that shell, the less likely he is to come out because that’s not a welcoming world for him. Instead, ask him how he would process emotion A. Have him draw it out, describe the picture, or make it with his hands, or sing it. Don’t stubbornly expect the same style of response that you’d give.
Third Worst Book: Starry Messenger: Cosmic Perspectives on Civilization by Neill deGrasse Tyson, 2022 – I speed-read this 288-page book in 2 days not in the interest of getting through it as quickly as possible, but because each paragraph was as predictable as the last. My Autistic reading style is to start slow, grasp the point, anticipate what’s coming, and speed read until I’m proven wrong. The only surprises were his rejection of race politics and a levelheadedness regarding conservatives. Aside from this, his view is that, if we could all have the opportunity to view the earth from space, we might all realize that our differences are petty, that war is never the answer. This isn’t necessarily untrue: a global perspective is obviously going to grant more context when judging one’s neighbor. But it’s not a captivating perspective, because our differences are not petty: wars have real origins that are worth pondering and fighting over, not with missiles, but in debates. And Tyson famously has never debated except maybe 2 times, and has publicly stated that he’s generally not interested in it. I believe he said something like, “Why bother debating?” His espoused views are “pro-science” which appear not to be up for debate, because science is always in flux. Yet when a non-accredited scientist challenges him, they’re not up for discussion.
Relevance: I believe Tyson is High Functioning Autistic (HFA). His speaking style reflects a unique pattern of pauses, accents, and other characteristics. When jammed up in his 2 debates, he goes into recycling mode, and is probably doing a lot of mental math as happens to any HFA when faced with compelling opposition. He tends not to do well in these situations, which is probably why he doesn’t agree to debates. Although he will defer to higher experts in his field for some subjects, he has settled into being an “expert” which makes him rigid. If my analysis is right and he is HFA, I believe he could contribute more if he wrote on Autism. He could easily put someone like Simon Baron-Cohen to shame.
Hardest Book: The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe by Jack Goody, 1983 – Anthropologist Jack Goody traces how kinship systems in Europe morphed under the influence of the Catholic Church which instituted certain rules such as 1) restricting marriage to no closer than the 7th cousin, 2) forbidding divorce, 3) forbidding remarriage of widows, 4) forbidding levirate marriage (where a younger brother marries a dead, older brother’s Widow, as in Judah’s sons in Genesis 38) and 5) highly discouraging adoption. These marriage rules came under 2 guises: continuation of the Roman system of agnatic kinship (traced solely through males), and supposedly following Biblical marriage laws. Paradoxically, all of the Church’s marriage laws contradict the Levitical laws in some way. Perhaps they were banking on their followers not reading the text. To this day, they seem to have been correct. This was also a novel way to ensure property could be retained without being parceled out among heirs, which when transferring to an individual might later be made as a nice gift to the Church. Families were encouraged to give property to women under this system, and those women were encouraged to give that property to the local diocese. In the Church’s defense, widows and orphans received much care thanks to the sheer mass of property and monasteries the Church came to own.
Goody’s research demonstrates that the European system of marriage and inheritance was nothing like the patriarchal system of the Roman paterfamilias in which the patriarch ruled with an iron fist. Instead, the European system saw a steady transition to a bilateral system, where kin were reckoned on both the father’s and mother’s side. This created huge kin networks which could come to mutual aid. One also needs to be careful when studying European kinship, since often the narrative is fixated on elite kinship, but even there we see many women inheriting large plots and becoming major leaders. There was nothing built into the system to prevent this. In fact it seems to have encouraged it. So this idea that “women once couldn’t own property” appears to be a vestige of the Roman system.
Though this book only took me 9 days to read, it’s literally all I read for those 9 days. I think I averaged maybe 1 page every 6-8 minutes. That said, it’s critical for understanding kinship in the West, for all seven of you who are interested in that stuff.
Relevance: The transition from patrilineal descent (PLD) systems like that of the Romans to the bilateral descent (BLD) of western Europe might be less a story of marriages, more a story of cities and their roles in warfare. In the 1st millennium AD the Church had quite a grip on land holdings, some 20-40% in some countries. The building of monasteries was like a “virtual” corporation in a sea of small fiefdoms, but in the second millennium landowners themselves struck back, fought for marriage reform, which was a major issue with the Protestant Reformation, and began passing inheritance down to their children however they pleased. This helped ignite the creation of city states and kingdoms, swallowing up nearby matrilineal descent (MLD) systems with them. With this, larger scale weaponry could be locally maintained and built up, rather than transferred and broken up as in MLD, or lost to the Church. The city-states begin creating large-scale arms thanks to gunpowder technology and new iron casting techniques, and this ushers in the gunpowder era, which ultimately spells victory for the Protestants and later the anti-monarchists. If we imagine warfare technology less as a development of science and more as one of inheritance buildup (since the science of warfare always precedes the actual warfare by decades or centuries), then it poses interesting questions as to why armies adopt new tactics.
Other notable mentions
- Clodd, Edward – The Question: “If a Man Die, Shall He Live Again?”, 1917 – Imagine Lewis Black writing a hundred years ago about Christian televangelists. That’s Clodd’s style, funny and brash, like a curmudgeony old sailor you’d meet at a bar who’s seen more of the world than any university professor. He assails the Spiritist movement that was en vogue in late-19th century Victorian England and particularly targets the Society for Psychical Research, which still exists, for its failings as a pseudo-scientific institution. The book is a real page-turner.
- Ross, David – Chinese Martial Arts: A Historical Outline, 2017 – Ross is harsh and pulls no punches regarding the so-called mythical history of Chinese martial arts. I wish he would return my calls. In think our combined research could do a lot.
- Ng, Wing Chung – The Rise of Cantonese Opera, 2015 – Dry but thoroughly researched study on southern Chinese opera which is crucial reading if you want to understand the roots of Hong Kong cinema.
- McLean, Albert F. – American Vaudeville as Ritual, 1964 – This book is a fascinating examination of how Vaudeville kicked off mass media as we know it in America. The writing style is easily digestible. There was something about the Cold War era’s writing style in America that maintained a frankness, which was lost around 1968. I tried reading a modern Vaudeville book and all the ritual analysis was gone, replaced by aesthetic analysis and bland history.
- Ward, John Sebastian Marlow – The Hung Society, or the Society of Heaven and Earth, Volumes I-III, 1925 – This beautifully written and decorated set takes the reader on a mythical journey through the Triad initiation ritual as the author knew it in Singapore. Most fascinating is his comparing the Triad rite with the Masonic rites, as the author was a Freemason. Admirers and critics of secret societies alike can enjoy this, which is perhaps owing to the better writing style of the early-20th century.
- Alsultany, Evelyn – Arabs and Muslims in the Media: Race and Representation after 9/11, 2012 – What attempts to be a critique of American perceptions of race and religion turn out to confirm what many of us already knew. Alsultany begins by noting the open harshness of Hollywood toward Muslims in the 90s, which promptly ended following the 9/11 attacks. From there we can see the author struggling to find her footing, attempting to call post-911 Hollywood Islamophobic while admitting that 1) the US Government subsidized international pro-Islamic programming to make the war in Afghanistan easier to fight for US soldiers, 2) there was a clamp-down against negative portrayals of Muslims, though TV shows like 24 tried to find a balance, and 3) Muslims in America were generally conservative and sided with the Christian and Jewish right wing, putting American liberals in an awkward situation (where they find themselves today). This is of course painting a very broad picture: smaller scale media maintained a critical stance toward Muslims after 9/11 bordering on the stereotypical, and news media that had once been agnostic toward Islam took on an overly hostile position, but we can’t ignore mainstream Hollywood’s attempt to mend the fences, which occasionally descended into parody.
- Williams, Ken – Not All Fairy Tales Have Happy Endings: The Rise and Fall of Sierra On-Line, 2020 – If you grew up playing Sierra adventure games like Police Quest or Leisure Suit Larry, you can’t afford not to read this book. Even for the casual gamer, Ken’s story of Sierra’s unbelievable success followed by near-total annihilation is a fascinating adventure of a small family business navigating the uncertain waters of the internet era and unearthing the ugly underbelly of corporate American greed. I’m trying to get Ken on an Action Talks podcast. Please reply to my emails, Ken!
- Smith, Robertson – Religion of the Semites, 1888 and Kinship & Marriage in Early Arabia, 1903 – Smith is one of a certain ilk of Scotsmen who were ruffling feathers in late 19th century anthropology. His contemporary John McLennan and his protege Sir James George Frazer have written incredible works that all exude a confidence that is confirmed with a timelessness we can see in them today. I’ve hypothesized that their Scotch ancestry made these thinkers more willing to criticize the mainstream narrative of their Victorian era, and Smith carried the torch with his own branch of Biblical study, following Wellhausen’s research, and then expanding into the domain of Arab kinship. What one gathers from this work is that the ancient Arab (and, by extension, Semitic) world was a loose confederation of matrilineal tribes which, by gradual amalgamation, coalesced into a tight-knit series of patrilineal systems that were weeding out totemism and ancestor-worship, united by a singular monotheistic thought kernel and a unified language. This is codified by Muhammed in The Quran. A history buff here can read The Quran, and really any holy book, as marking a transition from matrilineal to patrilineal descent systems which gave them the property and land systems necessary to compete in an Iron Age society. One sees the same trend in Homer, The Bible, and Confucian legends.
- Laing, R. D. – The Divided Self: An Existential Study in Sanity and Madness, 1959 – Haunting, and amazing. Laing’s writing is easily digestible and has a lot of heart. If you or someone you know is struggling with schizophrenia, this is a must-read.
- Yoreh, Tzemah – Why Abraham Murdered Isaac: The First Stories of the Bible Revealed, 2021 – With a compelling title, Yoreh’s book will ruffle some feathers, but if you follow his train of thought, it’s hard to deny that the Torah (the Pentateuch, the first 5 books of the Bible) present some inconsistencies that are impossible to unravel unless you investigate the Hebrew. If your Biblical study is still calcified at the King James level then there’s no reason to read this. But I urge believers to investigate Yoreh’s line of reasoning, since like Dawkins’ work it will only serve to strengthen one’s faith. At least, you’ll be as knowledgeable about the Bible as an atheist is. I believe Yoreh is still too trusting of the text, and many of his questions are easily answered if one assumes that the original Hebrew tribes were matrilineal clans like everyone else in the region. This would explain the “creepy” relationship Jacob has with his cousins whom he marries, who are perfectly marriageable under a matrilineal system.
- Baron-Cohen, Simon – Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind, 1995 – This is a much better read than the author’s later Pattern Seekers, since it lays out the framework in a coherent way. I reject his belief that Autistics lack Theory of Mind, but aside from this it’s very good.
- Gibson, Kathleen R. – Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution, 1993 – What a frustrating book. For 472 pages, Gibson and a dozen other authors present paper after paper attempting to trace the genetic roots of language and tool usage among humans, while never once mentioning 1) object based combat or 2) CHOMSKY!!! (I think someone mentions Chomsky once, but only in passive disregard.) Academia in the early 90s surrounding hominization and warfare was so sclerotic and reactive against the Christian Right that it is practically blind to its own biases. I imagine Chomsky was baffled by this, being no friend of the Christian Right. He had positioned himself in an uncanny academic third party which was skeptical of the genetic origins of human language while still denying the growing pseudo-science of Intelligent Design studies. We appear to still be in this lame academic slump and it’s incredibly annoying.
- Chomsky, Noam – Aspects on the Theory of Syntax, 1965 and Why Only Us?, 2016 – Incredible books. The first lays out Chomsky’s basis for his linguistic theory. As mentioned, Chomsky had been agnostic as to whether human language was some genetic variant on animal communication systems. He couldn’t square this idea with the language acquisition device (LAD) which is universally inherent without modification in all humans. In the latter book, he tries to square this with the Darwinian orthodoxy, but is still unable to unravel where the Merge function comes from. Merge gives words their own hierarchies. My hypothesis is that Merge is a function of unoptimized human combat. I really hope that Chomsky can read my theory someday. (Note that half of Chomsky’s books are political and will serve a certain subset of thinkers, but his linguistic books are very different. I have his Minimalist Program where he puts the entire “computer code” of language down into writing, which is unreadable if you’re unfamiliar with his previous language books. I’ll try reading it again in 2024, because as of right now the entire thing is Greek to me.)
- Shlain, Leonard – The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, 1998 – Shlain’s book is exceptional. He believes that the use of the alphabet makes us think different, more abstractly and more mathematically, less in terms of images. With the alphabet comes the monotheistic, paternal god, iconoclasm, and warfare, toppling the polytheistic, goddess-oriented society, with images and a more “pacific” nature. There’s just one problem: Shlain never attempts to explain how an alphabet can arise. And this is his work’s Achilles heel. However, if one understands patrilineal descent (PLD) systems as the driving force behind alphabets and monotheism, his entire theory can be realigned. Too bad he died, since I imagine he would have not opposed this update to his theory. I look forward to reading his previous book Art & Physics.
- Drews, Robert – The End of the Bronze Age, 1993 – I picked this up on a whim at a book store and was so glad I did. It appears bland, as academic books do from the early 90s, but Drews’ research is so thorough and convincing it’s hard to deny its validity. The hypothesis is that the Bronze Age reliance on chariots was its downfall, as hordes of sword-equipped foot soldiers took on a new tactic, much aided by the explosion of the Iron Age, toppling Bronze Age cities in what he calls The Catastrophe of ~1300-1200 BC. He draws in Biblical stories, Egyptian reliefs, etc. It’s beautiful. Thanks Robert. I hope someone can do a similar, and equally concise, transitional story from stone to bronze, and from iron to gunpowder.
- McLennan, John Ferguson – The Patriarchal Theory: Based on the Papers of the Late John Ferguson McLennan, 1885 – McLennan, as mentioned above, was a thorn in the side of his Victorian colleagues. Here he attacks Sir Henry Maine, a fellow Scotsman in England, whose Ancient Law stipulated the the Roman concept of Pater familias (in which the patriarchal father holds the power of life and death over his entire family) sits at the source of human civilization. McLennan ruthlessly annihilates this argument like a Verhoeven death scene. Even if McLennan was wrong about his other theories, he proves Maine to be more wrong. Maine never really responded, and history shows that McLennan was more right here.
- Pirsig, Robert M. – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, 1974 – I blogged about this here.
- Frankl, Victor – Man’s Search for Meaning, 1952/2006 – I also blogged about this here. Warning: it’s a heavy read.
Looking Back at 2023:
- I think I’ll remember 2023 as the year when I became an armchair scientist and researcher. It’s when the various threads of the books began to coalesce into a plausible theory on violence and language, and when I was able to pinpoint (and critique) the standard evolutionary model.
- I’m still a stuntman, but I’m fueled with different stuff than I used to be. I used to want to be a famous action star. Now that I’m a full-time single parent and business owner, my priorities have totally shifted, and I want to have a strong theoretical framework behind all my work. I’d rather be a solid guy with some close friends and a rolodex of trusted guys, than be a popular guy with no close friends.
- The Action Talks podcast has benefited greatly from my research. It’s not just that I bring a different perspective now, but my research has made me want to listen more. If you compare my first interview with Kenji, when I was trying to direct Kenji’s answers, to a more recent episode, I hope you’ll agree that I am more open-minded than I used to be. Here’s hoping for an even better season 2 (whenever that is). (And thank you Kenji for being my first guest, you were extremely patient with me. I hope to be a better host in our next interview.)
- Unrelated, but I had a neck injury that was driving me insane in April, which lasted for months. My right arm would go numb, and by 7pm I was very cranky from the pain. I assumed this was some kind of disc issue, which I’ve had before in my lower back. Then I was rolling my shoulder around and I felt a chest rib suddenly pop back into place and the pain vanished.
Plans for 2024: It seems that I’ve saved the hardest books for last. I still have 8-10 kinship books, which are all super dense. I still have to polish off some very dry war books, a particularly thick book on Acheulean lithic technologies, and some neural crest cell science books. After that, I’ll write a second draft of The Art of Violence. Provided that will be worked into a final draft, I’m excited to start studying more mythology, as it’s a huge blind spot. I’m starting with Homer, and will supplement that with some Greek philosophy. These are important because they signal a transition from bronze age to iron age, which the Bible does as well. There are other important myths that appear to signal this transition such as some Confucian works, the Tao obviously, possibly the German Nibelungenlied, the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita. If my hypothesis is right, then these texts stuck because they put into writing a transition that was totally complete. Abbe Banier’s Mythology and Fables of the Ancients Explain’d from History (1739-40) is a 4-volume set that attempts to give a concrete history to many of these myths and I’m excited to read this as well. If I can get familiar with Egyptian, Sumerian, and Babylonian myths then I’ll be ready to re-read Frazer’s unabridged Golden Bough, 70% of which went over my head on the first read because of my ignorance in this area.
Here’s the full book list that I read in 2023: