Thanks for another interesting post. I'm thinking your contrast of liberal and absolutist GAs assumes that the protohumans on the originary scene included a rather large number of males, significantly more than two or three, that is if we are to distinguish a group of defenders of the centre from a larger band. Yet isn't it difficult to imagine a group where most males are not at maturity exiled over competition for females? Even if they benefited from hunting together, how big could the pecking order have been? Or, would you perhaps imagine that the defenders of the centre were indeed the few males in the band and the larger scene included the females as not-so-late sign users, pace Gans. Anyway, since you show how there are always already centres within centres, i.e. the defenders are distinguished from the larger band while sharing certain symmetries, i.e they constitute the first spontaneous, pragmatic "brotherhood", in contrast to the soon ritualized one, are you yet clear in
Unless I'm misunderstanding you, the assumption that there is something like an inner circle that invents the sign and then "initiates" the others into it would be the best way of having absolutist GA frame liberal GA. But it's true that representations of the originary scene vary in the way you point out--sometimes it is represented as a group, at least enough to comprise a circle, and sometimes as few as two. Gans himself goes both ways, but I think in his more "canonical" accounts it's usually the circular group. I suppose I'm splitting the difference, here at least. But I don't know about your ethnographic question--are all hominid groups comprised of a very small number of males? Perhaps we could assume at least one species "egalitarian" enough to provide sufficient males for such a scene. I have always imagined a group, without thinking so specifically in terms of numbers. It seems to me that for the sign to stick there would have to members of the group who are both witnesses to the initial effect of the sign and participants in it. With just two individuals it seems to me that it would be hard to distinguish between a genuine sign and one individual conceding to the other while still being able to take part himself (i.e., the "winner" is satisfied with primacy and doesn't insist on exclusivity).
Well, on the question of hominid groups, I don't know enough to say whether there is strong evidence on numbers of mature males living together. Sexual dimorphism is usually taken as the key measure of how much alpha male dominance there is in a primate group, and the general assumption, i think, is that pre-humans were middling to lowish in the extent of their dimorphism. Here"s a survey looking at the various arguments regarding whether we are polygamous or monogamous and the author can only conclude both: http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/human_evolution/2012/10/are_humans_monogamous_or_polygamous_the_evolution_of_human_mating_strategies_.html So maybe what i'm really wondering, in a fanciful way, is whether originary thinking could ever get to the point where arguments about the nature of language and culture could be so well developed as to tip the balance on questions not fully answered by the fossil fecord. You seem sure that positing a small group of first si
I'm really just unfolding a difference between my own and Gans's way of thinking about the originary scene that goes all the way back. He accepted the notion of "firstness," but ultimately in a very limited, economistic way; I saw it as having much broader implications, so broad that I never really use the concept itself--for me it just seemed obvious that in no situation does everyone do something exactly at the same time, all the more so if we're thinking in mimetic terms. So, strictly speaking, there's no absolutism on the originary scene because there is no political authority; but absolutist ontology applies insofar as someone must model the center for others, who in turn model it for others. There can't be liberalism on the originary scene because there is a center, and all relations between members are mediated by the center. This is the case even if we accept a more "circular" model of the scene. This is why I wouldn't speak in terms of "moral equality" or other liberal terms. Distribution is not egalitarian in the sense that it is universally agreed to divide the meal equally--rather, no one will molest another past the point where the limits set by attention to the center and the use of the sign, allows. If we look at this from a contemporary perspective, we can project our own fantasies about equality onto it. Even in the supposedly egalitarian primitive communities, all "egalitarian" can mean there is that no one is permitted to usurp the center; even then, no doubt some members were more active in policing any such attempts--and if someone came too close, perhaps the group would unanimously "dethrone" him--but is that really what we want to mean by "egalitarian"? In fact, not only is there no liberalism on the originary scene, I doubt there is really any liberalism anywhere--liberalism is just a battle cry against tradition, social obligation and, now, biological reality.
The liberal version of the scene would be the circular model, which is an arbitrary assumption but a likely after the fact construction of the participants themselves: for one thing, it would meet the esthetic demands of the ritual. But even if we do accept that the sign, as fully revealed, also reveals the equidistance of all members from the center (in a certain sense the center is inexhaustible and infinite, so we are equidistant from it), we would still have to, if we are not really to stretch the plausibility of our model, accept the asymmetry of the members in signing and in dividing the meal. A liberal can sneak "equality" into this, but all it will mean is that everyone is included by the center, which is also the case in the most hierarchical society. If equidistance means that we affirm that everyone is within language, everyone is within ritual, everyone is "regarded" by the social order, I see no problem at all--but that's certainly not liberalism or "equality."