Archaic State of Conquest

Here is a complete overhaul of the Archaic State chapter, which should add some much needed clarity and punch. There’s still work to be done but I’m too embarrassed by the last version not post this replacement. -awc

Even at their most peaceful, every State dreams of capture. Yet one State-form is nothing but unbridled conquest: the Archaic State. In a recent work, The Art of Not Being Governed, anarchist academic James C Scott describes the advent of such a State. Setting the scene, Scott details the alluvial plains of Southeast Asia where he says that the simplest states formed in fertile valleys. The key to Scott’s account is his political economy of their emergence, which emphasizes the mass cultivation of rice. Further dramatizing the centrality of rice for these states, Scott calls them ‘padi states.’ Among the many aspects of the padi state particular to Southeast Asia, there are two more general characteristics of padi states that are crystallized in the Archaic State: first, a heavy reliance on slave labor, which is secured through raiding and trading to produce the rice; and second, an inability to span elevation, which results in State power leaving a non-contiguous footprint. Abstracting these characteristics from what is historically specific to padi states in Southeast Asia, it becomes clear that the basic process of the Archaic State is not cultivation but conquest.

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Archaic State — Complete, Final Version

They found the first body tucked away in one of the many coves that dot the  shoreline. It had long decomposed, and it first appeared as if all they had to go on was a set of bones whose neat arrangement had been systematically disrupted with the rolling tide. After closer examination, however, they happened across what initially looked like an ornately decorated animal hide. But as the pieces came together, it became undeniable that what they had thought was a hide was in fact the carefully preserved skin of the man they had stumbled upon at the mouth of the cavern. And rather than decoration, the skin buried next to him was covered in patterns of scars, each grouped around where a vital organ would be located 

The discovery fascinated everybody. Some were incredulous, unwilling to believe the authenticity of their find. Others called on tables or charts, long memorized from daily use comparing this or that thing. But the most helpful theory for these momentary detectives came from an unpredictable source, a book on mythology written by the Frenchman George Dumézil entitled Mitra-Varuna. Part philology, part comparative folklore, this book unifies Indo-European myths of authority into a single general theory of sovereignty. Sovereignty, argues Dumézil is constituted by two heads – one taking on the figure of a great conquerer, the other a mighty priest – and while they had found the former, the later was still to come.

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the ‘terrible alphabet’ of tattooing and scarification

the mutilated individual is removed from the common mass of humanity by a rite of separation (this is the idea behind cutting, piercing, etc.) which automatically incorporates him into a defined group; since the operation leaves ineradicable traces, the incorporation is permanent (Arnold Van Gennep, Rites of Passage, 72).

found this passage while returning to my notes on tattooing. decided to rewrite this fragment in order to include it as a block quote. rewrite after the jump.

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