see again we have an issue of me having to go to the library, checking that turd out again and going through its interminable longwinded preachyness.
point 1: why whitey got so much cargo?
diamond insists that it is mere chance that provided eurasia with the bounty of magical treasures that allowed technological advancement and eventual dominance. therefore more primitive cultures and societies dont need to adapt to more modern and effective methods (the european or asian methods) but rather should rest assured that had things been different they too could have been on top. he reinforces the belief of cargo cultists and primitivists hold dear, that whitey got his cargo through rapine and pillage and thus is unworthy of emulation. he could not be more wrong
point 2: the "bounty" of eurasia
eurasia's great land mass and multiple societies ALL advanced well beyond the hunter/gatherer stage before the classical era even began, this was not due to chance or luck or the "bounty" of their environment. some parts of eurasia are as barren and lifeless as the sahara desert, and others are teeming with critters of no particular utility to any society. some areas have copper tin iron and wood others do not. diamond implies that eurasia is a wonderland, a veritable garden of eden with all the cargo a cultist could want just waiting to be picked up off the dirt. in fact the hostile and unforgiving regions of the far north and the utter south led to the fastest and most dynamic change in society as well as the most important technological breakthroughs. the harsh stepes and deserts of ais minor and arabia led to the creation of the city state and specialization of the workforce, the cold northern mountains and forests of western europe created the foggue and the concept of grain silage and food storage, the celts created steel and spread this knowledge through eurasia like wildfire, the romans and greeks established the precepts of the sciences we know today, northern europeans created the science of plant breeding and honed it like a knife to feed the populations which could otherwise not be supported on short growing seasons with long dead winters. meanwhile the hunter/gatherers of new guinea invented the stone headed club, called it a day and dint bother inventing anything new for about 3000 years. because they didnt need to. shit was Good Enough.
they didnt need to develop methods to feed large populations because they didnt have any large populations. infant mortality, stone age living, accidents and occasional wars between tribes as indistinguishable as the hutus and the tootsies took care of the rest. diamond sees this as admirable and worthy of respect. i see it as what it is. primitivism.
native american agriculture prior to the age of discovery:
small patch farming with simple primitive crops and relatively few livestock critters. they had no particular agricultural science beyond the stone age technologies of tillage, and irrigation silage was pretty much leather sacks and wicker baskets, unsuited for storage of grains beyond a single season, while 2000 years before, celts had developed methods to keep viable grain for decades. most reggions of meso american indians had their own techniques, incan and mayan irrigation was ifinitely superior to that of the crow, miwauk or solanos, while the plains indians knew less of agriculture than the average new york apartment dweller. it was alien to their society which followed the buffalo, and did not farm.
the meso amreicans didnt ever to my knowledge domesticate anything more brangling and obstinate that the dog, they certainly never domesticated the turkey. they might have caught a few wild turkeys and kept them for later consumption but they didnt raise them breed them or keep them. had they felt the inclination they could have domesticated the bison to plow feilds, just as the inca and maya could have hitched llamas and alpacas to wagons for drayage, had they ever invented the wheel. coulda, shoulda didnt. because the old ways were good enough. they didnt need it, so they didnt pursue it. Thats my point, which defies diamond's silly theories. if the native americans NEEDED dray animals or domestic food herds they COULD have but they didnt.
thats where diamond's folly lies. he essentially BLAMES eurasia for their success and chalks it all up to luck when it was the very adversity that they suffered which drove our ancestors to invent the wheel, construct roads and domesticate plants and animals, while other societies didnt NEED to.
point 3: the magic cloak of anti-racism and post modernism
diamond wraps all his theories in the idea that the sheer luck and fortuitous placement of the eurasian peoples led to their success, while less advanced societies were simply unfortunate in their environment. he has it ass backwards.
he weeps and wails piteously about new guinean people who still today have not entered the modern world and subsist still as hunter gatherers with only limited access to agricultural technologies. all the while the new guinea indigenous people are surrounded with people who are more than glad to share their agricultural technologies with the, and international aid groups who have and will continue to attempt to drag them into the modern world while they largely refuse to accept these new ideas and technologies, because their society has trained them to say, good enough.
another example, the australian aborigines. they still live in one of two ways, leaches on the white mans society, or hunter gatherer bush dwellers. a casual perusal of the austrailian peoples experiences with aborigines will make it clear that most of them have simply accepted that its good enough, whether is living off the white man's charity or hunting iguanas in the bush, its' good enough and thats all they want.
and the american blacks. as a rural type person i know plenty of farmers, black white and brown, and as a rule they work too hard for too little and get shit on by city folks, but i have NEVER seen anything as bad as a rural hardworking black man who comes face to face with the city negro. my friend had come to visit me in town in preparation for a weekend's fishing in clear lake, and while stopping for grub at a local diner we met his opposite number. the city dudes treated him like a mongrel dog, deriding his clothes because they were made for work, and show the signs of labour, insulting his speech and manners as "selling out" and calling him a house nigger because his work boots aint timbalands, and they have seen actual work. these silly minstrel show performers had sequins and rhinestones on their dungarees, jewelry in their ears and rings on their fingers, all of it cheap and gaudy, and fancy "work" boots with no laces or athletic shoes that would never see a basketball court or a football field. their clothing was ill fitting, and clearly designed to impress dim witted bimbos, like a peacock's plumage. we discussed their "culture" at length during our fishin weekend and we both came to similar conclusions, these were simple stone age tribal dickwads wrapped in the trendy fashions of modern society. niether of us figured they were worth a squirt of piss, and we didnt feel bad at all about knockin a few bejeweled teeth together. maybe someday ill hammer out the dent in my passenger door my buddy made with one of em's head, but probably not any time soon.
those chumps were a prime example of why diamond is a fool. when a social structure is established that says good enough is good enough that structure is extremely difficult to remove, except through need. the kind of need that you find in dire straights and bad times. the modern welfare system ensures that those who have accepted the good enough mentality will remain on welfare for generations because it is, after all, good enough. white black brown or yellow, a lot of people have accepted this good enough mentality, but none quite so wholeheartedly as the urban negro stereotype that despite being a stereotype, you can find in any medium to large city. we are cultivating an entire society of moorlocks in our inner cities who are dependent, but not at all grateful for the largesse that our government bestows upon them. our society will regret this foolishness eventually, but these are the types of mentalities and attitudes that diamond ignores in his rush to be the anti-racist post-modern hero of the cargo cultists. good times and noodle salad dont make a society progress, hard times do. diamond is a fool.
point four: the vast difficulties of moving out of the stone age
for nearly 100 years liberia, a nation formed by emancipated blacks from the americas, was the most sophisticated, stable, self-sufficient and progressive (in the real sense, not the political bullshit sense) nation in africa. until their neighbors were released from the colonial chains of the french, dutch and belgians, and immediately devolved into the savagery that they enjoyed, and which kept their populations down before the age of exploration. this rampant tribal violence destroyed the peace and stability of liberia and that nation is still a shambles. diamond doesnt recognize that nations can devolve, not just evolve and his theories do not recognize the insuitability for primitive societies to embrace modern technology not because they are genetically inferior, or physically or mentally unable to learn the methods of western societies, but that their primitive socila structure PRECLUDES their acceptance of the new technologies and systems unless there is a crucial ned to embrace this new technology or die. diamond's reverence for retrograde societies is evident in the words he writes and the manner in which he lionizes their "virtues" he is so in ove with the "noble Savage" theories of the 60's and 70's that he blinds himself to the simple fact that if somebody doesnt WANT to learn to use a plow or ride a horse, barring enslavement, you simply cant force him to do so. many primitive societies have rejected the help offered to lift them out of the stone age, and others have simply attached themselves to the underbelly of a more advanced society and feed on it's leavings like a ramoray. Need drives advancement not plenty. diamond doesnt understand this.
diamonmd is selling his agenda of the Noble Savage, a discredited theory rejected long ago by real science, after numerous embarassing hoaxes, and scams.
as to his pulitzer prize, walter Duranty got one of those too, for painting stalin as a kindly saint and father figure to his people.
even Barack Obama got a Nobel Peace Prize, nope, awards and shit dont mean diddly to me.
