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Among the Intellectualoids
Jared Diamond on Western Civilization: ‘You Didn’t Build That’
Mitt Romney shouldn’t be invoking this Pulitzer-winning purveyor of nonsense.
When Mitt Romney made his remarks about culture accounting for the differing success made by Palestinians and Israelis in cultivating the meager resources of the Eastern Mediterranean, he was immediately pounced upon by the entire liberal world.
In response, Romney made a reference to Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond’s 1996 Pulitzer-Prize-winning analysis of why different parts of the world have progressed at different rates. Diamond, being a good academic, fired back immediately with an op-ed in the New York Times in which he charged, “This is so different from what my book actually says that I have doubt whether Mr. Romney read it.”
I also have doubts Romney has actually read the book because if he did, he wouldn’t be enlisting it to his cause. Diamond’s argument is completely dismissive of cultural achievement and reduces history to the impersonal causes. Quite simply, Diamond’s argument is the academic equivalent to President Obama’s now-famous remarks to the founders of small businesses: “You didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.” Diamond’s message to America and Western Civilization is, “You didn’t build that. Something else made that happen.” That something else is what he calls “biogeography.”
I read Diamond’s book about four years ago after all the Pulitzer Prizes had been awarded and frankly I never read such of mass of nonsense in my life. I wanted to register my objection but there was no logical place to put them. Now that it has become a campaign issue, I’m happy to have the opportunity.
Diamond’s answer to why Europe and America have become so remarkably prosperous while most of the rest of the world has lagged, comes down to two words: “dumb luck.” Rather than any of the cultural achievements that have characterized Western civilization — the Judeo-Christian tradition, the respect for intellectual attainment, the rule of free institutions and individual rights — Diamond says it’s all a matter of “biogeography” — what kind of plants and animals you had in your neighborhood and how easily they travelled from one region to another.
His main thesis, believe it or not, is that the Eurasian landmass, stretching from Gibraltar to China, lies on a horizontal axis, while Africa and the Americas are on vertical axes. As a result, it was easier for plant species, material goods and eventually ideas to flow along the Eurasian axis than it was for them to travel in Africa and the Americas. Because of this iron law of geography, civilization developed better in Europe and Asia than it did elsewhere.
Do you see any flaws in that argument? I can think of about six to start. But let’s take a moment to allow Diamond to have his full say before we begin trying to evaluate his thesis.
Diamond began his quest in the 1960s while working, not as an anthropologist or geographer or developmental economist, but as an ornithologist studying birds in New Guinea. One day, as he recounts, he ended up in a long conversation with a local politician named Yali who eventually posed him with a question: “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?”
“Cargo,” it should be noted, had been a big issue in New Guinea since Europeans and Americans arrived in great numbers during World War II. You may recall the story of the “cargo cults” that became a legend among anthropologists. Local tribesmen, seeing large airplanes landing with lots of “cargo,” decided these were gods descending from the sky. Noting that these gods preferred to land on long airstrips, the tribesmen began clearing large swathes of jungle, hoping the gods would descend upon them with cargo as well. This went on right into the 1960s, when Diamond had his conversation.
Being a guilt-ridden academic far from home, Diamond could not respond as anyone else might: “It is probably our long tradition of scientific inquiry, beginning with the Greeks, that has led to our relative mastery of nature. Or maybe it was our centuries-long battle against magical thinking and superstition. Or perhaps it was the work of the great economists who struggled against popular and government opposition to free trade and commerce, arguing that exchange with other nations was the best route to prosperity — a perception that has not entirely triumphed even today.” Had Diamond been familiar with the work of Ludwig Von Mises (fat chance!), he might have refereed Yali to Human Action, the 400-page classic that brilliantly recounts the accomplishments of human ingenuity in shaping the modern world. None of this was on Diamond’s radar, however, and so he set about putting together his own crack-brained theory about how vertical and horizontal axes account for the whole thing. In doing so, he was at least able to relieve every college professor in America of the embarrassment of having to defend their own culture.
Diamond’s experience with Yali, it should be noted, was not at all uncommon. Practically every anthropologist who ever lived with a native tribe has been impressed at one point or another with their intelligence on specific subjects. Napoleon Chagnon, the one I happen to be reading now, is a University of Michigan anthropologist who spent twenty years living among the Yanomamo, a collection of tribes that straddle the border of Venezuela and Brazil. When he met them in the 1960s, the Yanomamo were spending all their time making war on their neighbors. Chagnon called them “the fierce people,” thereby earning the opprobrium of every anthropologist in America, all of whom like to believe that that primitive peoples live in perfect peace and harmony with nature until they are corrupted by Western influences. Even among these “fierce people,” however, Chagnon was constantly impressed at how intelligent his subjects could be in remembering long genealogies or intricate details from events that occurred twenty or fifty years ago.
Before the invention of writing, whole national sagas such as The Iliad and The Song of Roland were committed to memory. There are still people all over the Muslim world who have memorized the entire Koran. Human intelligence is not in short supply. It is the tasks to which this intelligence is put to that vary from one society to another. What else can we call these applications but “culture”? In fact, that would be a good definition of culture: “The tasks to which human intelligence are put in any given society.”
All this had no place in Diamond’s world, however. Here is his interpretation of world history as summarized in the Kirkus Review:
The long and short of it, says Diamond, is biogeography. It just so happened that 13,000 years ago, with the ending of the last Ice Age, there was an area of the world better endowed with the flora and fauna that would lead to the take-off toward civilization: that valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers we now call the Fertile Crescent. There were found the wild stocks that became domesticated crops of wheat and barley.… Once agriculture is born and animals domesticated, a kind of positive feedback drives the growth toward civilization. People settle down; food surpluses can be stored so population grows. And with it comes a division of labor, the rise of an elite class, the codification of rules, and language. It happened, too, in China, and later in Mesoamerica. But the New World was not nearly as abundant in the good stuff. And like Africa, it is oriented North and South, resulting in different climates, which make the diffusion of agriculture and animals problematic.… [A] fair answer to Yali’s question this surely is, and gratifyingly, it makes clear that race has nothing to do with who does or does not develop cargo.
Now do you notice anything peculiar about this argument? How about that sentence, “But the New World was not nearly as abundant in the good stuff. And like Africa, it is oriented North and South, resulting in different climates, which make the diffusion of agriculture and animals problematic.”
Letter to the Editor View all comments (137) | Leave a comment
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Appleby| 8.8.12 @ 7:16AM
Of course you did miss the biggest influence in Europe and the Americas: a religion that preserved learning and encouraged it despite the depredations of barbarian hordes, and whose priests and rabbis went fearlessly into great danger to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and visit the isolated and oppressed in a spirit of kindness and brotherhood, demonstrating something the socialists are busy trying to eradicate: that charity ("Caritas" or Christian Love) is the responsibility of each and every one of us, not of some faceless army of beaurocrats acting ostensibly on our behalf. The miracle of the loaves and fishes begins with a little boy who brought Jesus his own lunch to share.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 10:22AM
The CORRECT analysis of why the West is Best is to be found in Carnage and Culture by Hanson, which is, in my opinion, THE seminal text written for laypeople about Western History in the last 100 years.
Essentially, the West allows for free exchange of ideas and a free market, along with protection of private property. (Not always, etc., but those are the IDEALS)
A Great read by a Great writer. Obviously, I know not Hanson personally and have no financial interest.
PJ| 8.8.12 @ 10:58AM
I'm afraid Appleby is correct. But, a by-product of this charity was the encouragement by the clerics for a free exchange of ideas, development of a free market, & private property protection as you have stated.
While Victor Davis Hanson is good at his speciality in the history of war, the English & other respected Europeans are trusted more with general medieval history. Try The Shorter Cambridge Medieval History Vol 1 & 2. A well-documented, quick read by an American historian is How the Church Built Western Civilization.
ebonystone| 8.9.12 @ 12:37AM
Two excellent works on world history, from early antiquity to the present, both by William McNeill:
"The Rise of the West", 1963, rev'd edition 1991, and "Plagues and Peoples", 1976.
And for the world in the 20th c. : "Modern Times" by Paul Johnson.
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 8.8.12 @ 4:56PM
But someday the East will learn to exploit the West and your grandchildren will have less. Once Until 476 Rome was the greatest, now it is merely Italy. Until 1940 or so the British Empire was the greatest, now it is merely England.
John786| 8.8.12 @ 7:22AM
How many creative way can you introduce islamophobia into an article: Infinite- if the American spectator is anything to go by. A little correction; Nearly all Muslims memorise the Quran. Most upto 30% with One in ten memorising the whole Quran. World history through polygamy: is that confusing correlation with causation. And by the way 99.99% of Muslims are monogamous as emphasised by the Quran.
DTOM| 8.8.12 @ 7:36AM
Aw, c'mon J786, how many creative ways does a liberal introduce Nazis, racists, and right wing into any speech or commentary they make.
At least the Nazis didn't lie about their intentions. If you weren't one of them, you were going to be enslaved or dead.
Muslims on the other hand, they offer the religion of peace - join us or die, either way it will be peaceful...
Know who your enemies are - they think you are an apostate deserving of conversion or death, too. They will not leave you alone, they just haven't gotten around to you, yet.
Don't Tread On Me...
Nancy in NC| 8.8.12 @ 8:00AM
Your logic astounds me and explains the liberal mindset.
You say "nearly all Muslims memorise the Quran". Up to 30% and one in ten memorising the whole Quran is not nearly all. Your math skills are questionable as is the rest of your thinking.
I wonder if your spelling of memorize is a clue.
Alej| 8.8.12 @ 11:13PM
10 % of Muslims worldwide are literate, and even have surnames. They live in squalor, spending their spare time after sitting around the village square beating their wives, and you tell us they "memorize the Koran?"
ebonystone| 8.9.12 @ 12:45AM
One doesn't have to be literate to memorize the Koran. Children learn nursery rhymes before they can read, and great tales like the "Iliad" and "Beowulf" were memorized and recited for generations before ever being written down.
What's so silly about Moslem children memorizing the Koran is that for most of them -- like those in Pakistan, India, Indonesia, central Asia et al -- is that it's in a foreign language, Arabic. They have no understanding of the meaning of the words they memorize they're memorizing mere strings of sounds.
ebonystone| 8.9.12 @ 12:49AM
Or think of opera singers: they must memorize long arias in foreign languages. But how many actually speak Italian, German, French, and Russian?
tim b | 8.9.12 @ 5:22PM
95% of people called Alej make up statistics off the top of their heads.
gray man| 8.9.12 @ 6:45PM
and yet, it is true.
pogybait| 8.8.12 @ 9:00AM
If an entire group of people can be credited for someone else's achievements, by the some token, all of us can be blamed and punished for someone else's failure. If all individual credit goes to the society as a whole, so does all the blame. The old collectivism game has a whole history of creative ways for war, ethnic cleansing, forced famine, genocide ......
MK48| 8.8.12 @ 9:48AM
Ya, but they like little boys............
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 10:23AM
And that is a shame, John786, because they get to memorize tract after tract calling for the murder of the most creative, brilliant people on Earth.
The Koran is a piece of doggerel written by a pedophilic mass murderer and thief.
John786| 8.8.12 @ 11:41AM
Mr occamm,
I don't hold you responsible for your now common violent, irrational outbursts. You were obviously harshly potty trained. But don't dispair; many have survived your predicament and have gone on to live successful lives. The Quran (in Arabic) is the most sublime, trancdentent revelation on the earth.
Dai Alanye | 8.8.12 @ 12:59PM
Simply put, the Koran as dictated by Mohammed was a hodge-podge plagiarism of Judaism with a bit of Christianity thrown in, shellacked over a pagan substrate. Whatever it might be as practiced today, that was its beginning. As a divine revelation it is as fraudulent as that of Joseph Smith, albeit a great deal more violent.
John786| 8.8.12 @ 1:14PM
And of course you are an expert in the Arabic language. No revelation comes close to the immutable, unique style of the Glorious Quran. Listen if you get a chance. The Quran is a 4D HD experience. And its my holy book. Ramadan kareem.
Al Adab| 8.8.12 @ 1:43PM
Gentlemen:
I have hesitated to intrude in this discussion but it has reached a stage where it is counterproductive to any cause. John is not wrong to admire the Quran for its peotry and language. Whether it holds value within the context of Western Civilization is another issue for another time and place. It is to and for Arabic speaking peoples and greatly facilitated their rise to civilization. The interpretive issues are akin, but not identical, to those within Christianity as to Roman, Orthodox and various Protestant beliefs. Divides within Islam stem from itse early history and political development.
All that said, I wish we could discuss among ourselves in a manner better reflecting our various beliefs but with respect which does not require agreement, for the cultural attitudes of one another. There is actually common ground here regarding many social issues such as abortion, homosexuality, entreprenuership and so on. May He bless you all and grant us wisdom.
John786| 8.8.12 @ 3:10PM
Br Al Adab,
As usual you have spoken with words of wisdom. It is a reminder that real humility & the spiritual life is to find an excuse to see good in each other.
markenoff| 8.9.12 @ 12:58AM
Pedophiles are not prophets and prophets are not pedophiles. Mo (May He Rot In Hell if he existed) was a pedophile bandit who oversaw the massacre and enslavement of whole populations and who kept "concubines"; sex slaves to you and me. His followers have been spreading death and destruction ever since. They talk about respecting Christians and Jews as "people of the book" but that is only a tactical lie when they are not strong enough to conquer us. When they feel strong enough all of a sudden Christians are polytheist for believing in the Trinity and Jews are descendants of apes and pigs. I don't care how the koran sounds in Arabic. I'm sure Mein Kampf is quite lyrical in German.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 8:34PM
Dear Al: Poetry, yes, correct. Quality of ideas and culture, no, I stick to my original comments. I would loathe living under sharia, and the Caliphate strikes me as horrific to live in as Airstrip One. And, John, it is Doctor Occam--I am now 50, and have been an MD fully half of my life. My father is "mister"---I don't answer to that.
Learn to spell "transcendent," mook.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 8:36PM
And again, I am terribly sorry but I have the same respect for Islam as Dave Williams has for religion in general. None at all. Any man who wants to see my daughter in a burqa is my mortal enemy.
John786| 8.9.12 @ 12:04AM
Dr Occam,
Your professional background does not excuse your warped view of Islam& Muslims. You need to developed a more nuanced position. The history of the US is not just about colonisation of native people, the despicable crimes of Slavery etc. Its also about the pursuit of liberty, Justice, free speech etc. one of the characteristic of evil people is that they see the world with one eye. Its time to open both eyes.
markenoff| 8.9.12 @ 1:05AM
And of course Saudi Arabia, the government that guards the islamic holy places abolished slavery in '69.....1969.
Did you know that during the 13th and 14th centuries islamic naval raiders took more Christian slaves from the shores of southern Europe than Europeans took from Africa during that time by a factor of 5 to 10?
BTW, only 4% of the slaves carried to the Western Hemisphere came to the US. Much greater percentages went to Cuba, the Antilles and Brazil. But since followers of Mo, the pedophile bandit (MHRIH) want to conquer all those countries since they are part of dar al ansar, the house of war, the distinction is irrelevant to you.
Occam's Tool| 8.9.12 @ 11:23AM
When I see Islam in the vanguard of tolerance and freedom, I wil let you know. In the meantime, my daughter is 9 years old. Keep your paws off.
The history of the US is not to be conflated. Thank you for referring to me by my proper title.
gray man| 8.9.12 @ 6:42PM
first sentence true, last sentence asinine.
gray man| 8.9.12 @ 6:29PM
the koran in any language is filth.
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 8.8.12 @ 4:58PM
Romney didn't read Diamond's book because he can't read.
markenoff| 8.10.12 @ 12:37AM
OK so assume the statment "Nearly all Muslims memorise the Quran" which is written in classic Arabic is a true one. But nearly all Muslims don't understand modern Arabic let alone classic Arabic. They may be reciting it but they don't understand what they are saying.
Dodd2| 8.8.12 @ 7:22AM
Agreed.
I picked up Gun, Germs, and Steel at a Goodwill thrift store for a dollar, read but 10 or 15 pages of it before realizing it was hogwash, and then threw the thing out.
TLP| 8.8.12 @ 8:48AM
Wait a minute. Don't be too hasty.
I live right by a Super Market, and not that far from a Garden Nursery, which puts me in close proximity to Food and Fauna. There's a Golf Course down there, and life seems to be good. That area is situated on a Horizontal Line.
I live beside a Road that travels North/South. A Verticle Line.
My House is a Money Pit. My Truck is a 98, And the Car is an 03. My fence is a wreck. I never feel like Mowing my lawn, everytime it rains really hard, my garage takes on water, and as far as I can tell, there are No Golf Courses on my road.
Maybe this guy's on to something?
Did I mention that my Dog likes to Eat Poop?
Interesting.
Alej| 8.8.12 @ 4:38PM
I read the entire book. Diamond is correct. Academic geographers have a saying about "Man-land, or land-man" in the matter of which affects what.
Tucker, whose premise is less to analyze Diamond's work than to tout his own weird book, simplifies Diamond's thesis about "East-West," versus "North-South," in cultural/technological innovation. Diamond explained, in the very next sentence, which Tucker forgot or ignored, that a temperate zone extending from modern China to Portugal allowed travel all across the zone, millenia ago, which led to assimilation, or borrowing, of ideas from diverse cultures, benefiting all, and accelerating technological advance. North-South, as in Africa, meant geographic or climatological barriers prevented or hindered intercourse among scattered civilizations (see "Sahara Desert," and "Congo").
Borrowing ideas leads to sequential improvements on same over time. Isolation requires "independent invention" of technology, a very slow process.
And Diamond NEVER implied difference in intelligence levels, actually complimenting some isolated cultures for their achievements solely via independent invention, necessitated by geographical barriers
Tucker is as full of it as a Christmas turkey.
Alan Obama Fan Brooks | 8.8.12 @ 5:00PM
I just want the grandchildren of Republicans to have less. Turnabout is fair play.
Al Adab| 8.8.12 @ 5:11PM
Oh they will, they will.
The generations still unborn will curse our names for failing to stop this headlong rush toward statism and tyranny. A new dark age is about to descend upon humanity and we can only hope that future generations will listen to the voices of liberty currently fighting this losing battle and will rediscover the "blessings of Liberty" sooner than a thousand years from now.
Von Mises Jr| 8.8.12 @ 7:30AM
Dr. Thomas Sowell, I believe in his books "Race and Culture" and "Conquests and Cultures" discusses how resources and geography can influence development of culture and wealth creation. This explains why some peoples such as those in Africa with virtually no navigable rivers were at a disadvantage. But this only cites the starting point, not the outcomes.
Mr. Tucker is correct about Von Mises "Human Action" citing free trade and division of labor being the primary determinants, although the unabridged version of the book is 881 pages and spans two semesters at Hillsdale College.
In Mises "Omnipotent Government" he discusses the socialist criticism of capitalism, for instance Germany did not enjoy rich natural resources and as they and others in similar circumstances evolved that they were forced into war and aggression.
But socialist are not among the world's great thinkers and the answer was not pan-Germanism and Nazism. It was free market capitalism and free trade that would create prosperity and peace.
Romney may have misremembered a book he read or drawn incorrect conclusions from the book he was only marginally familiar with. But if Obama and the communist ever read Mises, they are either not very bright or extremely corrupt. So let's give Mitt a mulligan on this. Obama's golf game and record are replete with mulligans.
DTOM| 8.8.12 @ 7:37AM
Is there such a thing as a re-mulligan? O's had a lot of those, too...
DTOM| 8.8.12 @ 7:40AM
And a re-re-mulligan...
It's been what 44 months since they've been able to cook the unemployment numbers below 8%.
There will be an October surprise - Obama's DoCommerce will declare that unemployment for September was 3.21% after adjusting for the California, Illinois, New York, and GM bankruptcies...
DTOM| 8.8.12 @ 7:43AM
And GE's move to the Cayman Islands...
Von Mises Jr| 8.8.12 @ 8:20AM
Perhaps Dictator Obama will simply declare that we are all socialist now and we work for the state. Unemployment is zero and you will receive your work orders by Monday.
Al Adab| 8.8.12 @ 9:38AM
Romney could do better to read Dr. Sowells' study of Race and Culture. Simply put all cultures are not equal when it comes to advancing the people who follow it. "The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves." Dimand can be interesting reading, but extrapolating public policy from his study would be error. Were Romney a Conservative instead of a technocrat he would understand that.
Anthony| 8.8.12 @ 8:49AM
I agree Von, Romney was"misremembering" where he had read this. It wasn't Diamond, it was Obozo's college thesis at Comumbia ,despite no thesis being required. I bet Obozo has memorized the Koran as well.
But at least Diamond acknowledges the end of the Ice Age 13,000 years ago. How could there be climate change without leftists around to bemoan it happening?
Von Mises Jr| 8.8.12 @ 9:16AM
Hi Anthony. There are no transcripts for Obama at Communebia. Rush talked about an article from Wayne Allyn Root who is a top odds maker who went to Columbia and graduated with a Political Sciences and Law major in 1983 when supposedly Obama graduated. But not one of the 400 people from that graduating class contacted ever met Obama. What are the odds that he was there??? The odds maker says probably like zero.
It is probably that he was a Foreign Exchange student from Indonesia. So the game has been played that Obama was not a native born citizen, when in fact he may have been and because his mother nor he did not re-apply for Citizenship, he is not eligible. Why else would he seal his records at Communebia, Accidental and Havvud?
Anthony| 8.8.12 @ 9:35AM
Even more to the point, the professor emeritus of the Poly Si Department at Columbia has no recollection of Obozo. I can't remember his name, but he recently blogged , I think at AT.
This is the man every Poly Si major from Columbia for decades would have to go through.
There is no question Obozo's Oxidental and Columbia records hold the key to the entire Obozo lie.
So where is Dan Rather? That's a rhetorical question.
DRed| 8.8.12 @ 11:16AM
So he wasn't at Columbia but was an exchange student at Columbia. Do you even try to think this garbage through? Do about 45 seconds of research and you can find people who remember going to Columbia with Obama or teaching Obama while he was at Columbia.
Next, Obama didn't seal his college transcripts. Colleges are required by federal law to keep transcripts confidential. Almost no presidential candidates release their college transcripts. When did Ronald Reagan release his college transcripts? How about Bill Clinton? Gerald Ford? Maybe you can tell me when Walter Mondale made his college transcripts public?
Finally, you don't lose your citizenship if you live in another country. His mother would not have had to reapply for his citizenship. You're wrong about everything you said, Von. Quite impressive.
DRed| 8.8.12 @ 11:20AM
Maybe Gerry Ford wasn't the best example. haha.
cuban pete| 8.8.12 @ 11:55AM
Mr.Ford graduated from the University of Michigan and Yale Law in the top 25% of his class.
But if Saturday Night Live is your frame of reference, I guess he was a dolt.
DRed| 8.8.12 @ 11:57AM
I'm just saying he'd already been president before his first campaign for the presidency.
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 8:31PM
And, Ford was doing well enough in college to do this WHILE playing for Michigan's varsity football team as an All-American.
By the way, I dislike Ford. He was as antisemitic as Carter, whom he lost to, and became friends with the scumbag later on. He was also a worthless nimrod compared to Ronaldus Magnus, who would have beaten Carter in 1976 as well as 1980. But let's not denigrate unfairly his academic accomplishments, which he actually had, compared to Obama. Remember, over 60% of of HLS grads in Obama's year graduated Cum Laude or above, using School of Education classes to pad their GPAs.
Dai Alanye | 8.8.12 @ 1:07PM
Let's not make excuses for BO. He's spending millions to hide his background. All the controversy about nationality, grades, draft record, social security and whatever else would disappear immediately if he chose to release the info. The fact is, like John-the-hero Kerry, BO has a lot to hide.
DRed| 8.8.12 @ 1:14PM
The idea that Obama is spending millions to hide his background is another birther lie. There is nothing Obama could release that would satisfy birthers.
CJW| 8.8.12 @ 2:35PM
It is easy to resolve these troubing questions about Obama. Release his Columbia and Harvard application, grades, and how/who paid the tuition. If there is nothing to hide, such as applying as a foreign student and having your tuition paid, then release the records.
What is he afraid of, surely Rev Wright or Tony Rezko or Billy Ayers did not help with the tuition, or write letters of recomendation.
And if he wrote any unsigned articles for the law review, he can disclose these articles. After all, he released Michele's article that she wrote at Columbia. If you can read and make sense of this article, then congratulations.
DRed| 8.8.12 @ 5:02PM
Michelle went to Princeton, and what the first lady did in college is pretty irrelevant to anything. Obama's got a track record as president. Isn't that a lot more relevant than disproving totally unsubstantiated conspiracies? For example, Obama spent most of his childhood in Hawaii, then went to Occidental in LA. He would have never met Tony Rezko, Bill Ayers or Jeremiah Wright. That info wouldn't, in any event, be on his college transcript. See-you don't need a transcript to show you that. You just have to use common sense to know it's a really stupid accusation. Likewise, he wouldn't have applied to college as a foreign student since he 1) was an American; and 2) he'd lived in Hawaii for 8 or 9 years before he went to college. His high school transcripts, which you need to go to college, would have shown that he wasn't a foreigner. See how stupid those theories are?
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 8:26PM
What high school transcripts, and NO, you don't need them---homeschoolers go and succeed in college.
DRed| 8.8.12 @ 8:49PM
Come on, Occam. You're way, way too smart for this birther garbage.
Occam's Tool| 8.9.12 @ 11:33AM
DRed: It's not about birtherism, for me. I strongly suspect our fellow is a cretin whose undergrad grades and LSATs would reflect that, and who received unearned privileged status.
Now, we may disagree (and I appreciate your kind words), but you can see how I might tend to doubt a guy who can't remember who he gave MOHs to (and is too lazy to look it up) and mispronounces common, easily pronounced military terms, to be America's C-in-C at this time.
In short, I think he has been Peter-principled, in addition to being a typical Chicago Democratic Pol, a species which disgusts me.
Now, we may disagree. But I'm not coming from Looney-Ville.
Alej| 8.8.12 @ 4:43PM
No, DRed, You lie!
Occam's Tool| 8.8.12 @ 8:25PM
Bush and Gore released their SATs. As Gore's classmate was a rather famous actor, his attendance in college was well known. Bush played for Yale's baseball team, and his overall GPA could also be acquired.
Hell, I'd like Obama's SAT scores to be released. But every scrap of data on this guy is a production number of DeMillean proportions.
TLP| 8.8.12 @ 8:54AM
I believe that it was the late Sam Kennison, a Bawdey Comedian of another Era, who said of the Tribes in Africa, and their never ending bouts with Starvation: "Hey. Africa. We have Deserts over here, too. WW JUST DON'T LIVE IN THEM".
Is it possible that the Sub Saharan Africans are just Lazy and Stupid?
Is it?
Pelleas| 8.8.12 @ 1:53PM
..not as STUPID as YOU ARE , TLP--you FUCKING HATE-FILLED DOUCHBAG...
TLP| 8.8.12 @ 4:16PM
Shouldn't you be taking care of business, on your knees, in front of a Glory Hole, somewhere?
Bill8472| 8.8.12 @ 5:02PM
You mean, calling Australia on the Porcelain Telephone?
Pelleas| 8.8.12 @ 9:14PM
"Shouldn't you be taking care of business, on your knees, in front of a Glory Hole, somewhere?"
...took care of that, earlier today...
BUT-- YOu are still the SCUM OF THE EARTH, TLP.. and I can only hope that all of those imaginary wild blacks you constantly bring up as boogy-men, to convince yourself that you are right when you are burning crosses on lawns--beat the living day-lights out of you, once and for-ALL...
Skippy| 8.9.12 @ 5:44PM
They all hold their pistols sideways like ghetto-gangstas anyway.
Can't hit squat except 6 yr old bystanders shooting like that.
Bill8472| 8.20.12 @ 12:11PM
I like it when they hold their handguns that way; it means that I don't have to worry as much if I'm caught in the open and fired upon. My getting hit is still possible, but has become wholly a matter of luck.
Alej| 8.8.12 @ 4:44PM
Speaking of stupid, you mis-spelled "douche... ."
TLP| 8.8.12 @ 8:08PM
And, Douchebag is Two Words, idiot.
Nancy in NC| 8.8.12 @ 7:56AM
Thank God you read the book so I don't have to...sounds like utter hogwash. And really, how important is it? We are where we are and can't go back to change the outcome.
JimH| 8.8.12 @ 8:06AM
I read Guns, Germs and Steel. The result was hours of my life wasted doing so. Certainly some parts of the world are more blessed with resources than others, but what this fails to explain is why some places with little to start with succeed so well, while others endowed with much do nothing or squander it away. Where Romney spoke of the Palestinian culture, what could have been expressed better is that what is a necessary condition for economic success, though not a guarantee of it are secure property rights, fair laws and a recognition of individual responsibility.
TLP| 8.8.12 @ 9:09AM
If this Idiot was right, the Tribes in the Amazon would be living like all of the Liberals, out in the Hamptons, and wearing Bras and Underpants, instead of those Transmission Fluid Funnels over their Penises.
Their Toothless Wives would have Teeth, and their Babies would be drinking Organic Milk from a Baby Bottle that played Children Songs, instead of trying to squeeze one more ounce of Milk out of the hideous empty sacs on their chests.
They would be eating King Crab at the Casino, instead of Worms that they hacked out of a Log, down in the River.
But they're not.
Are they.
DAMN those Vertical Lines!
THKrupp| 8.8.12 @ 8:33AM
Ive read Guns Germs and Steel and found it to be a very good book. It raises a lot of interesting points. I didnt get at all that Diamond was dismissing culture. The fact of the matter is that if your tribe is going to have to survive a winter certain things have to be developed in order to do that. If you live on an island and subsist on fish and coconuts, you simply do not have to develop as many technologies to survive. In the case of the USA culture, resources and the post war period came together in a perfect storm.
THKrupp| 8.8.12 @ 8:41AM
When he says that the America's lacked resources, he meant that there was basically only one domesticated labor animal..llamas. For food stuffs..maize and potatos. Corn or maize isnt the best food by itself you have to add lime and beans in order to make all the proteins available. Wheat and horses were not in existance in the Americas.
THKrupp| 8.8.12 @ 8:45AM
He's looking at things from a 30000 foot view. In the grand scheme of things you cannot discount geography and biodiversity.
TLP| 8.8.12 @ 4:17PM
I'm thinking that you can.
Alej| 8.8.12 @ 4:55PM
Diamond was also talking about tens of millenia of human development, not "life after the Founding Fathers." The "germs" thing came from the New World's natives being susceptible to diseases carried by Europeans. Europeans who had 30,000 years to die from and eventually become immune to, diseases transmitted via mutation over that period of time from a plethora of their domestic animals. New World natives basically had no domestic animals to be exposed to.
Skippy| 8.9.12 @ 5:47PM
"New World natives basically had no domestic animals to be exposed to."
That didn't stop them from discovering the joys of syphillus from the animals they did have, and spreading it to the European explorers.
Nick| 8.8.12 @ 6:07PM
I hadn't heard of Diamond's book until Mr. Tucker's article, let alone read it, THKrupp.
But, I find the climate and natural resources argument lacking. If a society is free to keep the fruits of their labors, and protected against theft and fraud, that society will thrive.
Two Greeks built a primitive computer and steam engine before Christ was born. The Chinese invented gunpowder c. 10th century A.D. Because the individuals who made these discoveries couldn't capitalize on them, they had no impact. Until gunpowder was brought to Europe c. 13th century, that is.
I would also make the argument that this is the reason discovery advanced at a glacial pace until the 17th-18th centuries. Without laws to protect intellectual property, people tend to keep their discoveries secret.
Anthony| 8.8.12 @ 8:39AM
Yes, Diamond's book was nothing more than leftist white guilt U.N. style. Leftists like Diamond have always despised Western Culture. It's the one huge explaination that leftists can't ignore, but try mightily.
I forget, what lefty university does this clown do his best imitation of Professor Irwin Cory, at a student cost of 60 grand a year?
Alej| 8.8.12 @ 4:57PM
Stick with Batman comic books, Anthony. Maybe your critiques will improve over time if you start with basics.
eclipse 0*| 8.8.12 @ 9:24AM
When the Europeans first came to America, they discovered that the primitive indiginous peoples had not even invented the wheel.
This puzzles me. Can anyone offer any explanations or justifications of why the inhabitants did not have the imagination to create this rudimentary transportation tool?
It boggles my mind.
THKrupp| 8.8.12 @ 9:53AM
They did have small figurines in Central America which had wheels, but they did not use them for transportation. I think it boils down to the fact that they didnt have large labor animals with which to pull anything.
Alej| 8.8.12 @ 5:04PM
That's right... no suitable large domestic animals, plus, that would have had to be an independent invention. Why not invent a wheeled travois ? Don't know.
What the Mayans had, however, before Europeans, was an accurate calendar and rudimentary penicillin. But despite being prodigious builders, they didn't invent the arch.
Not everybody can know/invent everything, which is why Diamond's theory of disseminated knowledge through ease of travel thanks to benign geography seems to hold water.
Nick| 8.8.12 @ 5:44PM
Don't the bison count, Alej?
Couldn't they have been domesticated?
Velenn| 8.8.12 @ 5:54PM
No. Certainly not as as a beast of burden. They are very ill tempered.
Nick| 8.8.12 @ 6:15PM
Thanks, Velenn.
I'm a city-slicker and a furnace & A/C mechanic.
I'm fairly ignorant when it comes to horticulture and animal husbandry, I'm afraid.
Alej| 8.8.12 @ 7:35PM
Nick, bison ( you're right, not "buffalo") are mean as a sack of snakes. Never been domesticated, even isolated instances today.
Nick| 8.8.12 @ 7:43PM
Thanks for the reply, Alej.
I've always been curios about this.
Nick| 8.8.12 @ 7:46PM
Oops! That should've been: curious
Occam's Tool| 8.9.12 @ 11:34AM
Not really, Nick. Download the Riff-Trax movie "Buffalo Rider" for a hilarious explanation of why.
Doctor Right| 8.8.12 @ 9:28AM
Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater; some (not all, but some) of Mr. Diamond's assertion s have some merit.
However, I don't the answer lies in a "north-south vs. east-west" orientation of land. In my mind, it's more of a latitudinal issue.
Allow me to explain:
The people's of northern Europe and north-eastern Asia (and to an extent the northern part of the Indian subcontinent near the Himalayas) had to deal with something that the peoples of tropical and subtropical regions did not:
The cold.
From an early age, the cold was a motivating factor. The ability to create and tame fire therefore became a catalyst for the development of other necessities, such as weaponry, kiln-fired pottery, food storage (smoked meats), and metallurgy, just to name a few.
In other words, life in the northern-most latitudes depended on the ability to improvise, and much of the improvisation was due to the taming of fire. This engendered a civilization driven by more or less constant development (interrupted, of course, by political upheavals that led to declines in development.)
Meanwhile, the peoples of the tropic, no less inherently intelligent, simply weren't motivated by mother nature to seek continual improvement. It's not that they're dumb - they just don't need to.
From that point, culture develops and takes over. And the societies that can adapt and improvise will always overtake those that can't.
Anyway, that's my story, and I'm sticking with it.
THKrupp| 8.8.12 @ 9:51AM
I think the east west orientation becomes important when you look at the areas where wheat, barley and other seeds grow best in a temperate climate. If you are making a new colony you want to go to a new place that will best support the technology you already have. Also for sailing, trade winds blow east and west not north and south. In early attempts at using a sail that would have been important.
DRed| 8.8.12 @ 10:24AM
People in the tropics also had to deal with a lot more disease and parasites, which tend to not do as well in colder areas. I think that has a lot more to do with it than not being motivated. Pottery and metallurgy were developed in warm (but non-tropical) areas. So was agriculture.
THKrupp| 8.8.12 @ 10:44AM
Yes temperate climates
Doctor Right| 8.8.12 @ 11:49AM
"People in the tropics also had to deal with a lot more disease and parasites, which tend to not do as well in colder areas."
On what do you base this assertion?
Ever hear of bubonic plague...the "black death"?
Doctor Right| 8.8.12 @ 11:49AM
Small pox?
Doctor Right| 8.8.12 @ 11:50AM
Influenza?
DRed| 8.8.12 @ 12:13PM
Yes, I've heard of those diseases. Cold weather kills a lot of pathogens and parasites. Tropical areas have things like river blindness, schistosomiasis, dengue fever, yellow fever, hookworm, malaria, sleeping sickness and elephantitis either aren't found or are much less prevalent in colder, drier regions.
Doctor Right| 8.8.12 @ 12:34PM
The human body is 98.6 degrees...That's plenty warm enough to encourage the growth of bacterial, viral, or protozoan parasites and germs, regardless of where you live.
The disease you mention may be more prevalent in warmer climates, but believe me, there's PLENTY of nasty diseases in more temperate regions as well.
Trust me. I'm a Doctor.
Dai Alanye | 8.8.12 @ 1:16PM
Furthermore, many human pathogens have jumped from domestic animals, including the rat. The argument might be made that lack of cattle, fowl and what have you makes a population more healthy. But I won't make it, because all these excuses are silly.
DRed| 8.8.12 @ 1:56PM
You think it's silly to think levels of endemic disease have an effect on a population? That's pretty silly.
Alej| 8.8.12 @ 5:09PM
Lack of cattle, fowl, domestic animals, was what caused New World natives to have been susceptible to diseases Europeans had spent millenia acquiring some immunity from, all those major diseases having mutated from animal diseases, as in a recent episode of avian flu.
markenoff| 8.9.12 @ 1:30AM
Malaria comes from the Latin...."mal" for bad and "aria" for air. Why does it come from the Latin? Because until the swamps were drained around Rome it was a scourge there. When Washington DC was first founded they had trouble with malaria.
Dai Alanye | 8.8.12 @ 1:12PM
Congratulations on the "cold theory." We now know why the Lapps and Eskimos led the world in scientific development, and why the ancient Egyptians were such failures.
And did I mention the very advanced Tierra del Fuegans?
Al Adab| 8.8.12 @ 1:47PM
LOL
markenoff| 8.9.12 @ 1:18AM
So the native Americans living in Canada didn't have to live with the cold? Interesting.
merlin| 8.8.12 @ 9:29AM
I read the book a while back, with much less scepticism than many of you had. I thought Diamond had some interesting and valid points, but I had to laugh at his observation that most large grains, other plants and animals suitable for domestication originated in the Fertile Cresent. He seemed to be unaware that a huge boat load of animals and seed landed there not that long ago.
davelnaf| 8.8.12 @ 9:35AM
It’s unfortunate that Romney quoted Diamond’s nonsense. Diamond’s is one of those books you read and say ‘hummm, creative’ and then toss out. It belongs in the same category as Reich's “Greening of America” silliness. But Diamond made multiculturalists happy, at least for a whole.
markenoff| 8.9.12 @ 1:34AM
I read the book years ago. I did find the way he explained how linguists could be used to trace the origins of people to be interesting. Looking at a linguist map today when most English speakers are in North America you might think that English originated there. But by tracing bakc to where similar languages are spoken (German, Dutch) you can trace the actual origin of the language. He used this technique to show how the Bantu had spread over time throughout Africa assimilating and obliberating other populations.
Petronius| 8.8.12 @ 10:56AM
There are a lot of deer in my subdivision and my bow is always to hand.
cicero| 8.8.12 @ 11:51AM
I read both of Diamond's books, and found some interesting things in each. However, you have to read him for what he is worth, and no more. Like most liberals, he is enamored of the primitive. The noble savage, and all that. What distinguishes Western culture from the less successful is the way they adapted to their environments, and how they created and forwarded their political institutions. I agree that Hanson's treatment of the superiority of the West is brilliant. It is a matter of culture, not race or luck.
You have to realize that the press and the Dems will nit pick Romney and the Repubs to death, if allowed. It does us no good to join them in their game. Romney was commenting on the fact that the west is better because of its culture. Diamond's book came to mind. He should have quoted from Hanson.
We could, if we prefer, join the Muslim world in their culture, and declare that they are just as good as our Western Judeo-Christian civilization. It may be interesting to return to the glory days of the 12th century. Perhaps the liberals could emigrate from her and migrate to the middle east. I am sure that they will be weocomed with open arms. They would give the rules another group to blame their failed culture on.
George S| 8.8.12 @ 12:06PM
Freedom.
That is the constant in the equation that liberal intellectuals have to design around. But in this case, if you remove freedom you are left with the very uncomfortable reality of inherent differences based on race or culture. The African continent has enough energy and mineral deposits to construct semi-conductors and the universities and research centers that can develop them into a vehicle for space travel. Yet in over 5,000 years they have barely advanced until the birth of America. Why?
We cannot dare to answer this question for it involves a conclusion of liberty or basic differences in people based on race. We know it is not the latter, yet dare not speak the former. Yes... the rotation of the earth. That's the ticket.
Alej| 8.8.12 @ 5:13PM
Read "The Bell Curve?"
rlranger907| 8.8.12 @ 12:12PM
A recommended antidote to Jared Diamond is Niall Ferguson's "Civilization: West & The Rest", a fine and enjoyably-written survey of six of the fundamental characteristics of the civilization of the West - adapted by those "non-Western" cultures like Japan that have sought to enjoy the benefits of the West. Some on Amazon's site (many of them likely guilt-ridden left) quibble about Ferguson's "judgmentalism" or "ovwe-simplification" - which are usually reliable arguments that Ferguson starts arguments that they cannot easily refute. "Civilization" may not be the last word on the subject of the success of the West, but it will arm the reader with some sound analysis, and suggest topics for further inquiry.
Richard
JimK| 8.8.12 @ 1:16PM
I would agree with the recommendation of the Ferguson book as well, PBS made a mini series on it. Also his book "The Ascent of Money".
nathan| 8.8.12 @ 2:30PM
Question:
Are any of you as bored with all this as I am? Seriously. I assume all of you are going to vote for MR. There is nothing that BHO can say or do at this point which will get you to vote for him. Equally there is no mistake at this point that MR can make, no gaffe too large that will get you NOT to vote for him. Based on his record as governor, we all know he's a liberal, Romneycare, signing the assault weapons ban which he recently defended, his on again off again support for abortion. All of you know this and you'll vote for him anyway because you think no doubt correctly that BHO is worse. On foreign policy MR is unquestionably a neocon imperialist and again who cares? On individual rights, well don't expect him to care a lot about them but again who cares?
Purely on "record" Gary Johnson is head and shoulders above both these guys both but no one is going to vote libertarian.
So I ask again, are any of you at this point as bored with this as I am?
TLP| 8.8.12 @ 4:21PM
You're an Idiot.
Gary Johnson?
You're beyond Idiot.
Bill8472| 8.8.12 @ 4:59PM
Yes, it is no doubt correct that Barack Hussein Obama is worse than Mitt Romney, or any other viable presidential candidate that could be fielded by -actually- either party, and therefore, no matter how bad Mitt Romney might be, Obama has to go.
It's sort of like why people voted for a nothing-burger like John Kerry in 2004; they thought no matter how bad he might be he had to be better than "W" and "W" had to go.
nathan| 8.9.12 @ 7:46AM
I'm literally laughing out loud this morning. Really. Take the ad the BHO superpac ran about the lady who died from cancer because her husband lost her job due to what Bain Capital did to his company. Ghastly ad. Now how did MR's spokesperson respond? She said if they had been living in Massachusetts, she wouldn't have died. She flat out defended Romneycare which was the model for ACA, individual mandate and all. The ad was horrible the response was worse.
And I'm the idiot here? Look at who you all are going to vote for. A man who says after Aurora, sure I signed that assault weapons ban and I defend it today. A flat out gun controller. A guy who has in the past been pro choice. A man who will undoubtably build on the unconstitutional expansion of presidential power by Bush/Cheney followed by more of the same by BHO and take it further with nary a peep from any of you.
Go ahead, as you throw the lever for this man, call me an idiot again. But understand, in the words of the late George Wallace, there is not philosophically a dime's worth of difference between these two. Based on the RECORD, there simply isn't. And sadly two to four years from now the country is going to find out the hard way.
Nick| 8.8.12 @ 5:41PM
Gary Johnson? Really, nathan?
The man who claims to be a libertarian, but wants government to force all restaurants to publish the caloric value of all their meals on the menu?
Probably so all the dope smokers can make "healthy" choices when they get the munchies, huh?
nathan| 8.9.12 @ 7:54AM
A third of the prison population is made up mostly of drug "users" while the "legal" drug, alcohol, is responsible for 10,000 deaths a year on the highway, three times the number killed by the 9/11 terrorists that year and every year. The Cleveland Browns football player who crossed the center line and killed how many people got what, ONE STINKING YEAR in prison for DWI. Yes preach to the class the virtues of the drug war all you want while we advertise alcohol on TV and watch it kill people every holiday. GO AHEAD! No, let's quit punishing the use and focus on the abuse. SHEESH
Nick| 8.9.12 @ 10:25AM
Great job avoiding the question that I asked, nathan.
Try putting down the bong once in a while, okay?
Occam's Tool| 8.9.12 @ 11:36AM
Gary Johnson (toke *cough*). Great Candidate, man. (Toke, *Cough*)
Mike in N.C.| 8.8.12 @ 4:35PM
Is anyone else concerned that Sheldon Adelson is trying to buy U.S. foreign policy?
Skippy| 8.9.12 @ 6:03PM
Nope.
Not at all.
With his money, let him buy whatever he can keep.
Bill8472| 8.8.12 @ 4:55PM
How does Diamond explain, using his East-West, North-South premise, the movements of Asian peoples into the North American-South American continents? Didn't they move from north to south, either by land or by sea? And yet, their presence helped create wealth that had not existed before, and if not wealth, then "human capital."
How does Diamond accommodate into his theory the existence of north-south geographic barriers, like canyons, mountain ranges, rivers, etc., in explicating his east-west thingie?
DRed| 8.8.12 @ 5:09PM
The east west thing has to do with climate. It's easier to move within your climate. For example, if you're a north african pastoralist, you can move east to west with your cattle and crops, etc. But if you try to move south into sub-saharan Africa you run into tsetse flies (which don't live in North African climates) and your cattle get trypanosomiasis and die. So your civilization is constrained, and sub-saharan civilizations don't get to benefit from significant types of domesticated animals.
Bill8472| 8.8.12 @ 5:58PM
So, when the Asians moved south from the icy, cold, inhospitable Bering Sea Alaska/Arctic Circle region to the more temperate lands of the south, that was an exception to Diamond's thesis, is that right?
Bill8472| 8.8.12 @ 6:03PM
Come to think of it, aren't there lots of cows in sub-Saharan Africa, as in the herds of the Masai, for example? How does Diamond explain their presence there?
Alej| 8.8.12 @ 7:43PM
He doesn't dispute it, didn't mention it. Masai, among other herders in Africa, eventually became (again, more or less)(again, and this is a point some who haven't read the book miss entirely, Diamond speaks in terms of tens of thousands of years... not "the evolution of Western Civilization") immune to certain diseases that mutated from domestic animals to man. That's why, after Native Americans died off, Africans were imported as slaves... they had immunity and stayed alive.
Bill8472| 8.9.12 @ 9:26AM
Are you saying that Africans were imported to America as slaves to substitute for Native Americans? I know that the Spanish imported Africans to South America to replace the enslaved native peoples who died off, but surely you aren't making that accusation against North Americans, are you? Are there any "Native Americans," other than Mexican Indians used by the Spanish as slaves, who were made into slaves before the Africans were imported, in North America?
Actually, the Africans didn't have immunity; it is estimated that only about 40% of the Africans who were imported into North America to be slaves survived to last more than three years.
markenoff| 8.9.12 @ 1:36AM
And yet the Bantu moved from south of the Saharan desert all the way to the Cape arriving there just about the time the Dutch did.
Bill8472| 8.9.12 @ 9:26AM
Did they have cows?
ElGordo| 8.8.12 @ 10:55PM
SEAN HANNITY should put together a panel of Gov. Sununu, Gov. Huckabee, Speaker Gingrich, Congr. Allen West and for one hour have them attack the sleaziness of Obama, Axelrod, Reid, and Pelosi.
.
It's time to emphasize the sleaze behind Obama's persona, including; killing newly born living babies that survived abortion,
.
Fast & Furious that killed 300 Mexicans and 2 Americans
.
Creation of Death Panels with ObamaCare. How much cancer will ObamaCare not cure because of the removal of $500 Billion Dollars.
.
Millions unemployed without healthcare insurance because of the Obama economy
pulchravera| 8.9.12 @ 11:40AM
From what Mr. Tucker has argued, it would appear that Romney misapplied Diamond's book. Romney spoke about the effects of culture; Diamond writes aboutthe effects of pre-cultural causes. Tucker argues that Diamond is a reductionist who ignores the causality of culture: only geographic orientation, advantageous grains and animals matter. On the other hand, it appears that Tucker is a reductionist who ignores the causality of geography, etc.: only culture matters. In fact, the error lies in reducing everything to a single cause. Both causes are necessary, neither is sufficient. Diamond is focusing on what may be styled a material or dispositive cause (though he appears to give it greater weight than that), while Tucker focuses on the formal causality of culture.
Marie| 8.11.12 @ 12:43PM
It was getting a little scary with Obama at the wheel. It seemed as if we were slipping back into the Dark Ages. It was getting absurd.
djj| 8.20.12 @ 7:24PM
I would think that the disparity of domesticable plants and animals available in Eurasia as opposed to the Americas and Africa would have some effect the the later development of culture which would surely put the latter at some disadvantage.