Re: Shannara question
Derek Broughton
> This picture shows a guy named "Raistlin" angry at some woman:
>
> http://www.krynnwoman.com/Images/Image-RaistlinMad-Elmore.jpg
>
> Can anyone tell me (briefly, so as not to spoil the story,
> which I haven't read) what she did to upset him so much.
>
> TIA, Sean
>
> ps. Morgoth's Curse once wrote that if I've read LotR
> I've also read _The Sword of Shannara_. However, I never read that
> Aragorn got angry at Arwen, or Faramir at Eowyn or Sam at Rosie.
> Even Tom B. always seems happy with Goldberry.
Well, I'm sure there were _some_ differences, but even Terry Brooks admitted
that, iirc, at least the first half of the Elfstones was derivative.
Everybody tells me he found his own voice later (some say towards the end
of that book, some say some volumes further :-) ) but I couldn't manage to
get past the blatant ripoff parts. I keep meaning to check again (which
can't be too hard, since I actually own the first book).
I've restarted /Lord Foul's Bane/, which must have been published around the
same time. It also contains cognates for practically everything in LOTR,
but the redeeming feature is that Thomas Covenant is one of the most
original characters ever written. Annoying as can be, but original ...
--
derek
Morgoth's Curse
<de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>Sean_Q_ wrote:
>
>> This picture shows a guy named "Raistlin" angry at some woman:
>>
>> http://www.krynnwoman.com/Images/Image-RaistlinMad-Elmore.jpg
>>
>> Can anyone tell me (briefly, so as not to spoil the story,
>> which I haven't read) what she did to upset him so much.
I cannot answer as that image is from a different fantasy series which
I have not read. To the best of my knowledge, there is no character
named Raistlin in any of the Shannara novels. (I quit reading Terry
Brooks after "Straken (High Druid of Shannara, Book 3)" so I cannot be
certain.
>> TIA, Sean
>>
>> ps. Morgoth's Curse once wrote that if I've read LotR
>> I've also read _The Sword of Shannara_. However, I never read that
>> Aragorn got angry at Arwen, or Faramir at Eowyn or Sam at Rosie.
>> Even Tom B. always seems happy with Goldberry.
Well, Aragorn certainly has a few sharp words for Ioreth... :)
>Well, I'm sure there were _some_ differences, but even Terry Brooks admitted
>that, iirc, at least the first half of the Elfstones was derivative.
>Everybody tells me he found his own voice later (some say towards the end
>of that book, some say some volumes further :-) ) but I couldn't manage to
>get past the blatant ripoff parts. I keep meaning to check again (which
>can't be too hard, since I actually own the first book).
Actually, it is The Sword of Shannara which is blatantly derivative.
Brooks acknowledges as much as when he released "The Sword of
Shannara" omnibus. He had read TLOR two years before he published the
Sword. He claims, however, that from "The Elfstones of Shannara"
onward he was far more influenced by his friend Lester del Rey.
I quit reading Brooks because he jumped (not fell, but actually dived)
right into the same trap that snared Isaac Asimov. He has been
publishing novels at the rate of about one a year in an attempt to
link all of his series together (just as Asimov foolishly tried to
link his "Foundation" and "Robots" series.) This fellow also said it
better than I can in his review:
"But this is Terry Brooks, an author I once celebrated as among the
best, who has of late fallen into the trap of over-using themes and
characters. He has rewritten the same book several times, trading his
ingenuity and characterization for tired storylines and cliched
plots."
http://www.amazon.com/Straken-High-Druid-Shannara-Book/dp/0345451120/ref=cm_lmf_tit_14
Morgoth's Curse
Matthias Koch-Schirrmeister
> "Terry Brooks, an author I once celebrated..."
He certainly knows how to write a good story, but he lacks original ideas.
Matthias
Derek Broughton
> On Sat, 28 Mar 2009 18:56:39 -0300, Derek Broughton
> <de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>
>>Well, I'm sure there were _some_ differences, but even Terry Brooks
>>admitted that, iirc, at least the first half of the Elfstones was
>>derivative. Everybody tells me he found his own voice later (some say
>>towards the end of that book, some say some volumes further :-) ) but I
>>couldn't manage to
>>get past the blatant ripoff parts. I keep meaning to check again (which
>>can't be too hard, since I actually own the first book).
>
> Actually, it is The Sword of Shannara which is blatantly derivative.
Of course it was :-) That's what I _really_ meant to say.
--
derek
tamim....@gmail.com
Sean_Q_ wrote:
> This picture shows a guy named "Raistlin" angry at some woman:
>
>http://www.krynnwoman.com/Images/Image-RaistlinMad-Elmore.jpg
>
> Can anyone tell me (briefly, so as not to spoil the story,
> which I haven't read) what she did to upset him so much.
It's from Dragonlance novels by Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weiss.
Raistlin is mostly angry at his own weakness and not at the woman
(Crysania). The reason is that they almost ended up having sex (her
initiative), and he thought that they were destined for a higher
purpose and his concentration and her "purity" would have suffered if
things took their natural course. (He's an evil archmage and she is a
goodly priest of Paladine and together they planned to destroy the
goddess of evil and supplant him at her position)
Damn that sounds stupid and childish :). To my defence it has been 15
years since I read the novels.
Sean_Q_
> Raistlin is mostly angry at his own weakness and not at the woman
> (Crysania). The reason is that they almost ended up having sex (her
> initiative), and he thought that they were destined for a higher
> purpose
A higher purpose than sex (???) ...it must be a thrill indeed
in the Dragonlance world.
(He's an evil archmage
This sounds like a theme from Wagner's _Ring_ wherein Alberich,
a nassty subterranean hobbit abandons Love in exchange for Power.
> and she is a
> goodly priest of Paladine and together they planned to destroy the
> goddess of evil and supplant him at her position)
So Raistlin would cast down the bad Dark Lady and then set himself
on her throne? A strangely familiar theme. But what would be Crysania's
place in the New Order? Surely they both know well that only one hand
at a time can wield the One (or whatever the Talisman of Power happens
to be).
Would her role be to kneel, partly nude and disheveled on a greensward
with a demure expression? And yet such a posture seems not to please
Raistlin. Even Old Man Willow by the stream in the background stares
in open-mouthed surprise at such an enigmatic scene.
> Damn that sounds stupid and childish :).
What does? The way you phrased it (which didn't sound all that stupid or
childish) or the characters themselves -- trying to climb into the Evil
Monarch's high chair singing, "I'm the King of the Castle and you're
the Dirty Rascal!"?
SQ
Paul S. Person
<morgoths...@nospam.yahoo.com> wrote:
>I quit reading Brooks because he jumped (not fell, but actually dived)
>right into the same trap that snared Isaac Asimov. He has been
>publishing novels at the rate of about one a year in an attempt to
>link all of his series together (just as Asimov foolishly tried to
>link his "Foundation" and "Robots" series.) This fellow also said it
>better than I can in his review:
As it happens, I read (all I could find of) Asimov earlier this year,
including /all/ the novels. Read in "chronological" order, so to
speak, they hold together remarkably well, considering the order in
which they were written. It really helps if you really like R Daneel
Olivaw, though.
--
Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, "I never knew him."
Derek Broughton
> As it happens, I read (all I could find of) Asimov earlier this year,
> including /all/ the novels. Read in "chronological" order, so to
> speak, they hold together remarkably well, considering the order in
> which they were written. It really helps if you really like R Daneel
> Olivaw, though.
All? He wrote well in excess of a hundred books, I understand, most of them
novels.
--
derek
Steve Morrison
Most of his several hundred books were in fact nonfiction; only a few
dozen were novels, according to the list at
http://www.asimovonline.com/oldsite/asimov_catalogue.html
and that counts "novels" generously, including cases where his
novellas and novelettes were posthumously expanded into novels
by Robert Silverberg.
Chucky & Janica
>> and she is a
>> goodly priest of Paladine and together they planned to destroy the
>> goddess of evil and supplant him at her position)
>
>So Raistlin would cast down the bad Dark Lady and then set himself
>on her throne? A strangely familiar theme. But what would be Crysania's
>place in the New Order? Surely they both know well that only one hand
>at a time can wield the One (or whatever the Talisman of Power happens
>to be).
>
>Would her role be to kneel, partly nude and disheveled on a greensward
>with a demure expression? And yet such a posture seems not to please
>Raistlin. Even Old Man Willow by the stream in the background stares
>in open-mouthed surprise at such an enigmatic scene.
I'm sure she would have been welcome to kneel after the dirty deed
(er, that is, killing the evil Takhisis) was done.
It has also been some time since I read the books, but the way I
remembered it, Crysania was so smitten by Raistlin's smooth-talking
that she missed the whole "and supplant him at her position", and just
thought they were out to kill Takhisis and rid the world of evil
forever, not realising that good needed to be balanced by evil.
Crysania needed to be a virgin for the correct ritual to take place,
and Raistlin is pissed off in the picture because he almost let his
passion ruin decades of careful planning.
Janica
--
Beware of Trojans, they're complete smegheads.
- 13 & 13b of 12, the CMM Collective.
- www.afrj-monkeyhouse.org
jonme...@gmail.com
>He's an evil archmage and she is a
> goodly priest of Paladine and together they planned to destroy the
> goddess of evil
You mean, they fight crime?
Öjevind Lång
news:dllts4hk76qe8aq5u...@4ax.com...
[snip]
> I quit reading Brooks because he jumped (not fell, but actually dived)
> right into the same trap that snared Isaac Asimov. He has been
> publishing novels at the rate of about one a year in an attempt to
> link all of his series together (just as Asimov foolishly tried to
> link his "Foundation" and "Robots" series.)
Asimov did even worse than that. He also tried to integrate his books about
Elijah Baley and his robot sidekick, Daneel Olivaw, the standalone book
about time travels and the standalone book "The Currents of Space" into the
same universe as the Foundation and Robots series. The result was
catastrophic. And of course, all the later sequels to the original
Foundation trilogy are, in my opinion, rather crappy anyway.
Öjevind
Paul S. Person
wrote:
To clarify, the novels were:
1) Science Fiction, not Mystery as such (I don't know if he did any
mystery novels as such -- and, of course, the Robot Novels are mystery
novels but also Science Fiction -- these complications make my head
hurt!).
2) No collaborations. When I say, "Asimov", I mean "Asimov". And it
doesn't matter if the collaboration was posthumous or not.
3) No juveniles (Lucky Starr).
I focused on what became the robots/empire/foundation novels.
Including the stand-alones placed in the intervening time between the
Robot novels and the Foundation/Empire stuff, and allegedly reflecting
various stages in Trantor's development, whether Trantor was mentioned
or not.
I also read a couple of explicit short-story collections ("explicit"
meaning they were acknowledged to be such, as opposed to such "novels"
as /Foundation/, which is, in fact, clearly a collection of short
stories).
Tony
Tolkien fan. However, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an
interesting and strange book. It gets extra points for weirdness and and it's
worth reading.
Derek Broughton
I'm pretty sure you're getting as confused as I am. Nobody's
mentioned /Zen.../ in this thread. In _that_ thread, I just referred back
to this mention of Asimov - but thought originally it was actually in the
same thread. :-) It really is time I read /Zen.../ again - I think I was
probably 16 or so when I read it last, and I was highly suggestible at the
time :-)
--
derek
Morgoth's Curse
<pspe...@ix.netscom.com.invalid> wrote:
>As it happens, I read (all I could find of) Asimov earlier this year,
>including /all/ the novels. Read in "chronological" order, so to
>speak, they hold together remarkably well, considering the order in
>which they were written. It really helps if you really like R Daneel
>Olivaw, though.
{spoiler alert}
Well, Asimov was perhaps more consistent than Brooks has been. In
his earliest works, for example, Brooks described The Forbidding as a
timeless void in which demons were trapped in a state virtually
equivalent to suspended animation. He maintained that concept through
all of the books until the "High Druid of Shannara" series when he
abruptly transformed it into an alternate version of the Four Lands
complete with its own history and culture. He even transformed one of
the demons into a fairly sympathetic character in a feeble attempt to
advance the plot.
I also confess that I just cannot embrace how R. Daneel Olivaw
was transformed from a robotic companion into the de facto
puppetmaster of an entire galaxy. I have also never been able to
accept Asimov's explanation of how R. Daneel Olivaw became telepathic.
It is so close to divine intervention that it is jarring in a work as
pointedly humanistic as The Foundation series.
Morgoth's Curse
Morgoth's Curse
I concur. I always thought that Asimov's train of thought
derailed when he tried to explain the origin of The Mule. He was an
effective villain precisely because he was an enigmatic anomaly.
Asimov ruined the appeal of the character when he revealed his origins
and motivations.
Morgoth's Curse
Paul S. Person
<morgoths...@nospam.yahoo.com> wrote:
>On Sun, 29 Mar 2009 11:50:04 -0700, Paul S. Person
><pspe...@ix.netscom.com.invalid> wrote:
>
>>As it happens, I read (all I could find of) Asimov earlier this year,
>>including /all/ the novels. Read in "chronological" order, so to
>>speak, they hold together remarkably well, considering the order in
>>which they were written. It really helps if you really like R Daneel
>>Olivaw, though.
>
>{spoiler alert}
<snippo>
>
> I also confess that I just cannot embrace how R. Daneel Olivaw
>was transformed from a robotic companion into the de facto
>puppetmaster of an entire galaxy. I have also never been able to
>accept Asimov's explanation of how R. Daneel Olivaw became telepathic.
>It is so close to divine intervention that it is jarring in a work as
>pointedly humanistic as The Foundation series.
As I said, you /really/ have to like R. Daneel Olivaw for it to all
hang together.
I remember reading, somewhere, an essay or note or forward or
afterword by Arthur C. Clarke in which he stated that he invented the
Monolith because he just couldn't see how human beings could evolve.
But, being, as you say, humanistic, he couldn't have God do it either.
I've never been able to find it, so I cannot be certain this ever
happened.
So, he turned to Space Aliens. Asimov turned to telepathic robots
(don't forget Giskard!). And, per an article I /know/ I read, Dawkins
invented memes because he couldn't see how biological evolution could
explain the developement of human culture and, being stridently
anti-religious, he not only could not attribute it to God, he couldn't
even attribute it to religion -- which, of course, forms a large part
of culture, especially ancient culture, that is, especially the
earlier forms of culture, from which the current forms developed.
There seems to be a pattern here ...
Paul S. Person
Yes, claiming that the Mule was an escapee from Gaia instead of a
freak occurrence was too much even for me to be really comfortable
with.
Objectively, I suppose, it's no worse that the discrepancy between the
early stories in which Earth is radioactive because of nuclear war and
the later ones where it is radioactive because of the
slowly-increasing decay rate of the radioactive elements in its crust,
but it seems worse to me for precisely the reasons you give above.
Derek Broughton
> So, [Clarke] turned to Space Aliens. Asimov turned to telepathic robots
> (don't forget Giskard!). And, per an article I /know/ I read, Dawkins
> invented memes because he couldn't see how biological evolution could
> explain the developement of human culture and, being stridently
> anti-religious, he not only could not attribute it to God, he couldn't
> even attribute it to religion
I swear, that man is his own worst enemy. I agree with most of what he
says, but if I just had Dawkins to believe in I'd have to be religious...
Of _course_ biology doesn't explain culture - it's a part, but only a part -
but Dawkins is so wedded to "nature versus nurture" that he can't imagine
we're anything more than the sum of our genes.
> -- which, of course, forms a large part
> of culture, especially ancient culture, that is, especially the
> earlier forms of culture, from which the current forms developed.
>
> There seems to be a pattern here ...
:-)
--
derek
Taemon
> Of _course_ biology doesn't explain culture - it's a part, but only a
> part - but Dawkins is so wedded to "nature versus nurture" that he
> can't imagine we're anything more than the sum of our genes.
I just cancelled my News.Individual.net account so I don't know how long
I'll be able to read here (I don't like Google groups at all) but I keep
wondering what else than biology could explain culture? Seriously?
T.
Derek Broughton
Seriously, environment. Like I said, nature vs nurture.
I just extended my individual.net account last week, so I guess I have it
for at least a year, but I nearly let it lapse. It seems a waste for the
mere 3 newsgroups (two of them Tolkien) that I still read.
--
derek
Taemon
> Taemon wrote:
>> Derek Broughton wrote:
>>> Of _course_ biology doesn't explain culture - it's a part, but only
>>> a part - but Dawkins is so wedded to "nature versus nurture" that he
>>> can't imagine we're anything more than the sum of our genes.
>> I just cancelled my News.Individual.net account so I don't know how
>> long I'll be able to read here (I don't like Google groups at all)
>> but I keep wondering what else than biology could explain culture?
>> Seriously?
> Seriously, environment. Like I said, nature vs nurture.
How is environment different from biology? I really don't get it. You might
think I'm pushing my evolution-agenda here and I won't mind if that happens,
but I honestly don't understand. We're a social species. I'm tempted to say
_of course_ culture is biological. That seems like a truism to me. You see
things differently. Please explain :-)
> I just extended my individual.net account last week, so I guess I
> have it for at least a year, but I nearly let it lapse. It seems a
> waste for the mere 3 newsgroups (two of them Tolkien) that I still
> read.
Exactly... and there's a crisis going on :-) I thought my ISP has a
newsserver but I can't seem to find it. I fear they've moved on. So again,
if I suddenly stop replying it's probably just lack of proper access.
T.
Öjevind Lång
news:1324802.d...@cedar.serverforest.com...
[snip]
> I just extended my individual.net account last week, so I guess I have it
> for at least a year, but I nearly let it lapse. It seems a waste for the
> mere 3 newsgroups (two of them Tolkien) that I still read.
Please don't abandon us too!
I subscribe to news.individual.net too. I think Internet forums are
cumbersome and boring to read and post in.
Öjevind
Paul S. Person
>Derek Broughton wrote:
>
>> Taemon wrote:
>>> Derek Broughton wrote:
>>>> Of _course_ biology doesn't explain culture - it's a part, but only
>>>> a part - but Dawkins is so wedded to "nature versus nurture" that he
>>>> can't imagine we're anything more than the sum of our genes.
>>> I just cancelled my News.Individual.net account so I don't know how
>>> long I'll be able to read here (I don't like Google groups at all)
>>> but I keep wondering what else than biology could explain culture?
>>> Seriously?
>> Seriously, environment. Like I said, nature vs nurture.
>
>How is environment different from biology? I really don't get it. You might
>think I'm pushing my evolution-agenda here and I won't mind if that happens,
>but I honestly don't understand. We're a social species. I'm tempted to say
>_of course_ culture is biological. That seems like a truism to me. You see
>things differently. Please explain :-)
For culture:
1) There are no genes.
2) There are no alleles.
3) There are no allele frequencies.
4) Allele frequencies do not vary.
Biological evolution is about variations in allele frequences. No such
variations, no biological evolution.
The "meme" was intended to "solve" the "problem" by giving culture
something like a gene which could vary. The "problem" was that genetic
variation is far to slow to explain the rapid changes observed in
culture. There is, in fact, no problem at all: biological evolution
simply does not apply to anything else.
Sean_Q_
>> I just extended my individual.net account last week, so I guess I have it
>> for at least a year, but I nearly let it lapse. It seems a waste for the
>> mere 3 newsgroups (two of them Tolkien) that I still read.
> Please don't abandon us too
...lest AFN become the sole abode of Trolls, Goblins, Wraiths,
Aquatic Cephalopods with Tentacles Lurking in Mine Tailponds
and Nameless Things older than the D.L.
SQ
ps. A puzzle for anyone interested: what's wrong with the above?
(answer below)
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Answer: There are no aquatic cephalopods (octopuses, squids etc);
they're intolerant of fresh water (although some can handle
brackish water). Cephalopods are widely regarded as the most intelligent
of the invertebrates and have well developed senses and large brains,
which could explain why the West Moria Pond Beast was able to recognize
the Ring Bearer of all the company and seize on him.
Derek Broughton
> Derek Broughton wrote:
>
>> Taemon wrote:
>>> Derek Broughton wrote:
>>>> Of _course_ biology doesn't explain culture - it's a part, but only
>>>> a part - but Dawkins is so wedded to "nature versus nurture" that he
>>>> can't imagine we're anything more than the sum of our genes.
...
>>> but I keep wondering what else than biology could explain culture?
>>> Seriously?
>> Seriously, environment. Like I said, nature vs nurture.
>
> How is environment different from biology?
How is _physyical_ environment even related to biology, let alone similar to
it? There's only a direct relationship in those species limited by their
biology to specific environments.
> I really don't get it. You
> might think I'm pushing my evolution-agenda here and I won't mind if that
> happens, but I honestly don't understand. We're a social species. I'm
> tempted to say _of course_ culture is biological. That seems like a truism
> to me. You see things differently. Please explain :-)
>
OK, "why are we a social species"? It can't possibly just be because of our
biology - not all primates are social, not all predators, not all
onmivores. Why were the European nations driven to conquer the world, when
the last major aggressive action exported from Africa was Hannibal? We've
got the same genes, so it must be our environment. The fact that the world
has so many cultures tells me that our biology can't account for it all.
--
derek
Öjevind Lång
[snip]
> OK, "why are we a social species"? It can't possibly just be because of
> our
> biology - not all primates are social, not all predators, not all
> onmivores. Why were the European nations driven to conquer the world,
> when
> the last major aggressive action exported from Africa was Hannibal? We've
> got the same genes, so it must be our environment. The fact that the
> world
> has so many cultures tells me that our biology can't account for it all.
Tou forget all the invasions of Spain from north Africa, from Tariq's in the
8th century to the Almoravids in the 10th and the Almohads in the 11th.
Öjevind
Sean_Q_
> Why were the European nations driven to conquer the world
Wealth.
> when
> the last major aggressive action exported from Africa was Hannibal?
Hannibal wasn't exactly a native African, his people (Phoenicians)
were transplanted from Lebanon.
Later on, some other aggressive action exported from Africa by the
Umayyads (also non-native Africans?) led to the battle of Tours
which, if Charles Martel had lost, might have resulted in the whole
world's population living under Islamic Sharia.
SQ
Derek Broughton
I don't _forget_ them, but are they not a continuation of Arab invasion of
North Africa? Ie, it didn't start in Africa, it started in Arabia and
continued west until they reached the ocean, then turned north.
--
derek
Derek Broughton
> Derek Broughton wrote:
>
>> Why were the European nations driven to conquer the world
>
> Wealth.
>
>> when
>> the last major aggressive action exported from Africa was Hannibal?
>
> Hannibal wasn't exactly a native African, his people (Phoenicians)
> were transplanted from Lebanon.
Hardly "transplanted". They were the original mediterranean colonizers. In
fact there are significant legends and some research to suggest that they
established colonies far outside the mediterranean.
--
derek
Clams Canino
"Derek Broughton" <de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote in message
>Why were the European nations driven to conquer the world, when
> the last major aggressive action exported from Africa was Hannibal?
Greed.
Colonies = Money.
When in doubt as to the motive why, always "follow the money".
In Europe the idea of "territories" and "taxes" goes back **at least** as
far as BC Rome.
-W
Öjevind Lång
[snip]
>> You forget all the invasions of Spain from north Africa, from Tariq's in
>> the 8th century to the Almoravids in the 10th and the Almohads in the
>> 11th.
>
> I don't _forget_ them, but are they not a continuation of Arab invasion of
> North Africa? Ie, it didn't start in Africa, it started in Arabia and
> continued west until they reached the ocean, then turned north.
The Almoravids originated in Senegal and the Almohads among the native
Berbers in Morocco.
Öjevind
Öjevind Lång
news:GN8Cl.2453$Jf5...@newsfe08.iad...
[sjip]
> Later on, some other aggressive action exported from Africa by the
> Umayyads (also non-native Africans?) led to the battle of Tours
> which, if Charles Martel had lost, might have resulted in the whole
> world's population living under Islamic Sharia.
The Umayyads were descended from Umayya, a relative of Muhammad's belonging
to the same Arabic tribe as he (the Quraysh). As for the battle of Poitiers
in 732, if the Arabs hadn't lost that battle they would have been stopped
soon afterwards somewhere else. Modern hstorians agree that by then, they
were pretty much a spent force. The impetus was gone.
Öjevind
NY Teacher
"Öjevind Lång" <bredba...@ojevind.lang> wrote in message
news:73u5p0F...@mid.individual.net...
Not to mention increasing lines of communication and supply. Granted, they
could "live off the earth," but that means diminishing your force further to
scavange/collect and protect.
Add in hostile terrain, and one can safely conclude that the Arab invasion
would have ended soon after Poitiers.
NYT
> Öjevind
Derek Broughton
OK, then my history education has a couple of holes. I think the general
question as to why Europeans were driven to explore and conquer much of the
rest of the world is still reasonably good :-)
--
derek
Derek Broughton
Sorry, that doesn't work. That explains why _anyone_ would be driven to
conquer the world, but doesn't explain why it was the Europeans who did it.
If it was all biology, everybody would be doing it.
--
derek
Jeff Urs
> Sorry, that doesn't work. That explains why _anyone_ would be driven to
> conquer the world, but doesn't explain why it was the Europeans who did it.
> If it was all biology, everybody would be doing it.
Everybody *was* doing it.
The difference is that the Europeans didn't just do it to the people
next door. And the reason behind that, I suspect, is technological in
nature (although I couldn't tell you just what it was), with the
result that your answer is that it was because they were the first to
be able to do it.
Which, as you say, is not necessarily due to biology.
--
Jeff
Raven
news:2247854.1...@cedar.serverforest.com...
> Sorry, that doesn't work. That explains why _anyone_ would be driven to
> conquer the world, but doesn't explain why it was the Europeans who did
> it.
> If it was all biology, everybody would be doing it.
And everybody was doing it, as far as they were able: strong enough to
conquer others, able to travel far enough. For the past half millennium
Europeans and peoples of European descent have had the technology to conquer
land as far away as the antipodes, although lately our conquests have been
rolled back a little, at least in places where we formed a small ruling
clique rather than a large number of settlers. Half a millennium is a
fairly short time in the history of our species. As for why Europeans
conquered the Americas and not eg. vice versa, Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs
and Steel" offers some suggestions for a plausible set of explanations. The
intracontinental conquests of eg. the Incas indicate strongly that they were
not less aggressive than we, but they did not evolve sufficient ship and
weapons technology until we stopped them dead. Had we been slower at
advancing our technology, this conversation might well have taken place in
Nahuatl or Quechua. And an Indian version of Roy Harper might have released
on the album "Flat Baroque and Berserk" a song called, in translation into
English, "I Hate the Red Man".
As with that Clinton election slogan, "It's the economy, stupid!".
Closely intertwined with technology, and in some places disease.
Jon Lennart Beck.
Taemon
> And everybody was doing it, as far as they were able: strong enough
> to conquer others, able to travel far enough.
What he said. I found safe access to Usenet, I'll be with you later.
Yummm... discussion.
T.
NY Teacher
Mercantilism, very simply put the belief that a country's power can be
measured solely by its wealth, led many European countries to establish
colonies. Once established, colonies became a source of raw materials and a
captive market for finished goods...both of which increased the mother
country's overall wealth, at least theoretically.
The conflict between Catholicism and Protestantism, and among the various
protestant branches, also led to colonization. Each denomination tried to
win more converts than the other.
An increasing population, due to agricultural improvements, also spurred the
search for new lands for colonization.
The Islamic world effectively blocked profitable trade with the far east by
land, and portugal had a monopoly on the sea route around Africa. This,
combined with mercantilist ideas, pushed European countries into heading
west to get to the far east.
Answer your question?
NYT
Clams Canino
"Derek Broughton" <de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote in message
> Sorry, that doesn't work. That explains why _anyone_ would be driven to
> conquer the world, but doesn't explain why it was the Europeans who did
it.
> If it was all biology, everybody would be doing it.
You're shifting the question from "what motive" to "why success". I'll try
to keep up. :)
Yes, everyone wanted to do it, but the Euro's seems to get a technological
lead.
I think it's the "cooder climate" that perhaps creates some advantage. Look
at Europe vs Africa and then North America vs South America. - same general
thing.
-W
Clams Canino
"Clams Canino" <cc-m...@earthdink.net> wrote in message
> I think it's the "cooder climate"
Errr *cooler* climate... <sigh>
-W
Derek Broughton
> On Apr 6, 1:17 pm, Derek Broughton <de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>> Sorry, that doesn't work. That explains why _anyone_ would be driven to
>> conquer the world, but doesn't explain why it was the Europeans who did
>> it. If it was all biology, everybody would be doing it.
>
> Everybody *was* doing it.
There's a huge difference between coveting your neighbours ass (which _is_
probably biological), which is what most localized warfare comes down to,
and building empire, which the British, Spanish, Portugese, Dutch, French
and to a lesser extent, Germans and Italians, were doing.
>
> The difference is that the Europeans didn't just do it to the people
> next door. And the reason behind that, I suspect, is technological in
> nature (although I couldn't tell you just what it was), with the
> result that your answer is that it was because they were the first to
> be able to do it.
That's not supportable. The Mongols captured much of Europe and Asia with
no technology to speak of. Humans are always driven to take more than they
need, but only the Europeans have been driven to create empires in the last
1000 years. In earlier times, other groups did it, but so far we've still
only got one example that could be argued to be sub-Saharan Africa. The
British conquerors always said it was because they were lazy. I suspect it
was because it's hard to get people pumped for war when they can't imagine
that the other guy's grass _is_ greener.
--
derek
Derek Broughton
> "Derek Broughton" <de...@pointerstop.ca> skrev i meddelelsen
> news:2247854.1...@cedar.serverforest.com...
>
>> Sorry, that doesn't work. That explains why _anyone_ would be driven to
>> conquer the world, but doesn't explain why it was the Europeans who did
>> it.
>> If it was all biology, everybody would be doing it.
>
> And everybody was doing it, as far as they were able: strong enough to
> conquer others, able to travel far enough.
No, I'm not buying it. The Phoenicians had the technology for empire
building, and never did it. The Mongols had no technology and did.
> For the past half millennium
> Europeans and peoples of European descent have had the technology to
> conquer land as far away as the antipodes, although lately our conquests
> have been rolled back a little, at least in places where we formed a small
> ruling
> clique rather than a large number of settlers. Half a millennium is a
> fairly short time in the history of our species.
It is, however, about normal for Empire.
> As for why Europeans
> conquered the Americas and not eg. vice versa, Jared Diamond's "Guns,
> Germs and Steel" offers some suggestions for a plausible set of
> explanations.
I'll have to check that out
> The intracontinental conquests of eg. the Incas indicate strongly that
> they were not less aggressive than we, but they did not evolve sufficient
> ship and weapons technology until we stopped them dead.
But they never even tried to take over all of South America, let alone North
America - they didn't need any technology they didn't have to do that.
> Had we been slower at
> advancing our technology, this conversation might well have taken place in
> Nahuatl or Quechua.
No, it's just not conceivable. The Maya, Toltec, Aztec and Inca all had
large territorial expansion, but they never even _tried_ to expand into
North America. If they couldn't/wouldn't take a sparsely populated,
non-technological continent, why would we ever even imagine they'd try for
Europe?
> As with that Clinton election slogan, "It's the economy, stupid!".
> Closely intertwined with technology, and in some places disease.
Of which only _one_ is biological. Even if I were to concede all your
points, they're not supporting the hypothesis that culture is biological.
--
derek
NY Teacher
The Europeans did it because of: Mercantilism, rivalry among nationalities
and religious denominations, rapidly growing population, an Islamic trade
barrier to the East, and a Portuguese monopoly on the sea route to the east.
The Europeans SUCCEEDED at it because of: Guns, Germs, Steel, and government
structures that allowed continuity de spite the death of the rulere(as
opposed to the Mongols mentionned elsewhere, for example, or the Huns).
NYT
Morgoth's Curse
<de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>OK, then my history education has a couple of holes. I think the general
>question as to why Europeans were driven to explore and conquer much of the
>rest of the world is still reasonably good :-)
I doubt that any one factor is sufficient to answer it. It was almost
certainly a confluence of factors that occurred over a number of
centuries which transformed the cultures and nations of Europe more
than any other continent.
I think it is equally interesting to speculate on how the current
environmental crises and technology will influence our species. The
invention of the Internet may well be the most significant development
since the printing press. For the first time in history, anyone in any
nation in the world can simultaneously access (and contribute)
information and data (subject to local technology, of course.)
Distance is now irrelevant. Time is only relevant in that still
governs our sleep cycle. Who can say what new ideas this will spawn
or how effective such ideas will be?
Morgoth's Curse
Sean_Q_
> As for the
> battle of Poitiers in 732, if the Arabs hadn't lost that battle they
> would have been stopped soon afterwards somewhere else.
Where, and by whom?
SQ
Chucky & Janica
<de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>In earlier times, other groups did it, but so far we've still
>only got one example that could be argued to be sub-Saharan Africa. The
>British conquerors always said it was because they were lazy. I suspect it
>was because it's hard to get people pumped for war when they can't imagine
>that the other guy's grass _is_ greener.
A lecture I once attended at the African department at the university
here in Helsinki suggested that one contributing factor was the
sub-Saharan Africa coastline. Most sub-Saharan rivers are perfectly
navigable until you get to the coast, at which point you are stopped
by waterfalls or something similar, and the coastline is severly
lacking in natural harbours. Thus, empires in sub-Saharan Africa (of
which there have been several) were forced, through natural obstacles,
to expand inwards and not outwards across water.
Janica
--
Beware of Trojans, they're complete smegheads.
- 13 & 13b of 12, the CMM Collective.
- www.afrj-monkeyhouse.org
Derek Broughton
> On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 14:21:20 -0300, Derek Broughton
> <de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>
>>OK, then my history education has a couple of holes. I think the general
>>question as to why Europeans were driven to explore and conquer much of
>>the rest of the world is still reasonably good :-)
>
> I doubt that any one factor is sufficient to answer it.
Which would, of course, be a sufficient argument for my hypothesis - that
it's not all about biology.
> I think it is equally interesting to speculate on how the current
> environmental crises and technology will influence our species.
So do I.
> The
> invention of the Internet may well be the most significant development
> since the printing press. For the first time in history, anyone in any
> nation in the world can simultaneously access (and contribute)
Perhaps not quite "simultaneously".
> information and data (subject to local technology, of course.)
It's still difficult for some people to access the Internet in a timely
manner either due to technology or political interference, but one thing
we're seeing from China these days is that even a totalitarian regime is
hard-pressed to keep _all_ routes to the Internet closed.
> Distance is now irrelevant. Time is only relevant in that still
> governs our sleep cycle.
And that's becoming more and more important in the speed at which
information moves. Even 100 years ago, it took two weeks to get
information across the Atlantic. Now, if you want to send something it
_could_ be instantaneous - or you may have to wait for your recipients to
wake up :-)
> Who can say what new ideas this will spawn
> or how effective such ideas will be?
May you live in interesting times!
--
derek
Derek Broughton
>>> "Derek Broughton" <de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote in message
>>>
>>>>Why were the European nations driven to conquer the world, when
>>>> the last major aggressive action exported from Africa was Hannibal?
> The Europeans did it because of: Mercantilism, rivalry among nationalities
> and religious denominations, rapidly growing population, an Islamic trade
> barrier to the East, and a Portuguese monopoly on the sea route to the
> east.
>
> The Europeans SUCCEEDED at it because of: Guns, Germs, Steel, and
> government structures that allowed continuity de spite the death of the
> rulere(as opposed to the Mongols mentionned elsewhere, for example, or the
> Huns).
Neatly sidestepping any consideration of how mercantilism, national or
religious rivalry, or trade barriers have any roots in biology...
Obviously _population_ does. But the question is whether culture is
entirely determined by biology.
--
derek
Derek Broughton
> In article <2247854.1...@cedar.serverforest.com>,
> Because Europe was a technology crossroad and socially mobile. That means
> a lot of ideas and an advantage to exploiting them. Because technology
> increases exponentially, even a slight technological advantage can be
> insurmountable.
I'm not arguing that technology doesn't help - I'm arguing that technology
isn't a necessary precondition for conquest. The facts as I see them show
that cultures that _could_ have conquered, and even controlled, whole
continents, _didn't_.
> The secret to being a world power isn't having the brighest, but having
> the most ambitious and the freedom to pursue those ambitions.
And again, if that's the secret, how is it supporting the idea that culture
is biological? Warning, any suggestion that the Europeans were _either_
the brightest or most ambitious is politically charged :)
--
derek
Derek Broughton
>
> "Derek Broughton" <de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote in message
>
>> Sorry, that doesn't work. That explains why _anyone_ would be driven to
>> conquer the world, but doesn't explain why it was the Europeans who did
> it.
>> If it was all biology, everybody would be doing it.
>
>
> You're shifting the question from "what motive" to "why success". I'll try
> to keep up. :)
I never claimed motive. I never asked why anyone would be driven to
conquest - I asked why it was Europeans, not Africans. And to me that
question _always_ came down to "why success".
> Yes, everyone wanted to do it, but the Euro's seems to get a technological
> lead.
> I think it's the "cooder climate" that perhaps creates some advantage.
Ding! Ding! Ding! Wasn't I the one who claimed it came down to environment?
> Look at Europe vs Africa and then North America vs South America. - same
> general thing.
thank you :-)
--
derek
Öjevind Lång
Somewhere not too far away, by some other Frankish army. As I said,
historians today agree that by 732, the Arabic invasion armies were a spent
force.
Öjevind
Öjevind Lång
news:hf5mt410s4g5t5132...@4ax.com...
> On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 19:15:31 -0300 Derek Broughton
> <de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>
>>In earlier times, other groups did it, but so far we've still
>>only got one example that could be argued to be sub-Saharan Africa. The
>>British conquerors always said it was because they were lazy. I suspect
>>it
>>was because it's hard to get people pumped for war when they can't imagine
>>that the other guy's grass _is_ greener.
>
> A lecture I once attended at the African department at the university
> here in Helsinki suggested that one contributing factor was the
> sub-Saharan Africa coastline. Most sub-Saharan rivers are perfectly
> navigable until you get to the coast, at which point you are stopped
> by waterfalls or something similar, and the coastline is severly
> lacking in natural harbours. Thus, empires in sub-Saharan Africa (of
> which there have been several) were forced, through natural obstacles,
> to expand inwards and not outwards across water.
Europe, on the other hand, is full of navigable rivers, islands and bays -
perfect for trade and communication.
Öjevind
Weland
And Viking incursions!
Raven
> Raven wrote:
> No, I'm not buying it. The Phoenicians had the technology for empire
> building, and never did it. The Mongols had no technology and did.
The Phoenicians began building an empire, but were defeated by the
Romans. The Mongols had perfect technology for empire building: excellent
bows, horses for tactical and strategic mobility, and for a while also a
social structure that facilitated the fielding of large armies under a
unified command. They had a lifestyle by which their normal life, hunting,
herding and travelling on horseback, in itself did much to train them as
soldiers.
That said, there is of course more to conquest than better weapons and
mobility. Much conquest is done not by emperors but by junior lords hoping
to gain a better standing at home, or achieving abroad what they cannot earn
or take at home. Julius Caesar began as the conqueror of most of
transalpine Gaul, and with the power and prestige from *those* exploits
proceeded to grab the reins in the Roman republic, transforming it into an
empire. Often conquests are annulled by centrifugal forces, such as
Alexander the Great's vast empire which scarcely outlasted him. The Mongol
empire lasted longer, but also eventually came to nothing in part because it
was divided into factions that started conquering each other. And of course
if a strong country sees little that is worth fighting for beyond their
borders, but much wealth within, their factions will keep fighting and
competing with each other, ignoring the barbarians without.
And certainly there may be people who have a strong society and advanced
technology but no tradition for fighting and conquest. We humans have our
biological, hereditary instincts. These are vastly influenced by culture,
as well as by individual experiences.
>> The intracontinental conquests of eg. the Incas indicate strongly that
>> they were not less aggressive than we, but they did not evolve sufficient
>> ship and weapons technology until we stopped them dead.
> But they never even tried to take over all of South America, let alone
> North America - they didn't need any technology they didn't have to do
> that.
Oh yes they did. Before Pizarro came they tried to expand even further
south, but were stopped by the Mapuche Indians. Trying to descend into the
jungle lowlands east of the Andes they were stopped or slowed by the peoples
there. Of course there is no telling what *would* have happened had we
Europeans not arrived. They might have expanded much further. They might
have been stopped by being less able to fight in unfamiliar terrain, or by
the fact that jungles are not very easy to move large armies through, or by
the lesser economic incentives of dense rainforests, to people whose main
source of wealth was agriculture in drier and cooler lands. Or
Tahuantinsuyu might have fallen apart from within. The civil war between
Atahuallpa and Huascar began because they had inherited each a part of the
empire, and then they fought for control over the whole of it. Atahuallpa
won, with great destruction and loss of life including massacres, but in the
aftermath the further evolution of Tahuantinsuyu was abruptly ended by
European invaders.
>> Had we been slower at advancing our technology, this conversation
>> might well have taken place in Nahuatl or Quechua.
> No, it's just not conceivable. The Maya, Toltec, Aztec and Inca all had
> large territorial expansion, but they never even _tried_ to expand into
> North America. If they couldn't/wouldn't take a sparsely populated,
> non-technological continent, why would we ever even imagine they'd try for
> Europe?
There are great deserts there, as modern illegal immigrants to the USA
from the south can tell you. Marching an army into a desert capable of
sustaining one itinerant family per many many square miles is not much of a
conquest. Even cultural exchanges other than conquest, such as agriculture,
took much longer than such exchanges between eg. Central Europe and Persia.
Before large oceangoing ships, before paved roads and large populations to
keep them in repair, without domesticated horses, the Americas were a much
more rugged continent than Eurasia. Hunters-gatherers expanding by fifty
miles per generation in difficult or semi-barren terrain is one thing.
Marching a large army through it, or across vast grasslands without tilled
fields to gather provisions for the troops, hundreds of miles in a single
campaign, is quite another. Ease of walking is not all there is to marching
an army from A to B.
>> As with that Clinton election slogan, "It's the economy, stupid!".
>> Closely intertwined with technology, and in some places disease.
> Of which only _one_ is biological. Even if I were to concede all your
> points, they're not supporting the hypothesis that culture is biological.
Of course culture isn't biological, in the sense that once you have
mapped and comprehended the genome you know precisely how likely the other
man, or tribe, is to become your friend or to mug you. But it is based in
great part on biology. We are by biology a sociable species, even more so
than the other great apes. We naturally join in little or larger bands,
occasionally with devastating consequences when intraband loyalty transforms
into its complement, fear of or disdain for outsiders. Much of law follows
common morality, and much of *that* springs from biologically inherited
group dynamics, eg. if the group shares with me, then I had damn well not
share only with myself. As another example, the basis of any human society,
above the individual, is the family, not eg. diffuse mating relations and
children's creches. This family is usually monogamous, sometimes
polygynous, very rarely polyandrous. It is not generally the case that
grown people bed with each other as fancy takes them and communally raise
the resulting children. If our biological heritage were different we could
very well have cultures in which mothers reared their children, with the
communal help of the menfolk or no help at all, and then the children
becoming alienated from their mothers upon maturity. Anybody familiar with
cats will know what I mean ---
Our biology formes a framework, with, of course, diffuse borders. Within
this framework there is great scope for variation, both on individual and
communal levels. But it is difficult to form cultural norms which lie well
beyond the borders of it. Such have been attempted. There have eg. been
social experiments with communes, where romantic and sexual fidelity were
seen as relics of bourgeois conformity and oppression, and children were
supposed to treat all the adults communally as parents, and *everything* was
shared property, even undies. Didn't quite work out, those experiments, did
they?
Jon Lennart Beck.
Jeff Urs
> And that's becoming more and more important in the speed at which
> information moves. Even 100 years ago, it took two weeks to get
> information across the Atlantic.
Cyrus Field laid the first transatlantic cable in 1858. Emile Baudot
[1] patented the teletype in 1874. They must have had really slow
telegraph operators 100 years ago. :-)
NY Teacher
> NY Teacher wrote:
>
>>>> "Derek Broughton" <de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote in message
>>>>
>>>>>Why were the European nations driven to conquer the world, when
>>>>> the last major aggressive action exported from Africa was Hannibal?
>
>> The Europeans did it because of: Mercantilism, rivalry among
>> nationalities
>> and religious denominations, rapidly growing population, an Islamic trade
>> barrier to the East, and a Portuguese monopoly on the sea route to the
>> east.
>>
>> The Europeans SUCCEEDED at it because of: Guns, Germs, Steel, and
>> government structures that allowed continuity de spite the death of the
>> rulere(as opposed to the Mongols mentionned elsewhere, for example, or
>> the
>> Huns).
>
> Neatly sidestepping any consideration of how mercantilism, national or
> religious rivalry, or trade barriers have any roots in biology...
I was never considering the biological argument, because it seems so absurd
to me...provide some evidence as to why biology may have ANY effect on
culture and I will reconsider.
> Obviously _population_ does. But the question is whether culture is
> entirely determined by biology.
> --
> derek
Since you are the only one who thinks that culture is determined by biology,
provide some evidence to support your claim.
Taemon
>>> Taemon wrote:
>>>> Derek Broughton wrote:
>>>>> Of _course_ biology doesn't explain culture - it's a part, but
>>>>> only a part - but Dawkins is so wedded to "nature versus nurture"
>>>>> that he can't imagine we're anything more than the sum of our
>>>>> genes.
<snip>
>> How is environment different from biology?
> How is _physyical_ environment even related to biology, let alone
> similar to it? There's only a direct relationship in those species
> limited by their biology to specific environments.
Put a human into water, they will swim. Put them onto a mountain, they will
climb (down). I don't think it's useful to make a distinction between
environment and biology when it comes to expression of genes this way.
Biology constrains, and is constrained by, how an organism or group of
organisms lives. So maybe "biology" isn't the right term - I believe
"phenotype" might be a good one here.
>> We're a social species. I'm tempted to say _of course_ culture is
>> biological. That
>> seems like a truism to me. You see things differently. Please explain :-)
> OK, "why are we a social species"? It can't possibly just be because
> of our biology - not all primates are social, not all predators, not
> all onmivores.
But all humans are. I even think all primates. We are not predators. But
that's not the issue here. We are a social species - we might be THE social
species on the planet. We are so social that we even adopt other animals as
pets. We see agency everywhere, and make gods out of it. A human alone isn't
truly human. So we all live together and that is what a culture is. That
cultures differ over the world... that's a water and mountain-matter.
> The fact that the world has so many cultures tells me that our
> biology can't account for it all.
You think that human cultures differ a lot from each other. I beg to differ.
If you look at how other animal groups differ from each other, ours are very
much the same. Of course there are differences, some bigger than others
(say, what colour is the colour of mourning versus the tendency to cut off
female genitals) but they are not that big. They look big to *us* since we
are part of it.
When I was a teenager, in the eighties, there were groups of punks and
groups of goths. All my mother saw was people dressed in black with wild
hair. I could tell from each of those people exactly what music they liked.
To me, those differences were vast. I'm not sure my mother ever realised
there WAS a difference.
The things that are important to us, as a species, are the same over
cultures. The evolutionary-induced norms, thou shall not kill, thou shall
take care of thine children, those are the same over cultures. The tendency
to live in loosely monogamous bonds, that is the same over cultures. Culture
is our way to make sure our procreating is safe.
This was written a bit in haste, as you no doubt can tell. But I don't want
to wait any longer to get a foot into this increasingly interesting
discussion :-)
T.
JimboCat
>The Mongols captured much of Europe and Asia with
>no technology to speak of.
Not correct, according to what I was taught. They had horse technology
that far outshone any other on the planet. Mainly, they had invented
the stirrup, which allowed a mounted warrior to sit stably and surely
enough to wield weapons while riding. That was a New Thing in those
days.
and, in a different message, he wrote:
> The Maya, Toltec, Aztec and Inca all had
>large territorial expansion, but they never even _tried_ to expand into
>North America. If they couldn't/wouldn't take a sparsely populated,
>non-technological continent, why would we ever even imagine they'd try for
>Europe?
That's another assumption that may well be false. The idea that North
America was sparsely populated in pre-Columbian times is based on
western explorers who found it so long /after/ western diseases had
decimated the aboriginal populations.
The actual numbers are very controversial. There are "high-counters"
and "low-counters" among academics. For a nice popularized account
read "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" by
Charles C. Mann.
Oh, yes: as far as the actual argument of this sub-thread: I agree
completely that human culture is more than simply biological in
origin. For one thing, it changes *way* faster than our genes possibly
could...
Jim Deutch (JimboCat)
--
"We learn from history that we do not learn from history." -Hegel
Emma Pease
Biology affects cultures but it doesn't have to be just human biology.
Part of Diamond's thesis is that where human's developed farming and
settlements depended on domestication and domestication depended on what
could be domesticated and how good a source of food it was. Spreading
also depended on whether you could cultivate these crops and animals in
new places (the Incas and their predecessors couldn't necessarily grow
potatos in the Amazonian or central American lowlands).
Another part is disease. Europeans did go everywhere but one of the last
places they took over was Africa, even though it was adjacent, because
Europeans who entered sub-Saharan Africa (with the exception of the far
south which was settled early by Europeans) died in large numbers of
diseases that the native Africans had built up an immunity to. In the
Americas the Europeans brought diseases which killed a huge percentage of
the population (the eastern US, think moundbuilders, was quite well
populated before being hit by this).
--
\----
|\* | Emma Pease Net Spinster
|_\/ Die Luft der Freiheit weht
NY Teacher
"Emma Pease" <er_p...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:slrngtnd8e....@cardinal3.stanford.edu...
Agreed that biology affects culture, although that statement is so nebullous
that it is practically useless. [It is like saying that chemistry affects
culture since chemical reactions occur in biological organisms...true, but
so what?]
I was stating that culture is not entirely determined by biology, as the
original poster in this sub-thread states. My problem is the "entirely"
part.
NYT
Julian Bradfield
> I was never considering the biological argument, because it seems so absurd
> to me...provide some evidence as to why biology may have ANY effect on
> culture and I will reconsider.
In most parts of the world, it is a cultural requirement that people
wear clothes. In many, it is a requirement that women cover themselves
more or less completely. Do you really think that this has nothing to
do with our biological requirement for sexual reproduction, and the
associated desires to pass on one's genes?
Steve Morrison
> Derek Broughton wrote:
>
>>>> Taemon wrote:
>>>>> Derek Broughton wrote:
>>>>>> Of _course_ biology doesn't explain culture - it's a part, but
>>>>>> only a part - but Dawkins is so wedded to "nature versus nurture"
>>>>>> that he can't imagine we're anything more than the sum of our
>>>>>> genes.
> <snip>
>>> How is environment different from biology?
>> How is _physyical_ environment even related to biology, let alone
>> similar to it? There's only a direct relationship in those species
>> limited by their biology to specific environments.
>
> Put a human into water, they will swim. Put them onto a mountain, they will
> climb (down). I don't think it's useful to make a distinction between
> environment and biology when it comes to expression of genes this way.
> Biology constrains, and is constrained by, how an organism or group of
> organisms lives. So maybe "biology" isn't the right term - I believe
> "phenotype" might be a good one here.
It looks as though the problem here is that almost everyone is using
"biology" as a synonym for "heredity", and you object to that
narrowing of the word's meaning.
Clams Canino
"NY Teacher" <nyte...@goschool.com> wrote in message
> I was stating that culture is not entirely determined by biology, as the
> original poster in this sub-thread states. My problem is the "entirely"
> part.
He didn't "state" anything; he clearly posed a question.
-W
NY Teacher
"Julian Bradfield" <j...@inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote in message
news:slrngtne4...@krk.inf.ed.ac.uk...
Very little.
Primarily because, as you mention, it occurs in "most parts of the world,"
but not *all.* If it had a purely biological explanation, it shoudl apply to
all who have the same biology, i.e all H. sapien sapien.
Secondly, since clothing is an augment to sexual attraction, not a
cancellation of it. [Studies show that a partially clad figure is more
sexually exciting than a nude one. Also, in previous eras and cultures, a
woman's ankle or man's calf were considered highly sexual objects when
revealed by (lack of) clothing, yet those parts have damn little to do with
reproduction.] The full covering of woman in some cultures is, then, a
conscious rejection of sexuality and associated desires to pass on one's
genes. It is, then, the non-biological aspects of culture trumping any
biologically influenced aspects.
Third, following Occam's Razor, there are numerous simpler explanations,
such as insulation from the elements or comfort.
NYT
NY Teacher
"Taemon" <Tae...@zonnet.nl> wrote in message
news:741mf8F...@mid.individual.net...
> Derek Broughton wrote:
>
>>>> Taemon wrote:
>>>>> Derek Broughton wrote:
>>>>>> Of _course_ biology doesn't explain culture - it's a part, but
>>>>>> only a part - but Dawkins is so wedded to "nature versus nurture"
>>>>>> that he can't imagine we're anything more than the sum of our
>>>>>> genes.
> <snip>
>>> How is environment different from biology?
>> How is _physyical_ environment even related to biology, let alone
>> similar to it? There's only a direct relationship in those species
>> limited by their biology to specific environments.
>
> Put a human into water, they will swim. Put them onto a mountain, they
> will
> climb (down).
That's not climbing...it's falling with style.
I don't think it's useful to make a distinction between
> environment and biology when it comes to expression of genes this way.
> Biology constrains, and is constrained by, how an organism or group of
> organisms lives. So maybe "biology" isn't the right term - I believe
> "phenotype" might be a good one here.
>
>>> We're a social species. I'm tempted to say _of course_ culture is
>>> biological. That
>>> seems like a truism to me. You see things differently. Please explain
>>> :-)
>> OK, "why are we a social species"? It can't possibly just be because
>> of our biology - not all primates are social, not all predators, not
>> all onmivores.
>
> But all humans are. I even think all primates. We are not predators.
We most certainly ARE predators. Upright stance, structure of the arms,
position of eyes and ears, and type of teeth all indicate that humans are
predators.
But
> that's not the issue here. We are a social species - we might be THE
> social
> species on the planet. We are so social that we even adopt other animals
> as
> pets. We see agency everywhere, and make gods out of it. A human alone
> isn't
> truly human. So we all live together and that is what a culture is. That
> cultures differ over the world... that's a water and mountain-matter.
>
>> The fact that the world has so many cultures tells me that our
>> biology can't account for it all.
>
> You think that human cultures differ a lot from each other. I beg to
> differ.
> If you look at how other animal groups differ from each other, ours are
> very
> much the same. Of course there are differences, some bigger than others
> (say, what colour is the colour of mourning versus the tendency to cut off
> female genitals) but they are not that big. They look big to *us* since we
> are part of it.
Please expand on how animals of the same species, but different geographic
location, differ? A wolf in Yellowstone acts very much like a wolf in
Siberia. You claim large differences, but name none. Human cultural
differences, however, cover a wide range of issues. A human in Yellowstone
differs from one in Siberia in language, belief system, food preference,
musical preferences, interests, etc. etc. etc. No ONE difference may be
big, but they add up to two individuals with precious little in common.
>
> When I was a teenager, in the eighties, there were groups of punks and
> groups of goths. All my mother saw was people dressed in black with wild
> hair. I could tell from each of those people exactly what music they
> liked.
> To me, those differences were vast. I'm not sure my mother ever realised
> there WAS a difference.
When I was a teenager in the eighties, the word "Goth" meant a barbarian
invader from the middle ages. The fact that your mother was too busy to
listen to the types of music each of these cohorts enjoyed does not indicate
a lack of cultural difference.
>
> The things that are important to us, as a species, are the same over
> cultures.
Yeah, just the other day I heard about infanticide in the United States
because the parents wanted a boy, or the grieving widow jumping into a
funeral pyre.
The evolutionary-induced norms, thou shall not kill, thou shall
> take care of thine children, those are the same over cultures.
Bullshit. Killing is a very human trait. Biology, in fact, endorses it
since killing eliminates a possible threat/competitor. Culture is what
created "thou shalt not kill" because enough people saw a better option than
living in fear and red "in tooth and claw." Culture trumped biology.
The tendency
> to live in loosely monogamous bonds, that is the same over cultures.
> Culture is our way to make sure our procreating is safe.
"Loosely monogamous?" That's vague enough to cover everything.
Derek Broughton
Taemon's specific words were "what else than biology could explain culture?"
But NYT hasn't bothered to actually figure out what the question was, let
alone who's arguing which side...
--
derek
Derek Broughton
If it was that simple, we wouldn't still have had Morse telegraph operators
well into the last century.
--
derek
Derek Broughton
> We humans have our
> biological, hereditary instincts. These are vastly influenced by culture,
> as well as by individual experiences.
But now you're turning the original thesis on its ear - that _culture_ is
biological.
>
>>> Had we been slower at advancing our technology, this conversation
>>> might well have taken place in Nahuatl or Quechua.
>
>> No, it's just not conceivable. The Maya, Toltec, Aztec and Inca all had
>> large territorial expansion, but they never even _tried_ to expand into
>> North America. If they couldn't/wouldn't take a sparsely populated,
>> non-technological continent, why would we ever even imagine they'd try
>> for Europe?
>
> There are great deserts there, as modern illegal immigrants to the USA
> from the south can tell you. Marching an army into a desert capable of
> sustaining one itinerant family per many many square miles is not much of
> a
I don't get it. The argument was that "culture is biological". I present
arguments against it, and everybody wants to tell me why I'm wrong, while
supporting my argument. YES there are great deserts there. That's
precisely the point. It's not technology (which may or may not be driven
by biology), it's environment.
> Of course culture isn't biological, in the sense that once you have
> mapped and comprehended the genome you know precisely how likely the other
> man, or tribe, is to become your friend or to mug you. But it is based in
> great part on biology.
And I have no disagreement with that. The statement that started the
argument was that Richard Dawkins couldn't see us as anything more than the
sum of our genes. Biology is important, even vital, but it isn't
everything that makes us what we are.
--
derek
Weland
> On 2009-04-07, NY Teacher <nyte...@goschool.com> wrote:
> [...]
>
>>I was never considering the biological argument, because it seems so absurd
>>to me...provide some evidence as to why biology may have ANY effect on
>>culture and I will reconsider.
>
>
> In most parts of the world, it is a cultural requirement that people
> wear clothes.
Is it a cultural requirement, or a practical one? There may be cultural
explanations of why clothes are necessary and cultural determinations of
what sort of clothes are necessary, but a cultural requirement?
> In many, it is a requirement that women cover themselves
> more or less completely.
I'd say in some...I suppose it depends on how far one wants to push
"many". Interestingly, though, in those cultures in which women cover
themselves more or less completely, traditionally so did the men, who if
uncovered, it was the face only. And again, this had as much to do with
climate as culture.
Do you really think that this has nothing to
> do with our biological requirement for sexual reproduction, and the
> associated desires to pass on one's genes?
Yes, it has nothing to do with a biological requirement. It may have
something to do with how a culture views, interprets, and places meaning
on that biological requirement.
Taemon
> And I have no disagreement with that. The statement that started the
> argument was that Richard Dawkins couldn't see us as anything more
> than the sum of our genes. Biology is important, even vital, but it
> isn't everything that makes us what we are.
Can we reformulate the statement as "the expression of our genes in our
environment, that is, our phenotype, makes us what we are" and proceed from
there? Because I think we can all agree then. Pity.
T.
Taemon
> I thought it was common knowledge that Dawkins bloviates.
Learned a cool new word today! Thanks.
T.
Öjevind Lång
news:grg5dg$his$1...@news.motzarella.org...
[snip]
> I was never considering the biological argument, because it seems so
> absurd to me...provide some evidence as to why biology may have ANY effect
> on culture and I will reconsider.
I second that.
�jevind
Öjevind Lång
news:grftoo$3nl$1...@reader.motzarella.org...
> �jevind L�ng wrote:
[snip]
>> Europe, on the other hand, is full of navigable rivers, islands and
>> bays - perfect for trade and communication.
>
> And Viking incursions!
:-)
Even so, the Scandinavians were not only sea robbers but also master
traders. For example, Charlemagne sold many of the Slavs he captured in his
wars of conquest to the Vikings, who sold them to the Arabs. Hence the
etymological connection between "Slav" and "Slave". And the Swedes' voyages
down the Russian rivers to Constantinople and further were generally trade
voyages, not plundering expeditions.
IOW, the Norsemen also used the topography of Europe for trading purposes.
�jevind
Derek Broughton
> Derek Broughton wrote:
>
>>> How is environment different from biology?
>> How is _physyical_ environment even related to biology, let alone
>> similar to it? There's only a direct relationship in those species
>> limited by their biology to specific environments.
>
> Put a human into water, they will swim. Put them onto a mountain, they
> will climb (down). I don't think it's useful to make a distinction between
> environment and biology when it comes to expression of genes this way.
?? Sorry, that doesn't make any sense to me. Environment is not biology. I
can't see how you can even think of equating them.
> Biology constrains, and is constrained by, how an organism or group of
> organisms lives. So maybe "biology" isn't the right term - I believe
> "phenotype" might be a good one here.
>> OK, "why are we a social species"? It can't possibly just be because
>> of our biology - not all primates are social, not all predators, not
>> all onmivores.
>
> But all humans are. I even think all primates.
I'm fairly sure Orangs aren't.
> We are not predators.
Of course we are. We have _always_ hunted for food. Even now when it's
practically unnecessary, many do.
> But
> that's not the issue here. We are a social species - we might be THE
> social species on the planet. We are so social that we even adopt other
> animals as pets. We see agency everywhere, and make gods out of it. A
> human alone isn't truly human. So we all live together and that is what a
> culture is. That cultures differ over the world... that's a water and
> mountain-matter.
Which is just a way of saying that cultures differ because of environment,
as far as I can see.
>> The fact that the world has so many cultures tells me that our
>> biology can't account for it all.
>
> You think that human cultures differ a lot from each other. I beg to
> differ. If you look at how other animal groups differ from each other,
> ours are very much the same.
No argument - but other animals tend to differ because they have no
opportunity to intermingle. Our cultures are homogenizing more and more,
both because we blend our genes, and because we're no longer bound by our
physical environment. When you look at any single isolated gene-pool, the
animals are invariably much more similar than the extremes of humanity.
--
derek
Derek Broughton
> On Apr 6, 6:15�pm, Derek Broughton <de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>
>>The Mongols captured much of Europe and Asia with
>>no technology to speak of.
>
> Not correct, according to what I was taught. They had horse technology
> that far outshone any other on the planet. Mainly, they had invented
> the stirrup, which allowed a mounted warrior to sit stably and surely
> enough to wield weapons while riding. That was a New Thing in those
> days.
I suppose I _should_ have known better - given the number of books I've read
recently in which the concept of the stirrup figures prominently...
>
> and, in a different message, he wrote:
>
>> The Maya, Toltec, Aztec and Inca all had
>>large territorial expansion, but they never even _tried_ to expand into
>>North America. If they couldn't/wouldn't take a sparsely populated,
>>non-technological continent, why would we ever even imagine they'd try for
>>Europe?
>
> That's another assumption that may well be false. The idea that North
> America was sparsely populated in pre-Columbian times is based on
> western explorers who found it so long /after/ western diseases had
> decimated the aboriginal populations.
Er, no. Do you _really_ want to argue that North American population
densities - particularly in the US South-West, where they would have had to
start - were anything like the population densities in Europe of the Middle
Ages? Yes, there were almost certainly far more people in North America
than existed not long after the Europeans arrived, but it was still sparse
by Meso-American standards.
>
--
derek
Derek Broughton
> Since you are the only one who thinks that culture is determined by
> biology, provide some evidence to support your claim.
Go back and read the thread, for heaven's sake. This all started with my
argument that it COULDN'T be that simple. I DON'T BELIEVE IT.
You really shouldn't claim to be a teacher...
--
derek
Derek Broughton
You're making the same mistake NYT makes - nobody's arguing that
it's "nothing" to do with biology, or even that it might not be "mostly" to
do with biology. The original question was "what else than biology could
explain culture?"
It does seem that the requirement to cover up is _not_ based in biology,
because in places where the native populations have sufficient melanin to
not have to worry about UV exposure (at least historically) and the climate
doesn't get cool enough to force clothing, they've typically worn less
clothing than lighter skinned people from more temperate climes.
--
derek
Clams Canino
Heh... I've been shaking my head for a couple days now. R.I.F.
-W
Julian Bradfield
> Julian Bradfield wrote:
>
>> On 2009-04-07, NY Teacher <nyte...@goschool.com> wrote:
>> [...]
>>> I was never considering the biological argument, because it seems so
>>> absurd to me...provide some evidence as to why biology may have ANY
>>> effect on culture and I will reconsider.
>>
>> In most parts of the world, it is a cultural requirement that people
>> wear clothes. In many, it is a requirement that women cover themselves
>> more or less completely. Do you really think that this has nothing to
>> do with our biological requirement for sexual reproduction, and the
>> associated desires to pass on one's genes?
>
> You're making the same mistake NYT makes - nobody's arguing that
> it's "nothing" to do with biology, or even that it might not be "mostly" to
> do with biology. The original question was "what else than biology could
> explain culture?"
You're not reading. NYT is explicitly claiming that culture is
"nothing" to do with biology, and I'm responding to him, not to you.
Julian Bradfield
> "Julian Bradfield" <j...@inf.ed.ac.uk> wrote in message
> news:slrngtne4...@krk.inf.ed.ac.uk...
>> On 2009-04-07, NY Teacher <nyte...@goschool.com> wrote:
>>> I was never considering the biological argument, because it seems so
>>> absurd
>>> to me...provide some evidence as to why biology may have ANY effect on
>>> culture and I will reconsider.
>> In most parts of the world, it is a cultural requirement that people
>> wear clothes. In many, it is a requirement that women cover themselves
>> more or less completely. Do you really think that this has nothing to
>> do with our biological requirement for sexual reproduction, and the
>> associated desires to pass on one's genes?
>
> Very little.
Very little is "any", not "nothing". QED.
> Primarily because, as you mention, it occurs in "most parts of the world,"
> but not *all.* If it had a purely biological explanation, it shoudl apply to
> all who have the same biology, i.e all H. sapien sapien.
Nobody has claimed that culture has a "purely biological" explanation.
You asked for evidence of ANY effect. I do hope you're not really a
teacher.
> Secondly, since clothing is an augment to sexual attraction, not a
> cancellation of it. [Studies show that a partially clad figure is more
> sexually exciting than a nude one. Also, in previous eras and cultures, a
> woman's ankle or man's calf were considered highly sexual objects when
> revealed by (lack of) clothing, yet those parts have damn little to do with
> reproduction.] The full covering of woman in some cultures is, then, a
> conscious rejection of sexuality and associated desires to pass on one's
> genes. It is, then, the non-biological aspects of culture trumping any
> biologically influenced aspects.
That is, there's an influence of biology on culture - to
consciously reject something, the something has to be there in the
first place.
> Third, following Occam's Razor, there are numerous simpler explanations,
> such as insulation from the elements or comfort.
There are many explanations for the origin of
abaya+niqab. Nonetheless, the explicit reason women are forced to wear
them in those Islamic countries that do compel it is sexual - women
may not show any sexually alluring part to any *unrelated* man.
Clams Canino
> You're not reading. NYT is explicitly claiming that culture is
> "nothing" to do with biology, and I'm responding to him, not to you.
It would help all around to separate "biology" from genealogy, sub-species
etc etc.
-W
Julian Bradfield
> Julian Bradfield wrote:
> Do you [NYT] really think that this has nothing to
>> do with our biological requirement for sexual reproduction, and the
>> associated desires to pass on one's genes?
>
> Yes, it has nothing to do with a biological requirement. It may have
> something to do with how a culture views, interprets, and places meaning
> on that biological requirement.
That is, it has something to do with a biological requirement. QED.
Clams Canino
"NY Teacher" <nyte...@goschool.com> wrote in message news:grgpt0
> We most certainly ARE predators. Upright stance, structure of the arms,
> position of eyes and ears, and type of teeth all indicate that humans are
> predators.
I agree.
But all the *teeth* indicate is that we are omnivores. ie What we eat, not
how we obtain it.
-W
Raven
news:grhai3$u4i$1...@reader.motzarella.org...
> Julian Bradfield wrote:
>> In most parts of the world, it is a cultural requirement that people
>> wear clothes.
> Is it a cultural requirement, or a practical one? There may be cultural
> explanations of why clothes are necessary and cultural determinations of
> what sort of clothes are necessary, but a cultural requirement?
I should say that most cultures today require clothing. Ours does. When
the weather in summer is such that physiologically I would feel much more
comfortable naked I still put on at least shorts or bathing trunks in
public.
Our bodies and instincts evolved in part to send and receive sexual
signals, by sight and smell. Yet we cover the most sexually explicit parts
of our bodies in public. Why?
At a guess - no more than that - I should propose this explanation: in
small groups, like the ones we lived in for most of the time that we have
existed as a species and ancestor-species back to our last common ancestor
with the chimps and beyond, everybody knew everybody. If you saw a very
attractive woman whom you could not for social reasons lay with, you knew it
full well and why, by intellect and instinct, such as if she were your
kinsman's mate. In such small groups, in the tropics at least, people still
comfortably go naked. But when we grew into larger societies we began to
routinely meet with people who were of our own tribe yet were strangers whom
we had never met before, and would be unlikely to meet again, or at least
people whom we had tenous instinctive ties with. Cultures were changed to
accomodate this new situation, and one change was to reduce the sexual
signals that we send.
Keep in mind that strictly speaking, only hunters-gatherers in small
groups in the tropics and subtropics live wholly natural lives, like we were
evolved for. Clothes are unnatural - for one thing they mess with our
pheromone system. Growing food is unnatural. Living in larger groups than
about, say, fifty is unnatural. Our minds are capable of coping with that
many friends and kinsfolk, but certainly not, on a personal level, with the
thousands of people you meet and pass on any afternoon walking down the city
street. Living in houses is unnatural. Meeting a stranger without worrying
over killing him or being killed by him is unnatural. We accept these
unnatural elements in our lifestyles, and adapt to them, such as by using
deodorants to quell the stench that results from our pheromone system being
chafed by clothing.
Of course, a child mortality lower than one in ten and a better than
thirty year life expectancy are unnatural as well. I am not complaining.
:-)
Jon Lennart Beck.
Weland
> "Weland" <gi...@poetic.com> skrev i meddelandet
> news:grftoo$3nl$1...@reader.motzarella.org...
>
>
>
> [snip]
>
>>> Europe, on the other hand, is full of navigable rivers, islands and
>>> bays - perfect for trade and communication.
>>
>>
>> And Viking incursions!
>
>
> :-)
> Even so, the Scandinavians were not only sea robbers but also master
> traders.
The ol' "traders-raiders" problem.
For example, Charlemagne sold many of the Slavs he captured in
> his wars of conquest to the Vikings, who sold them to the Arabs. Hence
> the etymological connection between "Slav" and "Slave".
Oh, I think I'd need to see evidence of that. Several issues here.
First, Chuck so far as I know did *not* capture and sell Slavs as
slaves. He defeated them in 789, demanded hostages, and sent
missionaries to convert them. Roughly the same time, he established a
law with the help and encouragement of his churchmen, that no Christian
should sell another into slavery: and overall he was against slavery and
serfdom as being "pagan" practices. So closely did Chuck work with the
Slavs that when in 795 there was an uprising of Saxons and Slavs, and
the Slavic leader was killed, Chuck went out of his way to avenge him.
I think you might be thinking of Otto the Great a century or so later
who did sell Slavs into slavery.
In the period in which Chuck was conqueroring Slavs and converting them,
Vikings were really not yet on the scene. That is, they were up there
in Scandinavia, but weren't really trading partners with the
Carolingians....there were the pesky and troublesome Saxons between for
example (and remember that Otto the Great and the Ottonians were
Saxons). But they don't really come into the Carolingian view until the
790s with some raids on coastal towns giving rise to the first
rudimentary coastal defenses that would later become castles, and the
potential Danish conflict that didn't develop in the early ninth
century. Most of the Viking activity in those very early years was
directed toward Great Britain, and towns and villages on the coast on
both sides of the channel. So, in other words, there weren't really any
Vikings about for Charlemagne to sell Slavs as slaves too.
As for Slavs as slaves giving rise to the word "slave", so far as I know
the word comes into the languages of Western Europe via early Medieval
Latin borrowed itself from Byzantine Greek sklabos: Slavs served on
Byzantine ships as early as the sixth century as slaves, and the
"sklabos" became part of the language of Medieval Latin from Byzantine
controlled areas of Italy and trading in Italy and Spain. I. E. not
from Arabs or trade with Arabs, though that certainly happened later.
And another I. E.: the word is borrowed from Greek earlier than
Charlemagne and earlier than any Arabs to really trade with in the West.
And the Swedes'
> voyages down the Russian rivers to Constantinople and further were
> generally trade voyages, not plundering expeditions.
> IOW, the Norsemen also used the topography of Europe for trading purposes.
That's a gross oversimplification and whitewashing of events. Even in
the movement eastward, the Swedes went in large, armed companies,
established well armed and protected forts, and made mutual defense
pacts to travel together with the trading parties, such pacts and groups
were called var in Old Norse, hence the name Varangians. The hostile
Slavs presented a real threat, so while overall the Viking movement
eastward was less violent than the movement westward, nonetheless,
merely claiming that it was all altruistically economic is
oversimplification.
Paul S. Person
<de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote:
<snippo>
>And I have no disagreement with that. The statement that started the
>argument was that Richard Dawkins couldn't see us as anything more than the
>sum of our genes. Biology is important, even vital, but it isn't
>everything that makes us what we are.
Then I stated the situation very badly. The article in /Skeptical
Inquirer/, which I read several years ago, stated that Dawkins created
memes /precisely because/ he could not see how genes could change fast
enough to explain culture. The point I got from the article was that
Dawkin's "memes" were an attempt to explain culture in terms of
entities that could be made to work much as genes do -- but much much
faster.
It is true that at least one poster has stated that he believes that
culture is explained by "evolution". However, what that actually means
has never been clarified. Instead, the discussion has (effectively)
been about whether or not the rather-dubious but undeniably PC
position "white people are the cause of all the problems in the world"
is true or not.
Keep in mind that I tied this to two other possibly-similar
situations:
A much more vaguely remembered, and possible spurious, article by
Arthur C. Clarke in which he stated that he believed that Man evolved
in a manner "something like" the Monolith in 2001 -- not necessarily
that it was an actual Monolith, but that only the intervention of
Space Aliens could have produced man, it being apparent to him that
evolution could never have done so.
The use of a telepathic robot by Isaac Asimov as, in effect, a "deus
ex machina", as the person I was responding to put it. This case is,
of course, a bit different: I know of no reason to believe that Asimov
believed that, /in reality/, such a robot would be needed; it is
purely an artifact of story-telling, that is, it was found to be
necessary for some reason related to writing the stories.
The point I was making was that, when people put their faith in
something and then conclude that it will not actually explain
everything, then they look for other solutions -- and, if they happen
to be atheists, those solutions are something like Space Aliens or
memes -- anything but God. Anything at all, no matter how ludicrous it
may be.
--
Here lies the Tuscan poet Aretino,
Who evil spoke of everyone but God,
Giving as his excuse, "I never knew him."
Paul S. Person
<nyte...@goschool.com> wrote:
<snippo>
>...The full covering of woman in some cultures is, then, a
>conscious rejection of sexuality and associated desires to pass on one's
>genes. It is, then, the non-biological aspects of culture trumping any
>biologically influenced aspects.
Actually, consideration of various news reports concerning, say, how
rape is handled, suggest that the purpose is to allow the men to never
have to learn to control their sexual impulses: there is no need to
resist an impulse that is never triggered.
Paul S. Person
IMHO, that statement is /far/ too general. Are we really to believe
that, for example, some food preferences are not influenced by
biology? Are lactose-intolerant persons /really/ making a choice not
based on biology when they avoid milk products?
Originally, this discussion was about /biological evolution/ (not
"biology") as the cause of human culture. It has veered in several
directions at once. Kind of like the course of biological evolution as
portrayed by its strongest advocates.
I watched /The Tale of Desperaux/ last night. This film posits (not
seriously, of course, it is a children's story, not a scientific
treatis) that mice have a culture which is based on "cowering" and
"scurrying".
Within living memory, an article in /Science News/ reported an
interesting experiment: mice were developed that lacked a particular
gene, and it turned out that they had no fear of cats. (The cats used
to test this were the tamest possible house cats, to minimize the
chance that the experimental subjects would be eaten.) The reality,
then, is that "cowering", in mice, /is/ caused by biological
evolution.
But it is not "culture". There is no "mouse culture". This is an
instinct. We do not refer to behavior caused by instincts as if they
were part of culture.
To claim that culture is caused by biological evolution, then, is to
claim that all human behavior is instinctive.
Paul S. Person
<de...@pointerstop.ca> wrote:
>Taemon wrote:
<snippo>
>> We are not predators.
>
>Of course we are. We have _always_ hunted for food. Even now when it's
>practically unnecessary, many do.
I find that purchasing a DVD in a local store, that is, going forth,
tracking it down, capturing it, and bringing it home satisfies /my/
desire to hunt much more than ordering one online does.
Clams Canino
"Paul S. Person" <pspe...@ix.netscom.com.invalid> wrote in message
> >...The full covering of woman in some cultures is, then, a
> >conscious rejection of sexuality and associated desires to pass on one's
> >genes. It is, then, the non-biological aspects of culture trumping any
> >biologically influenced aspects.
>
> Actually, consideration of various news reports concerning, say, how
> rape is handled, suggest that the purpose is to allow the men to never
> have to learn to control their sexual impulses: there is no need to
> resist an impulse that is never triggered.
Yes, I agree that the same culture that requires fully covered women is the
same one that punishes the rape victim as mush as the rapist. It's a male
centered culture that regards women as mere objects ; its hedonistic
"heaven" even promises "free virgins" for the male martyrs.
But even western "culture" has changed the very nature of rape. It's safe
to say that most rapes commited here in the US are not about "sexual urges"
anymore as they are about some pathological hatred of a woman or certain
"types" of women. In these cases rape is merely being used as an act of
dominence or violence - not sex.
-W