I have no brief to make for Diamond (or against him) as a person, a theorist, or whatever. Further, I dislike the individualistic approach of latching on to some person to adulate as part of a cult of personality or to trash as part of its opposite, a discult of personality. Therefore, I've changed the name of the suspect. This is not to "protect the innocent" but to get away from the emphasis on the individual theorist at the expense of trying to understand both the limits and contributions of the theory.
> From the introduction to “Yali’s Question: Sugar, Culture, and History” by > Frederick Errington and Deborah Gewertz: > In outline, this is the answer, the history, that Dumbledore sets out in > response to Yali's question: Human beings evolved and eventually dispersed > themselves throughout the earth. There were some who lived in geographical > areas conducive to the development of agriculture and the domestication of > animals, complex processes that were in no way beyond the intellectual > capacities of any human group. All people everywhere were equally > intelligent, and members of any group, living in appropriate areas, would > have developed agriculture and domesticated animals. However, once certain > people did develop agriculture and domesticate animals, they had distinct > evolutionary advantages deriving from the population expansion these new > forms of food production allowed: the more food available, the more people > who could be supported, and the greater the number of specialists (including > soldiers) who could be maintained. And significantly, the more people there > were, the more necessary arable land became and the more likely people were > to go to war to get it. Warfare, in turn, brought about the need for > effective weaponry. Therefore, over time, those with certain mineral > resources and with skilled craft specialists fashioned and employed superior > weapons (eventually made of steel) to vanquish their neighbors. Moreover, > those who could utilize metal and support craft specialists had other > advantages as well. First, as agriculturalists with high population > densities, they had developed hierarchically organized social organizations. > Second, as people living around others and around animals, they had developed > immunities to certain germs. Superior weapons and organizational skills > (technologies and techniques), along with immunological resistances, enabled > such groups, or apparently impelled them, to embark on ambitious programs of > expansion, leading, repeatedly, to the conquest and exploitation of others. > Especially vulnerable were those geographically cut off from such centers of > innovation. Thus, eventually and inevitably, the native peoples of the New > World (and elsewhere) were easily subjugated by a combination of guns, germs, > and steel.< I think it's a mistake (though likely a pretty minor one) to refer to "centers of innovation." Rather, they are ethnic groups, tribes, etc., which are temporarily ahead in the competition with other groups. > As Dumbledore brings this argument back to Yali and Yali's question, he > stresses—and, of course, we agree—that Yali's circumstances did not reflect > any lack either in his intelligence or in that of other Papua New Guineans. > Rather, we learn that Yali was poor and relatively powerless in his own > domain because his ancestors lacked access to the mineral resources, > domesticable animals, and the other advantages that allowed some to conquer > others. He was born, in terms of the luck-of-the-environmental draw, on the > wrong side of the great geographical divide. Yet neither Yali nor most of the > other Papua New Guineans we have known over our years at RSL [Ramu Sugar > Limited] and elsewhere in the country would be satisfied with the > inexorability of Dumbledore's luck-of-the-draw answer, with the implications > of his what's-just-the-way-things-were-and-hence-must-be response. Such an > answer would strike them as a perverse justification of colonial forms of > inequality, part of a narrative that denied them moral worth in the past, to > say nothing of the future. Indeed, as we shall soon see, the founding and > development of RSL became part of a pressing narrative for reclaiming > rightful worth in Papua New Guinea.< As I said before, D’s determinism can be tempered by the notion of over-determination (a la Althusser). Despite problems with his journalistic ethics, the “inevitability” of the process works in his theory does not have to be a moral justification for it. After all, members of the Frankfurt school of Marxism tended to see capitalist hegemony as “inevitable” but hated it. Just as it’s a mistake to jump from fact to value, it’s a mistake to attribute values to someone’s theorized fact. By the way, I don't think D's theory contradicts theories of colonialism or even Marxian theories of capitalism. It has obvious limits, but so did David Ricardo's economics. Nonetheless, Marx learned a lot from that economics. He also criticized it. In fact, D's implication that European (and Japanese) supremacy was the "luck of the environmental draw" takes a lot of racist wind out of the colonialist sails. How can one justify the "White Man's Burden" by luck?? >However, it is just Dumbledore's sort of answer, just this sort of invocation >of historical inevitability, that tends to satisfy those who are already the >haves. In this regard, the ideology inherent in Dumbledore's reasoning goes >well beyond the particulars of the history he presents. This ideology supports >the status quo, the interests of the already powerful. In fact, as we shall >see in chapter 9, it is just this ideology that RSL has to confront in dealing >with the interests of such haves as the World Trade Organization, the World >Bank, and Coca-Cola Amatil in Papua New Guinea: organizations, it so happens, >that express imperatives concerning free trade and comparative advantage in >language remarkably akin to Dumbledore's. For all of them, in other words, the >inevitable and the inexorable are handily synonymous with the interests of the >haves over the have-nots.< This is “guilt by association” logic. D uses certain language that is used by bad guys. He may indeed be a bad person, obviously, but that does not mean that his theory is wrong. After all, one might say that Marx’s impregnation of Lenchen or his seemingly anti-Semitic sentiments made him a bad guy. But that does not mean that his theory was wrong. > More broadly, the ideology inherent in Dumbledore's reasoning is one we > confront as teachers and scholars dealing primarily with the haves. Students > tell us that their parents encourage them to read Dumbledore's book, finding > it invigorating. The former president of Fred's college urged his faculty to > read it. In fact, he sent copies of Guns, Germs, and Steel to members of the > faculty as a model of the kind of book he admired. All over the United > States, we learned, deans and presidents of other pricey institutions applaud > the book. At Cornell, it became assigned reading for all freshmen. Moreover, > many institutions pay Dumbledore generously to summarize his views in person, > generally in packed lecture halls.< These folks are here criticizing the “ideology inherent” in D’s theory rather than the theory itself. But someone’s theory can be interpreted politically in more than one way. Milton Friedman said that if unemployment below the “natural” rate, inflation would take off; that’s the punishment we get for messing with Mother Nature. But a Marxist might say that (assuming MF’s theory to fit the facts) it’s capitalism that’s the problem: inflation gets worse because capitalism requires a reserve army of unemployment. > We think educated haves like the book so well because it resonates deeply > with their own concerns—in effect, because it so readily sustains them. They > come away from the book or lecture feeling pretty good about themselves—both > enlightened and open-minded. They come away seeing the world without racial > prejudice and having learned some important new facts and connections. > Furthermore, and significantly, they come away comfortably convinced that > they have their cargo (unlike Yali and his people) for inevitable and > impersonal geographic reasons. No one is to blame for the fact that some > people are, and no doubt will continue to be, the haves and that others are, > and will continue to be, the have-nots. Thus, Dumbledore's history is not > only the delineation of an inexorable and inevitable trajectory. It is, as > well, both retrospective and prospective. His depiction of the past provides > a far from disinterested model for understanding the present and for shaping > the future. This is to say, he presents the world as one in which the > have-nots, whether in Papua New Guinea or elsewhere, must (seemingly) forever > deal with the haves under conditions of fundamental disadvantage.< Actually, as written, his theory does not apply to the present. D is pretty clear about this (at least in footnotes). The narrative stops around 1700, if I remember correctly. It's pretty clear (to me at least) that his theory does not apply to capitalism but to precapitalist formations. > But what exactly is wrong with this history? Didn't the events Dumbledore > relates really happen? Must a history necessarily be disqualified because it > conveys the perspectives and interests of the victors, of the haves? Isn't > Dumbledore's view simply informed by hardheaded realism about the way the > world works? > We certainly do not deny that certain forms of power had a significant role > in effecting the kinds of historical events that Dumbledore delineates. > Dumbledore's depiction of the role that guns, germs, and steel played is > plausible—indeed, as we said, it is compelling and sophisticated. What we do > challenge is his conflation of the necessary with the sufficient. This is to > say, just because guns, germs, and steel were necessary to make certain > historical outcomes possible, including those so upsetting to Yali, we do not > have to assume that their possession was sufficient to explain these > outcomes, lust because sources of power are available, we cannot conclude > that the power will be used for certain ends, or even that it will be used at > all. And simply because European colonists had the power to pursue their > interests at the expense of Yali and other Papua New Guineans, we cannot > automatically understand the nature and consequences of their varied > encounters in terms of inevitable universal patterns.< To say that D conflates the “necessary with the sufficient” is based on an assumption (an interpretation), not the book. Even if he does so, it does not mean that we have to interpret his theory in that way. As I said, we can follow Althusser’s example vis-à-vis the French CP’s Marxism. In any event, the theory can and should be separated from the person who developed it. Newton was an astrologer and worse. Do we thus reject Newtonian physics? Even though Einstein developed a much better theory, that does not mean that Newtonian physics should be flushed down the toilet. Suppose that the authors are totally right about D's methodological problems, his reductionism and determinism. Well, though I value methodological critiques (if done well), one thing I've learned is that such critiques amount to little if the critic does not present a serious alternative. Do Errington and Gewertz have a better theory -- or do they simply give us one fact after another? > This conflation of the necessary and the sufficient grows out of the link > between Dumbledore's interest in "history's broadest pattern" and his > determination to develop "human history as a science, on a par with > acknowledged historical sciences such as astronomy, geology, and evolutionary > biology" (1997: 420, 408). As he says, his book "attempts to provide a short > history of everybody for the last 13,000 years" and searches for "ultimate > explanations" that push back "the chain of historical causation as far as > possible" (9). Crucial to this search for lawlike explanations that will > generate long chains of causation back to first causes (chains of causation > that even link mountain range formation to Yali's quandary) is Dumbledore's > distinction between ultimate and proximate causes. Ultimate causes are those > broadly applicable and pervasive forces, which led to the possession of such > advantages as guns, germs, and steel. Dumbledore is interested in these > causes because he thinks they are the ones that really drive history. These > ultimate causes shape derivative and more immediate occurrences, such as > particular battles, conquests, economic systems. The effects of these more > immediate occurrences, in turn, become proximate causes of yet other events. > Dumbledore's view of the relentless course of human history, driven by the > operation of ultimate causes over its thirteen-thousand-year span, seems to > rest on an implicit view of human nature as aggressive, acquisitive, and > selfish. It is this nature that, in Dumbledore's vision, keeps ultimate > causes consequential throughout history. In short, human beings necessarily > lead their lives so as to extract maximum advantage over others: give a > guy—any guy—half a chance and he will conquer the world; give a guy a piece > of appropriate metal and he will inevitably fashion a sword to cut you down > or a chain to enslave you within the hold of a ship bound for a New World > sugar plantation.< It’s not “any guy.” It’s more of a statistical average and, as I’ve said before, the unit of D’s analysis is _not_ the individual. Instead, it’s the tribe, band, ethnic group, or whatever. > In a way that we in the contemporary West appear to find self-evident—once > again, in a way that does not problematize our understanding of how the world > works— Dumbledore suggests that people everywhere and at all times, if they > had sufficient power, would use it to maximize their own advantage through > the domination of others. This [allegedly] implicit view of a transhistorical > and trans-cultural human nature is consistent with Dumbledore's explicit > rendering of both historical context and cultural perspective as irrelevant. > In fact, Dumbledore works hard to exclude such perspective and context from > his scientific history. < If so, we don’t have to follow that lead. We can use his theory as _one part_ of a _non-deterministic_ theory. In sum, here Errington and Gewertz do not really criticize D's theory above. Instead, above they criticize its _implications_. One limit to D's theory is that it emphasizes only one aspect of the "law" of uneven development, i.e., the accumulation of advantages by the powerful. He misses the possible decadence of and self-undermining by the powerful. I guess that's one topic of his (much inferior) book, COLLAPSE. But D does not combine these (and other elements) to form a unified theory. -- Jim Devine / "If heart-aches were commercials, we'd all be on TV." -- John Prine _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
