Yet another anecdote to consider when comparing cognitive ability of rural
vs urban folks. Some time ago I saw a documentary about the !Kung Bushmen
of the Kalahari desert - the only known surving hunting and gathering tribe
on Earth. The fact that their culture survived almost intact until recently
is due largely to their inhospitable habitat - due to the the lack of water
few other peoples would live where the !Kung did.
The !Kung were able to survive thanks to their amazing cognitive ability
that allowed them to memorize the location of individuals plants whose roots
stored water, and return to that place and dig out the root even though
after the upper part of the plant was long gone. To function, the !Kung had
to continuously survey the desert in search of water-storing plants.
However, when the government, in an attempt to help them, installed a
Diesel-powered pump bringing water to the surface, the !Kung stopped
surveying the desert and settled around the contraption that provided them
with unlimited supply of water. That is, until the Diesel motor broke and
the pump stopped pumping. By that time, however, the !Kung lost the ability
to locate water-storing plants, and only coincidence (the arrival of the
anthropological expedition that made the documentary) saved them from
certain death.
In that sense, technological progress dulled the cognitive capacity of the
!Kung.
The documentary, BTW, shows another interesting feature of the !Kung society
-- the distribution of resources under conditions of extreme scarcity. The
Bushmen had no way of knowing that anthropologists could replenish their
water supply in a very short period of time; they thought that the few
canisters on the expedition's truck was all the water they got. Yet, the
first to receive water were those who needed it the most, the weakest and
the sick - children, elderly and animals.
That nicely contrasts with "civilised" Americans shooting each other at the
gas pumps during the 1970s oil crisis.
wojtek sokolowski
institute for policy studies
johns hopkins university
baltimore, md 21218
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
voice: (410) 516-4056
fax: (410) 516-8233
