Behavior determined by beliefs and values, or by environment in Gun, Germ, and Steel?

[happy9z]

Do you agree that in this book?

Does history and culture follow different courses for different peoples because of differences among those peoples’ environments, or because of differences among those peoples themselves? In other words, is a people’s behavior determined more by beliefs and values, or more by environment?

 

[Luciela]

Good question. I'd say that my opinion of the matter is similar to that of Jerry Diamonds, that the environment is the greater influential factor. Now that's not to say that individual peoples do not influence culture or history; we are all biologically different and contain uneven amounts of genetic traits, all of which pushes us to give alternate responses, act differently, etc. Example, if you or I were to have down syndrome, Huntington's disease, etc. we would behave separately from a version of ourselves that has none of these genetic traits and our lives and the impact we would have upon our friends and family would be massively altered. However individuals have a limit to how far our influence can go, while the environment effects entire civilizations and beyond. Its easy to see how much the environment can affect a civilization when you look at how all the early religions were in fact impacted by the environment that these people lived in, shaping the way in which they forged their gods. My opinion, nonetheless.

 

[DudewiththeFood]

Look at the earliest civilizations. Babylon, Sumeria, Assyria, Egypt. Built around floodplains.

Look at the next set. Rome, Greece, India, China. Better surrounding land.

It wasn't until people could choose the environment they lived in/owned (when sea-faring ships permitted better travel) that it hasn't mettered. And even then, that was only a choice to the wealthy.

People shape individuals, environment shapes groups.

 

[sebwiers]

What's better about the land of (ancient) Greece than, say, the land of (ancient) Iraq (aka Babalon)?

People had reached all of Europe by the time the early river civilizations had risen up. China and India both had such civilizations BEFORE they generated their own version of "the next set', they are just less known because they got built on top of rather than buried in the desert by climatic change.

 

[TyBoy]

It's been a while since I read the book, but I remember frequently feeling like arguments got weaker the closer to modern times he got. I found the geographical and migratory arguments for the dominance of Eurasia very compelling, but wasn't as impressed by the arguments for why certain groups within Eurasia were more successful than others.

Off the top of my head one thing I imagine Europe has over the middle east environmentally is abundance of metals in the forms that ancient people could harvest.

 

[Camikaze]

Moderator Action: Moved to World History.

 

[ace99]

Jared Diamond is anathema in these parts.

 

[DudewiththeFood]

What's better about the land of (ancient) Greece than, say, the land of (ancient) Iraq (aka Babalon)?

People had reached all of Europe by the time the early river civilizations had risen up. China and India both had such civilizations BEFORE they generated their own version of "the next set', they are just less known because they got built on top of rather than buried in the desert by climatic change.

People in the rest of Europe at this time were playing catch-up.

Sorry I forgot about India and China also being starting along rivers.

India - Ganges/Indus Valley
China - Yangtze

 

[sophie]

People in the rest of Europe at this time were playing catch-up.

Catch-up to what, exactly?

 

[History_Buff]

Proper civilized cultures, obviously.

 

[Lord Baal]

They should have bee-lined Aesthetics to trade it for all the worker techs, not filled the back-log themselves. Would have saved centuries.

 

[potatokiosk]

I don't think beliefs and values matter all that much- regardless of what people believe, most people just want to survive and will do whatever they can to find a source of income. For that reason people domesticated whatever plants and animals were suitable for that purpose, and geography is helpful in explaining why Eurasia developed sooner than other parts of the world.

 

[Yeekim]

People's behaviour is determined by beliefs and values, which in turn, are shaped by their environment.

 

[Louis XXIV]

Jared Diamond is generally disliked in these parts (while he might get too much praise elsewhere, the condemnation here might be misplaced as well). I think that, while it helps to have a healthy skepticism, his work is important in considering the big picture. It's worth keeping in mind that he doesn't really address the small picture except in isolated incidents. Eurasia, for example, is one group for the most part and agriculture (among a few other things) explains why Eurasia became dominant.

I think there's a compelling argument that what we think of as Civilization is tied significantly to Agriculture (and, to a lesser extent, domesticated animals) and our head start is crucial there. This has brought good as well as bad (Jared Diamond also wrote an article calling Agriculture our biggest mistake), but it brought about advantages to Eurasians that dominated over those who developed agriculture later or not at all.

Don't get me wrong, once you start going into the small picture, things change entirely. The environment still has a factor, but so do many other things. But I don't read Germs, Guns, and Steel as the answer to life, the universe, and everything, just as part of a scholarly contribution written to mass audiences that is beneficial overall.

 

[mayor]

I should re read it again properly...

 

[Gucumatz]

There was a book written specifically to question Jared Diamond and his statements in Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse by a group of experts in various fields, called: Questioning Collapse

I recommend checking it out if you haven't seen it, its basically a chapter by chapter refutation of Diamond

 

[Lord Baal]

There was a book written specifically to question Jared Diamond and his statements in Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse by a group of experts in various fields, called: Questioning Collapse

I recommend checking it out if you haven't seen it, its basically a chapter by chapter refutation of Diamond

Awesome. Thanks, I'll definitely try to find that!

 

[TheLastOne36]

There was a book written specifically to question Jared Diamond and his statements in Guns, Germs and Steel and Collapse by a group of experts in various fields, called: Questioning Collapse

I recommend checking it out if you haven't seen it, its basically a chapter by chapter refutation of Diamond

I'll likewise look for it in the book store next time. Though for the sake of this thread, can you summarize the counter-argument?

 

[Antilogic]

Jared Diamond is generally disliked in these parts (while he might get too much praise elsewhere, the condemnation here might be misplaced as well). I think that, while it helps to have a healthy skepticism, his work is important in considering the big picture. It's worth keeping in mind that he doesn't really address the small picture except in isolated incidents. Eurasia, for example, is one group for the most part and agriculture (among a few other things) explains why Eurasia became dominant.

I think there's a compelling argument that what we think of as Civilization is tied significantly to Agriculture (and, to a lesser extent, domesticated animals) and our head start is crucial there. This has brought good as well as bad (Jared Diamond also wrote an article calling Agriculture our biggest mistake), but it brought about advantages to Eurasians that dominated over those who developed agriculture later or not at all.

Don't get me wrong, once you start going into the small picture, things change entirely. The environment still has a factor, but so do many other things. But I don't read Germs, Guns, and Steel as the answer to life, the universe, and everything, just as part of a scholarly contribution written to mass audiences that is beneficial overall.

I always figured part of the over-the-top Jared Diamond hate was the result of the over-the-top praise he received elsewhere--if everyone else didn't fawn over the book, we'd be a lot more measured in the criticism of it. There's the scholar's criticism of properly identifying what is conjectural and what is fact, citing appropriate references, using primary sources over secondaries, engaging and critically examining competing theories, etc. that tends to be buried in popular reviews of the book. That really rankles the folks here, and with good reason. But maybe that thread of criticism on how interdisciplinary works containing science, history, etc. are presented to the public and how the popular media reviews them is unfairly concentrated and channeled against Diamond. It's not entirely his fault, he's just the poster boy, prominent example #1 of a bigger problem that is not entirely his making.

That all being said, I have read both of them and thought the prose was engaging. Indeed, I'm embarrassed to admit the first book recommendation I made on this forum was for GGS back in 2007 or thereabouts. In my defense, I was only a serious history reader for about a year at that point, before then it was all sci-fi, swords, and sorcery.

I'll likewise look for it in the book store next time. Though for the sake of this thread, can you summarize the counter-argument?

I haven't read it yet, but from what I gather it is an edited collection from several different authors that are critical of different parts of both Collapse and GGS. So I don't think there is one unifying counter-argument presented in the book, but rather many different specialists' take on different elements of Jared Diamond's argument.

 

[NedimNapoleon]

No man it was all up to the superior Caucasian race of humans...We clearly evolved to build huge monuments and civilizations while Aboriginals built a long stick. Throw a European anywhere and tell him to make a civilization, he'd do it in the Artic circle...

[sarcasm]