[WS:] The capacity to manufacture them was created by better access to natural resources, which can be explained by either luck or divine intervention. I prefer the former. But anyone in that position would use their advantage to dominate other less advantageous groups - simply because they could. Imperialist ideology is only a product of that capacity, something produce to legitimate the fait accompli. If you think that other ethnic groups would act differently in this situation, you are deluding yourself.
As to "vulgar determinism" - I do not think it applies to Diamond. He uses culture as an explanatory factor to explain setback societies experienced. In Guns Germs and Steel he makes that argument about China, which was technologically better equipped than Europe to conquer America, but abandoned that pursuit due to internal strife. He advances that point much further in _Collapse_ where he demonstrates how pissing contests and kindred cultural fuckups destroyed societies by pushing them to overtax their natural resources.
So his argument can be summarized as follows. Civilizational successes are fundamentally attributable to uneven playing fields at the start - some groups got better resources than others (which is basically luck.) However, civilizational failures are attributable for a large part to cultural factors which prevented some societies from using natural resources available to them wisely. I like his argument it is based on good counterfactual evidence that he produced.
And if the kulturpolizei does not like it, "fuck the police." :)
Wojtek
On Wed, May 11, 2011 at 1:04 PM, c b <cb31450 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Wojtek:
>
> CB: "Guns, germs and steel didn't cause the differences in societies
> in the last 500 years. It was people, Europeans with capitalist
> ideology. The guns, germs and steel allowed them to conquer the world.
> The author is a biologist , who , not surprisingly devises another
> technological determinist, or vulgar materialist, and social darwinist
> theory of capitalism's history and of culture over the 10,000 years."
>
> [WS:] You seem to be missing the point. The value of Diamond's book
> lies in dismissing the culturalist ideology in accounts of economic
> development (i.e. beliefs that "superior" values such as hard working,
> work ethic, entrepreneurship, leadership, family structure, legal
> system etc.). Diamond counters that by showing that "civilizational
> advancement" was, for the most part, luck. Those who landed on premium
> real estate with a lot of usable resources advanced quicker than those
> who did not. It would be hard to find a more powerful critique of the
> culturalist bullshit proposed by assorted conservatives and idealists.
>
> Yet, your interpretation not only dismisses that critical potential;
> but reverts back to the culturalist ideology only with a reversed
> sign: Europeans - bad culture, non-Europeans - good culture. You are
> really shooting yourself in the foot.
>
> Wojtek
>
> ^^^^^^^
> CB: Here's "the" point (lol). "Culturalist ideology" shouldn't be
> dismissed in accounts of economic development. That would be
> bad-vulgar materialism. Also, The "culturalist ideological"
> explanation that I give is not the one's he "dismisses"; and it is
> necessary to the explanatory project he undertakes. It wasn't luck.
> It was "culturalist ideology" or history that caused the Europeans to
> do global conquest. Actually , my explanation is historical
> materialist. You left out my discussion of the rise of capitalism in
> Europe.
>
> " the culturalist ideology only with a reversed sign: Europeans - bad
> culture, non-Europeans - good culture, " is roughly speaking
> accurate, and superior to Diamond's thesis.
>
>
> Lots of guns were manufactured in Europe not because of luck, but
> because of its Greco-Roman imperialist cultural ideology retrofitted
> on capitalist ideology. Lots of guns and steel didn't just randomly
> pop up in Europe forcing the Europeans to use them to take over much
> of the rest of the world.
>
> My feet are loose and fancy -free (giggles)
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