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[QUOTE] Originally posted by Luk
Cavebear - of course you can not say what I would say 50 years ago. Even in XIX century Gobineu wrote that Blacks people are more sensitive, and better in some physical things then whites. You know that Gobineu was a precursor of rascism. [QUOTE]
Racism has an immensely long history reaching back far beyond Gobineu. The Romans thought themselves racially superior to the Gauls, and the Chinese and Egytians before them thought the same about *everybody*. Racism is hardly a modern fallacy.
If ever a statement justified an ad hominem attack... But no, I must resist.
Everyone wants to think their ansectors accomplished great things solely on the basis of their innate superiority, because it follows that the descendents possess that same superiority. Alas, no. Cultural success depends on more non-racial conditions, like geography and resources. And those are very much temporary things. The assumption is simply innaccurate.
I don't have either the time nor spacve to educate you on the importance of location and resources, but I will offer some very brief examples in the hope that you will stop and think about them.
The ancient civilizations that developed first depended on the opportunities to domesticate plants and animals. So why did China, Egypt, and Persia develop when other people didn’t? The answer is plants, animals, and geography.
First, think of the continents in terms of climate bands. EurAsia runs east/west. Africa and the Americas run north/south. This is important. A domesticated plant or animal can spread through a similar climate band very much more easily than across different ones. Hemce, a crop domesticated in one place can spread east/west to other places of similar climate, but not easily move north/south where growing conditions change rapidly.
Second, some plants and animals are inherently more suitable for domestication than others. The original wheat plants were native to Persia, rice to China, corn to mesoamerica, and potatoes to the Andes. The original sheep were native to Persia, the the pig to China, the turkey to mesoamerica, and the llama to the Andes.
These plants and animals were domesticated for a reason. Not all plants and animals are suited to domestication. Plants need to be amenable to controlled planting and harvesting and be easy to obtain the food value from. Animals need to be fast-growing, biddable, and able to reproduce in enclosures. Consider wheat. There are many wheat realtives in the grass family. Only two originally had large seedheads. Those were both native to the Middle East. The rest of the world had only small-headed “wheat” available. Consider the horse family. Horses meet the needs of success in domestication. Zebra, on the other hand do not; they are far more aggressive and do not have the same herd structure allowing human control over them. Equally, you can’t domesticate antelope, they are too fast to be controlled in enclosed spaces. Horses are easy to domesticate, but many cultures have tried to domesticate zebras and antelopes but it does not work!
Third, consider geography. For a civilization to arise, it needs both domesticatable plants AND animals. And some animals are needed for food, while others are needed for burden (work). Very few places on Earth had all three. So, the first successful civilizations to arise had them, and the others did not. You think it just *happened* the the humans in those locations were inherently racially superior to the rest? I *hope* you did not say “yes”. So it was not racial superiority but local advantages that brought the first great civilization into existence. Conversely, no location that had such advantages failed to develop into important civilizations.
But there are problems. Mesoamerica had suitable crops, and an animal food source, but lacked a beast of burden for plowing and transportation. The same for the North American Indians (the horses died out about 10,000 years ago and were only returned by the Eurpeans after 1492). You can’t haul wagons with turkeys.
Through no fault of their own, the Africans, Indians, and Native Americans were out of luck. Their geographical locations did not provide the “complete package” needed to build a successful civilization. The Europeans landed in the Americas with the technology they needed because they had the start they needed. The Incas did not land in Spain because they didn’t have the whole package they needed.
Mineral resources became important later. The relative value of resources changes with time. If a culture happens to have what is needed at the time, they invariably succeed. When gold was the important thing (to buy food and pay soldiers), Egypt was the most powerful nation in EurAfrica. South Africa has most of the gold today, are they powerful? Things change. Persia used to be the important nation because of their wheat supplies, but climatic conditions changed and it became a poor growing area. At the same time, the wheat cultivation had spread east/west to Europe and India, and those locations suddenly became centers of powerful civilizations. Gosh, what a coincidence. The people there didn’t suddenly become superior, they just had the things needed to become a powerful civ. The Greeks received the new plants and animals before the Italian pennisula did, so they preceded the Romans in civilization developement. That was an east movement of the wheat.
It took longer for wheat and other food crops to adapt to northern Europe, though, so it was several centuries before the Gauls had the supporting food supplies to develop enough to increase their population and conquer Rome. Are you starting to understand that it is not people but geography that matters? Need I continue? And I haven’t even gotten to the “germs” part. Please read “Guns, Germs, and Steel”; it may alter your whole perception on “racial superiority”...
You are so incorrect, and I mean that not "politically or socially", just factually. The European Cro-magnons who were the first people to paint pictures on cave walls and carve astonishingly artful statuettes were emmigrants from Africa only 40,000 years before. We are *all* Africans in that sense. Those same African emmigrants colonized Central Asia (from whence the Cro-magnons came to Europe) and went to India, Siberia, and eventually to the Americas.
You mistake the cultural differences in human societies for inherent racial ones. Europe succeeded after the Roman collapse because if abundant natural recources not available elsewhere. The United States succeeded very much for a similar reason. When you have abundant metals for plows and animals for food and burden, it's not really saying a whole lot that you do better than some place with terrible droughts and depleted resources.
As far as specific abilities go, Africans and African-Americans have focussed on sports because that was one of the few socially-allowed paths they had to success. Asians have culturally focussed on education and small business (as have the Jews) because that was allowed to them and was encouraged by their Asian and European cultures (respectively).
And I will thank you to not mistake "intelligence" with "education" when education has been both culturally and socially encouraged for Whites in America but not for minorities. When physical prowess was the road to sucess and social acceptance in the early 1900's, White minorities excelled. As their other opportunities expanded, athletics were not so important and other groups replaced them (as today, with many professional athletes being Black). One can easily see a future when professional athletes will come from new immigrants, perhaps mideast arabs and Asian Indians.
It's not race that matters...
Cavebear - of course you can not say what I would say 50 years ago. Even in XIX century Gobineu wrote that Blacks people are more sensitive, and better in some physical things then whites. You know that Gobineu was a precursor of rascism. [QUOTE]
Racism has an immensely long history reaching back far beyond Gobineu. The Romans thought themselves racially superior to the Gauls, and the Chinese and Egytians before them thought the same about *everybody*. Racism is hardly a modern fallacy.
But you will not cheat the history. Actecs, Mayans, Asians, Indians, some people in Africa, Middle East - all this civilizations had equal, or even better enviroment then Whites. But only we created the expansionist culture, and spread all over the world. It is history, history is hard to lie... But of course today many scientist try to explain that history is wrong, because they try to feat their ideology to history
Everyone wants to think their ansectors accomplished great things solely on the basis of their innate superiority, because it follows that the descendents possess that same superiority. Alas, no. Cultural success depends on more non-racial conditions, like geography and resources. And those are very much temporary things. The assumption is simply innaccurate.
I don't have either the time nor spacve to educate you on the importance of location and resources, but I will offer some very brief examples in the hope that you will stop and think about them.
The ancient civilizations that developed first depended on the opportunities to domesticate plants and animals. So why did China, Egypt, and Persia develop when other people didn’t? The answer is plants, animals, and geography.
First, think of the continents in terms of climate bands. EurAsia runs east/west. Africa and the Americas run north/south. This is important. A domesticated plant or animal can spread through a similar climate band very much more easily than across different ones. Hemce, a crop domesticated in one place can spread east/west to other places of similar climate, but not easily move north/south where growing conditions change rapidly.
Second, some plants and animals are inherently more suitable for domestication than others. The original wheat plants were native to Persia, rice to China, corn to mesoamerica, and potatoes to the Andes. The original sheep were native to Persia, the the pig to China, the turkey to mesoamerica, and the llama to the Andes.
These plants and animals were domesticated for a reason. Not all plants and animals are suited to domestication. Plants need to be amenable to controlled planting and harvesting and be easy to obtain the food value from. Animals need to be fast-growing, biddable, and able to reproduce in enclosures. Consider wheat. There are many wheat realtives in the grass family. Only two originally had large seedheads. Those were both native to the Middle East. The rest of the world had only small-headed “wheat” available. Consider the horse family. Horses meet the needs of success in domestication. Zebra, on the other hand do not; they are far more aggressive and do not have the same herd structure allowing human control over them. Equally, you can’t domesticate antelope, they are too fast to be controlled in enclosed spaces. Horses are easy to domesticate, but many cultures have tried to domesticate zebras and antelopes but it does not work!
Third, consider geography. For a civilization to arise, it needs both domesticatable plants AND animals. And some animals are needed for food, while others are needed for burden (work). Very few places on Earth had all three. So, the first successful civilizations to arise had them, and the others did not. You think it just *happened* the the humans in those locations were inherently racially superior to the rest? I *hope* you did not say “yes”. So it was not racial superiority but local advantages that brought the first great civilization into existence. Conversely, no location that had such advantages failed to develop into important civilizations.
But there are problems. Mesoamerica had suitable crops, and an animal food source, but lacked a beast of burden for plowing and transportation. The same for the North American Indians (the horses died out about 10,000 years ago and were only returned by the Eurpeans after 1492). You can’t haul wagons with turkeys.
Through no fault of their own, the Africans, Indians, and Native Americans were out of luck. Their geographical locations did not provide the “complete package” needed to build a successful civilization. The Europeans landed in the Americas with the technology they needed because they had the start they needed. The Incas did not land in Spain because they didn’t have the whole package they needed.
Mineral resources became important later. The relative value of resources changes with time. If a culture happens to have what is needed at the time, they invariably succeed. When gold was the important thing (to buy food and pay soldiers), Egypt was the most powerful nation in EurAfrica. South Africa has most of the gold today, are they powerful? Things change. Persia used to be the important nation because of their wheat supplies, but climatic conditions changed and it became a poor growing area. At the same time, the wheat cultivation had spread east/west to Europe and India, and those locations suddenly became centers of powerful civilizations. Gosh, what a coincidence. The people there didn’t suddenly become superior, they just had the things needed to become a powerful civ. The Greeks received the new plants and animals before the Italian pennisula did, so they preceded the Romans in civilization developement. That was an east movement of the wheat.
It took longer for wheat and other food crops to adapt to northern Europe, though, so it was several centuries before the Gauls had the supporting food supplies to develop enough to increase their population and conquer Rome. Are you starting to understand that it is not people but geography that matters? Need I continue? And I haven’t even gotten to the “germs” part. Please read “Guns, Germs, and Steel”; it may alter your whole perception on “racial superiority”...
We are different... It is matter of our conscience if we say that our differency is better or worser then others races (for example we are more inteligent then Blacks, more creatfull, and expansionist from Asians, but is this means we are not equal???? They are better from us in other things, Blacks in sports, Asians in mathematics, engineering etc.)
You mistake the cultural differences in human societies for inherent racial ones. Europe succeeded after the Roman collapse because if abundant natural recources not available elsewhere. The United States succeeded very much for a similar reason. When you have abundant metals for plows and animals for food and burden, it's not really saying a whole lot that you do better than some place with terrible droughts and depleted resources.
As far as specific abilities go, Africans and African-Americans have focussed on sports because that was one of the few socially-allowed paths they had to success. Asians have culturally focussed on education and small business (as have the Jews) because that was allowed to them and was encouraged by their Asian and European cultures (respectively).
And I will thank you to not mistake "intelligence" with "education" when education has been both culturally and socially encouraged for Whites in America but not for minorities. When physical prowess was the road to sucess and social acceptance in the early 1900's, White minorities excelled. As their other opportunities expanded, athletics were not so important and other groups replaced them (as today, with many professional athletes being Black). One can easily see a future when professional athletes will come from new immigrants, perhaps mideast arabs and Asian Indians.
It's not race that matters...
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