Guns Germs and Steel My Ass

Once again I'm attempting to read Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Once again, I find myself wanting to throw the book across a room like a crying baby. Ugh. I can't even get through the introduction without shaking my fist in anger! Mr. Diamond proposes to answer the question of why european powers were able to conquer basically the entire world and why the vanquished cultures of Africa, Indonesia, North and South America and Australia still feel the socio-economic effects of that conquest. He attempts to do this by using a New Guinea as a sort of test or model site. That's my first problem. History isn't a science. History doesn't work on tests or models. It just doesn't work. It can't. Every historical event is both specific and ephemeral. What once was is gone forever and you can never recreate it in some sort of 'test'. Comparing an event to a model is to necessarily hinder your understanding of it, since you are bound by the model. So testing is out. So is modeling. They don't work for history. And the study of the conquest of the world is, of course, a historical one. It happened in the past over a rather long period of time.
That's the other thing...Mr. Diamond seems to assume that the conquest of the New World, Africa, and Australia all happened at roughly the same time with the same effect. Its simply not the case. You can bet your ass that the British convicts that first colonated Australia left a considerably different mark on Aboriginal society than the Spanish conquistadors did on South America. So what's the point of comparing the two? They happened at considerably different times under considerably different circumstances. Comparative history has its place, but don't use apples to understand oranges.
There's one other thing that irks me about this book, and that's Mr. Diamond's assumption that all european conquests ended in cultural loss. To some extent, I suppose that's true. Loss is sort of part of any war of conquest in terms of people, infrastructure, indentity and culture. But the loss of culture isn't isolated to just the conquered. The conquerors are just affected by cultural exchange as the conquered. South America is again the perfect example. Just how Spanish is Mexico? How Portuguese is Brazil? Sure, they speak the language of their conquering people, but who associates g-string bikinis and white sand beaches with Portugal?!?!
I guess that leads me to my one concession for Guns, Germs and Steel : that geography really does play a part in how history moves, that there are other forces besides those of humans that influence how history unfolds. I like that. I like that he realizes that and has caused others to realize that. But these idealogical gaps between he and I make it hard for me to read his book. I have a feeling I'd feel the same way about his book Collapse. So I'm going to put Guns, Germs, and Steel away for now and maybe someday I'll be able to get past chapter one without wanting to punch somebody in the throat.



And if you want to read a cool book on ecological history, read Ecological Imperialism by Crosby. Much better.

Ah, Procrastination

Here's a list of things I have to do either today before 11:30 am or after 8:00 pm:
1.Call my landlord and potentially resign my lease.
Called my landlord. Rent is going up. Didn't tell me until two days before my lease is up and worse, showed now signs of planning to tell me.
2. Do enough laundry for the weekend. Finished, but my pants are still wet.
3. Get my car's oil changed, its brakes checked, and its tires rotated
Finished, except for the brakes. But who needs brakes anyway? I live on the edge!
4. Think of and get Eric another birthday present
Shit.

Its now 8:30 am. I think I'm pretty much fucked.

Updated 11:31 pm

Outside Climbing by Moonlight Kicks Serious Ass

Tonight was my first bit of climbing outside. It was awesome. Just really easy stuff, nothing harder than a 5.4, I think. But its got me thinking about actually buying shoes and a harness and stuff. And Kyle maybe even has a harness that he'll give me! Sweet! Now my forearms hurt and my shoulders are all tight, and to be perfectly honest, I feel a little shaky, but its in that good I-just- worked-out sort of way. And it wasn't nearly as scary as I thought it would be. Before I got onto the rock, I got that little kick of adrenaline that I always got before a performance. Everything got all shaky for a minute and then Eric asked if I was ready (he was belaying me) and I was, so off I went! And all the shakiness was gone. And I finished both climbs! I wasn't quite sure what to do at the end of the climb. At the gym you just lean back and let your belayer let you down, but outside its a lot more scary because you can't always see the ground below you and you have to watch for rocks jutting out. But it was fun. I did the same thing...just leaned back and walked backward down the wall. What made it even cooler was that this was all at night! So everything was lit either by the full moon or by my headlamp. Sweet! Eric got some really cool pictures of us and the landscapes. Mine are ok, but nothing special I don't think. And besides, pictures don't really capture how cool it was to be out there on the rock in the moonlight. Everything look amazing and we didn't even need headlamps on the way back up. Eric and I were starving afterwards (of course) so we stopped and got some doughnuts. Now were home and tired, and I think its time to go to bed. But damn...what a cool night.

That last post should have been dated today, July 9, 2006. Whoops.