{I've had this little bit of old book in my head for a while; I was finally inspired to post thanks to this inspired post.}
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"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."
I love old books for this very reason. Normally, I am prevented from peeking into the minds of other cultures by the language barrier; with old books, I can read about a foreign society in its own words.
Chronocentrism is probably the last remaining socially acceptable prejudice; and I have to admit that what I enjoy most about old books is laughing, or cringing, at how people used to behave...
We have at home a set of books from 1922, entitled The Popular Science Library. It has many entertaining little bits of what was then up~to~date knowledge which are now woefully out~of~date. {One of my favourites is the chapter devoted to the exciting new discovery of Piltdown Man!}
This one has stuck in my mind, and not because it was entertaining. Though the philosophy is no longer politically correct, I suspect it is still completely relevant to my everyday life...
I'll never be able to think of the phrase "a good old~fashioned work ethic" in quite the same way again:
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Popular Science Library, Vol. XV
Anthropology ~ The Science of Man and His Ancestors
by Loomis Havemeyer
Instructor in Anthropology and Economic Geography
Shefield Scientific school, Yale University
P.F. Collier & Son Company
New York
Copyright 1922
"The one thing that causes civilization to develop is labor, and the thing that causes labor to be expended is want. If wants can be satisfied without labor, there is nothing to bring forth energy, and civilization will not develop." [pp.125-6]
"History shows us that people from the north who have gone south with the idea of developing the tropics have soon found that the climate was such that they could do very little manual labor themselves. Therefore, the only thing to do was to try to get the natives to work. This they did more or less willingly at first, in order to obtain the beads and mirrors and knives and bright colored fabrics. But it did not take them long to own as many of these as they could use, and they stopped working. Then the whites tried paying them in money, but this meant nothing to them, for it only purchased either the things that they had or the things that they did not want. Next slavery was attempted and this worked fairly well, for with overseers the people were compelled to labor. Laws were passed, however, that prevented this, and so, as a last resort, firearms and liquor were given to the natives in payment or labor. The whites soon found out that guns in the hands of the natives were not very safe and they were taken away. This left only liquor and opium. The natives were never given enough to satisfy them, and so at last commodities had been found for which they would put forth any energy. This constant application of "fire water" and "dope" resulted in a huge death rate, for strong alcohol and opium plus the heat of the tropics are always fatal after a short time. Thus it is clear why no very high civilization has developed under the equator." [pp.126-7]
... which... presumably... is a shame ...?
That paragraph almost could have been a criticism of the process of colonization... if only they had made a point of saying, "and that was clearly unethical" instead of wrapping up with "and that's why the tropics remain uncivilized."
I just can't imagine any modern~day text referring to slavery as something that "worked fairly well" until it was outlawed. Gosh, if only slavery had been allowed to continue; we might have been able to develop a civilization without having to resort to enslaving people with drugs and alcohol. Oh, damn that accursed tropical climate...
"Tropical peoples that live in productive environments are satisfied with the food that they can collect, or, if they want more, very little energy will give it to them. They need few clothes and they are perfectly satisfied if they have a shelter that will keep out the rain and the blazing sun." [p.126]
"In the temperate region the climate calls forth energy and labour. There is always a reward for work done. Man has ever-increasing wants and he knows how to satisfy these. He does not live from hand to mouth, for he can raise vast crops in a few months to support him during the rest of the year. Since the beginning he has been laying up the results of experience, of trials and failures, until he has built up the great civilization that has spread into other parts of the world. [p.127]
{Did anybody notice how the word "Man" is used not just as a synonym for "Mankind" but also for "White Civilized Society"? Eeek ~~ how insidious is that?}
I'd love to be able to put here a quote/link to the George Carlin monologue about how the the US likes to free people and then whip a little industry on them {"...so they can enjoy the same benefits of civilization that WE have ~ cough hack wheeze."}. Sadly, the closest I can find as a reference to it online is this... Anybody know where I can find the MP3?
I can't even begin to explain why the above quotes perturb me... I have in my muddled thoughts a jumbled mish~mash of stuff I've heard before, like "TV is the opiate of the people", "advertising is propaganda", "rent is theft", "credit card debt is economic enslavement", "consumerism is fabricated from false needs", "in post~slavery America, they lynch black minds", "We had to destroy the village in order to save it" and "Why be satisfied with paradise, when you can be increasingly dissatisfied with civilization?"
Is our modern-day economy still propelled by the philosophy that labor is only motivated by want, thus to stimulate desire is to stimulate the economy? How Freudian...
It's almost enough to make a Mousehat want to study economics to try to figure out the meaning of it all...
Posted by edgar at August 25, 2003 05:59 PM