On Sun, 29 Jun 1997, David Lloyd-Jones wrote:
> What I said in our private exchange was that the genetic component of the
> will to violence is general -- and that what needs explanation is the
> performance of civilization. It is this latter, as exemplified by large
> and comparatively non-violent societies as China and India, in which I drew
> attention to diet (vegetarian, based on nitrogen-fixing lentils and soy),
> literacy, and social organization.
DLJ et al,
1) I do NOT want to get in the middle of teh exchange w/ Jim
2) I agree the spirit of the above quoted para, indeed Chris Chase-Dunn
and I have addressd this issue in world-system terms in Rise &
Demise--why Europe. The telegraphic version is: position [geographic,
geopolitical, and world-systemic] in the Afroeurasian
'world-system.' If Europe is more warlike, it is because its 'position',
not a source of it.
3) Maybe filable under the glass is half-full or half-empty, but I see no
basis for the claim that China and India were less warlike--a la Jim's
arguments aabout eurocentrism, we are less familiar with their wars.
4) Claudio Cioffia at UCol has a long term war project, and may have
some real data on this [Caludio, if you can, would you shed what light
you can on the issue?].
5) Thus it seems to me there are two issues here: a) in principle
factual was 'europe' more or less warlike than 'china' or 'india'? ['' on
names, because these are shorthand referents to regional complexes].; b)
what are to make of these diffs re rise to dominance of Europe
6) I do see our explanation [which borrows heavily from Sanderson inter
alii] as better than Jim's [it's ours not his ;-)], but more importantly
I do not see them as fundamentally incompatible.
7) In my view (6) applies mutatis mutandis to the differences between
Blaud & Sanderson. They agree on much more than they disagree on--at
least from my perspective.
8) Can we all agree that eurocentrism in some form or another has shaped
our thinking, that in a variety ways we are trying to transcend that [how
well we succeed in doing that will be decided by other scholars long
after we all are investigating daiseys from the root side!] and stop
wasting energy poking each other in the eye over who is more eurocntric
than whom?
tom
Thomas D. [tom] Hall
thall@depauw.edu
Department of Sociology
DePauw University
Greencastle, IN 46135
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HOME PAGE:
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