Blaut has at least published part of my private reply to him, demonstrating
that, as I had said, he was lying in his earlier partial quote.
He now asks:
>
> So: over to you, dlj. Why do you give significance to genetic factors?
Why are
> you defensive about admitting it instead of explaining it?
I didn't give any significance to genetic factors. I doubt that even Blaut
thinks godliness is genetic in the large.
When Blaut asked me "genes?" in his private note I downplayed genes as a
factor in my reply.
Possibly he is too stupid to understand my light reply, grasping only the
partial significances he attaches to disembodied phrases he has bitten off.
His attacks aimed at me have nothing to do with anything I wrote to him.
I now feel as though I know what it's like to be attacked in public by an
angry chihuahua.
James, publish my entire text, apologise, and go away, OK?
> This is a fundamental issue: Do Europeans have any mental qualities that
help to
> explain their "rise" relative to all other societies? Is it in the genes?
Or is
> it in the world-system?
"Rise", Blaut's word, Blaut's quotation marks, is his entry to the
conversation. My view is that China and India were both high civilizations
which were attacked by successful vandals. Bertrand Russel once said of
the Vandals that since they were illiterate they naturally got a bad press.
Since we had steam driven presses, and now computers, we can spread the
idea that sending soldiers to pick rubies out of the Taj Mahal with their
bayonets constitutes a "rise."
"Is it in the genes? Or is it in the world system?" I think betrays a two
valued logic which would not crowd the brain pan of the hypothetical
chihuahua above.
> Jim Blaut
>
> *For instance, this is the central issue in debates over Afrocentrism.
No it isn't. The central issue in discussions of Afrocentrism is the
facts: we are only just beginning to do any digging in Africa, and the
results turn out to be marvellous and intriguing. The press casting
Leonard Jeffries as a racist -- and Jeffries Mau-Mauing everybody in sight
-- is not a central issue. It is not even a peripheral issue. It is a
little side show over at some other fair in a smaller stupider village
somewhere.
-dlj.