1491

Hey and there it is:

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/03/mann.htm

Something everyone should be aware of.

- j

> http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2002/03/mann.htm
>
> Something everyone should be aware of.

This article rocks.

As I recently told my friend, I like the Atlantic
because the writing doesn't suck. The Economist
is the only other main-stream periodical I can think
of at the moment that shares this distinction.
Perhaps American Scientist.

I once wrote a piece that played on the definition of
"advanced". Which is more advanced: a literate society
with guns, movable type, complicated music, iron-sided
ships with canons, whose citizens live and labor like
ants, that uses every natural resource in its wake to
exhaustion... or one of balance, that _creates_ ideal
ecosystems, etc., etc.?

It's unclear which, if any, native American cultures
embodied this latter type, but it's certainly the rub
I got going through grade school (slide shows, film
strips, books) that they all did, to a T.

Why my classmates and I were exposed to only two items
in history -- Native Americas, and Dinosaurs -- again
and again, is a Strange Thing. This let up with some
great World History in 7th grade, and then three
consecutive years of American History started, and that
was it!

My formal education may safely be called a disaster.

-Carl

> As I recently told my friend, I like the Atlantic
> because the writing doesn't suck.

I know! It's so cool to find that.

> I once wrote a piece that played on the definition of
> "advanced". Which is more advanced: a literate society
> with guns, movable type, complicated music, iron-sided
> ships with canons, whose citizens live and labor like
> ants, that uses every natural resource in its wake to
> exhaustion... or one of balance, that _creates_ ideal
> ecosystems, etc., etc.?

You tell em! Seriously, I agree with you entirely here.
If given the choice, would you rather run around
scantily clad in a beautiful garden or toil in the coal
mines?

> Why my classmates and I were exposed to only two items
> in history -- Native Americas, and Dinosaurs -- again
> and again, is a Strange Thing.

Dude! This is my routine!! Every year the same thing in
social studies. Start with the cave men who were the
same as the poor indians -- primitive and backwards,
living in caves. Scraping by on what they could hit on
the head with a rock. Cave men and indians.

Two pages about Greece. One page about Rome.

Clever Europe advanced out of the cave era while the
backwards indians continued to live in caves. They were
lucky if they could afford to buy fire.

Finally advanced white man showed up to save the day!
Taught the poor indians how to survive. Lovely meal in
November. Dumb injuns sell Manhattan for handful of
beads and set of fine dishes. Clever white man! Time
passes. Backwards injuns not getting with the program.
Clever white man pays indians to kill earch other.
Backwards brutal animal like indians scalping each
other and innocent civilian settlers who just want to
get along. Fine white man tries to civilize ungrateful
savages. Little success. God of white man proclaims
manifest destiny & the necessary elimination of the
nonhuman savages. Blessings aboutnd in the form of
slaughter of savages who will not get with program.
Time passes. Yet more Enlightenment of Superior Aryan
race. Revolutionary War against unreasonable Facist
King hellbent on outrageous tea-taxation schemes.
Foolish redcoats march in formation, easy pickings for
clever colonists. Time passes. Noble Lincoln launches
brutal war for no reason other than to end slavery,
being imposed only by naughty and ignorant Southerners.
Victory is assured. Next chapter, Reconstruction and
then the Spanish American War but SORRY that is the end
of the school year.

Next year, start with indians. Work to end of civil
war. SORRY That is the end of the school year.
Next year, start with indians. Work to end of civil
war. SORRY That is the end of the school year.
Next year, start with indians. Work to end of civil
war. SORRY That is the end of the school year.
Next year, start with indians. Work to end of civil
war. SORRY That is the end of the school year.
Next year, start with indians. Work to end of civil
war. SORRY That is the end of the school year.

Spanish American War? Never got to it.
World War I? Never got to it.
World War II? Never got to it.
Korea? Never got to it.
Vietnam? Never got to it.

Same story every year but kept getting a different
book. But brain kept getting cleaner from excessive
washing. Too much washing. Starting to chafe.

Had to find out the rest on my own. Started with Roman
History because of Asterix and Obelix. Learned some
Latin. Switched to French History because liked Jean
d'Arc and the Bayeux Tapestry. Fascinating. Had to find
history books written before 1900 to find out anything.
Now I know something. Would not recommend US
edukashunal system to anyone.

> This let up with some
> great World History in 7th grade, and then three
> consecutive years of American History started, and that
> was it!
>
> My formal education may safely be called a disaster.

This country should really wake up and smell the fact
that our edukashunal system is an unmitigated disaster
and compleat waste of money. Should be dismantled.

- Jeff

>>I once wrote a piece that played on the definition of
>>"advanced". Which is more advanced: a literate society
>>with guns, movable type, complicated music, iron-sided
>>ships with canons, whose citizens live and labor like
>>ants, that uses every natural resource in its wake to
>>exhaustion... or one of balance, that _creates_ ideal
>>ecosystems, etc., etc.?
>
>You tell em! Seriously, I agree with you entirely here.
>If given the choice, would you rather run around
>scantily clad in a beautiful garden or toil in the coal
>mines?

I can tell you what I think I'd rather be!

But I might not have a choice.

The coal miner is slave to the fact* that steel, guns,
written war plans, and a tradition of bloody war defeats
clubs, leather, and a tradition of ritual war (where
total damage is often minimized, much as viruses can
evolve to be less harmful, mating battles to be mating
dances, and street battles to be rap and b-boy "battles"...
actually, to be fair, England eventually developed
"proper" war tactics, and we have today the Geneva
convention, or something...). So who is more "advanced":
the coal miner, or the Barbarian? It's a question worth
asking. We might re-cast the question as: What sort of
conditions in a simulation cause simulated peoples to
develope global damage-minimizing strategies quickly?
When does the system retain its diversity... when does one
group rise and wipe out others?

* As based on the depiction of Pizarro's encounter with
the Inca at Cajamarca in _Guns, Germs, and Steel_.

Denny once told me that "Aloha" was to be spoken during
an exchange of breath.. part of a belief that the breath
was a sign of health/life force. When Europeans arrived,
natives developed a racial slang for them along the lines
of "stinky no-breath", since they didn't bathe and didn't
exchange breath.

>>Why my classmates and I were exposed to only two items
>>in history -- Native Americas, and Dinosaurs -- again
>>and again, is a Strange Thing.
>
>Dude! This is my routine!! Every year the same thing in
>social studies. Start with the cave men who were the
>same as the poor indians -- primitive and backwards,
>living in caves. Scraping by on what they could hit on
>the head with a rock. Cave men and indians.

Actually, it was quite the opposite! Everything I was
exposed to claimed the Indians lived in utter utopia,
until the white man came and shot all the buffalo, just
for the tongues. And always "bought" land from the
Indians, who didn't have that concept, and then welched
on it later anyway. That's why I said they claimed every
Indian society embodied the latter type, which isn't
true. But some may have come close! Which is remarkable.

But why kids love the topic of Dinosaurs (and I did, but
I remember thinking I had plenty of it), and adults give
it to them over and over... and then over and over with
American History, which kids don't seem crazy about... I
don't know.

-Carl