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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (131701)	8/11/2005 3:33:16 PM
From: D. Long	Respond to of 793876

Who do you have in mind for the cultural materialism arguments It's been a long time since I cracked open that book. <g> But roughly, Diamond has it partly right. One's environment - geography - influences some of the factors, like the mode of production. Diamond makes much hay of this with his talk about agriculture and horticulture. That in turn influences other elements of the culture, including belief systems. That much, Diamond's thesis, isn't exactly earth-shattering. But I think the flaw is that he stops at materialist determinism. It doesn't explain any more. It doesn't explain a Shaka Zulu. It doesn't explain an Abraham. It doesn't explain Greek philosophy. It cuts off at the edge of Belief. The Chinese had everything the Europeans had, but they didn't colonize the world. Why? Cultural Materialism can't explain that. But it can explain a large part of why the Chinese were developed enough to do so if they wanted to. But it doesn't explain why they would or would not want to. Derek