—“KMac, in his last book, talked about how we evolved under extremely challenging environmental circumstances. And that even though so did northern Asians, they are tribal and as blind to their tribalism as is the chosen people. I don’t recall how he reconciled these divergent outcomes. Maybe he didn’t – maybe he just acknowledged them. Then you picked up the thread, if memory serves, and attributed it to the divine. True or false?”—
I don’t want to get into the position of criticizing KM because it’s nit picking on mentors, allies, and peers. But try to understand his specialization versus mine. His original presumption was that it was genetic more than cultural. Duchesne’s more cultural than genetic. Mine more institutional than cultural, and probably even with genetic. So I KNOW what caused our uniqueness. It’s not a question. The data is in. We know genetics, institutional and cultural, linguistic, technological, and most of all we know how impervious group strategy is to change, and how language contains the group strategy.
Also, I don’t attribute anything to the divine unless I’m trying to reach people across the isle, speaking on their terms, or engaging in poetic expression.
It’s not that Europeans were under more pressure but different pressure. Pressure from African diseases is different from pressure from cold. Pressure from competitors is different from competition by nature. Social demands from population density in river farms, vs social demands from scarce population among people constantly on the move. Social competition in warm open climates different from huddling with animals in cold winter longhouses.
Similar for east Asians(few genetic competitors). Very different for south Eurasians (many genetic competitors), and more so for Africans (zillions of genetic competitors)
The correct order is probably: Climate, Neoteny, Demographic distribution, first institution, competitors, the sequence of revolutions vs sequence of conquests.
Net is the most recent race is ancient north Eurasians, and Europeans are the result of a chain of hybridization events as the east Asians moved north and west, and the north Eurasians moved west and south. Our people bypassed the religion-river-farmer stage and went right to steppe herding. That group spread west to conquer the farmers in Europe, and formed a conquering and ruling class, and yes, largely replaced them – organizing an entire polity to adopt the metaphysics of superiority.
Genghis Khan learned that it was better to rule the Chinese and tax them than slay them, and likewise the steppe herders learned it was better to enslave and rule to pay for their expansionary militarism.
The original steppe herders were far closer to the spartans than the Athenians. And in retrospect, it’s obvious where spartan habits came from. And its to the spartans we can look for cultural memory, and the romans only slightly less so. The athenians modernized more quiclky – because naval people do so more than territorial army people do (just like anglos vs germans).
The fall of the Spartans, like us, being the incremental accumulation of political power by women until all the wealthiest landholders were women. why? men died a lot and women could inherit. So women married to accumulate land from aristocracy that was likely to die off. (really).