Theme: Ethnoculture

 

—“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).

 

—“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).

 

—“Curt: What are some examples of cultural relativism around the world?”– quora user

1) Bride Kidnapping (actions)

Just to pick a controversial one. While less than two hundred years have passed, we have lost cultural memory of the reason women wanted to be married: independence. It is better to be in command of your own house over your own children than under command of your parent’s house in the service of your brothers and sisters. And to begin insuring you would have children to care for you in your old age. Sex and affection were a perk. A family meant economic independence, social status, and investment in the future.

In primitive societies, particularly those of horse culture (raiders), of steppe, tundra, and desert, children are part of the household workforce. So husbands must (a) ‘compensate’ parents for the loss of the labor, (b) demonstrate the capacity to provide income for the daughter on the other. (c) provide insurance in case the marriage fails and the family must support the daughter and her children.

However, in these same societies (i) banditry is heroic and in the family interest (in their world bravery), so is (ii) deception (in their world cunning), and (iii) some parents seek unreasonable prices for their daughters. (iv) some daughters are forced to care for their parents (like slaves) at their own expense.
So when negotiation is impossible the boy’s family can arrange a kidnapping, and the women of his family will try to convincer her to join their family (she can refuse).

Or couples who are interested in each other, can arrange a kidnapping, to escape the extraordinary demands of the girl’s parents, or disapproval of her parents, sometimes for reasons against her interests.

And of course, girls from hostile tribes can be kidnapped, captured and raped at which point, they are ‘unmarketable’, and will escape or stay.

So, this is why :

… i) MORALITY is universal: Morality is always decidable, and consists of self-determination, by personal sovereignty, and interpersonal, social, and political reciprocity.

… ii) Moral NORMS differ in different places at different times because the constitution of moral actions requires accounting for many conditions.

2) Corruption (Actions)

In germanic civilization above the Hajnal line (or rather in germanic civilization alone) Europeans practiced bipartite manorialism from about 700AD onward. This had a dramatic effect on the behavior of the population, by limiting access to farmland to young marrieds who had demonstrated good character and suppressing the reproduction (and increasing the starvation and disease) of those who were not. It meant that peasantry was literally children of the manor under legal rule of the manor, until they had their own land at which point they were subject to common law like adults. And if you could somehow through achievement join the trading class, nobility, or god forbid, aristocracy, you would gain legislative influence over your trade, over your territory, or over the nation. In much of european history we see this same pattern: child-slave, teen-serf, adult-freeman, responsible-citizen, accomplished-sovereign. And everyone knew the requirement for moving up that pyramid.

And that pyramid was jealously guarded with skepticism, demanding you perform successfully to climb it. (all though not to fall from it). And while your rights were individual, your membership was to an insurer. That insurer was your family, or your church community, or the manor, or the state.

Corruption in this world was only suppressed above that line in Europe and in japan. The rest of the world is notoriously corrupt, from the Italian church to the french bureaucracy to the european Mediterranean, to Russia, India, china. But worst of all in the middle east, where they still cannot form a bureaucracy or an army because the ethic is purely familial and tribal. India suffers from the same devotion to family and village-tribe. China of course, has a long history of disregard for human life, and it’s civility is contrived purely as posturing.

That’s because in most primitive civilizations deceit and theft is in the family interest. As civilizations evolve, corruption is in the family and regional interest. And for unique reasons, Europeans specialized in the development of commons which were in everyone’s interest. But it’s only because the prosecution of ‘cheats’ was so severe, and the privilege of access to land, freedom, and law, so precious, and that the bureaucracy evolved from the military not state or priesthood.

Corruption is expected family behavior in most of the world. And it’s expected family behavior not to in the west.

3) Truth (Words)

Might as well stick with another controversial topic: **truth before face** (western egalitarianism), **face before truth** (eastern harmonialism), and **face by deceit** is honorable (Middle Eastern and African familism-tribalism). This spectrum describes truth as serving the political interests of everyone (western), the social interests of everyone (eastern), and the familial interests of everyone. This is because heterogeneity produces tribalism, and homogeneity not. Europe and East Asia provided cutural homogeneity. Africa and the Middle east didn’t. The middle east didn’t because Islam solved only the problem of disempowering the chieftains, but not the problem of tribalism – it only exacerbated it.

Those two are all I have time for although they are excellent examples of the problem.

 

—“Curt: What are some examples of cultural relativism around the world?”– quora user

1) Bride Kidnapping (actions)

Just to pick a controversial one. While less than two hundred years have passed, we have lost cultural memory of the reason women wanted to be married: independence. It is better to be in command of your own house over your own children than under command of your parent’s house in the service of your brothers and sisters. And to begin insuring you would have children to care for you in your old age. Sex and affection were a perk. A family meant economic independence, social status, and investment in the future.

In primitive societies, particularly those of horse culture (raiders), of steppe, tundra, and desert, children are part of the household workforce. So husbands must (a) ‘compensate’ parents for the loss of the labor, (b) demonstrate the capacity to provide income for the daughter on the other. (c) provide insurance in case the marriage fails and the family must support the daughter and her children.

However, in these same societies (i) banditry is heroic and in the family interest (in their world bravery), so is (ii) deception (in their world cunning), and (iii) some parents seek unreasonable prices for their daughters. (iv) some daughters are forced to care for their parents (like slaves) at their own expense.
So when negotiation is impossible the boy’s family can arrange a kidnapping, and the women of his family will try to convincer her to join their family (she can refuse).

Or couples who are interested in each other, can arrange a kidnapping, to escape the extraordinary demands of the girl’s parents, or disapproval of her parents, sometimes for reasons against her interests.

And of course, girls from hostile tribes can be kidnapped, captured and raped at which point, they are ‘unmarketable’, and will escape or stay.

So, this is why :

… i) MORALITY is universal: Morality is always decidable, and consists of self-determination, by personal sovereignty, and interpersonal, social, and political reciprocity.

… ii) Moral NORMS differ in different places at different times because the constitution of moral actions requires accounting for many conditions.

2) Corruption (Actions)

In germanic civilization above the Hajnal line (or rather in germanic civilization alone) Europeans practiced bipartite manorialism from about 700AD onward. This had a dramatic effect on the behavior of the population, by limiting access to farmland to young marrieds who had demonstrated good character and suppressing the reproduction (and increasing the starvation and disease) of those who were not. It meant that peasantry was literally children of the manor under legal rule of the manor, until they had their own land at which point they were subject to common law like adults. And if you could somehow through achievement join the trading class, nobility, or god forbid, aristocracy, you would gain legislative influence over your trade, over your territory, or over the nation. In much of european history we see this same pattern: child-slave, teen-serf, adult-freeman, responsible-citizen, accomplished-sovereign. And everyone knew the requirement for moving up that pyramid.

And that pyramid was jealously guarded with skepticism, demanding you perform successfully to climb it. (all though not to fall from it). And while your rights were individual, your membership was to an insurer. That insurer was your family, or your church community, or the manor, or the state.

Corruption in this world was only suppressed above that line in Europe and in japan. The rest of the world is notoriously corrupt, from the Italian church to the french bureaucracy to the european Mediterranean, to Russia, India, china. But worst of all in the middle east, where they still cannot form a bureaucracy or an army because the ethic is purely familial and tribal. India suffers from the same devotion to family and village-tribe. China of course, has a long history of disregard for human life, and it’s civility is contrived purely as posturing.

That’s because in most primitive civilizations deceit and theft is in the family interest. As civilizations evolve, corruption is in the family and regional interest. And for unique reasons, Europeans specialized in the development of commons which were in everyone’s interest. But it’s only because the prosecution of ‘cheats’ was so severe, and the privilege of access to land, freedom, and law, so precious, and that the bureaucracy evolved from the military not state or priesthood.

Corruption is expected family behavior in most of the world. And it’s expected family behavior not to in the west.

3) Truth (Words)

Might as well stick with another controversial topic: **truth before face** (western egalitarianism), **face before truth** (eastern harmonialism), and **face by deceit** is honorable (Middle Eastern and African familism-tribalism). This spectrum describes truth as serving the political interests of everyone (western), the social interests of everyone (eastern), and the familial interests of everyone. This is because heterogeneity produces tribalism, and homogeneity not. Europe and East Asia provided cutural homogeneity. Africa and the Middle east didn’t. The middle east didn’t because Islam solved only the problem of disempowering the chieftains, but not the problem of tribalism – it only exacerbated it.

Those two are all I have time for although they are excellent examples of the problem.