GUNS, GERMS AND STEEL

The Fates of Human Societies

also

A Short History of Everybody for
the Last 13,000 Years

Jared Diamond

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We may or may not know who Scott Fuller is...

Diamond first entered the saturated pop-science book market back in 1991 with the publication of his book, The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee. After making a few million and hurting his neck from wearing assorted medals, our friend Dr. Diamond set his mind on producing one of the most ambitious pop-science books in living memory. Arguably more ambitious than Dawkins’ attempt to compress Darwinism to within 400 pages (The Blind Watchmaker) and packed with more information (true or not) than a million year’s worth of The New York Times, Diamond unleashed this beast upon the public back in 1998. As the subtitle states, this book is ‘a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years’. Not ambitious in the least, but interesting nonetheless. Before I begin any kind of analysis of the book’s central theory, it must be stated in advance that a number of anthropologist co-workers have expressed their contempt for this book to me on a number of occasions. Not because of the theory, or even because of the wide-ranging perspective, but mostly because of the details surrounding whether Diamond was entirely correct in identifying a species of corn which may have existed in the Fertile Crescent circa 7000B.C. As I said to these illustrious scholars, I don’t really give a fuck whether one species of corn or another, closely related, species of corn existed in region x at time y. What I am interested in is whether Diamond’s overall theory holds up/makes any sense. For some reason, my inclination towards the theory over the nitpicking over details has since alienated me from these scholars. Oh well.

Ignoring the concerns of anally-retentive anthropologists, paleo-geologists, paleo-agronomists, and all their related brethren, we can now move on to a brief examination of Diamond’s book. It is probably best to think of this whole book as answering one basic (or not so basic) question:

If there are no essential differences among the different peoples of the planet, then why did the historical trajectories of these people diverge so much?

Not uncommon in the enlightened world of the bigot or the Eurocentric fuckhead, is the claim that the different historical trajectories of the different ‘races’ of the human species represent underlying differences between these races. We have heard all of this stuff before: it was the Europeans who developed technology, science, etc., whilst the rest of the world waded in their own feces and played drums to summon up the spirit of the volcano, etc. Assuming that one is not a racist, the claim that the different paths of cultural development of the different people in the world indicate that Europeans are superior to, say, the Australian aborigines is unlikely to convince. Nevertheless, a cursory reading of history will lend support to claims that there were/are in fact substantial differences to be found in the level of cultural, technological, and agricultural development of the different peoples on the planet. The problem for Diamond, or rather, the problem which Diamond sets for himself in this book, is how to explain the differences in historical development amongst the different groups of humans without assuming some kind of explicit or implicit racist assumption.

Drawing on his experiences living with various tribes in Papua New Guinea (the Mecca for anthropologists everywhere, or so it would seem), Diamond presents us with the following problem: If the current generation of New Guineans is separated by only 3 or 4 generations to when PNG was almost completely ‘primitive’, and if any version of the ‘innate differences (racist)’ theory was true, then how is it that modern New Guineans can master modern technology with no significant problems? This question basically cuts to the heart of the theoretical project which Diamond has set-up for himself. The fact that the modern descendents of ‘primitive’ people can easily accommodate themselves to modern technology (given the opportunity), despite the fact that they have no historical link to such technology, provides prima facie evidence against the validity of any ‘innate differences’ explanation for why the historical development of different groups of people diverged so much. As you can pretty much anticipate, the only ground left for Diamond to provide such an explanation will centre on the historical, geographical, biological, and ecological contingencies in which different groups found themselves inhabiting.

What our buddy (and he is our buddy) Diamond argues for is the thesis that the reason for why different groups developed so differently over the centuries is due to the environmental (broadly construed) situations in which they were placed. It is due to the lack of suitable vegetation in certain areas (like sub-Sahara Africa) that prevented the people living there from developing agriculture. But it is necessary to make something clear at this point: it was not as though the people living in these unsavory areas looked about them to find suitable plants to domesticate, failed to find any, and then resorted to a hunter-gatherer existence. No. As Diamond illustrates, the origin of domestication (with the corresponding growth of agriculture of both flora and fauna) would be entirely accidental and unintentional. For those of you who know your Darwin, you would be aware that Darwin first developed the idea of ‘artificial selection’ in order to lay the ground for his theory of natural selection. And in that section, Darwin was explicit in claiming that the domestication of plants and animals by humans would have been entirely accidental in origin. By the vagaries of human thought and preferences, certain species of plants and animals would have been favoured by humans. This initial favorability would slowly give rise to a selection pressure in favour of more ‘favourable-to-humans’ organisms and so on. Intentional selection of organisms by humans would only be a late development upon the originally unintentional artificial selection. This unintentional origin is consistent with Diamond’s general thesis against any ‘innate differences’ theory.

With this caveat in mind, it is clear how Diamond is going to set out to debunk any ‘innate differences’ theory of historical development. The fundamental concept underlying Diamond’s argument is the Gould-style emphasis on contingency. Assuming no significant differences between the different groups of humans, one can explain the different developmental trajectories of different groups purely on the basis of material contingency. This is most obviously the case where plant and animal domestication is involved, for if there are no viable candidates co-existing with a given group of humans, then the process of unintentional artificial selection will be much more difficult to generate. The importance of focusing on the origin of agriculture for the overall purpose of the book is due to Diamond’s thesis that the development of agriculture is a critical point which must be passed in order for other cultural developments to occur. By planting crops, this had the effects of decreased mobilization, greater population density, and eventually, all important specialization.

According to Diamond, the sedentary lifestyle which grew up around intensive agriculture laid the groundwork for a whole host of cultural and developmental possibilities which had been hitherto foreclosed. By regulating social action according to the requirements of the crops/animals, this not only allowed for the production of surplus resources, but also initiated a new kind of social system based upon such surpluses. A surplus of production would allow for the development of parasitic, non-productive social formations which would be ultimately dependent upon the production of the specialized agriculturists, but which would also free up the non-producers to perform other kinds of activities not directly concerned with production. Much like how the development of bipedal motion allowed for early hominoids to use their hands independently of explicit transportational (I think I made that word up) purposes, the surplus production of intensive agriculture laid down the material/economic conditions needed for other purposes. As Diamond describes it, this surplus production opened up quite significant paths for humans:

“…at high population densities only a portion of the people came to be farmers, but they were mobilized to devote themselves to intensive food production, thereby yielding further surpluses to feed nonproducers. The nonproducers mobilizing them included chiefs, priests, bureaucrats, and warriors. The biggest political units could assemble large labor forces to construct irrigation systems and fishponds that intensified food production even further.” (p. 62).

Or, in other words, the development of agriculture was the first step in the formation of the modern state. Of course, there were societies in which agriculture was developed but which did not contribute significantly to the rise of sophisticated technology (the above quote is in the context of the Pacific Islands), but the point still stands. If one is attempting to retrace the steps from the modern industrialized, highly technological, and highly specialized societies, the birth of agriculture was absolutely necessary. Diamond makes use of comparisons to the hunter-gatherer societies of pre-colonized Australia (anachronism noted) and sub-Sahara Africa to highlight these claims. Just like in the pre-Pleistocene fantasies of insane environmentalists, early hunter-gatherer societies were decentralized and largely egalitarian. Diamond is not claiming that the lack of any centralized command structure and the lack of any recognizable agriculture was a mere coincidence; he is claiming a causal link between (at this stage) the economic structure of a society and the political/social organization of a society. But this is no Marxist rant--Diamond is making the empirical claim that without either an internal supply of surplus production or an external (imported) supply of resources, people will lack the degree of independence necessary for technological innovation and other cultural feats. The surplus is the currency which permits the exploration of areas not exclusively founded in productive enterprise. And whether it is possible for an intensive, surplus-producing agriculture to take root (pun intended) will be entirely contingent upon the available flora and fauna in a given region.

That is the core of what could be considered the ‘benefits’ of sedentary agricultural societies. The negative side is integral to the thesis of the book. Diamond argues that the formation of sedentary societies facilitated the growth of diseases in human populations. By living so close to animals and other humans, infections were not only much more likely to occur, but they were also likely to remain in a population. Dense concentrations of people in one area are the perfect breeding grounds for a whole range of parasites, bacterial infections, and viruses. Cutting to the point of this claim, Diamond argues that the increased exposure to disease in sedentary communities would have had the effect of building up immunity to such diseases by members of those communities. The reason for why this is important is obvious if one has even the faintest knowledge of colonial history (or if you bothered to read the second word in the book’s title). The resistance to germs and infection by the people who grew out of the agricultural revolution had catastrophic consequences for those groups who had not developed agriculture. So, not only did the production of surpluses enable those societies to develop other innovations, it also had the effect of killing off or severely disabling any hunter-gatherer groups who so happened to cross their path.

Another important development which arose out of the rise of intensive agriculture was the concept and/or practice of private property. Since anachronism is the order of the day here, it is probably better to state that the concept of ownership (hence, property) was first grounded in this revolution. Due to not only the sedentary lifestyle, but also the necessity of crops and the management of surpluses, some kind of system was needed to regulate this hitherto non-existent phenomenon. Although evidence for cultural transitions like these are extremely difficult to find, one source of evidence lies in the development of writing systems. The Sumerian cuneiform writing system is the oldest known system and it was developed in the area known as the Fertile Crescent (modern day Iraq--also of note is the fact that the first known anything written by humans was a beer recipe). According to the thesis briefly outlined, this would fit in quite nicely with Diamond’s argument because the ancient Sumerians lived in what was once a highly fertile and dense agricultural region (the Middle East, somewhere around modern Saudi Arabia and Turkey). The need for written documents would arise in accordance with the need to store, maintain, and distribute those resources (i.e., management of property). Unlike a Marxist, Diamond does not claim that the development of writing systems necessarily followed the development of intensive agriculture (he provides counter-examples), but he does claim that once writing was invented, it allowed for other cultural developments not exclusively founded on agriculture.

The resistance to diseases associated with an agricultural lifestyle, combined with the development of sophisticated technology (the mastery of steel, for example), and the invention of more effective weapons (guns, etc) all joined together to allow for these cultures to more or less decimate other cultures. The story of the South American invasion by the Spanish is a brilliant demonstration of this point and is very well presented by Diamond. I knew nothing about that invasion before reading this book and it is merely one of the extra bits of information that you get from reading it (and if you know about that invasion, rest assured that there will be others that you won’t know – unless you’re a real geek). Relating the story of the migration of homo sapiens into Northern and then Southern America acts as a fine textbook example of how to provide evidence for one’s theory in a clear and convincing manner. But Diamond is not content to stick with the stories of the Americas--he has a stab at every single major culture on the planet and the paths of their interaction with one another.

And this is the style of argument and presentation which underlies the whole book. By examining specific cultural feats in a relatively detailed way (detailed for a pop science book, at least), Diamond then proceeds to argue that certain avenues are opened up which were previously impossible. Unlike a Hegelian, Diamond certainly does not ascribe any sense of necessity to cultural development, but does argue that certain things like agriculture lay down the necessary conditions for things like sedentary living, although whether further developments occur after these developments is contingent upon other factors. There is an overriding sense of contingency to the whole book, but the contingency identified in cultural developments are far from being incomprehensible. This is why Diamond deserves to be ranked on the same level with Stephen Jay Gould, for not only do they share the same fundamental conception of evolution and cultural development they also demonstrate their wide range of learning in each book. The most interesting parallel between Diamond and Gould is that each thinker understands that there is a political element to certain subjects, and that insensitivity to those political elements is little more than irresponsible (no doubt due to each man’s erudition). But just like Gould, however, this erudition can sometimes be annoying in that a particular tangent is taken which is not entirely necessary to the point. Diamond has a love of linguistics and the origin of languages, which is fair enough, but I cannot help but think that a good deal of his ruminations on language could have been culled from the final edit. Nevertheless, these mild divergences or extended meditations on linguistic history (which is no doubt important) pale in comparison to the numerous baseball references which clutter up some of Gould’s work.

I am nitpicking here (like those anthropologists mentioned above), but there is no doubt that this book deserves to be placed alongside the best that popular science writing has to offer. The controversies can be left to the academics, but for a wide-ranging theory on the origin of different human cultures, this book is outstanding. He has clearly taken another step beyond the otherwise good first book, and it will be very interesting to see what this man produces next (I think he has another book out now). Plus, Diamond is a cool dude and knows a lot more than me!