Right Wing and Left Wing Totalitairianism and Fascism

[Malcolm]

Right, so you are an advocate of redistribution. That requires a hierarchy and force, something to which you are also opposed.

It does not require hierarchy, but it may require force.

The use of force always requires hierarchy and authority, even mob violence.

Yes, it is in our afflictive nature to be greedy, violent and nasty prats. When our society is predicted on those ideals it makes it that much easier. But it is not necessary. I recommend you read up on Australian Aboriginal societies to get a picture as to what your world can look like.

I suggest you study warfare amongst Aborigines, as well as their pre-contact treatment of women. Thanks, but I don't want that world nor the sad romanticism that imagines things were "better" there, then.

Paleopathologist Stephen Webb in 1995 published his analysis of 4500 individuals’ bones from mainland Australia going back 50,000 years. (Priceless bone collections at the time were being officially handed over to Aboriginal communities for re-burial, which stopped follow-up studies).[15] Webb found highly disproportionate rates of injuries and fractures to women’s skulls, with the injuries suggesting deliberate attack and often attacks from behind, perhaps in domestic squabbles. In the tropics, for example, female head-injury frequency was about 20-33%, versus 6.5-26% for males.

http://quadrant.org.au/opinion/bennelon ... -violence/

[Grigoris]

I suggest you study warfare amongst Aborigines...

I have.

...as well as their pre-contact treatment of women.

I have studied that too.

No society is perfect, all humans are afflicted, I give the example of Australian Aboriginal society as one that did not rely on profit from exchange, was extraordinarily ecological, and did not rely on violence to the same degree as other organised societies. The bones of 4500 bones spanning over 50,000 years is hardly a damning indictment of Aboriginal culture, especially if you compare it to the 60,000 Aborigines that were killed between the initial colonisation in 1788 and the formal end of the slaughters (which included issuing hunting licenses) in the 1920's. This is an extremely conservative figure. Dr. Gideon Polya, a scientist, artist, writer and pro-peace advocate, wrote that roughly 123 years after the arrival of the British, the “Indigenous Aboriginal population dropped from about 1 million to 0.1 million in the first century after invasion in 1788.” By 1911, 90 percent of the population had been wiped out.

And if this is considered a serious basis to reject Australian Aboriginal culture then what should we make of European culture if we consider the 40-60,000 people (80% of which were women) killed during the 16 to 18th Century Witch Trials? What should we make of the Holocaust?

Your argument is extraordinarily flimsy, as many of your arguments have been in this thread.

[Malcolm]

I suggest you study warfare amongst Aborigines...

I have.

...as well as their pre-contact treatment of women.

I have studied that too.

No society is perfect, all humans are afflicted, I give the example of Australian Aboriginal society as one that did not rely on profit from exchange,

Sure they did, Aborigines used currency, had elaborate trade networks and so on.

was extraordinarily ecological,

They forced many species into extinction.

and did not rely on violence to the same degree as other organised societies.

Disagree.

Dr. Gideon Polya, a scientist, artist, writer and pro-peace advocate, wrote that roughly 123 years after the arrival of the British, the “Indigenous Aboriginal population dropped from about 1 million to 0.1 million in the first century after invasion in 1788.” By 1911, 90 percent of the population had been wiped out.

Sure, no doubt, disease being the major factor, just as in post-Colombian Americas.

And if this is considered a serious basis to reject Australian Aboriginal culture then what should we make of European culture if we consider the 40-60,000 people (80% of which were women) killed during the 16 to 18th Century Witch Trials? What should we make of the Holocaust?

Neither example can be laid at the feet of liberal democracy, which only began in 1776, with the American Revolution.

You'd be better off using the example of US Govt. clearances of native people off their traditional lands during the 19th century; but factually, pre-Colombian native people in the Americas have a long history of intense and brutal warfare with each other, as well as a long history of resource overuse and exploitation.

[Grigoris]

Sure they did, Aborigines used currency, had elaborate trade networks and so on.

Where are you getting this information from, because the Australian Aboriginal people we supported in their struggle for recognition (mainly the Koorie of Victoria State) told us a very different truth to the one you are claiming.

They forced many species into extinction.

Yes, and learning from their mistakes they set up buffer zones between tribes where each tribe could not hunt their totem thus ensuring that the surviving species were not over hunted into extinction. The other evidence for the ecological nature of their culture was their lack of on material acquisition and their ability to keep their populations at levels that allowed them to not become an unbearable burden on the environment.

Disagree.

It is not important whether you agree or disagree with facts.

Sure, no doubt, disease being the major factor, just as in post-Colombian Americas.

Yes, disease was a factor. Colonialists would give infected blankets to tribes in order to wipe them out. I do believe it is called germ warfare. The genocide of the Tasmanian Aborigines (and many others) was a clear case of warfare though.

Neither example can be laid at the feet of liberal democracy, which only began in 1776, with the American Revolution.

Liberal Democracy is a part of European culture, is it not? You wrote off the entirety of Australian Aboriginal culture on the basis of 0.09 deaths per year over 50,000 years, so you are just going t have to do me the favor and allow me (based on modern evidence) of the extremely bloodthirsty nature of European culture (and here I include politics and economy).

[Malcolm]

Sure they did, Aborigines used currency, had elaborate trade networks and so on.

Where are you getting this information from, because the Australian Aboriginal people we supported in their struggle for recognition (mainly the Koorie of Victoria State) told us a very different truth to the one you are claiming.

There are all kinds of resources you can consult to find out what kind of elaborate trade networks the Aborigines had, pre-contact.

They forced many species into extinction.

Yes, and learning from their mistakes they set up buffer zones between tribes where each tribe could not hunt their totem thus ensuring that the surviving species were not over hunted into extinction. The other evidence for the ecological nature of their culture was their lack of on material acquisition and their ability to keep their populations at levels that allowed them to not become an unbearable burden on the environment.

This is a function of energy inputs and outputs into a biological system rather than any conscious choice: physics in other words, not culture.

Neither example can be laid at the feet of liberal democracy, which only began in 1776, with the American Revolution.

Liberal Democracy is a part of European culture, is it not? You wrote off the entirety of Australian Aboriginal culture on the basis of 0.09 deaths per year over 50,000 years, so you are just going t have to do me the favor and allow me (based on modern evidence) of the extremely bloodthirsty nature of European culture (and here I include politics and economy).

European cultures (which ones? All, some?) are no more nor less bloodthirsty than any other human culture —— to argue they are is to make essentialist arguments (as well as to ignore history), just as arguing for the (questionable) nobility of indigenous people is another kind of essentialism; both equally biased.

[Grigoris]

This is a function of energy inputs and outputs into a biological system rather than any conscious choice: physics in other words, not culture.

Complete and utter hogwash. So what happened to European societies? Did they break the laws of physics? You are really scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point.

European cultures (which ones? All, some?) are no more nor less bloodthirsty than any other human culture —— to argue they are is to make essentialist arguments...

More nonsense. Chinese invented gunpowder, Europeans used it to fashion weapons. It's got nothing to do with essentialism and everything to do with the dominant qualities emphasized by a particular culture.

Ad if you are going to split up European cultures you are going to have to do the same for Australian Aboriginal cultures. Australia is a continent and there were over 500 distinct Aboriginal cultural groups just within the state of Victoria alone.

...just as arguing for the (questionable) nobility of indigenous people is another kind of essentialism;

Straw man logical fallacies. Boring!

[Malcolm]

This is a function of energy inputs and outputs into a biological system rather than any conscious choice: physics in other words, not culture.

Complete and utter hogwash. So what happened to European societies? Did they break the laws of physics? You are really scraping the bottom of the barrel at this point.

European populations managed their environment quite well once they hit their carrying capacity until the Colombian exchange. The primary energy inputs that caused an explosion of population in Europe, as well as China, were two things, potatoes for the former, yams for the latter. Again, basic physics, not culture. The big thing was coal and oil. Again, physics, not culture.

It's got nothing to do with essentialism and everything to do with the dominant qualities emphasized by a particular culture.

That is precisely what essentialism is.

Ad if you are going to split up European cultures you are going to have to do the same for Australian Aboriginal cultures. Australia is a continent and there were over 500 distinct Aboriginal cultural groups just within the state of Victoria alone.

I did not make any global claims for aborigines in Australia, you did.

[Brunelleschi]

Neither example can be laid at the feet of liberal democracy, which only began in 1776, with the American Revolution.

Liberal Democracy is a part of European culture, is it not? You wrote off the entirety of Australian Aboriginal culture on the basis of 0.09 deaths per year over 50,000 years, so you are just going t have to do me the favor and allow me (based on modern evidence) of the extremely bloodthirsty nature of European culture (and here I include politics and economy).

Singling out European culture as bloodthirsty is just trolling.

[Malcolm]

Neither example can be laid at the feet of liberal democracy, which only began in 1776, with the American Revolution.

Liberal Democracy is a part of European culture, is it not? You wrote off the entirety of Australian Aboriginal culture on the basis of 0.09 deaths per year over 50,000 years, so you are just going t have to do me the favor and allow me (based on modern evidence) of the extremely bloodthirsty nature of European culture (and here I include politics and economy).

Singling out European culture as bloodthirsty is just trolling.

Yes, it assumes that somehow people of Indo-Eurpopean language groups are more afflicted than others...

[Grigoris]

European populations managed their environment quite well once they hit their carrying capacity until the Colombian exchange. The primary energy inputs that caused an explosion of population in Europe, as well as China, were two things, potatoes for the former, yams for the latter. Again, basic physics, not culture. The big thing was coal and oil. Again, physics, not culture.

Again this is complete and utter hogwash: there would have been no need to expand European resource bases if needs were being met. Before the Colombian exchange Europe had already begun colonial forays into other parts of the world. But the key question is "why was (is) there a need to expand resource bases"?

One of the main factors is overpopulation.

But why did Europe suffer from overpopulation while the Australian Aborigines, for example, did not? Australian Aborigines had sexual organs, a sexual drive, the human affliction of desire.

Australian Aborigines had minds for ingenuity; hands feet and backs for hard work. They were possessed of the affliction of greed and hatred. They could have also developed into a colonial power, since they had all the prerequisites inherent to human existence and an abundance of resources to do so. Some of their neighbours did (the Maori, apparently, colonised Aotearoa, arriving there from the Pacific Islands and driving the existing Morahori people into "extinction").

So what "stops" them? Their culture stops them. A culture that is not based on the accumulation of physical possessions. A culture that emphasises other qualities.

That is not an essentialist argument.

An essentialist argument would be: Australian Aborigines are by nature kinder more loving beings.

Your red herring has rotted.

Your arguments become sadder by the minute.

[Grigoris]

And, you know what? The colonialist government realised the danger inherent in such a different perspective. They understood how it could work to wear away at the myth of European dominance. So you know what they did? They didn't content themselves with just physically killing Aborigines. They stole their children and placed them in "orphanages" where they were indoctrinated into the European world view.

They would not allow the children to learn their parent's language, customs, myths and history. They were not allowed contact with their parents or elders. They were not allowed to learn the geography of their land as their people recognised it, to learn what plants were edible or poisonous, which plants were used for medicine, etc...

After committing a physical genocide the colonists then embarked on a cultural genocide too.

[Malcolm]

European populations managed their environment quite well once they hit their carrying capacity until the Colombian exchange. The primary energy inputs that caused an explosion of population in Europe, as well as China, were two things, potatoes for the former, yams for the latter. Again, basic physics, not culture. The big thing was coal and oil. Again, physics, not culture.

Again this is complete and utter hogwash: there would have been no need to expand European resource bases if needs were being met.

The Spanish adventure to the New World was based on trying to find shorter trade routes for the spice trade, not trees.

Before the Colombian exchange Europe had already begun colonial forays into other parts of the world. But the key question is "why was there a need to expand resource bases"?

Not for food, but rather, for rare commodities like pepper, and so on.

One of the main factors was overpopulation.

No, not at all. The Colombian Exchange took after during a long period of population decline due to the Black Death and ensuing economic crisis in Western Europe.

"It obviously came down to a question of power, indeed of force, and in fact there was intense Europe-wide lord/peasant conflict throughout the later fourteenth, fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, almost everywhere over the same general issues: first, of course, serfdom; second, whether lords or peasants were to gain ultimate control over landed property, in particular the vast areas left vacant after the demographic collapse."

. The Brenner Debate: Agrarian Class Structure and Economic Development in Pre-industrial Europe (Past and Present Publications) (Page 35). Cambridge University Press. Kindle Edition.

So what "stopped" them? Their culture stops them. A culture that is not based on the accumulation of physical possessions. A culture that emphasises other qualities.

What stopped Australian Aborigines from developing into a colonial power was their material conditions, not their "culture." Again, physics.

[Malcolm]

After committing a physical genocide the colonists then embarked on a cultural genocide too.

Of course, but that is completely besides the point.

[Grigoris]

Not for food, but rather, for rare commodities like pepper, and so on.

And yet they came back with what are now European staples.

No, not at all. The Colombian Exchange took after during a long period of population decline due to the Black Death and ensuing economic crisis in Western Europe.

The Black death ended in 1353, Columbus did not launch on his first voyage until 1492.

What stopped Australian Aborigines from developing into a colonial power was their material conditions, not their "culture." Again, physics.

No. Aborigines, especially in the south, south east and east coast of Australia had the material capacity, if they wished, of making exactly the same mistakes as Europeans. Shiiiiit... Europeans in Australia are currently making the same mistakes, utilising the material conditions of Australia. Everything was there for the using. Aborigines just didn't see it the same way Europeans did.

Anyway, I am now finished with this conversation. I'll leave it up to the readers to draw their own conclusions. Frankly I am sick of pointing out the obvious.

[Malcolm]

Not for food, but rather, for rare commodities like pepper, and so on.

And yet they came back with what are now European staples.

Potatoes were not introduced to Europe until the 1560s-70s.

No, not at all. The Colombian Exchange took after during a long period of population decline due to the Black Death and ensuing economic crisis in Western Europe.

The Black death ended in 1353, Columbus did not launch on his first voyage until 1492.

Yes, and vast portions of Europe remained unpopulated as a result, even in 1492.

What stopped Australian Aborigines from developing into a colonial power was their material conditions, not their "culture." Again, physics.

No. Aborigines, especially in the south, south east and east coast of Australia had the material capacity, if they wished, of making exactly the same mistakes as Europeans. Shiiiiit... Europeans in Australia are currently making the same mistakes, utilising the material conditions of Australia. Everything was there for the using. Aborigines just didn't see it the same way Europeans did.

No, metal was introduced by Cook, and adopted immediately by Aborigines with vigor. They simply never advanced out of the Neolithic era, like those in the Americas.

BTW, the Chinese also invented the gun, not just gunpowder. What stopped Chinese colonialism was its abandonment of its fleet, scuttled completely by 1525.

Few people in the West realise how economically and technologically advanced China was by the 1400s. The Treasure Fleet was vast -- some vessels were up to 120 metres long. (Christopher Columbus's Santa Maria was only 19 metres.) A Chinese ship might have several decks inside it, up to nine masts, twelve sails, and contain luxurious staterooms and balconies, with a crew of up to 1,500, according to one description. On one journey, 317 of these ships set sail at once.

Under the command of the eunuch admiral Zheng He, the Chinese were routinely sailing to Africa and back decades before Columbus was even born. Yet they did not go on to conquer the world. Instead, the Chinese decided to destroy their boats and stop sailing West.

In the 1470s the government destroyed Zheng's records so that his expeditions could not be repeated. And by 1525 all the ships in the Treasure Fleet were gone.

Why?

Historians have a variety of explanations. The Yongle Emperor was distracted by a land war against the Mongols, a conflict in which the navy was irrelevant, for instance. Others argue that the vast cost of the Treasure Fleet's expeditions far outweighed the actual treasure they came back with.

But Angus Deaton, the Nobel Prize-winning Princeton economist, prefers a different theory. In his book "The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality," he argues that the Chinese burned their boats (almost literally) in an attempt to control foreign trade.

The Treasure Fleet was abandoned at the urging of the political elite inside the Emperor's civil service who had become alarmed at the rise of a newly rich merchant class. "The emperors of China, worried about threats to their power from merchants, banned oceangoing voyages in 1430, so that Admiral Zheng He's explorations were an end, not a beginning," Deaton writes.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 12276.html

[Grigoris]

No, metal was introduced by Cook, and adopted immediately by Aborigines with vigor. They simply never advanced out of the Neolithic era, like those in the Americas.

Oh and now you are into historical determinism and calling aboriginal people primitive. All hail the (white middle-class) Emperor!



I thought you had fallen to your lowest previously, but this one just rolled the conversation from the gutter into the sewer.

[MiphamFan]

It's funny that the neoliberal is arguing for materialistic dialectics while the Marxist is talking about "culture".

I think Greg is being histrionic as usual, Malcolm didn't make a moral judgement on whether or not it was good or bad for metals to adopted, he just pointed out that the aborigines only started using metals after Europeans arrived.

However, I think Malcolm's argument re: the Ming fleet is flawed. The reasons why China could begin colonialism ahead of the Europeans technologically but failed to do so were precisely due to culture. Confucian culture has over the centuries always discouraged over-expansion. It was the Confucian officials at the Qing court which tried to persuade Qianlong not to invade Dzungaria. The Chinese didn't even have to have a vast fleet to colonize Southeast Asia, in the end there were just small groups of trading enclaves there set up by groups of traders, but the imperial court didn't really acknowledge them. They could easily have just supported them a bit more to make it a full "colonization" effort.

[Grigoris]

It's funny that the neoliberal is arguing for materialistic dialectics while the Marxist is talking about "culture".

I am not a Marxist.

I think Greg is being histrionic as usual...

The arguments used above by Malcolm are the same pseudo-scientific bullshit that has been used by white-supremacists to depreciate Indigenous cultures all across the world. The next step is to talk about skull sizes and frontal cortex development.

Malcolm sees this discussion as yet another exercise in sophistry, but having worked, lived, learned from and listened to indigenous people in both Aotearoa and Australia these discussions are about their life and death.

Malcolm writes off Aboriginal culture based on the scant findings of a single (white) academic, but is unwilling to hear what Aboriginals told me about their culture. Of course both sides have their agenda, but when an Aboriginal person tells me that in their society they did "this and that" I am going to take their word over that of a scholar in some Ivory Tower. I guess that is also because I feel that the agenda of the Aboriginal person is much more valid anyway.

I personally met and spoke to Aboriginal people my age (and slightly younger) that were forcibly removed from their families and put into orphanages. They were devastated by their experiences.

I guess I can also somehow relate to Aboriginal feelings of displacement because of my personal family history. When I visit the town of Ayvalik, in what is now known as Turkey, I regularly go for tea in the grandest and oldest tea house in the town. It is he crown jewel of the town actually. It used to belong to my great-grandfather and grandfather before they were forced to flee as refugees. When I sit in the shop and the Turkish owner or waiter comes and asks me to pay for my tea, I think back to when in 1990 we first visited Turkey with my parents and the "owner" told us how they dug up chests of gold coins from the basement of the tea house. I feel the anger and jealousy and possessiveness rising. I feel like saying "Frak you asshole! This building belonged to my family and you dare asking ME to pay YOU." But I swallow my pride and hand over the pittance that the waiter asks me for. I remind myself of impermanence and samsara, pick up my shopping from the bazaar and slowly make my way back to the boat that takes me to my home in Greece.

Now I imagine those feelings multiplied by a thousand+ times, I add in powerless, despair and frustration as well and I start to approximate how Aborigines must feel. Imagine living there, seeing the people that stole everything from you telling you what to do, how to live, condemning your culture and people as primitive and barbaric, etc...

No my friend, my reaction is not histrionic. If anything, it is not powerful enough. I was fortunate in that my relatives managed to live through being refugees. Live through Nazi occupation. Live through a Civil War. Live through extreme poverty. Live through forced migration and be able to thrive and grow and manage to return to their homes and even visit their roots. 90% of Aborigines did not survive their holocaust. Surviving Aboriginal people have none of these privileges. Not white enough, you see. My family was lucky enough to be on the pale end of brown...

So: insinuating that Aborigines are primitive and under developed is just plain old honky racist bullshit.

[Brunelleschi]

No, metal was introduced by Cook, and adopted immediately by Aborigines with vigor. They simply never advanced out of the Neolithic era, like those in the Americas.

Oh and now you are into historical determinism and calling aboriginal people primitive. All hail the (white middle-class) Emperor!

I thought you had fallen to your lowest previously, but this one just rolled the conversation from the gutter into the sewer.

Well, isn't your defense of the Aborigines just a form of the "noble savage" argument - which in itself is based on exoticism and colonial thinking?

[Grigoris]

No, metal was introduced by Cook, and adopted immediately by Aborigines with vigor. They simply never advanced out of the Neolithic era, like those in the Americas.

Oh and now you are into historical determinism and calling aboriginal people primitive. All hail the (white middle-class) Emperor!

I thought you had fallen to your lowest previously, but this one just rolled the conversation from the gutter into the sewer.

Well, isn't your defense of the Aborigines just a form of the "noble savage" argument - which in itself is based on exoticism and colonial thinking?

No.