Final Thoughts on GGS?
Posted: Tue Jan 24, 2012 5:20 pm
These don't have to be final thoughts in the sense that you've finished the book. I feel it's probably about time to put a wrap on the discussion, though. So, what has impressed you most, both positively and negatively, about the book?
If I might lead off, my strongest impression is of the importance of food production in making possible everything we think of as civilization. It wouldn't actually have taken Diamond to tell me this, as it's not his original discovery, but somehow the way he presented the subject opened my eyes to the basic, and it seems to me indisputable, fact that only by freeing large numbers of people from food production does elaboration of culture become possible. Of course culture existed with hunter-gatherer groups, but the surplus, so to speak, of culture that we call civilization did not. Look around you and think about how many people you encounter daily are food producers. It's an exceedingly small number. For about 98% of us, 99% of the work has been taken out of getting our food. All we have to do is go the grocery store or a restaurant and perhaps do a little cooking.
Following Diamond's thinking about the determinism of the available plant and animal species, another striking thought is that had the offerings of the earth been a little different, or had the climate profile of earth been a little less favorable to agriculture, history would have developed differently, perhaps radically differently. A cap on human populations far below the numbers needed for great states would have meant, for example, that wars would have remained local or regional. We probably would not have the "great" religions or what we call our great art, literature and music. We might not have had such destructive crowd diseases, either. If intelligent life exists on other planets, it would also be subject to limitations imposed by the availability of food.
If I might lead off, my strongest impression is of the importance of food production in making possible everything we think of as civilization. It wouldn't actually have taken Diamond to tell me this, as it's not his original discovery, but somehow the way he presented the subject opened my eyes to the basic, and it seems to me indisputable, fact that only by freeing large numbers of people from food production does elaboration of culture become possible. Of course culture existed with hunter-gatherer groups, but the surplus, so to speak, of culture that we call civilization did not. Look around you and think about how many people you encounter daily are food producers. It's an exceedingly small number. For about 98% of us, 99% of the work has been taken out of getting our food. All we have to do is go the grocery store or a restaurant and perhaps do a little cooking.
Following Diamond's thinking about the determinism of the available plant and animal species, another striking thought is that had the offerings of the earth been a little different, or had the climate profile of earth been a little less favorable to agriculture, history would have developed differently, perhaps radically differently. A cap on human populations far below the numbers needed for great states would have meant, for example, that wars would have remained local or regional. We probably would not have the "great" religions or what we call our great art, literature and music. We might not have had such destructive crowd diseases, either. If intelligent life exists on other planets, it would also be subject to limitations imposed by the availability of food.