[MD] The MOQ, Pathogens, and Individualism

[Heather Perella]

Krimel:
> I am not sure I buy the conclusions of this article
> but the approach is
> excellent. This line of thinking can and does
> produce fresh insights and new
> understanding about who we are and how we came to be
> this way. 
> It is stunning to find seemingly intelligent folks
> conversing here who are
> not familiar with the basic concepts that this
> article assumes we all know.
> It does make it easier to understand a lot of the
> talking past each other
> that goes on but it is a bit depressing. Among the
> assumptions we bring to
> these discussions is the assumption that others
> grasp some of these
> fundamental ideas. Sadly it would seem this is not
> the case.


SA:  What I thought about was, how would sickness
bring people together?  One might wonder if sickness
could actually spread people out, and have them not
want to be around each other that much.  This could
easily be summed up with, 'well humans are naturally
empathetic', and the altruistic notions come into
play.  The degeneracy of this betterness would be
crime and biological bound within the skin and not
much outside the skin noticed.  Social ties, that
which generates a society is not the crime, but the
compassion, the kindness.
        So, does this article, as other books for I
read Diamonds book too, point out that people will
venture and wander from camp, from each other into
bands without that sickness to pull them together
longer and more often.  We know guns are part of this
spectrum, too, for political reasons societies toughen
up and get bigger for defense purposes and to spread
their way (imperialism, etc...).  
       Calvin Martin brings up the hypothesis that the
Amerindians in the Great Lakes and Hudson Bay Region
(for this is where his research was focused), that
they started a war on the animals for the animals in
their stories were protectors, guides, and very wise. 
Yet, when people began to die in the masses with no
known reason other than the animals have turned
against them.  For they, the animals, lead them very
far and protected them, but when the people began to
die, were talking whole villages or somewhat less,
then the spiritual war had begun.  The animals had
turned against them.  Yet, what happened was the
Europeans along the coast were bringing diseases, and
these diseases went inland before the Europeans even
began to settled the coast, by the fisherman and
traders.  These inlanders didn't know the Europeans
existed as of yet, and from his research he finds
clues that many of these people were dying from
European diseases and the Amerindians interpreted
these mass dyings as spiritual wars.  I haven't read
all of Calvins books yet, but this is what he
researches in his early books.  I've read his most
latest, but he mainly discusses their metaphysical
reality, which in his early books is the direction he
was heading, as we can even see here, their reality
intellectualized these deaths in their worldview.


SA   


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