The point about evolutionary biology vs. creation science: the latter is an epiphenomenon of the former, so this person in a vacuum who might argue against creation science in the absence of evolutionary theory is a very hypothetical personage indeed.

Your protocols argument doesn’t make historical sense; the book made its first splash at a time when the objective evidence for it was miniscule; in fact if one wanted to believe Zionist conspiracy theories *now* would be the time, when there is an actual Zionist nation-state in existence. The point is that the book is and always has been ridiculous. It’s not ridiculous “now” in a way that it once was not, and it’s not anti-protocols research which has proven its silliness (nor was the book based on research — so research is *really* not the right grounds on which to question it).

However, the points you make *are* much better applied to Diamond’s book than to the other two cases. A point I’m now sorry has not been made more strongly by myself and others at SM is that in fact in the intellectual history of anthropology geographical determinism has come up again and again, so that for us it is “widely disproven”. So actually here you are right — the anthropological reaction to it is, “oh, that again”. It seems to arise in every generation. But this is also why the public embrace of it *is* an interesting problem in itself — locating inequality in nature rather than history seems to have a recurrent, perduring appeal. It was that phenomenon which I took up in my discussion of Diamond’s book (though I did make some address of its substantive content, as you may recall if you go back to my original post). But I didn’t choose to focus on that aspect out of malevolence, bad faith, or professional sloth.

Its at LEAST as bad to throw out frivolous references to how your opponent shares traits in common with Nazis, in this case by claiming that Diamond’s book deserves the same response as virulent anti semitism deserves.

This is most certainly not what Ozma was doing.

The point about evolutionary biology vs. creation science: the latter is an epiphenomenon of the former, so this person in a vaccuum who might argue against creation science in the absence of evolutionary theory is a very hypothetical personage.

Your protocols argument doesn’t make historical sense; the book made its first splash at a time when the objective evidence for it was miniscule; in fact if one wanted to believe Zionist conspiracy theories *now* would be the time, when there is an actual Zionist nation-state in existence. The point is that the book is and always has been ridiculous. It’s not ridiculous “now” in a way that it once was not, and it’s not anti-protocols research which has proven its silliness (nor was the book based on research — so research is *really* not the right grounds on which to question it).

You are right that Diamond’s book is different — in fact the points you make are much better applied to his book than to the other two cases I raised (but I was making different points than you are. Anyway. to get us on to the same wavelength –). A point I’m now sorry has not been made more strongly by myself and others at SM is that in fact in the intellectual history of anthropology geographical determinism has come up again and again, so that for us it is “widely disproven”. So actually here you are right — the anthropological reaction to it is, “oh, that again”. It seems to arise in every generation. But this is also why the public embrace of it *is* an interesting problem in itself — locating inequality in nature rather than history seems to have a recurrent, perduring appeal. It was that phenomenon which I took up in my discussion of Diamond’s book (though I did make some address of its substantive content, as you may recall if you go back to my original post). But I didn’t emphasize that aspect out of malevolence, bad faith, or professional sloth.

Do you honestly see no problem with that tactic?

As a matter of fact, Ozma’s position is especially worthless, even more so than the examples she’s cited. When it comes to attacking creationism on grounds other than intellectual, that’s only possible because someone else has already done all the intellectual heavy lifting involved. If the case for evolution had not been effectively established, someone who refused to debate the issue by means of attacking creationism and defending evolution on logical and evidentiary grounds would be rightly called highly intellectually dishonest. The irony would be especially high if the individual in question was, say, an evolutionary biologist who refused to argue in favor of evolution and against creation on anything other than collateral grounds.

The same is true in reference to the Elder Protocols of Zion, and the underlying anti semitism. Its only intellectually honest to attack this in terms of its being racism rather than in analyzing its claims because at this juncture in history, the case for there NOT being a massive jewish conspiracy is pretty damned airtight. The attack on racism grounds basically boils down to, “the evidence that the Elder Protocols and similar books are right is nonexistant, and the evidence that they are wrong is overwhelming. This state of affairs is clearly visible to even the most cursory observation. Therefore, when someone looks at the facts, and comes up with the opposite conclusion of what the evidence clearly supports, its worth asking what’s really going on in that person’s head.”

In every case, the usefulness of the “underlying motives of the supporter” analysis is premised on the actual facts having been effectively refuted elsewhere, and the information having been promulgated to the public. Sorry, but when it comes to Diamond’s book, the critics aren’t remotely near that point.

And if a professional anthropologist isn’t willing to do the actual work involved in discussing an issue of anthropology, but prefers to skip straight to the moral villification, a new career might be in order.

You are using the “Nazi defense” which I consider to be one of the most insidious and dishonest forms of debate. If anyone uses any WWII era references in a statement they immediately get attacked for comparing something to Nazis. This is wrong on two grounds: First, it turns Nazis into exactly the kind of pure evil scholars like Hannah Arendt warned us against doing. We can’t understand the Nazis if they are somehow above and beyond comparison. And secondly, it overlooks the actual nature of the reference being made. Ozma was not comparing GG&S to the Protocols of Zion, but was suggesting that it isn’t always necessary to discuss works “in their own terms.” I don’t agree with Ozma 100% on this, but I think her point is a valid one and that your reaction is uncalled for.

In any case, the Protocols pre-dates the Nazis by a quarter of a century at least.

As far as my disagreement with Ozma goes, I would say that it is necessary to discuss works in their own terms, but that it isn’t necessary for every scholar to do so. Just like there are blogs devoted to “fisking” everything conservatives say (Atrios, Daily Kos), while others proceed as if conservatives are wrong (Tom Tomorrow) and try to explain why and how they are doing what they do. I don’t see why we can’t have both kinds of critique.

Its when people look at you, see that you’ve just compared the study of history in terms of the influence of geography to the nazi era anti semitic literature, and concluded that both should be treated with the same degree of disgust by the academic world. And then those people will start thinking that maybe the whole Student’s Bill of Rights thing isn’t such a bad idea after all.

“The more weight you want to place on an argument that a particular book does bad things in the world, the more evidentiary obligations you incur. Otherwise you’re no different than the conservatives over the summer who created a list of the ten most dangerous books in modern history, a list which assumed that when a conservative finds the content of a book disagreeable, he is safe in assuming that it had bad consequences in the world at large. Even with books which have most directly aspired to intervene in action or praxis, it’s never very clear what the relationship between the text and the context is. You simultaneously don’t take Guns, Germs and Steel seriously enough and take it too seriously all in one move. More importantly, you grant to yourself a basically unlimited capacity to maintain a Vatican-like list of Banned Books with which you need not engage substantively in terms of content but can target for critique because of blanket assertions that they must be doing the devil’s work in some fashion.”

You are right. I do both of the things you suggest: I simultaneously don’t take GG&S seriously (in terms of its substantive scholarship) and take it very seriously (in terms of its effects in the world). Yes. Yes. Yes.

And though you use the examples of the conservative naughty books list against me, I think they are absolutely correct to be concerned about the powerful influence of certain books. Do you really think they are wrong? I actually haven’t seen the list to which you refer, but let’s say I thought every book on it was the bee’s knees. The conservatives and I might *still* agree on one thing: that the books in question can exert some kind of power. We’d just disagree on whether that was to good or to bad ends. So, so far I am agreeing with your critiques but not quite feeling their sting.

Now, comparing me to the Vatican — aww, that hurts. I have said over, and over, and over again in the great GG&S debates that I don’t advocate the banning, the burning, the forbidding, the wrapping-in-chains-and-throwing-into-the-sea of JD’s book. Hooray that it is in libraries everywhere. Hooray hooray. I say, yes, that it is a bad book with bad effects. But I’m not out to ban it (or any other books). So let’s put that aside.

But the point you make can be expanded in other ways. Take the protocols of the elders of zion. I don’t want to ban that book. But I don’t think it would be a great use of anyone’s energy to systematically track down its claims and disprove them, saying at the end, “see? there is not a giant zionist conspiracy afoot to run the world”. It wouldn’t persuade the unpersuadable. More generally, I believe it would be a better use of energy to prompt people to think about what makes the claims of such a book seem plausible in the first place. If you disprove the Protocols, you are not doing away with anti-semitism. People could just think, “so that was a hoax, huh. I wonder where the real blueprint is hidden???”

Let me take another example. Many people believe that the way to take on “creation science” is to show why it is factually wrong. I don’t agree. The motor of creation science is not in the world of facts. Whack the mole of creation science and what pops up? Intelligent design. One has to go after the surrounding framework.

It makes for stickier work, yes — because yes, it does make a more fundamental challenge to the good will and good faith of the people who believe in and promulgate these accounts. It doesn’t say, “Oh, I am sure your motives are pure and your powers of reason intact. Let me engage you on that level”. It says, “I think your motives are not so great and your powers of reason questionable”. So yes, it’s also kind of arrogant. I’m okay with that. If I’m wrong, I’ll get my taters burnt. Maybe God created the world in 6 days, geography ordained the domination of white people, and now the Jews run everything. Will my face be red if all of that turns out to be true!

It really doesn’t matter how much of a big deal Diamond makes of Yali’s Question. It doesn’t even matter if he makes it into some sort of mythic charter.

Look. Lets a politician wants to create a social program, and he finds a single potential beneficiary of the program, and uses this beneficiary in public relations stunts. If we later discover that this particular individual is not nearly as needy and desparate as the politician made them out to be, and maybe wouldn’t gain quite so much from the program as was suggested, does that invalidate the 150 page document of social science research that backs up the program’s usefulness and efficacy that was NOT part of the photo op? Do the numbers suddenly change?

As for the “looking beyond the text” issue, to do that you have to begin by looking at the text. Otherwise, you’re back at “them durned libral college perfessers!” territory, except from the other direction. Frankly, no one is doing this.

And with the “does Diamond’s answer make sense if we ask an entirely different question” issue, you’ve got some problems there. It seems like Diamond has a pretty good response there. Its something like, “given that the ability to colonialize existed, and was possessed in fact by a wide number of cultures and governments, it was inevitable that someone would do it sooner or later.” Now, again, that “inevitable” is in the sense I described above, not fatalistically inevitable. And yes, there’s some assumptions about human nature in there. Maybe you want to argue that the entirety of asia and europe could have possessed the militaristic advantages they did indefinitely without beginning colonialism, or maybe that they could have shared their wealth, knowledge, and expertise with the rest of the world. You could argue that. But, first, merely saying that this is hypothetically possible is not good enough. Diamond’s “inevitable” is given the large numbers of peoples involved, and given human nature as it seems to be. Its an argument about probability. You need to show that the hypothetical history in which colonialism did not occur from any source is more than vanishingly likely. That seems a tough challenge.

If you want to redefine his question to “why Europe, and not some other group with germs, guns, and steel? Why not China? Maybe it was some cultural factor in European thought, lets investigate that,” then fine. But you are of course aware that such an investigation would not actually contradict Diamond’s work. So claiming that it refutes Diamond, or criticizes Diamond, or even interacts with Diamond in any other way than fleshing out an area he doesn’t delve into, would be erroneous.

But, as an outsider, accidently pointed here by a Brad DeLong link, let me try to raise four points – one of which was in my earlier post.

1. Fred and Deborah attribute to Diamond the view that Yali (and other PNGuineans) lack modern technology not because of intellectual or other inferiority, but because “his ancestors lacked access to the mineral resources, domesticable animals, and the other advantages that allowed some to conquer others. He was born, in terms of the luck-of-the-environmental draw, on the wrong side of the great geographical divide.”

Do Fred and Deborah disagree with Diamond’s view, as they characterize it? They can’t (it seems to me). So they must think that it’s an inadequate explanation, and that the technological backwardness of PNG and much of the rest of the underdeveloped world is also the result of colonial ways of thinking, racism, etc. But even if PNG has had centuries of contact with the western world, it had a thousand years w/no such contact. During that period, colonial ways of thinking, racism, etc. could not have played a role in keeping the PNGuieans from guns, germs, and steel.

Don’t Fred and Deborah agree with Diamond that the underdeveloped world’s peoples are not intellectually, etc. inferior, and that they lacked many of the geographic conditions that favored western (and Chinese, etc.) development?

In other words, don’t they agree with 90% of what he has to say?

2. Put Yali’s question aside. Diamond asks another question – why didn’t the Aztecs invade Europe? You can’t argue that the Aztecs failed to develop guns, germs and steel at the same pace as Europe because of colonial ways of thinking, etc. What’s wrong w/Diamond’s geographically based explanation?

Fred and Deborah suggest that guns, germs, and steel are necessary but not sufficient. Of course – to be an imperial power you need the means (GG&S), but you also need to be a brute. But the Aztec rulers brutalized their own peope and every neighboring, less-advanced people they could find.

If they’d had the opportunity to invade Europe and loot Paris and Rome, do Fred and Deborah believe that they wouldn’t?

3. According to Fred and Deborah, Diamond’s argument is attractive to the “haves,” because it absolves them of guilt for their own wealth and of responsibility to change the world, and that it suggests that the world’s relative weath and poverty cannot be changed (although Diamond doesn’t say so). They would likely add that whatever Diamond’s personal views, his theory objectively supports the status quo. Probably, they wouldn’t say that, because of the above, Diamond’s theory should be opposed regardless of its merits – but maybe.

But most theories that attempts to explain the way things are is vunerable to attack as supportive of the status quo. E.g., Darwinism – and even Marxism. Most Marxists are for changing the status quo, but some – citing Marx’s view that only advanced capitalist societies are candidates for change – have opposed revolutionary efforts in less advanced societies.

It is irrelevant to the GG&S’s merits that some “haves” may use it to feel comfortable about their privilege. (It’s certainly irrelevant to the book’s merits that Diamond gets paid to lecture on it. I’m not an academic, but I know that’s a cheap shot.)

Most of Fred and Deborah’s piece is about the “haves” who are sustained by Diamond’s theories. But you shouldn’t evaluate a theory based on who uses it for what purpose. You should evaluate it on its merits.

4. Possibly, some old geezer reads Diamond and says: “I used to avoid guilt over my wealth because I believed I was racially superior. I can’t use that excuse any more, but what-the-heck, I still don’t feel bad, because Diamond says my wealth was inevitable. Watch this drive.”

But I don’t think so. I think that more people draw from GG&S the conclusion that Diamond intended – if there is no moral reason why one population is richer than another, maybe we should try to do something about it.

Most Americans, including most American students, believe that America deserves its wealth and relative privilege in the world – that we earned it, worked for it, and are entitled to it, because of our merit – and that the world’s poor are responsible for their own condition, because they are racially, morally, or otherwise inferior.

Diamond’s theory attacks this complacent, self-satisfied sense of superiority, by explaining that feelings of racial or moral superiority have nothing to do with relative wealth and poverty. Diamond himself opposes racial superiority theories – he is anti-racist.

(BTW, it’s an old form of argument to say: “Well, X may think he’s attacking racism, but his work objectively supports the status quo, so he’s objectively a racist.” I’d like to see that form of argument disappear, but it will take a while. (A recent, bizarre incarnation – Rumsfeld saying that those who oppose the war “objectively” support terrorism.))

I’m saying that if you want to make arguments about the social context of reception, circulation and the making of meaning in regard to a single text, and the connections between that and some actually existing politics in the world, you can’t just assert any of that casually, not if you want to put some weight on any of it, not if you want it to be more than a conversational suggestion. What is readily available to any of us is a substantive critique of Diamond’s scholarship that proposes, perhaps, to convince some of those who like his book that their affection is misplaced because the book is either empirically wrong, conceptually flawed, or simply not a book that explains any of the things which really matter in the world.

Why is that insufficient? What is so wrong with doing the scut work of trying to actually persuade people that their preferences are misplaced through methodical argument about the substance of the work?

Why do you want to pass Go and collect $200.00, to essentially X out Diamond as another scholar whose work deserves a scholarly reply, and take the mere fact of his popularity as sufficient invitation to argue that his book does very bad things in the world? Without being willing to talk with any specificity about who these educated haves are, how they actually gained knowledge about the book, what they actually do discursively with it, how the book’s arguments circulate in the public sphere in some traceable way, how particular forms of global intervention have changed or been inflected in new ways by readers of Diamond, anything beyond amazingly confident but also hugely vaporous assertions that because you find the book disagreeable and recognize a set of nebulous connections between it and many other things you find disagreeable, Diamond must be produced by this vast disagreeableness and contribute enormously to its disagreeableness in turn?

The more weight you want to place on an argument that a particular book does bad things in the world, the more evidentiary obligations you incur. Otherwise you’re no different than the conservatives over the summer who created a list of the ten most dangerous books in modern history, a list which assumed that when a conservative finds the content of a book disagreeable, he is safe in assuming that it had bad consequences in the world at large. Even with books which have most directly aspired to intervene in action or praxis, it’s never very clear what the relationship between the text and the context is. You simultaneously don’t take Guns, Germs and Steel seriously enough and take it too seriously all in one move. More importantly, you grant to yourself a basically unlimited capacity to maintain a Vatican-like list of Banned Books with which you need not engage substantively in terms of content but can target for critique because of blanket assertions that they must be doing the devil’s work in some fashion.