Comments on: “All it takes is a Passport”

By: Brad DeLong

Brad DeLong — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:14:52 +0000

Re: “Port Moresby”:

I said Port Moresby because once you get there you can’t go any further without a boat, not out of any illusory belief that ca-1900 Port Moresby would be a safer place for anybody born in PNG than the rest of the island. Encounters with colonizers are always fraught with danger: at worst, they are there to steal your stuff; at best, to “civilize” you…

By: Brad DeLong

Brad DeLong — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 13:10:12 +0000

So in PNG around 1900, *if* your family has gift-exchange friends in the right direction, and if they have gift-exchange friends in the right direction and are willing to let you draw on their connections, then you can put some sweet potato in your netbag and go if you have a hankering to travel? And if not, not? And what if you happen to be female?

By: Al West

Al West — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 12:56:44 +0000

Your response was appropriate, then. However, Rex’s case was not merely an exaggeration – it was literally the opposite of the truth. And while the precise situation Brad referred to may have been an inappropriate example, it is still important to challenge the pre-state freedom idea.

By: Strong

Strong — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 12:05:35 +0000

Brad asked a specific question about PNG in 1900, and I provided him some ethno-historical evidence about movement in Papua at precisely that moment in history, including with reference to Brad’s inquiry about Moresby. Recall further that I wrote: “This passage follows another snapshot of pre-’pacfication’ Papua that emphasizes traditional enmity and such (I will post that later today for provocation).’ Keeping in mind these details, I guess I think that we have to ask more specific and refined questions than, could you ‘wander from place to place’? *That* question strikes me as unintelligible in this instance.

Finally, I suspect that Rex is in fact writing within a specific genre convention here: like Diamond, he’s overstating his case for rhetorical effect.

By: Al West

Al West — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 10:40:29 +0000

That is a non-sequitur. Rex claims that there is greater freedom of movement outside of states, and there isn’t. No one is denying the presence of trade and marriage alliances between pre-state societies, but does it mean that you could simply wander from place to place before ‘pacification’? Of course not. Restrictions were greater before pacification, in the sense that the consequences of going to different places were more severe, involving the high likelihood of death or rape (not, of course, to excuse the absurd, illiberal laws of the colonial era).

By: Strong

Strong — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 10:24:26 +0000

Brad: On showing up in Port Moresby in 1900: The colonial state was as likely to be a problem for you as was anything else. Again, I quote from Schieffelin and Crittenden (1991, page 31): “Caste legislation had existed in Papua from the earliest days of Australians rule. Papuans were prohibited from drinking alocohol and from wearing clothes on the upper parts of their bodies. Indentured laborers were required to be in their assigned quarters from 9PM until daylight, or they could be jailed. Employers could slap, cuff or kick (thought no beat) laggard Papuan employees. Papuans not on a work contract were not allowed within five miles of Port Moresby unless they could prove they could support themselves in town.”

By: Strong

Strong — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 10:18:14 +0000

Brad DeLong: From Schieffelin and Crittenden (1991, page 18-19): “As subsistence cultivators, Papuans were largely self-sufficient in terms of their day-to-day needs. Other items, tools, decorations, and shell valuables could be obtained through trade. Indeed, Papuans traditionally traded extensively up and down the coast, and along traditional trade routes that reached deep into the interior. But trade and ceremonial exchange played a much more important role in Papuan societies than merely providing extra necessities. Together with marriage they were major vehicles for cementing and maintaining political alliances and important social relationships, insuring the safety of individuals traveling outside their home areas, and maintaining peaceful relationships (or at least truce) between neighboring groups.”

This passage follows another snapshot of pre-‘pacfication’ Papua that emphasizes tradiontal enmity and such (I will post that later today for provocation). The point however is that while of course there was a lot of war, equally there were important kinds of trade and gift-exchange relationship that crossed territory, sometimes even vast distances. Picture the great shell wealth of highland Papua New Guinea displayed in ceremonial gift exchanges (such as moka). Where do you suppose these shells up in the mountains came from?

By: Al West

Al West — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 07:25:13 +0000

I went for the same angle in a blogpost here, but it seems to have fallen on deaf ears. It's surprising to see the common libertarian trope that the state is the only impediment to freedom repeated on an anthropology blog.

By: Brad DeLong

Brad DeLong — Thu, 07 Feb 2013 23:35:48 +0000

A serious question: What happens in PNG in 1900 if you and a friend “put some sweet potato in your netbag and hit the road”, heading ESE? Do people welcome you along the way, gossip with you, assist you in finding places to sleep, and do you eventually wind up at Port Moresby? Do the same things happen to you if you are female as if you are male?

Brad DeLong

By: Catherine Delaney

Catherine Delaney — Thu, 31 Jan 2013 15:05:05 +0000

Stephen Corry (of Survival International) has written a damning critique of Diamond’s book.

Read it on the Daily Beast website here:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/01/30/savaging-primitives-why-jared-diamond-s-the-world-until-yesterday-is-completely-wrong.html

By: Amy Cooper

Amy Cooper — Sun, 20 Jan 2013 04:26:19 +0000

Thanks for this interesting post.

By: Al West

Al West — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 23:44:24 +0000

I have decided to put my response to this post on my blog, because otherwise I know I'll only generate a flame war or something similar and we'll all end up worse off. My comment is also quite long. But even though I have commented on this post on my blog, I have to comment a little here. Look at this point, for instance:

Diamond probably thinks, like most Americans, that it is worth making this trade off in order to be able to go on vacation to France. But its one thing to say that its worth giving up your freedom to acquire vacations, another thing to mistake the latter for the former.

There are different kinds of freedom. The failure to grasp this elementary point ruins the entire post. Your freedom to drive recklessly outside of the speed limit would impinge upon my freedom to go about my day unmolested by a tonne of screeching metal. Your freedom to shit in the kitchen of a restaurant would impinge upon the freedom of the proprietor to sell sanitary food. The freedom to murder is technically a freedom like any other; your freedom to kill other human beings would impinge on the freedom of other human beings to live. So we agree on a set of laws that navigate through this mess of freedoms as best as they can. By using good sense, we can try to maximise the freedom of human beings to live their lives without fear of one another. We can actually use the law to maximise freedom. The state doesn't just take freedom away. Seems like basic political philosophy to me. Maybe I'm missing something. If you're interested in Natural Experiments of History, you could check out Michael Smith's review. His take on Collapse and its associated literature is also good.

By: Ann Altman

Ann Altman — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 22:14:41 +0000

Diamond is interviewed in today’s New York Times magazine. He wins the prize for the most pretentious response to “What are you planning to read next?” His reply (capitals are mine) “I am going to REREAD Thucydides.”
Why do I care about Jared Diamond (caution, personal anecdote follows)? I was part of an Earthwatch dig on Easter Island when JD was doing his research for “Guns, Germs and Steel.” He came up to our dig and started talking to the archaeologist who was in charge. I wandered over to listen to their conversation. The great JD shooed me away, dismissively, saying something to the effect of “We are having a serious scientific conversation. It’s not for the likes of you.” I guess that JD doesn’t consider a woman with a Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from an Ivy League school worthy of listening to him squeeze every last fact out of a junior colleague for a book that will make him rich and will include only a cursory acknowledgement of the junior colleague.

By: DIscuss White Privilege

DIscuss White Privilege — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 08:25:14 +0000

Apologies for the previous message. I see it was not.

By: DIscuss White Privilege

DIscuss White Privilege — Sat, 19 Jan 2013 08:21:10 +0000

Why was my response to Jason’s comment deleted when it did not violate the comment policy?