I’m a little hesitant to put a url in here

For anyone who’s interested, just google frith and look for “The Meaning of Frith”.

Unfortunately, Quinn isn’t all that vocal in his books about the model vs. reality difference. Maybe he’s trying to avoid confusing readers who are new to the ideas, or maybe he honestly thinks that the lines are sharply defined. I don’t think it much matters; harping on Quinn for errors in his primitivist theory is about as productive as harping on Dungeons and Dragons for the unworkability of its alignment system. D&D is just an entry point, not rules-based roleplaying in tota.

I like how the essay was presented: “How do we not end up like these guys? By knowing about them!” Well written, and very informative.

I’m not sure that’s the whole story on the Chinese… after all, the “unification of China” thing involved a lot of conquering and assimilation. Jared Diamond looked into this a bit in GG&S, and at least part of the reason for China’s lack of continued expansion following their initial exploration and trade was political, and was a product of the unification. (I’m going from memory here, so bear with. I’ll try to find the exact ref when I go home tonight.) Once China became unified, it had a single concentration of power. The powers-that-be at the time were interested in exploration, and supported the fleets which sailed all over the place. At some point, there was a change in leaders, and the new powers wanted nothing to do with the endeavors of the previous rulers, so they discontinued support of the exploration (Kyoto Protocol, anyone?). With China being unified and all, there was nobody else to ask for support besides the emperor, so any lofty dreams of swift ships and eternal global domination were soundly crushed.

Europe, on the otherhand, consisted of a multitude of independent states, each with its own ruler. So when a would-be explorer like Columbus got it into his head that he wanted to sail around the flat world, even if his own ruler laughed in his face, and even if a couple other kings did the same, he could finally find a gullible monarch willing to bankroll his crazy endeavor.

China’s strong cohesion and disdain for barbarians would eventually hurt it in its dealings with the Europeans, but I don’t think that’s the reason why they stopped conquering initially.

So I ah… ahem… got off my ass and went and looked

Yellow River Civilization info appears to much thinner and less accessible than Mesopotamian sites (rather like my searches for Ancient Sumer 7-8 years ago….)

But from what I could find, it appears that the ‘middle’ yellow river is a highland plateau with lots of agricultural terracing etc… but the original Y-R Civilization was in the lower alluvial plain, down river from the plateau and on out to the sea…

Makes sense, simply because there is a reason that early civilizations appeared as a rule, in alluvial plains

As for currently, it sounds like the lower yellow river is much the same now as it was then… but it is also unique compared to other sites in that the ‘heart’ of Chinese civilization moved south to the Yangtze River when they started growing rice as the primary grain (YRC planted millet). Second, although agriculture has been practiced along the Yellow River (terraced and alluvial) the lower river floods in a big way regularily (and still) Apparently, the river carries so much silt that the river bed is above ground level now and has been for centuries. So they put in levees… which have been overwhelmed at least 1500 times in known history. I can only guess that this massive flooding has combined with other factors to change the dynamics of this particular river system. (I wonder of the relatively high latitude bears a role as well????)

Janene

Let’s not forget the degree of influence of European culture on the Iroquois. The Taker-Leaver distinction (which Quinn himself has said is not a perfect representation) breaks down when you have Leaver cultures (chiefdoms, bands and tribes of the Eastern woodlands) confronted with a massive state-level society supported by intensive agriculture, population influxes from Europe, and disease, and which has introduced a market economy.

Memes and ways of life. Hmmmm. I think either formulation is a simplification. As individuals, our brain-bag of memes dictates how we live our lives. If I’m infected by the Jesus meme, I’m going to become a Christian and probably change my pattern of behavior. (You know, by never having fun of any sort again.) As a society, memes are only going to take hold in a large percentage of the population if the socioeconomic (and probably psychological and political) conditions can support them. If a large percentage of the population is trapped in a set of circumstances which is not (for one reason or another, or for many) working for them, and a memeplex arises whereby they might free themselves of these circumstances, then this meme is likely to enjoy a long, healthy life–and lead to the creation of a new societal infrastructure. I think.

We’re all living proof that memes change lifestyles.

Umm… hold up… two things…

The original site of civilizational development in China was the Yellow River Valley… that’s not where you are talking about mountaintop terraces…. do you know what the Yellow River looks like these days? (I have no idea)

Secondarily, as I understand it, China was VERY expansionistic, within thier ‘cultural realm’. How was it expressed? That because of the continuity of and single monolithic power base of Imperial China, they expanded to a certain point(cultural & geographical limitations) and then stopped… someone on Ishcon put up a good post on this in the last month or two…

Janene

In the terms of the 1987 Brundtland Report, sustainability is: “Meeting the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs.” This is very much like the seventh generation philosophy of the Native American Iroquois Confederacy, mandating that chiefs always consider the effects of their actions on their descendants through the seventh generation in the future.

On the other hand, a very useful Wikipedia article, “Iroquois economics,” includes this disturbing little tidbit:

One first hand account told of a large hunting party that built a large brush fence in a forest forming a V. The hunters burned the forest from the open side of the V forcing the animals to run towards the point where the village’s hunters waited in an opening. A hundred deer could be killed at a time under such a plan.

What did the Great Law of Peace entail? Primarily, submission to the confederacy. The official webpage of the modern Six Nations has this to say:

The hardest part of the Great Law is to understand the meaning of the concept of peace. Peace is not simply the absence of war. In the Iroquoian mind, peace is a state of mind. Power, which can easily be thought of as military strength, but more appropriately, it means that one heart, one mind, one head, and one body allowed the Confederacy to remain united in the face of many enemies. Certainly, historians have painted a picture of the Iroquois as cruel expansionists. Iroquois fighting power was legendary. So the question arises: how can the Great Law promote peace if one of the conditions is to have power over weaker nations? Power can be the united strength of the Confederacy, standing together, negotiating together. Unity of action allowed the Iroquois to enjoy great success in dealing with the warring colonial powers.

So, Bill, you’re actually re-stating my own hypothesis: our memes develop to help support our way of life. That’s the opposite of Quinn’s formulation, where our way of life is an expression of our memes.

What kind of environmental effects has this had on other autochthonous agricultural areas? Mesoamerica and the Fertile Crescent became deserts, of course. In both the cases of China and the Andes, we’re dealing primarily with terraces carved into mountains, and this seems to have greatly reduced the amount of ecological rampage. China in particular had little interest in conquest (the Inka were more like us in that regard).

Increasing complexity needs multi-dimensional “space” in which to grow. Geographical space may not be necessary if there is sufficient economic, technological, or other dimensions of space that can be filled first.