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Thread: Charles Murray's "Human Accomplishment"

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    Quote Originally Posted by Agrippa View Post
    The best areas for "the Frankish people and way of life" is easy to recognise. When the New English colonies were already full of people, the Germans and related people went further West, but mostly along the climatic line.

    Some went to Texas etc. later, because of the cheap land and other kinds of business, but the typical bible belt of the plantations, poor farmers and black slaves being largely circled around.

    Lutherans were always more rational, social, group oriented of the Protestant groups, this changed in Germany and other countries of Europe just after the 2nd World War and the complete "re-education" or "2nd reformation" of the Lutherans.

    Look for German names, there are better sites than this one but still:

    F.e. names like Schmidt, Karst, Mueller, Mayer etc.

    The main exceptions in the South, for obvious reasons in later times, are Texas, Florida and California. The typical German settlers in larger groups however went mostly to the states mentioned, where they significantly influenced the local culture.

    A good example for a harscher environment, yet good enough for the "Frankish way of life" being Wisconsin:




    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wisconsin

    The whole "developed belt" West of the old English settlements of European character of the map wouldnt exist without the European immigrants, Germans as the primary group and cultural factor, together with the habitat and economy in question.

    There could be independent people, living in close knit communities, not farmers in a wide and often rather foreign land...
    I'm a little confused. Are you saying that Germans mainly built up the Western frontier lands?



    But for a fast and enduring development, one needs good farmers too, as well as a specific population and community. This was present in the farmer type of the North more often than in the South.
    The North used up a lot of what the South grew, especially in terms of things like cotton. Our industrialization was fed by Southern agriculture.

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    I've read a few explanations Ive heard for these geographical distributions in America and Europe. In the US, the original patterns of settlement in New England and around the Chesapeake Bay set the terms for the cultural gaps that later spread westward. In New England, the communities of small farms forced employers in early industry to pay higher wages since their workers could easily just pack up and go homesteading in Vermont. The approach to religion led to a higher value for literacy that, thanks to the Transcendentalists, went beyond the Biblical sermons of the first generations of settlers.

    In the South, the plantation economy based on coerced labor led to wages too low to sustain a complex economy and to a culture that valued authority and intimidation over literacy.

    In Europe, the contrasts between east and west correspond to the regions subjected to the so-called 'second serfdom' between the 16th and 19th centuries while serfdom was replaced by wage labor in the west.

    One explanation for the prosperity of the low countries and of northern Italy is that they were too far from the main imperial centers for the kings to squelch urban entrepreneurship.

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    Progressive Collectivist Agrippa's Avatar
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    I'm a little confused. Are you saying that Germans mainly built up the Western frontier lands?
    Rather they made with their influence the extension of the New English lands possible.

    The North used up a lot of what the South grew, especially in terms of things like cotton. Our industrialization was fed by Southern agriculture.
    Correct, but typically Frankish and early Industrial economy needed a lot of water too. The use of water and wind power was typical for the early developments.

    The Dutch position with their industry and trade wouldnt have been possible without the sea and rivers in the country, which led to a higher evolved and more sophisticated economy too, together with all the other factors already mentioned.

    Compare:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watermill#Medieval_Europe

    You can also see that all this mill types were invented or at least first used on a large scale in Europe's "Banana".

    The water and wind mills were among the first major innovations which allowed to reduce manpower and use it elsewhere, always critical for higher development - like Greece and Rome, which was a slave-based economy so to say, but in Medieval Europe, this began to be a broader phenomenon than in Antiquity even.

    Local supplies of coal, iron, lead, copper, tin, limestone and water power, resulted in excellent conditions for the development and expansion of industry. Also, the damp, mild weather conditions of the North West of England provided ideal conditions for the spinning of cotton, providing a natural starting point for the birth of the textiles industry.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution

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    So the methodology was based on what occupied more space in English encyclopaedias? Lol.

    I'm sure that if I base my research on what has been written in Catalan sources, out of a sudden there'll figure many a Catalan in the list of human achievements...

    Not to mention if we look up Chinese sources.
    < La Catalogne peut se passer de l'univers entier, et ses voisins ne peuvent se passer d'elle. > Voltaire

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    I don't know that his methodology is as flawed as you're making it sound, Ibex. Charles Murray strikes me as one of the more honest writers out there. It's not like you can alter the facts of world history just because you speak another language or come from another culture. And while I have not read his book, his basic argument about where the achievement came from at least strikes me as correct.
    "For it is by no means the case that only those who believe in God could possibly have a vested interest in the question of His existence."
    --Edward Feser
    "Our civilization has had many religions and many dispensations of thought. But one of the things that we have forgotten is that open-mindedness to the future and respect for evidence does mean wooliness and an absence of certitude in what we are."
    --Jonathan Bowden

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    Quote Originally Posted by Debaser11 View Post
    I don't know that his methodology is as flawed as you're making it sound, Ibex. Charles Murray strikes me as one of the more honest writers out there. It's not like you can alter the facts of world history just because you speak another language or come from another culture. And while I have not read his book, his basic argument about where the achievement came from at least strikes me as correct.
    You cannot alter the facts, but you can interpret them. And no historian or society, no matter how fair they try to be, can be free from interpreting them or being somewhat biased in one way or another.

    It is quite logical, after all, that sources in English dedicate more space to talk about artists, scientists, etc, that have affected the English-speaking world in a significant way, and therefore the ones using the English language will be the ones prevailing. A mediochre English writer may occupy just as space then as the most important writer from another culture, because that important writer didn't affect the Anglosphere much. And the same thing happens in the other way round, Raymond Lully may occupy just as much or more than Shakespeare in a Catalan encyclopaedia. Logical too.

    So I don't doubt of his honesty, but the research, if we want to be more accurate in that methodology, should at least be thoroughly done in all major encyclopaedias in a wide variety of languages, to widen the scope of interpretations about what is 'important' or 'significant'. That's my opinion, of course.
    < La Catalogne peut se passer de l'univers entier, et ses voisins ne peuvent se passer d'elle. > Voltaire

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    LOL
    At nazi internet fags claiming italians never accomplished anything. Ignorance reigns between them.
    We have given the world Rome and Renaissance, and we are in 4th place in human accomplishments even if we couldn't count over a centralized and stable nation as other countries had.
    ------------------------------------------------------
    REJOICE, 0 Florence, since thou art so great,
    That over sea and land thou beatest thy wings,
    And throughout Hell thy name is spread abroad !


    Canto XXVI Inferno-Dante Alighieri-


    ------------------------------------------------------

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ibex View Post
    You cannot alter the facts, but you can interpret them. And no historian or society, no matter how fair they try to be, can be free from interpreting them or being somewhat biased in one way or another.

    It is quite logical, after all, that sources in English dedicate more space to talk about artists, scientists, etc, that have affected the English-speaking world in a significant way, and therefore the ones using the English language will be the ones prevailing. A mediochre English writer may occupy just as space then as the most important writer from another culture, because that important writer didn't affect the Anglosphere much. And the same thing happens in the other way round, Raymond Lully may occupy just as much or more than Shakespeare in a Catalan encyclopaedia. Logical too.

    So I don't doubt of his honesty, but the research, if we want to be more accurate in that methodology, should at least be thoroughly done in all major encyclopaedias in a wide variety of languages, to widen the scope of interpretations about what is 'important' or 'significant'. That's my opinion, of course.
    Part of the problem is that because classical ideas about virtues and aesthetics are no longer valued and even are seen as false, someone will always criticize someone else trying to objectively evaluate cultures. "Who are YOU to judge?!" is an obnoxiously modern meme. In modern liberal academia, you can't even assert that the ancient Greeks were better than a bunch of Zulus with spears.

    Murray's book is a hard book to write. The book that you're describing that you want written sounds damn-near impossible. Maybe in some magical world such a book exists where a team of god-like writers exist who can leaf over all these encyclopedias written in different languages (putting bias aside) and then all collectively come to the same universal conclusions to write a book about something as broad as human accomplishment.
    "For it is by no means the case that only those who believe in God could possibly have a vested interest in the question of His existence."
    --Edward Feser
    "Our civilization has had many religions and many dispensations of thought. But one of the things that we have forgotten is that open-mindedness to the future and respect for evidence does mean wooliness and an absence of certitude in what we are."
    --Jonathan Bowden

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    Quote Originally Posted by Debaser11 View Post
    Part of the problem is that because classical ideas about virtues and aesthetics are no longer valued and even are seen as false, someone will always criticize someone else trying to objectively evaluate cultures. "Who are YOU to judge?!" is an obnoxiously modern meme. In modern liberal academia, you can't even assert that the ancient Greeks were better than a bunch of Zulus with spears.
    And it is partly true. We are dealing with relative appreciations, therefore we should be ready to admit that the results can be relative too. Papuan tribes who have managed to live harmonically fo millenia deep in the New Guinean wild landscape have had their share of human accomplishment, but of course, only applied to their own society. The difference in this case is that our Western 'tribes' or ethnicities have developed a more complex interrelated society, and as such, our achievements need to be more complex and are perceived then as 'better'. Therefore, we can say for certain that, at a more significant level (that is, at one that affects more people), European 'tribes' have reached more human accomplishment than the Papuan ones. But then discussing which of the European ones has reached a highest level will really become a matter of subjective interpretation, because if quantity is hard to determine objectively, quality is just impossible.

    Quote Originally Posted by Debaser11 View Post
    Murray's book is a hard book to write. The book that you're describing that you want written sounds damn-near impossible. Maybe in some magical world such a book exists where a team of god-like writers exist who can leaf over all these encyclopedias written in different languages (putting bias aside) and then all collectively come to the same universal conclusions to write a book about something as broad as human accomplishment.
    Not that impossible today. Digitilization of major encyclopaedias can make the quantification of spaces quite easy in fact.

    I must say, though, that as much as I criticize this kind of categorizations, I also love this type of books. Just as I love those lists of 'the best 500 albums/films ever', even if 498 albums of them are always in English.
    < La Catalogne peut se passer de l'univers entier, et ses voisins ne peuvent se passer d'elle. > Voltaire

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    Quote Originally Posted by Ibex View Post
    And it is partly true. We are dealing with relative appreciations, therefore we should be ready to admit that the results can be relative too. Papuan tribes who have managed to live harmonically fo millenia deep in the New Guinean wild landscape have had their share of human accomplishment, but of course, only applied to their own society.
    Right, but given the choice, most would rather live in Western society (due to the amenities). Where do the amenities come from? Western behavior. (Of course, this is something that dumb minorities (especially blacks) fail to grasp, though some East Asians get it.) They were fine living in their society for all those years because they HAD TO BE in order to exist. It's not like they had a choice over the matter. If I stuck out my hands and asked one, "would you rather live here where you can drive a car, live in nice home, be tried by a court of law, and have access to modern medicine or would you rather chuck spears at fish for food?," which do you think they'd pick?

    Quote Originally Posted by Ibex View Post
    The difference in this case is that our Western 'tribes' or ethnicities have developed a more complex interrelated society, and as such, our achievements need to be more complex and are perceived then as 'better'.
    I think they are simply better. Period. I think Plato and Aristotle's notions of form and ideal have a great deal of universal truth. As Christians like to say, "it's written on your heart." I think it's obvious that the Western societies (although they don't reach the ideal b/c it can never be realized) are much closer to it.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ibex View Post
    Therefore, we can say for certain that, at a more significant level (that is, at one that affects more people), European 'tribes' have reached more human accomplishment than the Papuan ones. But then discussing which of the European ones has reached a highest level will really become a matter of subjective interpretation, because if quantity is hard to determine objectively, quality is just impossible.
    I agree with you that the matter is more difficult to sort out among Europeans, yes. However, I think Murray's effort was a decent shot at doing so.


    Quote Originally Posted by Ibex View Post
    Not that impossible today. Digitilization of major encyclopaedias can make the quantification of spaces quite easy in fact.
    Now that is something. That's actually an interesting idea. However, you still have the problem of coming up with a universal interpretation among the intersecting areas between the encyclopedias.

    Quote Originally Posted by Ibex View Post
    I must say, though, that as much as I criticize this kind of categorizations, I also love this type of books. Just as I love those lists of 'the best 500 albums/films ever', even if 498 albums of them are always in English.
    You're right about the English slant. But in fairness, the dominant world pop culture comes from English speaking lands. Those "best of" albums, from my experience, always seem to be evaluating musical pop culture so it's only natural that the biggest impacts would be the ones on the list. It would be interesting to see one devised that relied on something outside of pop culture impact. It would also be much more difficult to put together. I would expect to see many classical musicians from Europe at the top, though (much to the chagrin of other peoples).
    "For it is by no means the case that only those who believe in God could possibly have a vested interest in the question of His existence."
    --Edward Feser
    "Our civilization has had many religions and many dispensations of thought. But one of the things that we have forgotten is that open-mindedness to the future and respect for evidence does mean wooliness and an absence of certitude in what we are."
    --Jonathan Bowden

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