| I have heard it said that climate is the ultimate factor in human productivity (and re-productivity too, as I understand it, but that is another issue for another time). Necessity being the mother of invention, it boils down to this -- life is hard for anyone not living in fruit-filled Eden. Points for comparison: Lush, wild Tahiti with gray, chilly New England (or, for historical compatability reasons, the original England). Life is fair, as the old and oft mistaken adage goes, but in this one aspect of human experience, it holds true. The Tahitians had breakfast, lunch, dinner, all four food groups, and an excellent climate to live in, literally as well as figuratively. The English? As far as I can tell, they had rocks, ocean, dirt, anemic cows, and a lack of most everything conducive to life, not to mention winters that kill whatever didn't die of malnutrition beforehand. Of course I am talking about the era before the great equalizer called Modern Civilization (which now resorts to killing off everything else in the environment instead). Of course, having never seen either Tahiti or England any assumption I make is preposterous, but bear with me, the exaggerations all lead to a point. The bottom line is that if breakfast is hanging over your head or growing underneath your feet, do you need to plow, dig, fertilize and harvest whole acres full of wheat? If the concept of frozen cold winters straight from hell (let's assume hell can be cold as well as hot since pretty much the same amount of torment is incurred) doesn't exist, a person doesn't need the concept of stone architecture or advanced clothing techniques. Try wearing wool knit in tropical weather, you'd wish that the stuff were never invented at all.
However, necessity is the mother of invention, and what is a mother except to help those in need? What need is greater than naked, weak, earthlings stuck, literally, on a barren rock? In exchange for the phenomenal bad luck, those stuck in less-than-ideal situations got a good dose of exercise for the cerebral muscle. Agriculture became standardized, legalized, then institutionalized. On this base stands the concept of modern civilization, where the grand premise is that the whole of life need not be shooting, cooking, or growing your next meal. Ironically, it is pretty interesting to note that jungles won't support the "amber waves of grain" that is feasible in the Midwest. The environment itself prevents standardized "civilization."
I was reading a very outdated cultural anthropology text by Margaret Mead, who spent a good portion of her life among native cultures in the Pacific Tropics. Underlying every sentence is the tremendous assumption that the Paleolithic culture of the people she lived among indicated a lower quality of mind than the race she came from. Example: they didn't wear much clothing *gasp!* i don't know about you, but if i lived in over-110 degree weather and had my own rules to make, i wouldn't exactly choose down parkas and wool sweaters as my garments of choice. Shame being entirely academic if you broil alive, as she admits to having nearly done. you would think that she personally discovered the laws of economics and mathematics herself, as she carefully writes case studies of individuals, comparing their mental acuity against the entire log of achievements made by western civilization. Now honestly. If I compared the philosophic contributions of Bob the plumber down the street to Plato's putative Utopia, who would come out on top? Heck, if I compared a Greek to Plato, who's logical reasoning would win? Greek, English, French, American, or Polynesian, chances are Plato wins. Not necessarily a race bias. But, in reverse, who's knowledge of plumbing would be better? Who's contributions actually make sense in a practical way? If one needs to spend all day concerned with the daily bread, there isn't much time left to dwell on the universe. I can live without Plato, but I need running water. Apples and oranges. Palm trees and sheep. The comparisons just don't wash. I notice Ms. Mead never bothers to see that the native people had a navigation system in place for the past eon that modern technology only recently (1400s) matched. The pharmacopoeia and knowledge of medicine that they developed still outpaces modern science in many respects, but she never mentions this. a person only learns what he needs, ask any stressed student cramming for finals. If he needs medicine, he'll find medicine. if his time isn't occupied with hunting down food, then he'll perhaps think about the electron and the ideal governmental state.
The question, I think, isn't so much of mental capacity but rather in the need for the use of mental capacity. If we were all still in Eden, I'll bet the microchip would not exist. Neither would standardized mechanization or calculus. On the equator, where mass monocultural agriculture is a physical impossibility, there is absolutely no need for mass production or separation of labor. Holding this against them is rather like holding in contempt a student who solves a problem in the best way he can and for doing it in way that is impossible. |
