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Re: "Fittest Culture" an Anachronism
Bjorn Conrad (bear@US.NET)
Wed, 13 Sep 1995 20:58:55 -0400
Bob Graber wrote:
>The idea of a "fittest culture" is scientifically detrimental and
>socially dangerous- ...
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Yes, clearly certain Anthropological and scientific inquirery must be
squelched, and even disallowed, in the interest of socio-political harmony.
Certain conclusions must simply not be permitted regardless of their
possible scientific legitimacy. Notions of a "fittest culture," a "fittest
race," or a "fittest ethno-cultural group" are such examples. Additionally,
this idea that there might be a direct cause and effect relationship between
a particular sociocultural strategy for success, living standard and or per
capita income, should also not be tolerated.
>What we can--and probably should--say instead is that human
>societies show a ten-thousand-year trend to grow larger, and that larger
>societies have been expanding at the expense of small ones.
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That said, we should acknowledge, once and for all, that one person's, or
one group's success comes directly at the expense of another. For every
dollar earned, or every grain of rice produced, consumed, or horded above
and beyond average international levels, we are depriving and victimizing
countless others all over the world who have less. We have to accept, each
and everyone of us, that we are, in self-serving fashion, partaking in the
spoils that our culturally imperialistic ways that have essentially raped
and are still raping countless less inherently evil peoples on every
continent. We are thereby continuing to engage in a virtual holocaust of
ethno-cultural cleansing the likes of which the world has never seen. Any
degree of collective guilt that we might manage to heap upon ourselves is
doubtlessly not enough.
Bjorn Conrad
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