Why is it men and whites who became powerful?

[RedWorker]

Why is it men and whites who became powerful?

If women and black people had become powerful instead, would they have done racism and sexism against white people and men? How similar would this racism and sexism have been to today's?

[Tim Cornelis]

Men: with physical strength they became the warriors (that would become the premodern aristocracy) and allowed for more labour productivity (slaves), women became dependent on men.

Whites: happened to be one of the first to develop agriculture, and happened to be the first to develop agricultural commerce and capitalism, therefore colonialism.

Second question. I don't know. Probably. Maybe. You'd have to extrapolate the social customs of primitive matriarchal societies, which, I vaguely remember, having existed (although very rare) I guess.

[JesusRocks]

Maybe the reason the white man came to colonize Africa is because centuries before, Africans had supposedly came from Africa to colonize Europe?

[Sewer Socialist]

Assuming the same forces installed the alternate social groups, I don't see why anything would be different. I think the book Guns, Germs, and Steel has many reasons for European dominance of the world, though it's been a while since I've read it. Native plants and animals were favorable to economic development, a good climate for agriculture led to a strong economic base which was also able to develop and produce in turn technologies for travel and warfare, which was exploited by quickly expanding economies looking for cheap material and labor.

Is reproductive labor inherently subservient to productive labor? I haven't really considered that before but it seems like a possible explanation.

[Redistribute the Rep]

Women were be subjugated sexually to provide a steady line of heirs in propertied societies. Paternity is disputable in children of non monogamous women so that would just make it difficult to maintain property relationships across generations. In capitalism, women must fulfill their sexual role of producing new workers to exploit and they must raise. Thus they do most of the unpaid labor.

As for whites, they were just the first to dominate the world colonially. Asia was once the front runner but the Mongol invasions allowed the power to shift to europe.

[Tim Cornelis]

Maybe the reason the white man came to colonize Africa is because centuries before, Africans had supposedly came from Africa to colonize Europe?

What do you mean?

[StromboliFucker666]

White people: they advanced faster. Pair that with imperialism and you can see why. Asia was ahead of Europe at one point but a number of contributing factors slowed their progress and allowed Europe to gain the advantage.

Men: I'm not sure.


No one can give you a for sure answer, but the answer would likely be a yes. Whenever one race has power over another, it is oppression for the other race. Same thing with gender.

[StromboliFucker666]

Maybe the reason the white man came to colonize Africa is because centuries before, Africans had supposedly came from Africa to colonize Europe?
Proof?

[JesusRocks]

What do you mean?

Its a universally accepted idea that modern man came from Africa to Europe, maybe then, over time as they started to evolve into two different subspecies, the Black man evolved, while the White man, being newer and having not yet colonized or conquered much beyond their own small kingdoms, saw and sought opportunity in Africa.

[RedWorker]

Men: with physical strength they became the warriors (that would become the premodern aristocracy) and allowed for more labour productivity (slaves), women became dependent on men.

Why/how did women become dependent on warriors? How did physical strength translate into actual social rule? Why did "women's advantages" (if men have the advantage of physical strength women must have some advantages too) not counter this out?

More importantly, is this confirmed as the definite reason men became socially dominant? Can we know for sure that it is physical differences that were responsible for this social rule? It seems easy to explain the social role of any group by the fact that group had X and the other group didn't have it, but can we know for sure that it was based on that?

[willowtooth]

the book Guns, Germs, and Steel

I hate that book so much, for so many reasons

[Aurorus Ruber]

I hate that book so much, for so many reasons

What are some of those reasons?

[Sewer Socialist]

Women were be subjugated sexually to provide a steady line of heirs in propertied societies. Paternity is disputable in children of non monogamous women so that would just make it difficult to maintain property relationships across generations. In capitalism, women must fulfill their sexual role of producing new workers to exploit and they must raise. Thus they do most of the unpaid labor.

I don't see how the enforcement of monogamous relationships could be anything other than an expression of patriarchy; an expression of an already existing contradiction. The enforcement of monogamy and paternal heritage is the reproduction of the patriarchal order. In other words, the enforcing of patriarchy can not be the origin of patriarchy, because that would be circular logic; but the reproduction and defense of an already existing social order.

I'm thinking that the division of labor into reproductive and productive labor in economic relations may be the origin of this?


I hate that book so much, for so many reasons

There are probably many good critiques of that book which could be made, but again, I read it when I was much younger. Do I accurately remember the books position with regards to white / European supremacy, and is your criticism related to the analysis of those origins?

[Rafiq]

There was no linear trajectory line that allowed for "whites" to dominate the world. The historic processes that led to the domination of Europe had no concern whatsoever for "whites".

As Hegel noted, geist favors temperate climates. What he might have forgot to specify is that geist favors the Mediterranean. The Neolithic didn't begin in Europe, it began along the fertile crescent. The reason the Mediterranean was the site of rapid historical development is, of course, because it was this region which allowed for the most cross-pollination between various different civilizations as a result of the establishment of overstretching trade routes, etc.

For most of human history (that is, the history of civilization), "whites" were a barbarous peoples with no civilization whatsoever. The Greeks would speak as low of them as they would the primitive peoples in sub-Saharan Africa, and in qualifying learned slaves, the Romans would turn to Greeks: Germanics, Gauls and Northern Europeans in general were seen as being only good for manual labor, much like how the Arabs would view the sub-Saharan blacks (unlike the West Africans, whom they held some degree of respect).

Of course, that is not to say Sub-Saharan Africa was without any predisposition to history. The Neolithic spread to Central and Sub-Saharan Africa around 1,000 B.C. during the Bantu expansion: There were clear, visible predispositions to historic development in these regions, with the rise of localized chiefdoms, etc. It should be noted that unlike Northern Europe and Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa did not receive much contact with the world's civilizations due to the Sahara desert serving as a natural barrier. Why agriculture was developed so late can be explained for this reason.

History simply does not conform to the imaginations of racists. During early-mid feudalism, Europe was hardly "superior" to the middle east or East Asia, while there were clear predispositions to greatness in Europe, none of them can be explained by any essential (biological, etc.) characteristics. The significance of "whiteness", plainly put, did not proceed the Atlantic slave trade. While some can try to argue that "Caucasians" developed the first civilizations, they would have to explain Egypt and Nubia, after which they would have to come into terms that the broad generalization of the superiority of "Caucasians" does not conform to present day racist discourses. Semitic peoples, South Asians, and for the better part of modernity Slavs hardly qualified as "white" in their minds - to this day they claim that at least the first two (Excluding European Jews of course) are genetically "less intelligent" than Europeans.

[Redistribute the Rep]

stuff

Sorry, Rafiq thanked the post so I must be right.

[Rafiq]

Why/how did women become dependent on warriors? How did physical strength translate into actual social rule? Why did "women's advantages" (if men have the advantage of physical strength women must have some advantages too) not counter this out?


Physical strength was only one of the reasons. As RtR pointed out:


Women were be subjugated sexually to provide a steady line of heirs in propertied societies. Paternity is disputable in children of non monogamous women so that would just make it difficult to maintain property relationships across generations.


Maternity, unlike paternity, is not disputable. With the advent of private property, caste systems, etc. it became necessary to reproduce classes through indisputable paternal lines. For example, if a women's child was disputed, then who knows whether her son would be enslaved or a master. In addition, following the division of labor, we might guess that women were the first to be enslaved, even before complex systems of private property, in order to regulate agricultural production as toilers on the field, while men - who served as warriors - might administer this, or simply serve as warriors. What many people fail to understand is that there was nothing spontaneous about this process. It was highly ritualized, highly regulated, etc. - subservient the process of production. The first religions, for example, facilitated this.

Before this, it is not that women had "advantages" which counteracted their natural predisposition to subservience, it is simply that there was no reason for this logic of domination to enter into the minds of people. In general however, regardless of physical strength, in most cases there was already a division of labor among the sexes: Men hunted and women gathered. It would be erroneous to conceive this as a "natural" state, for after all - man has no natural state. Rather it was a necessary means of sorting out who did what work, and sexuality, with clear ramifications (i.e. pregnancy) was enough of a good indicator.

[Antiochus]

Whites: happened to be one of the first to develop agriculture, and happened to be the first to develop agricultural commerce and capitalism, therefore colonialism.


Mhh, this isn't true whatsover. I usually agree with the things you say but this is patently false.

The Neolithic 'revolution' had numerous nuclei, meaning sources of origin. It is no longer thought that agriculture developed 'in one area' and then simply radiated out. But while there were multiple nuclei, none of them were in Europe. There was one in the Fertile Crescent, the most well known one (modern day Iraq roughly), another in the Nile Valley that radiated out to Egypt and Punt. There was also the development of agriculture in the Yellow River and India etc...

Europeans 'discovered' agriculture from neolithic migrants; whose DNA is attested in modern Europe today. The haplogroup J2 and E1b1b (both are from the Middle East and NE Africa respectively) are found throughout Europe, at relatively low levels (>5%), but they are far more common in the entry point to Europe, the Balkans (50%+ of Greeks males carry them).

But in order to analyze the development of people, it is first necessary to look at their geographic location. It is no coincidence that all of the original Ancient civilizations (Egypt, the proto-Dynastic Chinese, the Harappan in India and Sumerians in Iraq) were alluvial cultures that benefited from the particularly fertile soil near the riverbanks, which in turn allowed less people to produce more food; leading to job specialization and subsequent hierarchical structures.

The question posted by the OP was why "White men became powerful" or whatever. Europe never particularly had 'power'. It is a small continent with poor agriculture (generally speaking). The greatest of 'European' states, the Macedonian dynasties of he Diadochi and more famously, the Roman state, still paled on the global scale to the Han Dynasty for example in terms of sheer productivity and raw military power. What allowed 'whites' to become powerful in the modern age was a confluence of factors: The small and fractured nature of Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire lead to cyclical periods of intense war that naturally lended itself to military innovation, even so, the average European army in the 15th century was not more advanced than say the Timurids or the Ottomans. I think the key factor was the fact that European states formed national identities much quicker than other states, where it was simply not possible. The Ottoman Empire chocked any sort of 'Arab' state, further to the East, the Safavids did the same with the various 'nationalities'. By comparison, the Moroccans developed a strong national identity and they were able to very successfully resist European encroachment; they even killed the King of Portugal in battle in 1578 if I remember correct.

And off course, power builds on power. Everything that exists exists because it was built upon a pre-existing model. Once Europeans dominated world affairs by the 17th century, they were in a position to keep on doing it. Had the Qing dynasty in China not been so idiotically inward looking (again, the military technology of China in say 1600 was NOT behind that of Spain, Europe's strongest power), things might have been differently.

It is interesting to note, this was (at least in the beginning) a purely organizational and military advantage that Europeans had. China was still the world's leading manufacturer, receiving thousands of tons of Spanish silver for its goods, which were superior to European ones.


Sub-Saharan Africa did not receive much contact with the world's civilizations due to the Sahara desert serving as a natural barrier. Why agriculture was developed so late can be explained for this reason.

But what exactly qualifies as "Sub-Saharan Africa"? The Egyptians were originally just immigrants from the Sahara, not really much different, genetically speaking, from the Nilotic tribes in Sudan that racists today deride as living in 'mud huts'. Your statement is correct though that the geographic barrier that was the Sahara isolated some parts of Africa, just like I don't know, Sweden was isolated from world affairs until the 11th century.

Modern history is just the result of a long line of unrelated and almost comical events coalescing together. The Chinese for example, were still using chariots in warfare in the 3rd century B.C (discontinued by most people, except the Celts). But they also had crossbows with draw-weights that would be unmatched in Europe until the 14th century A.D. I think its quite humbling to think that all humans living today are the descendants of some hairy ape-like woman living in a cave in Africa 100,000+ years ago eating lice off her back.

Sorry about the long post.

PS: 8,000 years ago all humans in Europe would have been fairly dark, the gene that conferred 'light' skin was only selected for after agriculture was introduced into Europe (so 6,000 B.C or so).

[Rafiq]

But what exactly qualifies as "Sub-Saharan Africa"? The Egyptians were originally just immigrants from the Sahara, not really much different, genetically speaking, from the Nilotic tribes in Sudan that racists today deride as living in 'mud huts'. Your statement is correct though that the geographic barrier that was the Sahara isolated some parts of Africa, just like I don't know, Sweden was isolated from world affairs until the 11th century.
.

Well, to specify, I quite literally mean the regions bellow the Sahara desert. Sweden might have been isolated from world affairs, but it certainly wasn't isolated from the impact, or influence of historic processes that were not organic to Sweden alone. The Neolithic was spread to Sweden externally, not to mention Christian missionaries in the 9th century, etc.

Conversely, the Bantu expansion, and the "traditional" African neolithic developed independently of influences from neighboring states.

[Antiochus]

Right, but that is the thing, the Sahara, while a formidable barrier was never a prohibitive one. One of the oldest trade missions we know of was to Punt (Ethiopia) by the Egyptians. And off course the Sahara has changed in size quite a bit within human history. But generally speaking, I suppose you could say they were cut off from 'historical' processes or at least, retarded to them.

[BIXX]

Whites: happened to be one of the first to develop agriculture

To be fair I am under the impression this is terribly untrue, unless by "one of the first" you mean when white folks really got into the fold of civilization.

[Bala Perdida]

I'm not sure about the rest of you, but anyone care to give some insight on the people living on the other side of the world. Specifically, I guess, how male dominance was still prevalent in the pre-americas. Their demise is obvious though, plague and genocide.

[Antiochus]

I'm not sure about the rest of you, but anyone care to give some insight on the people living on the other side of the world. Specifically, I guess, how male dominance was still prevalent in the pre-americas. Their demise is obvious though, plague and genocide.

There were 2 main zones of societal development in the Americas: 1) The Mexican plateau and to its south the jungles of Central America; 2) The Peruvian highlands.

Its interesting to note that Mayan society, despite being separated by thousands of miles and thousands of years, was organized virtually identically to say Sumeria. The key difference with the Americas is that the continent is on a 'y' axis, as opposed to Eurasia, which is on a horizontal axis. This is important because the geography of the continent made it very difficult for long range trade, movement of ideas and so forth. So while Peru was not very far from Central America, the contact between the two was almost non-existent.

Women would have still suffered from the same feudal restrictions they did in Europe. In the Aztec Empire land was organized and owned by the nobility, the 'empire' was in theory just an alliance of subservient states. The closest thing I can think of that resembles the organization of the military aspect of Aztec society is in the Gallic nobility of the 2nd century B.C; namely nobles with peasant levies.

[Tim Cornelis]

Its a universally accepted idea that modern man came from Africa to Europe, maybe then, over time as they started to evolve into two different subspecies, the Black man evolved, while the White man, being newer and having not yet colonized or conquered much beyond their own small kingdoms, saw and sought opportunity in Africa.

Uhu. But maybe we should take our evidence from anthropology and research and not random weird thoughts. And that research also says there's no extant subspecies. Homo sapiens neanderthalis and homo sapiens sapiens are subspecies of our species homo sapiens. 'black' and 'white' are (socially constructed) races within that subspecies.

[Lord Testicles]

Whites: happened to be one of the first to develop agriculture

I thought that agriculture was first developed in the fertile crescent...

[Tim Cornelis]

One of the first. Not the first.

[Hit The North]

Men: with physical strength they became the warriors (that would become the premodern aristocracy) and allowed for more labour productivity (slaves), women became dependent on men.


But, of course, not all men became warriors or went on to form an aristocracy. Male slaves, for instance, or male feudal peasants were not higher than female members of the aristocracy. Moreover, as we know, patriarchy is fundamentally, but not exclusively, a property relation between the genders and certainly an important part of the transmission of property between generations and families who have access to property. Slaves, by definition, do not have property, have usually not had legal access to marry and any offspring as a result of sexual activity between slaves have become the property of the slave-owner (many of whom, in many slave-based societies, were women).

Whilst it is probably true that within each strata of society men were formally higher than women (although this is not clear among populations of slaves), there are huge problems in discussing this separate from social class.

[Cliff Paul]

One of the first. Not the first.

That doesn't really explain why Europe would become more technologically advanced than the rest of the world though. Througout most of the middle ages, the middle east was clearly superior to the west in terms of technology (although perhaps less advanced than the Italian city-states but they were sort of an outlier). Hell, after the fall of Constantinople, Europe was terrified that it would soon be conquered.

It's true that Europeans developed capitalism before the rest of the world, the merchant republics in Flanders and northern Italy were probably the first capitalist societies. The various revolts of the Populani in Florence which started in the 14th century were probably the first instances of an uprising that had some roots in the proletariat.

Anyways, probably one of the biggest reasons that Western Europe became so dominant later on was the black death. The massive loss of peasant man-power paved the way for technological improvements in agriculture, the increased bargaining power of peasants and workers (which led to a massive decline in the policy of serfdom), and such.

[Antiochus]

You do realize, genetically speaking, 'Whites' and 'Blacks' are closer to each other than say Blacks are to the Aboriginals of Australia (who are called 'Blacks')? (Directed towards JesusRocks). The distinction between the 'races' isn't defined by any sort of genetic difference. It isn't defined by physiological differences in the body either, the bone structure of an Oromo is very similar to that of 'whites' despite not being particularly related.

[willowtooth]

What are some of those reasons?

the book helped revive the racist theory of environmental determinism, a 19th century philosophy, the book basically says white people are the best people on earth and here's why. It uses the term Eurasia loosely and basically gives credit to western europe for every technological advance from tokyo too timbuktu. makes claims about 100 europeans wiping out 100,000 natives and claims it was because of there "advanced technology", and leaves out the tribes that were allied with europeans, it leaves out the whitewashing of history, and how many civilization were wiped out and nobody knows much about their technology or even their actual size. we have i think one drawing of a native of Easter Island drawn by a european.

and alot of other reasons basically fuck jared diamond

Jared Diamond is back at it, once again trading in the familiar determinist tropes that earned him a Pulitzer Prize for his 1999 book Guns, Germs and Steel. That dull book was chockfull of the bad and the worse, the random and the racist. At best it is just silly, as when he offers unsupported, and unsupportable, assertions such as his get-off-my-lawn grouse that children today are not as smart as in the recent past and television is to blame. At worst, it develops an argument about human inequality based on a determinist logic that reduces social relations such as poverty, state violence, and persistent social domination, to inexorable outcomes of geography and environment.

Arguments such as these have made him a darling of bourgeois intellectuals, who have grown tired of looking meanspirited and self-serving when they make their transparently desperate efforts to displace histories of imperialism back on its victims. They need a pseudointellectual explanation for inequality in order to sustain the bourgeois social order that guarantees their privilege. This they found in Guns, Germs and Steel.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10455752.2013.846490#.Vbdg3PlViko
http://www.livinganthropologically.com/anthropology/guns-germs-and-steel/

[Troika]

Why/how did women become dependent on warriors? How did physical strength translate into actual social rule? Why did "women's advantages" (if men have the advantage of physical strength women must have some advantages too) not counter this out?

More importantly, is this confirmed as the definite reason men became socially dominant? Can we know for sure that it is physical differences that were responsible for this social rule? It seems easy to explain the social role of any group by the fact that group had X and the other group didn't have it, but can we know for sure that it was based on that?

It had more to do with child-bearing and how society was organized. Engels points out that human society was largely matriarchal before monogamy came into vogue. Before monogamy no one really knew whose baby was whose so women decided lines of succession. Further, women controlled religion back in the day, and as recently as the middle ages in Europe, women were the healers. Foucault tells us that it was the witch hunts that turned things around in that regard. Academic men supplanted women in the role of healer, thus doctors were born.

I don't think it really had much to do with physical strength at all. Strength and power are usually associated with men in our culture because of male dominance. Male dominance came about because of social reordering thousands of years ago.

Men often have the benefit of stronger bodies, but not always. Women did not always tend the hearth and men were not always warriors. Societies differed in gender roles. Some societies had/have more than two genders.