Population Density
Aug. 31st, 2005 07:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebWarning: rambling entry.
One of Jared Diamond's big themes is that people need to keep their populations from growing out of control. He mentions many forms of population control practiced by successful societies. I can stomach only one of them: birth control. And some societies can make even that method difficult to stomach. Other favorites include infanticide and war. He also mentions suicide.
While I understand the math of this argument, it's difficult to really understand it. When I think of growing population density in my own city, I think there are both advantages and disadvantages. Traffic and parking get worse, but you get more things to do.
And I'm finding it more and more difficult to listen to Diamond's theorizing on this topic. For example, when I visited Chaco Canyon, I was told that in times of drought the Anasazi practiced infanticide, because you can always make more babies later. They also killed older people, because they've lived long lives already and can no longer make more babies. Diamond does not mention this--it's a behavior that would keep their culture from collapsing. He emphasizes a big drought in conjunction with their having ruined much of their land.
When I was surfing the web to confirm the targeted killings, I found that some local Navajo and Pueblo legends refer to Chaco Canyon as a place of almost unspeakable evil. Because the residents practiced cannibalism. And that the Aztecs were destroyed partly because their cannibalism so disgusted other tribes that they readily allied themselves with the Spaniards against the Aztecs. I don't know. It sounds like yet another one-factor social science theory to me.
Still, there's enough detail in Diamond's book to make me believe that all kinds of cultures have gotten caught up in fighting, killing, and torture. I mean there's a story about Vikings in Greenland who thought nothing of bringing their axes to church. And using them in there! Between other people's shoulder blades.
I fear the norm for humans might be closer to modern ghetto violence than to my cushy ivory-tower life. The whole thing is terribly unsettling. I'm glad to know that under some circumstances anyway, members of my species can build subcultures where so much violence is unthinkable. And I'm so glad to be lucky enough to be a part of one of those subcultures.
One of Jared Diamond's big themes is that people need to keep their populations from growing out of control. He mentions many forms of population control practiced by successful societies. I can stomach only one of them: birth control. And some societies can make even that method difficult to stomach. Other favorites include infanticide and war. He also mentions suicide.
While I understand the math of this argument, it's difficult to really understand it. When I think of growing population density in my own city, I think there are both advantages and disadvantages. Traffic and parking get worse, but you get more things to do.
And I'm finding it more and more difficult to listen to Diamond's theorizing on this topic. For example, when I visited Chaco Canyon, I was told that in times of drought the Anasazi practiced infanticide, because you can always make more babies later. They also killed older people, because they've lived long lives already and can no longer make more babies. Diamond does not mention this--it's a behavior that would keep their culture from collapsing. He emphasizes a big drought in conjunction with their having ruined much of their land.
When I was surfing the web to confirm the targeted killings, I found that some local Navajo and Pueblo legends refer to Chaco Canyon as a place of almost unspeakable evil. Because the residents practiced cannibalism. And that the Aztecs were destroyed partly because their cannibalism so disgusted other tribes that they readily allied themselves with the Spaniards against the Aztecs. I don't know. It sounds like yet another one-factor social science theory to me.
Still, there's enough detail in Diamond's book to make me believe that all kinds of cultures have gotten caught up in fighting, killing, and torture. I mean there's a story about Vikings in Greenland who thought nothing of bringing their axes to church. And using them in there! Between other people's shoulder blades.
I fear the norm for humans might be closer to modern ghetto violence than to my cushy ivory-tower life. The whole thing is terribly unsettling. I'm glad to know that under some circumstances anyway, members of my species can build subcultures where so much violence is unthinkable. And I'm so glad to be lucky enough to be a part of one of those subcultures.