Accepted Kinds of Racism
I am a regular reader of 'British Archaeology' (Which I am happy to have access to, because it is free online).
Now there is a paper on evolutionary psychology .
They say: 100 thousand years ago people began to use red ochre for the sake of bla-bla-bla. The reason is: because Bushmen still do use it for the sake of bla-bla-bla.
I am not unfamiliar with that kind of reasoning (using Bushmen or Native Australians as illustation for the supposed 'archaic' state of humanity). For me, it is highly embarrassing. Well, in Russia, many scholars practise such logic and find it totally acceptable. Yet I did not know it was acceptable in the West.
Of course, there was criticism of this paper . But the very fact that it appeared in 'Britarch' as recently as 15 years ago, shows that some patterns of thinking, inherited from the 18th century, are still acceptable in the academic community.
Stating that Bushmen do this because Paleolithic peoples did it implies that Bushmen are left unchanged throughout 100 thousand years. What evidence do we have? We have only observed Bushmen for 200 years at best.
Why do we believe that some cultures are more 'archaic' than others? (In the context of suchlike papers, 'archaic' creeps dangerously close to 'ape-like'). Why are Bushmen to stand for the 'more archaic' stage? Just because they are brown and naked, I am afraid. We presume that history is what Europeans (or, at best, Japanese) only have, and all the other peoples are live fossils of primitive savages.
Today, we would frown at Joseph de Maistre's idea that Bushmen and suchlike are just the degraded descendants of peoples who were once civilized. But the idea that they represent archaic stages of our history is still fully acceptable. Is it better supported by evidence than that of de Maistre's? No, it is not. It is just seen as more PC - while, in fact, it is not. It is just more hypocritically racial (de Maistre, at least, did not deny these peoples history).
Now there is a paper on evolutionary psychology .
They say: 100 thousand years ago people began to use red ochre for the sake of bla-bla-bla. The reason is: because Bushmen still do use it for the sake of bla-bla-bla.
I am not unfamiliar with that kind of reasoning (using Bushmen or Native Australians as illustation for the supposed 'archaic' state of humanity). For me, it is highly embarrassing. Well, in Russia, many scholars practise such logic and find it totally acceptable. Yet I did not know it was acceptable in the West.
Of course, there was criticism of this paper . But the very fact that it appeared in 'Britarch' as recently as 15 years ago, shows that some patterns of thinking, inherited from the 18th century, are still acceptable in the academic community.
Stating that Bushmen do this because Paleolithic peoples did it implies that Bushmen are left unchanged throughout 100 thousand years. What evidence do we have? We have only observed Bushmen for 200 years at best.
Why do we believe that some cultures are more 'archaic' than others? (In the context of suchlike papers, 'archaic' creeps dangerously close to 'ape-like'). Why are Bushmen to stand for the 'more archaic' stage? Just because they are brown and naked, I am afraid. We presume that history is what Europeans (or, at best, Japanese) only have, and all the other peoples are live fossils of primitive savages.
Today, we would frown at Joseph de Maistre's idea that Bushmen and suchlike are just the degraded descendants of peoples who were once civilized. But the idea that they represent archaic stages of our history is still fully acceptable. Is it better supported by evidence than that of de Maistre's? No, it is not. It is just seen as more PC - while, in fact, it is not. It is just more hypocritically racial (de Maistre, at least, did not deny these peoples history).