[whataretheysaying] Mary Madigan: Rousseau was wrong..

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Posted by Mary Madigan:
Rousseau was wrong..
http://whataretheysaying.powerblogs.com/posts/1170172973.shtml


   Okay, it's not really news, but hopefully [1]this will put a dent in
   the armour of Polically Correct anthropological revisionism:

     Nicholas Wade is a science writer for the New York Times, who used
     to be as Politically Correct as anyone in that mob on 42nd Street.
     No longer. Wade has discovered the new anthropology, now informed
     by a radically improved understanding of the human genome. The new
     evidence is clearly explained in his recent book, [2]Before the
     Dawn: Recovering the lost history of our ancestors. It looks at the
     deep human past --- tens to hundreds of thousands of years ---
     combining written records, archeology, anthropology and the human
     genome. The result is spectacular. If this book is any indication,
     Politically Correct history is a goner. Rousseau's Noble Savage is
     French toast.

     Wade presents compelling evidence that humans appear to be
     genetically predisposed to warfare. Among ancient hunter-gatherers,
     "incessant warfare" was the norm, just as it is today among the
     Stone Age tribes of New Guinea and South America. Humans have a
     long history of cannibalism, so much that we carry genes to guard
     against the toxic consequences of eating human flesh (similar to
     Mad Cow prion disease). Modern humans are less aggressive than our
     ancestors were. The very fact that we can live in mass societies at
     reasonable peace with each other is an extraordinary advance...

     ...Anthropologists have become famous by writing that cannibalism
     was just a slanderous lie invented by the West. It all fit the
     neo-racist myth of the White Man's Guilt --- as at Duke University.
     Such people peddle the myths of the peaceful Hopis and Bushmen, the
     Gandhi-esque Hindus, Buddhists and Sufis, and all the morally
     superior non-White cultures. (They somehow forget that Gandhi's
     independence movement led straight to four million ethnic killings
     during the Partition of 1948)....

     Acknowledging human violence is not the same as excusing it. Just
     the opposite --- precisely because we have the capacity to destroy,
     we must be taught to act morally. That is the basic view of Western
     Civilization going back to the Code of Hammurabi. Civilized armed
     forces like the United States insist on high levels of restraint in
     their warfighters, even in the face of direct personal danger. But
     the civilized world is constantly faced with aggressive enemies
     willing to kill and die for some bizarre cause, from the heavenly
     glory of the Emperor to some Mullah's weird obsession with hanging
     sixteen year old girls who fall in love. Not to mention yet another
     Marxist scam to create a perfectly egalitarian paradise on earth,
     as is underway in Venezuela today.

     One of the oddities of the Left is its constant sabotage of
     defensive warfare, even when the facts are as plain as the assault
     on the Twin Towers on 9/11. Today Europe is going through yet
     another revisionist version of its own bloody history, trying to
     deny the undeniable facts of the 20th century. Big German media
     like Stern and Der Spiegel loudly equate the American overthrow of
     Saddam Hussein with the war against Hitler. That version of history
     involves not just one but two Big Lies -- One, that Saddam was an
     innocent victim of American aggression; and Two, that Hitler was,
     too. It's too weird for words. Let's hope they get over it -
     because if they don't, they could be setting the stage for yet
     another imperial adventure...

   Or, as LibHawk Epa said, "we must recognize that Cambodia , Srebenice
   and Rwanda are the signposts of what cannot be changed in the human
   character. THIS war is alive today, and has never left us, and
   apparently NEVER will. We will never eliminate this force."

References

   1. http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/01/the_noble_savage_is_french_toa.html
   2. http://www.amazon.com/Before-Dawn-Recovering-History-Ancestors/dp/014303832X/sr=8-1/qid=1169175743/ref=sr_1_1/104-1032206-4548736?ie=UTF8&s=books