Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel is obviously a very thorough and important historiographical account of human history, but reading it, I felt that Diamond was missing a fourth element in his conquering formula: the issue of religion. Diamond touches on this a little in the text, but I feel it is an aspect of conquering societies that is as potent if not more so than guns, germs, and steel. I feel funny bringing this up because this doesn't seem to be on the topic of the class, but it was my main takeaway from the book.
I will use the Native Americans and Europeans as my example, since it is the one I am the most versed in, but there are other examples of the issue of religion playing an important role in the conquest of one society by another, most notably in the Fertile Crescent.
My main point is the difference between the faith of the Native Americans, a polytheistic, more spiritual approach with a feature of a sort of modesty with respect to humanity's role in the environment, and the faith of the Europeans, which I would describe as an aggressive monotheism with a more egocentric view of humanity as the "chosen ones" and viewing other faiths as being destined for eternal damnation. This is grossly simplified, but I believe that the faith of the Europeans was instrumental in their conquering of the Native Americans because, in keeping with the concept of Manifest Destiny, they saw it as their god given duty.
There is a reason why some of the most important parts of the army during these days of conquest were the missionaries, and seeing the spread of the same type of aggressive monotheism all over the world to the point that it has I think is a demonstration of how important the issue of religion is in the context of human history.
Will, I think that this is a very interesting point that you bring up, although it never really occurred to me to think about the role of religion as I was reading this book. However, I took a class called New World Encounters last year where we analyzed the conquest of Latin America by the Spaniards, and we did spend a lot of time focusing on the role of religion in the interactions between Aztecs and Spaniards. However, Im not sure if I agree with your argument that the Native American's religion made them less likely to conquerer other populations. For example, before the Spaniards came, the Aztecs spent a lot of time conquering other Native American tribes and enslaving them and forcing them to assimilate to the Aztec's religion. Also, I am skeptical of whether or not Europeans conquered because they thought it was their god given duty, or if they came up with that religious justification after the fact. However, I agree with your overall point that religion is an important factor to look at in the context of human history.
ReplyDeleteDiamond shows readers what he means by comparing world history to an onion, by peeling layers of it back-- and showing that deeper and broader levels of inquiry than what is conventionally achieved are needed to understand lessons from our past. For instance, he wrote that it isn't enough to answer that scientific inquiry didn't blossom in China because Confucianism. He argues that instead, one would have to also factor in that Confucian China was more technologically advanced than western Eurasia for centuries, and also question why the Judeo-Christian mindset did not develop in China.
ReplyDeleteI was reminded of "The Starting Gate", in how Diamond highlights that historical inequalities "cast long shadows" on the modern world. He acknowledges in the beginning pages of the book how complex the problem of how human societies developed differently would be to unpack. I was thus wary about how he would proceed to engage the complex topic of different cultural philosophies and religions. The thought also occurred to me afterwards that religion was an important topic that he did not address as thoroughly as he did others. One significant consideration could be that certain religions denounce aggression, while in others, belligerence seems to be more acceptable-- the Crusades easily come to mind. How pervasive these religions were in their respective societies would also be significant.