Yeah, one of the smartest people I know, whose opinion I generally respect,
didn't like the book.
I liked it overall, although I didn't agree with all the author's
conclusions. What I like about Diamond is that he's actually hung out with
members of existing tribes, lived among the people as a friend rather than
staying aloof and studying them. True, this might result in some loss of
objectivity, but I think it gives a person a much better opportunity to
begin to understand tribal life. (Diamond does make the statement, by the
way, that murder is a far more common cause of death among tribal people
than among civilized people)
One problem with making a generalized statement about tribes is that, you
know, there are tribes, and then there are tribes. It's like trying to
generalize about "all men" and "all women."
Bonnie
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-extropians@extropy.com
> [mailto:owner-extropians@extropy.com]On Behalf Of GBurch1@aol.com
>
> I haven't read Diamond's book -- it's gotten strong pro and con
> reviews from
> people I respect, which means I ought to read it, I suppose. Put another
> round in the clip!
>
> On the face of your desciption of his definition of "tribal"
> leadership, I
> have some fairly deep doubts about it's empirical validity. More comment
> from me will have to await my reading of his book.
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 14:14:26 MDT