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I've developed a distaste for debates over the years. Partly it's because I have a bad temper and tend to get agitated very easily when arguing with people, but it's also because I've found that it's next to impossible to change anyone's minds on an issue through debate. This is especially true if they're emotionally invested in their position.
On the other hand, there have been plenty of times when I wish I could get Eurocentrics to shut up. In many circles, you can hardly describe ancient Egyptian civilization as African without some arrogant ignoramus either picking a fight with you or copy-pasting that idiotic "WE WUZ KANGZ" meme to mock you. These cretins are everywhere.
To give you an example, I've made a lot of mods for computer games like Age of Mythology, Rise of Nations, and the Civilization and Total War series, all of which modify the appearance of these games' ancient Egyptian characters to look more African. Sometimes it involves changing the models' textures so that they have darker skin, whereas other times I can simply swap body meshes by editing certain textual files. Of course, like most modders with any pride in their work, I like to upload my mods online or on Steam where other people can download them.
The problem is that there is an enormous "alternative right" subculture in the gaming community right now. Granted, there have always been reactionary individuals playing computer games, but I believe the GamerGate drama back in 2014 attracted even more opportunistic alt-right trolls to gamer circles, and they've been infesting those circles ever since. They're particularly influential on the Steam community hubs. This means every time I post one of my mods on Steam, the alt-righters are drawn to it like flies to carrion, turning the mod's comments section into a racist "WE WUZ KANGZ" echo chamber.
And to make things worse, while you can delete individual comments on Steam mods, AFAIK you can't disable comments entirely like you can on a Youtube video. However, users can downvote your mods and therefore drive down its user rating. That means that, no matter how hard I might work on a mod, its user rating is guaranteed to sink low simply due to tenacious racist trolls.
I suppose I could decide not to share my mods on Steam or other places, but I see that as a potential disservice to the few users who might be sympathetic to what I'm trying to accomplish. Additionally, I'm quite passionate about publicly presenting a counter-narrative to the Eurocentric misrepresentations of AE that I see in games and most other media.
My current policy is to simply ignore the trolls on Steam and similar places. Deleting their comments will make me look censorious, and I don't believe these racists will ever change their minds if I try confronting them with debate. On the other hand, I really wish they would just shut up and run back to 4chan/8chan/whatever online shithole is their preferred safe space. Someone has to stand up to them, somehow. I just don't think it's me.
quote:Originally posted by Tyrannohotep: I've developed a distaste for debates over the years. Partly it's because I have a bad temper and tend to get agitated very easily when arguing with people, but it's also because I've found that it's next to impossible to change anyone's minds on an issue through debate. This is especially true if they're emotionally invested in their position.
The story of my life, lol. Notice also that most of the time we're debating people, all we're doing is educating them, at this point. Nothing wrong with that if you enjoy taking ideologues to school sometimes. But it's good to be aware of that. You just might end up creating a monster. Even though you upgrade their arguments every time you thrash them, they will presume to lecture you and pretend you are evenly matched.
Plus, I've learned that as you get better at this, you have to start acting like it. More responsibility. Have to carry yourself a certain way. Can't go around taking troll bait every time.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: The story of my life, lol. Notice also that most of the time we're debating people, all we're doing is educating them, at this point. Nothing wrong with that if you enjoy taking ideologues to school sometimes. But it's good to be aware of that. You just might end up creating a monster. Even though you upgrade their arguments every time you thrash them, they will presume to lecture you and pretend you are evenly matched.
Plus, I've learned that as you get better at this, you have to start acting like it. More responsibility. Have to carry yourself a certain way. Can't go around taking troll bait every time.
Good point. Comments panels like you find on Steam or Youtube aren't the best place to have in-depth discussions on anything, anyway.
That said, the most frustrating debate opponents I've encountered on the issue were not the alt-right racist nutjobs. Not even the ones who pretend to be anthropologists or geneticists on forums like ABF. Instead, it would be the ostensibly liberal ones who nonetheless assert and defend the "status quo" view of AE. These ones don't see themselves as anti-African (many of them will acknowledge complex societies in various regions of sub-Sahara and Sudan), but for some unfathomable reason, they can't be talked out of the "Northern Africa = Arabs" conditioning they've grown up with. Some of the more scientifically minded ones might simply assume that the "status quo" portrayal represents an educated consensus on the issue, but I suspect others might be the sort of white liberals who don't realize their own prejudicial blind spots.
I guess that, if I found myself having to educate people like them at all today, I would simply quote Keita and Boyce's classic summarization of the physical anthropological evidence on early AE:
quote:Studies of crania from southern predynastic Egypt, from the formative period (4000-3100 B.C.), show them usually to be more similar to the crania of ancient Nubians, Kushites, Saharans, or modern groups from the Horn of Africa than to those of dynastic northern Egyptians or ancient or modern southern Europeans.
Those dudes together have more credentials than Hawass and most orthodox Egyptologists, since they're actual biological anthropologists who have examined the evidence firsthand. Quoting them should prompt any smug liberal into rethinking their belief that uniformly Arab-looking AE is an informed consensus.
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No, in the new world of digital, content is king. I have my own business and for certain reasons I have had to take off my adblocker, the amount of ads on this site is incredible. This is a revenue generating site, and so are other linear forums. If you are good develop your own audience
Podcast, youtube channel, or small digital books, blogs or magazines are the way to go, monetize your own words and knowledge instead of enriching someone else with the back and forth debates.
-------------------- It's not my burden to disabuse the ignorant of their wrong opinions Posts: 2717 | From: New York | Registered: Jun 2015
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^The problem is you can't monetize African history unless you plan on lying to people. I'm pretty sure the hoteps and others can make a living telling followers what they want to hear. But that doesn't work when you're just reporting scientific findings on African history. Most recent case in point being Tyrannohotep's article. It's not marketable to whites, and it's not marketable to African-descended people. But I think you bring up a point that is useful if you know what you're doing. I think I can monetize what I know. It's not difficult. But it won't be via the black history angle.
quote:Originally posted by Tyrannohotep:
quote:Originally posted by Swenet: The story of my life, lol. Notice also that most of the time we're debating people, all we're doing is educating them, at this point. Nothing wrong with that if you enjoy taking ideologues to school sometimes. But it's good to be aware of that. You just might end up creating a monster. Even though you upgrade their arguments every time you thrash them, they will presume to lecture you and pretend you are evenly matched.
Plus, I've learned that as you get better at this, you have to start acting like it. More responsibility. Have to carry yourself a certain way. Can't go around taking troll bait every time.
Good point. Comments panels like you find on Steam or Youtube aren't the best place to have in-depth discussions on anything, anyway.
That said, the most frustrating debate opponents I've encountered on the issue were not the alt-right racist nutjobs. Not even the ones who pretend to be anthropologists or geneticists on forums like ABF. Instead, it would be the ostensibly liberal ones who nonetheless assert and defend the "status quo" view of AE. These ones don't see themselves as anti-African (many of them will acknowledge complex societies in various regions of sub-Sahara and Sudan), but for some unfathomable reason, they can't be talked out of the "Northern Africa = Arabs" conditioning they've grown up with. Some of the more scientifically minded ones might simply assume that the "status quo" portrayal represents an educated consensus on the issue, but I suspect others might be the sort of white liberals who don't realize their own prejudicial blind spots.
I guess that, if I found myself having to educate people like them at all today, I would simply quote Keita and Boyce's classic summarization of the physical anthropological evidence on early AE:
quote:Studies of crania from southern predynastic Egypt, from the formative period (4000-3100 B.C.), show them usually to be more similar to the crania of ancient Nubians, Kushites, Saharans, or modern groups from the Horn of Africa than to those of dynastic northern Egyptians or ancient or modern southern Europeans.
Those dudes together have more credentials than Hawass and most orthodox Egyptologists, since they're actual biological anthropologists who have examined the evidence firsthand. Quoting them should prompt any smug liberal into rethinking their belief that uniformly Arab-looking AE is an informed consensus.
Sounds like my comments don't really apply to what you had in mind. I was talking about people who have vested interests in bioanthrology, and who are only interested in validating their preconceived notions. You know, the standard online experts who can't help revealing they don't know what they're talking about with every post. You seem to be talking about people who only have a casual interest in bioanthropology.
I think I had a case of subconscious tl;dr. I was planning on reading the full OP, but I don't know where I went wrong, lol. My bad. I've just read the full OP and I see what you mean. I think you're fighting an uphill battle. That's a battle you can't win with information.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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^ Personally, if I had to write a book on what I knew about ancient Egypt and so on, I wouldn't limit my marketing to the "Afrocentric" crowd. It'd be like preaching to the choir anyway. I'd rather reach out to a broader, more diverse audience. You can't change what the mainstream knows if you stick to a tiny subculture.
quote:Sounds like my comments don't really apply to what you had in mind. I was talking about people who have vested interests in bioanthrology, and who are only interested in validating their preconceived notions. You know, the standard online experts who can't help revealing they don't know what they're talking about with every post. You seem to be talking about people who only have a casual interest in bioanthropology.
Fair enough. Though unfortunately, even the people with a casual interest sometimes convince themselves they're experts.
quote:On the other hand, there have been plenty of times when I wish I could get Eurocentrics to shut up. In many circles, you can hardly describe ancient Egyptian civilization as African without some arrogant ignoramus either picking a fight with you or copy-pasting that idiotic "WE WUZ KANGZ" meme to mock you. These cretins are everywhere.
All you have to do is show them the following and they will scatter.
quote:I think I had a case of subconscious tl;dr. I was planning on reading the full OP, but I don't know where I went wrong, lol. My bad. I've just read the full OP and I see what you mean. I think you're fighting an uphill battle. That's a battle you can't win with information.
Right. Sometimes you have to step back and realize that there are things about the world you can't change by yourself.
quote:Originally posted by Tyrannohotep: ^ Personally, if I had to write a book on what I knew about ancient Egypt and so on, I wouldn't limit my marketing to the "Afrocentric" crowd. It'd be like preaching to the choir anyway. I'd rather reach out to a broader, more diverse audience. You can't change what the mainstream knows if you stick to a tiny subculture.
I don't think that market you're talking about, exists. Compare the audience of European anthro blogging sites to the audience of pro-African Egypt sites. The former exists and are willing to spend money, the latter don't exist. Yes, we have Egyptsearch. But look at what this site attracts. People who are still reeling from Abusir results they could have seen coming, but refused to listen for the past 3-5 years. And unfortunately for all creatives (this is a timeless problem), we can't speak a new market into existence. It either exists already, or it doesn't exist. If you pour effort into creating something for a market that doesn't exist, you're just wasting precious time. Coming from someone who realizes he has wasted time in his life.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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No need to use a hammer to kill an ant. One does not need some fancy genetic test to distinguish the blacks of Chicago and the whites of Appalachia. And when the cops do an arrest, they very rarely get their racial reports wrong.
If whites can be so easily convinced that persons can change their gender from male to female and vice versa , and that Meghan Markle is black, then there is no way they can deny that the AEs were African black. Remember that seeing is often a sufficient condition for believing.
Posts: 5492 | Registered: Nov 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: I don't think that market you're talking about, exists. Compare the audience of European anthro blogging sites to the audience of pro-African Egypt sites. The former exists and are willing to spend money, the latter don't exist.
I am not sure I totally agree. There's got to be a large number of people out there who've read about the various "whitewashing" controversies somewhere on social media and are genuinely curious about what the facts say. Such individuals can undoubtedly end up vulnerable prey for trolls and opportunistic disseminators of misinformation. But if you can get to them before the troublemakers do and present yourself as more credible than the competition, I would say you've found a viable market.
And to clarify, I'm not talking about the people who've already made up their minds and seek nothing more than validation for their prejudices. I'm talking about people who know next to nothing about AE and want to know what all the fuss over (for example) the recent Nefertiti reconstruction is all about. I would be surprised if there weren't plenty of confused inquiriers like them all over the place.
Don't believe the negative nellies and naysayers, they say no because they have not done sh*t or don't know how. My day job is sales and I live off of commissions so I already have that mindset. I have not worked for the "man" for the past 8 years, and I will never go back. It is all about the numbers. Determine how much you want to make. Is this a side hustle as in a second stream of income? Or do you want it to be your day job? The beautiful thing about copyrighted digital books is they will keep on paying.
YouTube is a suspect platform, basically they have a bunch of creatives working for them as content builders or what we call here in the states freelancers, Google does not have to pay any payroll taxes on any of these people but at least at some point YT'rs that can build an office will get paid something. However they can change policy on a drop of a hat and you can loose all of your revenue generating videos. And there are shark lawyers out there copyrighting original content YT is a battle. Forums are dead ends you will never share profit here.
I could go on and on but I am getting ready to go see Blank Panther!
-------------------- It's not my burden to disabuse the ignorant of their wrong opinions Posts: 2717 | From: New York | Registered: Jun 2015
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: I don't think that market you're talking about, exists. Compare the audience of European anthro blogging sites to the audience of pro-African Egypt sites. The former exists and are willing to spend money, the latter don't exist.
I am not sure I totally agree. There's got to be a large number of people out there who've read about the various "whitewashing" controversies somewhere on social media and are genuinely curious about what the facts say. Such individuals can undoubtedly end up vulnerable prey for trolls and opportunistic disseminators of misinformation. But if you can get to them before the troublemakers do and present yourself as more credible than the competition, I would say you've found a viable market.
And to clarify, I'm not talking about the people who've already made up their minds and seek nothing more than validation for their prejudices. I'm talking about people who know next to nothing about AE and want to know what all the fuss over (for example) the recent Nefertiti reconstruction is all about. I would be surprised if there weren't plenty of confused inquiriers like them all over the place.
Maybe you're right. I could very well be wrong. But I think the Egyptsearch community is a very good reflection of the markets you can cater to as a writer. The Stephen Howes and Mary Lefkowitzes have/had their audience here. The Obengas have their audience here. The Rober Bauvals have their audience here. So where is the audience of people like Keita? Of course, a lot of people will now raise their hands. But their posts say otherwise. For instance Keita doesn't even count typical dynastic Lower Egyptians as tropical Africans, but his "supporters" here will go to great lengths to obscure that. And Keita is not even that far removed from Afrocentrism, compared to what the recent aDNA revelations are saying. So who is interested in opening their wallet for a take on what the recent aDNA revelations are saying about North African genetics? Do you have concrete examples? If that market exists, there should be communities on the web, already looking for that information.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: So who is interested in opening their wallet for a take on what the recent aDNA revelations are saying about North African genetics? Do you have concrete examples? If that market exists, there should be communities on the web, already looking for that information.
I cannot speak for the statistical majority of people searching for information on this topic, let alone spending money on it. And no, I don't have the concrete examples of entire communities of open-minded inquirers that you asked for. All I can say is that I, personally, wouldn't have gotten involved in this issue at all had I not discovered ES while Googling the question of whether the AE were really all "Mediterranean Caucasoids" like the white supremacists and other racialists claimed. Sure, I would have entered the conversation with an emotional bias towards rebutting white supremacist narratives about natural African inferiority and "racial differences in intelligence". But I distinctly remember wanting to find the facts about the issue one way or another, and my assumption is that there's at least a tiny, scattered number of like-minded people out there.
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Remember, my point isn't even that it can't be done. Bauval had a good angle. As did Bernal. Both had a huge audience as a result. And you know what I told you about my own angle. I would never start writing if I didn't have that. But just a book on North African bioanthropology? I personally don't see people lining up for that. But that's just my view based on my own experiences. Let's agree to disagree.
quote:Originally posted by Swenet: But that doesn't work when you're just reporting scientific findings on African history. Most recent case in point being Tyrannohotep's article. It's not marketable to whites, and it's not marketable to African-descended people. But I think you bring up a point that is useful if you know what you're doing. I think I can monetize what I know. It's not difficult. But it won't be via the black history angle.
quote:Originally posted by Swenet: Remember, my point isn't even that it can't be done. Bauval had a good angle. As did Bernal. Both had a huge audience as a result. And you know what I told you about my own angle. I would never start writing if I didn't have that. But just a book on North African bioanthropology? I personally don't see people lining up for that. But that's just my view based on my own experiences. Let's agree to disagree.
If you have in mind a strictly academic tome about African bioanthropology that didn't bother tackling anyone's ideas about race, I would actually agree with you there. I do believe that the racial angle is what would draw the vast majority of laypeople into the subject. Race and its surrounding politics are what most people in everyday society relate to, in the end.
However, from what I've seen of your blog posts, it seems like you're aiming for an audience of academics who already have a lot of anthropological and other scientific training. You know, Ph.D. or grad student types. You can't exactly say "such and such population were 'black', or would be regarded as such if we saw them today" in that kind of work (despite what you-know-who wants to think).
EDIT:
I've thought more about this topic and think you might be right that the majority of lay readers would prefer to spend money on something that they knew validated their preconceptions. I mean, if I were to write a book on AE and other ancient North Africans, and I made it clear in my marketing that I saw them as fundamentally African, most of the people who would be willing to buy it would be people in the "Afrocentric" community. Those outside that community would be more inclined to dismiss what I had to say out of hand. The percentage of readers I'd get who weren't already "Afrocentric" but still receptive to my message would be tiny for the comparison.
On the other hand, avoiding the racial angle entirely in the text or the marketing probably wouldn't attract any more lay readers than any other book on ancient Egypt that's out there.
Right now, I don't actually have any plans to write a non-fiction book on the Egyptians, racial angle or not. I might enjoy writing Medium articles or Quora answers from time to time, but I suspect readers would prefer to spend money on non-fiction from a professional scholar rather than a lay enthusiast like me. I'd have more luck writing a novel, short fiction, or maybe a comic book with a fictional narrative.
quote:Originally posted by Tyrannohotep: However, from what I've seen of your blog posts, it seems like you're aiming for an audience of academics who already have a lot of anthropological and other scientific training. You know, Ph.D. or grad student types. You can't exactly say "such and such population were 'black', or would be regarded as such if we saw them today" in that kind of work (despite what you-know-who wants to think).
Speaking of which.... Let's use that as an example since that audience comes close to the audience we're talking about (the one you said you would write for and the one I said doesn't exist as a market). Notice the general topic of my blogposts. It's too early to see a pattern, because I've done only two so far. But I never post information that people are already widely talking about. I never do stuff on Eurasia. I never do stuff on Sub-Saharan Africa. That sounds harsh, but that is just the way it is. Most people who are ideologically interested in what I'm writing aren't necessarily interested in Sub-Saharan African topics, and the people who are interested in Sub-Saharan African topics, generally aren't interested in Basal Eurasian. So, since I'm writing on Basal Eurasian-related topics, I'm always writing on things relating to the crossroads between Africa and Eurasia, but from an African perspective. The topics I write about are guided by what people are interested in, not by what I ideally want to talk about. Out of the things I can write about, this is among the most naturally interesting to the most readers out there. But I can only get those people by talking about stuff from a unique angle, and many of them probably see it more as interesting food for thought than fact. (Especially back then when Basal Eurasian was more of a mystery). It would be a mistake to think that diverse audience would be a market for the Africanity of ancient Egypt. They probably just come to get their information as part of their larger blogging activity and move on. Saying Basal Eurasian is African and that a minority SSA ancestry came with it, just has a tendency to alienate people on both sides. Afrocentrics want that SSA component to dominate, and most bloggers want that SSA minority component restricted to Sub-Saharan Africa (even though they might deny it, actions speak louder than words). This leaves you with an audience that is too small and diffuse to call it a market (at least, in my view).
I thought it was interesting that you disagreed with that earlier, given all the experiences we've had over the last couple of years. But maybe you have different views on what it means.
quote:Originally posted by Tyrannohotep: I've thought more about this topic and think you might be right that the majority of lay readers would prefer to spend money on something that they knew validated their preconceptions. I mean, if I were to write a book on AE and other ancient North Africans, and I made it clear in my marketing that I saw them as fundamentally African, most of the people who would be willing to buy it would be people in the "Afrocentric" community. Those outside that community would be more inclined to dismiss what I had to say out of hand. The percentage of readers I'd get who weren't already "Afrocentric" but still receptive to my message would be tiny for the comparison.
I agree. Unless you had an interesting angle. When the angle is interesting, you can get away with a controversial argument and still attract a lot of people. See Bernal. He borrowed a lot of Afrocentric ideas, repackaged it and told it from an interesting angle.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: I agree. Unless you had an interesting angle. When the angle is interesting, you can get away with a controversial argument and still attract a lot of people. See Bernal. He borrowed a lot of Afrocentric ideas, repackaged it and told it from an interesting angle.
I think much of Bernal's profit came less from a unique "angle" to his arguments than the fact that he came from a different demographic background than the typical Afrocentric writer. It wouldn't be the case in a fair world, but a pasty-white academic like him would have enjoyed a lot more power to arouse his colleagues and the general public than black writers working outside the academic mainstream. You could say he benefitted from white privilege there.
I don't know if white "Afrocentric" writers like him would enjoy the same popularity today, however. My own experience has shown that being white and sympathetic to African Egypt, far from conferring onto me an aura of automatic credibility, has led to people questioning my motives. I've had a (liberal) white woman accuse me of taking my position to impress black women, along with several alt-righters calling me a "cuck" (it basically means "sellout" or "traitor" to them). I understand Sally Ann-Ashton has reporting receiving similar flack for holding her position.
As for guys like Bauval and Joel Freeman, I honestly think they are using the African Egypt angle to promote unrelated agendas. I've looked at both their books. Bauval seemed much more interested in his ideas on Egyptian astronomy than a discussion of their phenotype or genetic affinities. As for Freeman, his book spent a lot more time preaching about Christianity and the Bible than it did AE or other African civilizations. Together, they come across as more opportunistic than as sincere allies.
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I agree with what you say--that race has something to do with it. But surely you agree that a book like Bernal's is conceptually much more powerful and marketable than some of the books that just consist of slapping Egyptsearch quotes together on a book page. And yes, those books actually exist. I'm sure you've come across at least one of them on books.google.com. They exist and they're not appealing to anyone, except those who like their authors telling them what they already want to hear and don't hold their authors to high standards. Interesting analysis and unique angles are indispensable for people like us who don't have the backing of any preexisting market. I'm not sure to what extent you agree/disagree, but this all seems very obvious to me.
Without a preexisting market, and by alienating other markets, you lose potential buyers. And unique and valuable analysis is a way of compensating for that, as it allows you to tap into other markets. It's really as simple as that, imo. Fortunately for me, I have always been into different topics and I'm doing research in other areas, so I have a lot angles from which to approach any write up I may do in the future.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: But surely you agree that a book like Bernal's is conceptually much more powerful and marketable than some of the books that just consist of slapping Egyptsearch quotes together on a book page. And yes, those books actually exist. I'm sure you've come across at least one of them on books.google.com. They exist and they're not appealing to anyone, except those who like their authors telling them what they already want to hear and don't hold their authors to high standards.
I think I might have encountered one or two of those books on Amazon's Kindle section, but not many. I don't really go out looking for books of that genre anyway. But given the dismal "Sturgeon's Law" state of online self-publishing, I'm not surprised that kind of plagiarized "literature" is out there.
quote:Fortunately for me, I have always been into different topics and I'm doing research in other areas, so I have a lot angles from which to approach any write up I may do in the future.
I agree that having a background in other topics can be useful. For example, I had an interest in evolution long before I got involved in this community. I think that has helped me understand certain concepts better than many other posters in our circles. It's easier to grasp things like population substructure in Africa and other regions when you have some previous understanding of cladistics, for example.
quote:Originally posted by Swenet: [qb]But surely you agree that a book like Bernal's is conceptually much more powerful and marketable than some of the books that just consist of slapping Egyptsearch quotes together on a book page. And yes, those books actually exist. I'm sure you've come across at least one of them on books.google.com. They exist and they're not appealing to anyone, except those who like their authors telling them what they already want to hear and don't hold their authors to high standards.
I think I might have encountered one or two of those books on Amazon's Kindle section, but not many. I don't really go out looking for books of that genre anyway. But given the dismal "Sturgeon's Law" state of online self-publishing, I'm not surprised that kind of plagiarized "literature" is out there.
To some degree Bernal did the same thing. He borrowed a lot of ideas from Afrocentric books. The difference between Egyptsearch lurk authors and Bernal is Bernal added his own expertise to it and focused everything into a coherent self-contained set of books. Whereas the Egyptsearch lurk authors just use a patchwork of sources that only have in common that they're supposed to hype their readers. They don't even show an understanding of what they're writing. And some of the things they're posting as hype material (e.g. Africa being the center stage of OOA theory) are deeply anti-Afrocentric. You could say that much of the difference in quality and appeal between these books boils down to the angle used and the focus on that angle throughout the book.
At least, that's how I see it.
Posts: 8785 | From: Discovery Channel's Mythbusters | Registered: Dec 2009
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quote:I don't know if white "Afrocentric" writers like him would enjoy the same popularity today, however. My own experience has shown that being white and sympathetic to African Egypt, far from conferring onto me an aura of automatic credibility, has led to people questioning my motives. I've had a (liberal) white woman accuse me of taking my position to impress black women, along with several alt-righters calling me a "cuck" (it basically means "sellout" or "traitor" to them). I understand Sally Ann-Ashton has reporting receiving similar flack for holding her position.
That's why the term "Afrocentric" is problematic. It gives license to rank Eurocentrism. Just the objective facts are enough. Anthropologists who argue in favor of the OOA hypothesis are certainly not being Afrocentric.
The way to confront Eurocentrism is not with the term "Afrocentrism" but simply with objective facts. For example, terms such as Sub-Saharan Africa are obviously Eurocentric because it's based on the false assumption that Africans did not only populate the whole continent but also other parts of the world.
The same holds for the European colonial terms such as Near East, Middle East and Far East. What have the Chinese said about such?
Back to the Ancient Egyptian issue. What could a Eurocentric author say about the following?
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Ultimately this must be put into proper context. From the 1800s right up to the 1960s, most anthropology books written by Europeans about cultures all over the world were openly and blatantly racist. These books were part of an overall system of colonial conquest where the science of race was used to justify and condone white conquest, genocide, rape and murder. Sure, war, rape and murder aren't new but this attempt to use science to justify it was. The reason Europeans dominate archaeology globally is because of their history of global conquest. It isn't because they are smarter or more diligent, it is because they stole so much history from around the world they needed some way to catalog and understand it all (within the framework of their colonial racist mind).
Jared Taylor is pretty much just a watered down version of the same thing along with Darwin. All of their theories are to openly and blatantly condone and support the colonial project as "normal" and "justified". In fact Petrie was an outright Eugenecist and used his theories of a "maaster race" in Egypt to partly support the Eugenics movement. His own foundation openly states this.
African people have no history of global conquest or imposing their identity as Africans on other people or over other people as being superior in "racial" context. They have no history of writing books to justify and support their global system of colonies and conquest. Africans have Africa and the history, resources and DNA of Africa, which is indeed the mother of all people on earth. But Europeans have so tainted the concept of human evolutionary history and DNA with their concepts of race that even when Africans do write their own fact based histories people want to attack it because in reality they want white people as the "authority" over all human history.
This is a by product of the Greco-Roman template Europeans use for their culture. Greece the colonial empire under Alexander started conquering all these cultures and then sent out Greek scholars and thinkers to understand why and how the Greeks conquered and how these other cultures compared to Greece. They collected and catalogued all the knowedge they could find in all their colonies which in effect promoted the concept that they "owned" history, not so much created it. And Europeans operate in the same way, where they pretend to "own" all human history because of all the conquest and theft that has taken place over the last 500 years.
Africans are not to blame for this and Afrocentrism was just a term referring to using Africa as the BASE for human historical development as opposed to Europe because truly even Europeans themselves now acknowledge the fact that human history began in Africa. The only thing they are trying to do now is to find some "biological" difference between humans that left Africa and the humans that stayed behind so they can claim "superior" genes that evolved in Eurasia are the basis of civilization. Yet the facts of Egypt and other ancient cultures in Africa (Blombos, 300,000 year old North African tools) prove otherwise. So while they aren't overtly racist they still promote the agenda of the old racist system albeit in a much less obvious way.
So ultimately it is about Africans owning their own history from the physical artifacts, to learning science, to owning the land from which the artifacts and resources get extracted on down the line. It is ultimately a question of agency. Africans need neither the approval or acceptance of Europeans to study their own history.
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Africans do have a kind of history of global conquest because it was Africans who left the landmass of what is now called Africa to populate the rest of the world. Note that there are still questions as to why the Neanderthals of Europe went extinct. Competition with incoming Africans?
It seems as if there is some "law of nature" operating in the world where people compete with each other for dominance. How to explain the Great Wall of China?
People in general tend to be ethnocentric and compete with each other on those grounds. On account of the technical dominance of West Europe from the 15th century onward, most of the rest of the world succumbed to the invasions of Spain, France, Britain, Portugal etc. What was the source of this dominance? The knowledge of the Ancient Egyptians, knowledge of the Greeks and the Romans. Then the disparate groups of Europe saw themselves united under the banner of Christianity--which witnessed maturation at the demise of the Roman Empire rule of Europe.
When Europe encountered Africa from the 15th century onward, the technological gap was sufficiently wide for them to see themselves superior to African. Modern biology as a science was then employed to justify such sentiments--which in turn justified the violence against Africans.
Europeans in general don't deny that Africans--in the broad sense--are superior on a per capita basis in athletics and the capacity to create novel musical forms. Europeans also don't deny that Jews as an ethnic group are dominant in intellectual matters.
So if Africans begin to show prowess in intellectual matters--on all fronts, then Europeans will have to discard their theories of a genetically based intellectual superiority.
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The 'alt right' people are easy to debate because they don't know anything about ancient Egypt. These are the same people that would argue that ancient Egyptian cultures was closer to Arabian culture. That's just too easy. Got to educate the lurkers.
Just a few days ago I read a Quora response that ate up such base Eurocentrism. I know they were using my videos and memes as a source.
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Africans do have a kind of history of global conquest because it was Africans who left the landmass of what is now called Africa to populate the rest of the world. Note that there are still questions as to why the Neanderthals of Europe went extinct. Competition with incoming Africans?
It seems as if there is some "law of nature" operating in the world where people compete with each other for dominance. How to explain the Great Wall of China?
People in general tend to be ethnocentric and compete with each other on those grounds. On account of the technical dominance of West Europe from the 15th century onward, most of the rest of the world succumbed to the invasions of Spain, France, Britain, Portugal etc. What was the source of this dominance? The knowledge of the Ancient Egyptians, knowledge of the Greeks and the Romans. Then the disparate groups of Europe saw themselves united under the banner of Christianity--which witnessed maturation at the demise of the Roman Empire rule of Europe.
When Europe encountered Africa from the 15th century onward, the technological gap was sufficiently wide for them to see themselves superior to African. Modern biology as a science was then employed to justify such sentiments--which in turn justified the violence against Africans.
Europeans in general don't deny that Africans--in the broad sense--are superior on a per capita basis in athletics and the capacity to create novel musical forms. Europeans also don't deny that Jews as an ethnic group are dominant in intellectual matters.
So if Africans begin to show prowess in intellectual matters--on all fronts, then Europeans will have to discard their theories of a genetically based intellectual superiority.
Lamin you must be kidding. There were no humans outside Africa when Africans left. And there certainly no concept of races then either. So what you are doing is just avoiding the point in the PRESENT DAY and denying the obvious. Africans had wars of course. But never have Africans said that their "future" and "destiny" depended on conquest on a global scale. Never.
And because of that Africans have never had to justify and uphold "race" as the basis of their social development. They never had a "race concept" in Africa to unify under partly because they never needed it to galvanize Africans to go out and conquer outside of Africa nor did they do it in response to Eurasian invasions into Africa. So your point is moot.
Africans did not invent race and racism and they did not certainly create "race science". So there is nothing "biased" about Africans telling their own history because they have such a long rich history. And it is a fact.
European society is just the opposite. They had to create a race concept because they were on a mission and crusade of global conquest. That is how they got where they are today. This is undeniable and they themselves will tell you this. But they need to legitimize this conquest by tying their recent history to ancient cultures outside of Europe as if it is part of the same "western" culture. This is why they care so much about Egypt because they want to use Egypt as a template for racial conquest. This is why they need the Egyptians to be white so they can say "see civilization always had racism against blacks"... Africans have no need or desire for such a history.
Civilization did not start in Europe and civilization did not start with war. You cannot develop civilization if everybody is constantly fighting and killing each other. Civil means being able to conduct your affairs in a peaceful manner. That is required for any sort of social development and evolution. And this is where civilization came from. Once you have the basics of social organization, complex social structures, language, writing and math then you can go on to build "Empires" but you cant do that without the basics first. And for hundreds of thousands of years that long slow movement towards civilization was taking place. That is the issue here.
Eurocentrics and racists just want to have the power to shut out opposing points of view even if their lies and distortions are blatantly obvious. Again this is all about ownership and control of history and the facts.
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Ramsess II, larger and dominating foreigners At left back a Kushite, middle a Syrian, back right a Libyan
Narmer dominating a foreigner about to strike him with a mace Obverse side, upper right decapitated enemies
arm bound Asiatic captives
arm bound captive
Vassal Asiatics under the rule of the Egyptian state
Vasal Kushites forced to pay tribute to the Egyptian governor of Kush during the reign of King Tutankhamun (1336–1327 BC), from the tomb of Huy were forced to pay tribute in gold, cattle, slaves, ostrich feathers, ivory, etc.
Thutmose smiting his enemies
_______________________________________________
Tutankhamun represented as a sphinx, crushing the bodies of Egypt’s enemies.
The Egyptians had a lot of foreign enemies including Asiatics, Kushites and other groups of the south and Libyans. Wars are most often fought over resources and territory. Sometimes in the long 5,000 year history of Egypt they had good relations with these people at other times they took over their lands and forced them to pay tribute. We see at the start with Narmer Palette they liked to show images of the king dominating foreigners, often about to strike them a fatal blow to the head with a mace and they liked to display the foreign captives with their arms tied behind their backs in their wall reliefs
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Part of the development of civilization is the development of a concept of nationalism and national identity. This process produces the iconography and identity by which different ancient civilizations can be distinguished. Nationalism ties the citizens to a system of culture, of social control and religious norms and beliefs as part of that national identity. With nationalism comes the basic need and role of the organized means to defends ones lands and identity. This is not the same as extreme nationalism.
Extreme nationalism is what Europeans operate under. Extreme nationalism says "whats mine is mine and whats yours is mine". Extreme nationalism isn't content within its own borders and its own means of self reliance. Extreme nationalism must expand and promote its identity and way of doing things over everybody else. This is what Europe has been doing for the last 1000 years. Ancient cultures that developed civilization were primarily about defending their own identity and culture from outside intrusion and that includes Sumeria, Egypt, and so forth. Wars still took place but mostly they were local affairs. Over time as cultures and civilizations evolved and larger armies could be amassed and more populations united under one flag or banner, more extreme forms of nationalism developed which eventually led to the ancient Greeks, who in reality were following the model of the Persians as an empire and extreme nationalists. And for modern Europeans this concept of extreme nationalism even goes so far as history as well.
Africans have never exercised extreme nationalism and are barely even defending their own nations from foreign domination.
And part of the reason why Europecentrics have an ideological difference with Africans is because they view Africans as not willing to do what it takes to win. Even in just defending their own identity against all others. Europeans view war and conquest as the means of gaining power and wealth and only "fit" nations and peoples will succeed because they must be ready and willing to rise to the challenge. In their eyes, Africans are too lax and too lazy and unwilling to do the hard work to create their own better future, even if that means fighting outside aggressors. An aggressor is not going to respect you more because you bow down. An aggressor will respect you if you kick their behind.
This is the ideological reason why debating Eurocentrics is meaningless because they are not going to change who they are or their world view. They have come to far to turn back and change their ways of doing things.
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posted
“The Egyptians had a lot of foreign enemies including Asiatics,”…
I am curious. Did they call these people “asiatics” or are we projecting our modern geopolitical beliefs into the past calling these people….Asiatics? Where did the word “Asia” originate and when?
-------------------- Without data you are just another person with an opinion - Deming Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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what a massive load of crap, Doug. same conquests empires all over the world have been doing throughout recorded history. not special when white people did it, just greater scope due to improvements of ship technology (and later on industrial revolution).
we don't have to link ourselves to civilizations outside of Europe. we don't think Ancient Egypt or ancient Near Eastern civilizations were European or have any special connection to us. internet trolls do not represent us.
which is not to deny those trolls and morons are out in some force these days. but making retarded sweeping baseless claims Doug-style is counterproductive.
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quote:Lamin you must be kidding. There were no humans outside Africa when Africans left. And there certainly no concept of races then either. So what you are doing is just avoiding the point in the PRESENT DAY and denying the obvious. Africans had wars of course. But never have Africans said that their "future" and "destiny" depended on conquest on a global scale. Never.
So were the Neanderthals humans or not? "Race" is just a form of distinction based on observable differences--like religion, language, ethnicity, etc.
Note that only 4 European nations ventured out in conquest over the whole world. France, Britain, Spain and Portugal. This was possible only because of their technology.
In Africa, there were war leaders who were bent on conquest, but limited by their weaponry. Chaka Zulu conquered as far north as Zimbabwe. Usman Dan Fodio invaded as far West as Nigeria coming all the way from the Fouta in Guinea. Same for Samory Toure whom the French described as the Black Napoleon.
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quote:Originally posted by capra: what a massive load of crap, Doug. same conquests empires all over the world have been doing throughout recorded history. not special when white people did it, just greater scope due to improvements of ship technology (and later on industrial revolution).
we don't have to link ourselves to civilizations outside of Europe. we don't think Ancient Egypt or ancient Near Eastern civilizations were European or have any special connection to us. internet trolls do not represent us.
which is not to deny those trolls and morons are out in some force these days. but making retarded sweeping baseless claims Doug-style is counterproductive.
Why are YOU taking this personal. So are you saying that Jared Diamond is wrong? Are you calling Jared Diamond a troll? Jared Diamond says this point blank that Europeans dominate the world and that everybody else was inferior to Europeans in terms of the ability to conquer and kill. He himself calls it white hegemony. And here is the point you are missing. Civilization did not start with hegemony. Civilization existed before white hegemony. War and conquest is not the basis of civilization. This is the part Europeans focus on more than anything else to justify their "hegemony" yet this is not how civilization started and that was my main point. Ancient Egypt and Sumeria did not start and evolve because of warfare. The Indus valley did not come about because of warfare or the desire for global hegemony. That is all FALSE. It is Europeans starting with the Greeks and Romans who used constant warfare to expand and maintain their civilizations. Rome was almost constantly at war with somebody. And this is how they introduced civilization to the rest of Europe, which was through war. So Europe has always seen civilization as being the result of war and conquest because it was BROUGHT to them by force. It didn't just naturally evolve there over thousands of years from local traditions is my point. Civilization is the result of local cultures and populations evolving over thousands of years IN PEACE and developing the tools and techniques that would later lead to "empires". But civilization did not start with "Empires" and war. And war is not genocide either.
quote: Guns, germs, and steel : the fates of human societies /
"Why did Eurasians conquer, displace, or decimate Native Americans, Australians, and Africans, instead of the reverse? In this groundbreaking book, evolutionary biologist Jared Diamond stunningly dismantles racially based theories of human history by revealing the environmental factors actually...
https://libweb.grinnell.edu/vufind/Record/.b13418385/TOC And the answer is becuase nobody else WANTED to do that. It isn't that they COULD NOT have. It is because that wasn't their GOAL in life like Europe. China had more men under arms and biggers ships and invented the printing press, paper money and gunpowder. They had no interest in "conquering the world". That is my point. Having technology and manpower does not mean that you want to go on a global killing spree.
It is amazing the lengths that people go through to deny the facts.
quote: There is one feature in the expansion of the peoples of white, or European, blood during the past four centuries which should never be lost sight of, especially by those who denounce such expansion on moral grounds. On the whole, the movement has been fraught with lasting benefit to most of the peoples already dwelling in the lands over which the expansion took place. Of course any such general statement as this must be understood with the necessary reservations. Human nature being what it is, no movement lasting for four centuries and extending in one shape or another over the major part of the world could go on without cruel injustices being done at certain places and in certain times. Occasionally, although not very frequently, a mild and kindly race has been treated with wanton, brutal, and ruthless inhumanity by the white intruders. Moreover, mere savages, whose type of life was so primitive as to be absolutely incompatible with the existence of civilization, inevitably died out from the regions across which their sparse bands occasionally flitted, when these regions became filled with a dense population; they died out when they were kindly treated as quickly as when they were badly treated, for the simple reason that they were so little advanced that the conditions of life necessary to their existence were incompatible with any form of higher and better existence. It is also true that, even where great good has been done to the already existing inhabitants, where they have thriven under the new rule, it has sometimes brought with it discontent from the very fact that it has brought with it a certain amount of well-being and a certain amount of knowledge, so that people have learned enough to feel discontented and have prospered enough to be able to show their discontent. Such ingratitude is natural, and must be reckoned with as such; but it is also both unwarranted and foolish, and the fact of its existence in any given case does not justify any change of attitude on our part.
On the whole, and speaking generally, one extraordinary fact of this expansion of the European races is that with it has gone an increase in population and well-being among the natives of the countries where the expansion has taken place. As a result of this expansion there now live outside of Europe over a hundred million of people wholly of European blood and many millions more partly of European blood; and as another result there are now on the whole more people, of native blood in the regions where these hundred million intruders dwell than there were when the intruders went thither. In America the Indians of the West Indies were well-nigh exterminated, wantonly and cruelly. The merely savage tribes, both in North and South America, who were very few in number, have much decreased or have vanished, and grave wrongs have often been committed against them as well as by them. But all of the Indians who had attained to an even low grade of industrial and social efficiency have remained in the land, and have for the most part simply been assimilated with the intruders, the assimilation marking on the whole a very considerable rise in their conditions. Taking into account the Indians of pure blood, and the mixed bloods in which the Indian element is large, it is undoubtedly true that the Indian population of America is larger today than it was when Columbus discovered the continent, and stands on a far higher plane of happiness and efficiency. In Australia the few savages tend to die out simply because their grade of culture is so low that nothing can be done with them; doubtless occasional brutalities have been committed by white settlers but these brutalities were not an appreciable factor in the dying out of th natives. In India and Java there has been a great increase in well-being and population under the English and the Dutch, and the advance made has been in striking contrast to what has occurred during the same period in the near-by lands which have remained under native rule. In Egypt, in the Philippines, in Algiers, the native people have thriven under the rule of the foreigner, advancing as under no circumstances could they possibly have advanced if left to themselves, the increase in population going hand in hand with the increase in general well-being. In the Soudan, Mahdism during the ten years of its unchecked control was responsible for the death of over half the population and meant physical and moral ruin, a fact which should be taken into account by the perverted pseudo-philanthropy which fails to recognize the enormous advantages conferred by the English occupation of the Soudan, if not on the English themselves, certainly on the natives and on humanity at large. In the same way the Russian advance into Turkestan has meant the real advance in the well-being of the people, as well as the spread of civilization. In Natal the English found an empty desert; because of the peace they established it has filled up so densely with natives as to create very serious and totally new problems. There have been very dark spots in the European conquest and control of Africa, but on the whole the African regions which during the past century have seen the greatest cruelty, degradation, and suffering, the greatest diminution of population, are those where native control has been unchecked. The advance has been made in the regions that have been under European control or influence; that have been profoundly influenced by European administrators, and by European and American missionaries. Of course the best that can happen to any people that has not already a high civilization of its own is to assimilate and profit by American or European ideas, the ideas of civilization and Christianity, without submitting to alien control; but such control, in spite of all its defects, is in a very large number of cases the prerequisite condition to the moral and material advance of the peoples who dwell in the darker corners of the earth. Where the control is exercised brutally; where it is made use of merely to exploit the natives, without regard to their physical or moral well-being; it should be unsparingly criticised, and there should be resolute insistence on amendment and reform. But we must not, because of occasional wrong-doing, blind ourselves to the fact that on the whole the white administrator and the Christian missionary have exercised a profound and wholesome influence for good in savage regions.
posted
again Doug an absolute load of crap. you think an area the size of the USA just spontaneously became Chinese? all these ancient civilizations engaged in brutal conquests were just defending their regional identities? i guess Genghis Khan was just expanding Mongolia to its natural boundaries? the baleful influence of the ancient Greeks made the innocent Persians invade them and everyone else from India to Egypt? none of your quotes actually support your baseless theory of some uniquely European world domination civilization-conquest ideology. pull your head out of your ass.
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The comments on your Steam account confirms what a friend said years ago, "whites aren't really creative when it comes to insults, but stealing, you can not teach them."
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quote:Originally posted by Swenet: I don't think that market you're talking about, exists. Compare the audience of European anthro blogging sites to the audience of pro-African Egypt sites. The former exists and are willing to spend money, the latter don't exist.
I am not sure I totally agree. There's got to be a large number of people out there who've read about the various "whitewashing" controversies somewhere on social media and are genuinely curious about what the facts say. Such individuals can undoubtedly end up vulnerable prey for trolls and opportunistic disseminators of misinformation. But if you can get to them before the troublemakers do and present yourself as more credible than the competition, I would say you've found a viable market.
And to clarify, I'm not talking about the people who've already made up their minds and seek nothing more than validation for their prejudices. I'm talking about people who know next to nothing about AE and want to know what all the fuss over (for example) the recent Nefertiti reconstruction is all about. I would be surprised if there weren't plenty of confused inquiriers like them all over the place.
Agree, a lot of friends wants to know the truth about AE, but they fall prey to TV and online rubbish like Storefront etc.
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posted
I love what I read on this forum, I think someone should make an App or something? Or create a new forum named. "Truthcentric", or is that too much? The information on site should be preserved for future reference.
-------------------- “Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.” Posts: 195 | From: Southern Africa(Azania) | Registered: Mar 2017
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quote:Originally posted by capra: again Doug an absolute load of crap. you think an area the size of the USA just spontaneously became Chinese? all these ancient civilizations engaged in brutal conquests were just defending their regional identities? i guess Genghis Khan was just expanding Mongolia to its natural boundaries? the baleful influence of the ancient Greeks made the innocent Persians invade them and everyone else from India to Egypt? none of your quotes actually support your baseless theory of some uniquely European world domination civilization-conquest ideology. pull your head out of your ass.
Capra you lack reading comprehension and you lack an understanding of history. Civilization as in the development of language, math, science and organized complex societies did not START because of war. Meaning nobody 20,000 years ago was sitting around saying "Hey lets invent a system of counting and caculation so we can take over the world!!!! Muahahahaahaaa!". NO. That is not what happened. And war has been taking place since before humans were even civilized. One does not require the other. War does not require civilization and civilization does not REQUIRE war. Ancient Egypt and many other cultures from ancient times were more INWARD focused. They viewed the Nile and the culture of the Nile as a gift and a result of home grown evolution "from the gods". Therefore their world view was about protecting their internal order against the forces of chaos from outside. The AE were not about using whatever advances in technology and culture they had over others to "take over the world". Yes they had wars of course but the culture of Egypt was not about going to war for the sake of conquest and taking over the world. This is something that came later. China was similar and even though China had many internal wars and conflicts they were never ever a culture that made "taking over the world" part of their core culture and ideology.
The root of civlization lay in the process of humans coming together and cooperating for survival. That is why they developed math over thousands of years of evolution and trial and error. That is why they developed language over thousands of years of evolution and trial and error. This was a process that took tens of thousands of years and mostly happened in Africa. These things did not come about simply because somebody had the idea of wanting to kill some other person. They are two totally separate and different things. The Vikings were well known for making war. They were not well known for civilization. Same thing with the Mongols, even though the Mongols did disseminate the culture and civilization of Asia.
Like I said, Europe had civilization brought to them through conquest: The Romans, The Pheonicians, The Huns, The Mongols, The Muslims and so forth introduced civilization to Europe. Heck look at the birth of Britain and the Norman invasions as another example. It wasn't a "home grown" culture that they wanted to nurture and develop. And on top of that most of the resources they needed to grow were outside of Europe. That is where Europe got their mind set of war = civilization but that is not how civilization evolved and was created.
It is as asinine as saying that Beethoven developed his 4th sympony because he had a desire for war. That is retarded. Likewise committing genocide and or killing whole cultures and peoples is not "civilized behavior". And this is another reason why many ancient cultures did not engage in wars for global conquest or killing for the sake of killing because they viewed it as uncivilized. There are many reasons people go to war but at the end of the day it is about territory and resources. This has been going on since before there was a human as even animals fight over territory and certainly they are not civilized. Stop trying to twist something simple. War and killing people is not not civilization. Math, science, language, writing and organized social systems are civilization.
Narmer palette wiki:
quote: The Palette has raised considerable scholarly debate over the years[17]. In general, the arguments fall into one of two camps: scholars who believe that the Palette is a record of actual events, and other academics who argue that it is an object designed to establish the mythology of united rule over Upper and Lower Egypt by the king. It had been thought that the Palette either depicted the unification of Lower Egypt by the king of Upper Egypt or recorded a recent military success over the Libyans[18] or the last stronghold of a Lower Egyptian dynasty based in Buto.[19] More recently, scholars such as Nicholas Millet have argued that the Palette does not represent a historical event (such as the unification of Egypt), but instead represents the events of the year in which the object was dedicated to the temple. Whitney Davis has suggested that the iconography on this and other pre-dynastic palettes has more to do with establishing the king as a visual metaphor of the conquering hunter caught in the moment of delivering a mortal blow to his enemies.[20] John Baines has suggested that the events portrayed are "tokens of royal achievement" from the past and that "the chief purpose of the piece is not to record an event but to assert that the king dominates the ordered world in the name of the gods and has defeated internal, and especially external, forces of disorder".
And generally there is nobody that claims the AE created heiroglyphics for war. NOBODY. Most of them claim it was developed partly as a result of organized social development and the need for trade.... But feel free to find some scholars who claim AE writing or any other writing came about because of a need for war.
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Thanks. So stop calling them Asiatics because we know the Natufians in the Levant were also recent AFRICANS
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: [Q]
quote:Originally posted by xyyman: [Q] “The Egyptians had a lot of foreign enemies including Asiatics,”…
I am curious. Did they call these people “asiatics”
No, the Egyptians didn't speak English
and there is no evidence of them having mapping continents, knowing their boundaries [/QB]
-------------------- Without data you are just another person with an opinion - Deming Posts: 12143 | From: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable | Registered: Jun 2007
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posted
Doug, why are you arguing against YOUR OWN made up bullshit that you are attributing to Europeans?
Posts: 660 | From: Canada | Registered: Mar 2017
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quote:Originally posted by xyyman: Thanks. So stop calling them Asiatics because we know the Natufians in the Levant were also recent AFRICANS
quote:Originally posted by the lioness,: [Q]
quote:Originally posted by xyyman: [Q] “The Egyptians had a lot of foreign enemies including Asiatics,”…
I am curious. Did they call these people “asiatics”
No, the Egyptians didn't speak English
and there is no evidence of them having mapping continents, knowing their boundaries
[/QB]
Natufian culture existed from around 12,500 to 9,500 BC Syro-Palestinians or Levantines are described by the Egyptians over 7,000 years later
Posts: 42988 | From: , | Registered: Jan 2010
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quote:Originally posted by capra: Doug, why are you arguing against YOUR OWN made up bullshit that you are attributing to Europeans?
You still have not shown that the development of writing, math, science or anything else concerning "civilization" starts with war.
Therefore stop wasting my time with your petty nonsense.
And yes, Europe has absolutely been obsessed with war as a means of expanding civilization.
You cannot show me any other culture on earth that has any global colonies like Europe. If this wasn't something unique to Europe then you would be able to show me the Chinese colonies around the world prior to the European expansion. You cant. You would be able to show me the African colonies around the world prior to European expansion. You cant. None of these cultures were doing those kinds of things, but they had civilization. And they were not trying to impose their identity or culture on everybody else either.
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posted
Doug, i never claimed any such thing, please stop confusing your strawman 'eurocentrics' with real life.
conquering across vast distances of the Old World just doesn't count. major offshore islands don't count. only invading a whole other continent counts because you need a secret special ideology handed down from the Ancient Greeks to think of doing the same shit across an ocean hur dur
yeah those African Empires totally could have taken over the New World they were just too nice to do it. all the other people they conquered the shit out of secretly wanted it. Genghis Khan was like, yeah we'll take over all of fucking Eurasia but other continents? unthinkable!
but wall of text circular logic non sequitur uniquely evil Europeans hur dur!
Posts: 660 | From: Canada | Registered: Mar 2017
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quote:Originally posted by capra: Doug, i never claimed any such thing, please stop confusing your strawman 'eurocentrics' with real life.
conquering across vast distances of the Old World just doesn't count. major offshore islands don't count. only invading a whole other continent counts because you need a secret special ideology handed down from the Ancient Greeks to think of doing the same shit across an ocean hur dur
yeah those African Empires totally could have taken over the New World they were just too nice to do it. all the other people they conquered the shit out of secretly wanted it. Genghis Khan was like, yeah we'll take over all of fucking Eurasia but other continents? unthinkable!
but wall of text circular logic non sequitur uniquely evil Europeans hur dur!
Capra you keep replying but you don't stick to a point. LOL
You actually are just spamming replies with no content.
What are you actually saying? For gods sake if you have nothing to say then drop it.
You haven't cited any facts or evidence of anything to support anything but you keep chiming in as if you act as if you really have a point when you don't.
LOL.
Everybody wasn't TRYING to take over the world because they didn't WANT to or Need to.
Egypt and other ancient cultures didn't NEED to take over the world because evrything they needed was home grown. That is the part you misunderstand. Africa,Asia and most other cultures were interested in fighting to maintain their own cultures as the epitome of what they considered the meaning of life. They didn't need to go anywhere else to "fight" for something they already had. That doesn't mean they didn't have wars but it means they didn't NEED war and conquest to give them civilization because they already had advanced civilizations as a result of local home grown evolution.
So it is not circular logic. War does not equate to civilization and civilization does not equate to war. No definition of civilization starts with war because that is not what it is.
It is simple really.
The mongols were not known for being "civilized". They were known as barbarian hordes from central asia, however, because of the trade with China and the Silk road, the mongols introduce a lot of Asian culture and civilization to the West. But they also sacked China. So to equate Gengis Khan with civilization and the roots of civilization is retarded. It is like saying the Vikings are the epitome of Civilizaton when they are not. The Mongols only became more civilized after the conquest of China and other civilized city states in Central Asia, the Middle East and India. The mongols were so civilized that the Chinese built a huge wall to keep them out.....
And that is my point about "civilization" vs "barbarism". Civilized means settled, organized and relatively peaceful. Barbasism is nomadic, warlike and violent. Europe has taken the two and blended them together as a "package" because of the history of how war has turned into a profit making enterprise within the framework of capitalism. This is a big factor in how Europe views war vs everybody else. It can be used to take land and resources and ultimately to generate profit for corporations.
So I didn't say Europeans are "evil". I said Europeans equate war with civilization and the basis for civilization because so much of THEIR civilization and culture revolves around war and conquest. That is a historical fact. Most of Europe was ruled by dictators and tyrants for most of their history and they only exported destruction after 1492 after learning about sailing and navigation from Muslims. They didn't invent sailing and navigation, just like they didn't invent civilization either. But they took what they learned and used it to conquer. You can read that in a grade school history book.
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dude, YOU are proposing an outlandish thesis, YOU need to provide support for it, why on earth do you think i need to prove anything?
Posts: 660 | From: Canada | Registered: Mar 2017
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quote:Originally posted by capra: dude, YOU are proposing an outlandish thesis, YOU need to provide support for it, why on earth do you think i need to prove anything?
What is outlandish?
What specifically?
I am tired of you and your nothing burger statements.
What part of what I said do you feel is inaccurate?
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posted
holy shit man. your theory that Europeans have a unique ideology of world conquest and war=civilization handed down from the ancient Greeks. i feel that this is inaccurate, yes.
Posts: 660 | From: Canada | Registered: Mar 2017
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quote:Originally posted by capra: holy shit man. your theory that Europeans have a unique ideology of world conquest and war=civilization handed down from the ancient Greeks. i feel that this is inaccurate, yes.
I already posted numerous Euorpean scholars stating this. You can't be serious at this point.
LOL.
Are you claiming you did not know that modern European culture is derived from the Greeks and Romans? Are you seriously claiming you never heard of the Empire of Alexander the Great? You never saw the movie 300? GTFOH with that nonsense. You didn't know Rome conquered Western Europe and introduced them to Greco-Roman culture by force? You didn't know about the Holy Roman Empire? You didn't know about the crusades? Seriously? The reason they view war as civilization is because civilization came to them by war and conquest........
quote:
1066 and the Norman Conquest
1066 was a momentous year for England. The death of the elderly English king, Edward the Confessor, on 5 January set off a chain of events that would lead, on 14 October, to the Battle of Hastings. In the years that followed, the Normans had a profound impact on the country they had conquered.
Discover more here about the Battle of Hastings itself and its consequences, and find out where you can see some of the spectacular castles and great abbeys the Normans built across the land.
Again, the point I am making is there is a difference between having an ancient tradition of culture and evolution that forms the root of civilization as a home grown process vs something that comes to you from without as the result of war. One is a long term process that is relatively peaceful the other is sudden and violent. Egypt, Sumeria and others were home grown civilizations. They did not gain their civilization from conquering others or being conquered. Big difference in world view. Doesn't mean they didn't have wars but the "spark" behind their civilization was not war. By the time of Medieval Europe civilization was something that meant warfare and hence competition among various clans for domination and control within Europe by seeing who could take and hold more land and wealth (also called feudalism). And from this came the mentality of Europe being war oriented as a sign and symbol of power and prestige.
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But their posts say otherwise. For instance Keita doesn't even count typical dynastic Lower Egyptians as tropical Africans, but his "supporters" here will go to great lengths to obscure that. And Keita is not even that far removed from Afrocentrism, compared to what the recent aDNA revelations are saying. So who is interested in opening their wallet for a take on what the recent aDNA revelations are saying about North African genetics? Do you have concrete examples? If that market exists, there should be communities on the web, already looking for that information.
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