"Stan"
Mar 21, 2007, 10:30 PM
Reportar Abuso
|
"Steve B" <s.bell@nospam-iecho.co.nz> wrote in message
news:lue303dl4ei0dgk02r983vh227v6d8t68b@4ax.com...
> On Sun, 25 Feb 2007 00:33:09 GMT, "Stan" <ecreipt@bigpond.net.au>
> wrote:
>
>>You just can't get away from the fact that they have limited vision.
>>Their
>>imagination is solely expressed in handcraft goods and music. Without
>>written language there is no ABSTRACTION.
>
> Pre-literate cultures often have elaborate religious/magical beliefs
> and rituals; in fact, Jacques Derrida, if I understand him (a
> difficult thing at the best of times) classes such ritual, especially
> dance, as "archaeo-ecriture" (a primitive equivalent of writing).
>
> Use of symbols, in drawing, "handcraft goods", gesture or costume, to
> economically represent objects or creatures in the real or imagined
> world, is common in such cultures.
>
> Surely .
>
> Steve B.
>
An intelligent question.
You have actually answered it yourself:
'the existence of such beliefs and practices testifies to a
measure of abstract thought'.
That measure of ability is as you described...it's limited.
Religious belief is the first stage of human mental evolution. Lightning
creates fear. Fear has to be resolved...so you invent an enemy.
Imagination expands by imagery of an enemy. No words are need yet.
Language can be thousands of years away down the track, but imagination can
ascribe an enemy of some visual sort. So yes Africans have got past that
stage. But they never learned to write down thoughts, or build permanent
structures. That should you tell you something.
Written down thoughts started in higher latitudes. So what must have
happened, or at least can be assumed to have happened, was that as humans
travelled north they encountered different conditions of climate and food
gathering and had to use more observation and deduction. The neurons in the
brain increased to cope with the data.
Travel down from Britain to Gibraltar and through the Med and the Suez canal
to Africa. It's called culture shock. The conditions of civil life in
Gibraltar from a few mile across the straights to another continent. You
have to experience it. Black Africans beyond the northern shores give the
impression of not being part of the same species. Your mind is in a whirl
wondering whatever happened to fix them there in such a primitive way.
Africans are only a day or two sailing from Europe in a north direction.
Yet, you can go East and West for thousands of miles across Europe and ALL
the people are mentally developed.
Strangely, going south from the African equator and nothing improves. South
African black tribes are as dense as the northerners. African minds just
didn't develop. They still show the characteristics of children even as
adults, the sudden impulse to violence and stealing. Some lack of inner
reserve and self control for restraint in behaviour.
They have no sense of civic duty. The British left them with schools and
hospitals, public buildings, water treatment plants in Ghana when they
handed it over to Nkrumah. Within a few years everything just decayed.
The country was bankrupt in 20 years. Every African country goes the same
way. I wont mention Southern Rhodesia, it too much of an embarrassment.
As I said originally, Africans cannot improve. They cannot improve
because their *Mind* never developed. They can wear suits, drive cars, some
can go through the motions of learning some western intellectual discipline,
and keep behaving like Africans. Just as the African Americans still
behave as Africans even though they don't know where it is on a map...and
only know western culture.
Reverse this scenario,* you * go to Africa. How will you behave in Africa,
no matter how long you stay there. If you are European you will behave
like a European. Forever. Nothing will change you because you can't be
changed. Do you think you will start eating the brains of monkeys because
they happen to be a delicacy there?
Finally, ask yourself if you would invest in a business there and had to
employ Africans. Pick any place. I gets depressing if you think about it
too much.
|
