Bunk. Pure bunk. Anthropologists try this crap all the time. We are supposed to feeeeeeeeel that these others cultures are better than we are for one reason or another. In the meantime, I’ll stick with my culture and they can stick with their jungles.
Keeps 'em occupied with their addled minds for a few hours an' prepares them for future LSD experiences
Jared Diamond is also the man who said that the development of agriculture was the worst mistake in human history. We would have been better and happier if we were still hunter gathers.
http://www.ditext.com/diamond/mistake.html
He lives in a different world than I do.
So we should wrap the babies to a board and let the women folk wear them on their backs as they work the fields?
So the virgin forest babies are somehow better developed than USA’s?
Bollocks!
I AM against letting a baby vegetate in a carseat/carrier in front of a television, but packing them around all day can be rough, too. Been there, done that. It isn't so bad when their legs get long enough for them to sit on your shoulders--mine have ridden there while we were on a bicycle. (I know, bad Papa!)
How have we survived as a species? Now I have to live with the stigma of under development?
I usually put their little feet thru my belt loops and hang them from my hip. That way, it frees up your hands to safely steer your bike.......
“It would be impossible, illegal, or immoral to carry out rigorous controlled experiments on Western children, in order to test outcomes of different child-rearing methods.”
When has that ever stopped anybody?
This guy gets published? LOL.
I can’t help but notice nothing about spanking, and don’t, for a minute, tell me they don’t do that.
Jared Diamond is a screaming example of the “Civilized Savage” in the Sultan Knish article. He outright says that the savages in Papua New Guinea are more intelligent than Westerners, regardless of IQ tests, though malnutrition and disease loads could account for this.
His latest book is an interesting set of contradictions. We should have mixed play groups, babies constantly carried and allowed to explore more, like savages do. He says their way of raising children is more natural, so it should be followed. Then he adds the caveats that many of them have burns from being allowed to touch fire to learn to stay away from it, we shouldn’t have their 50% infant mortality rate, and the sex play they tolerate including borderline rape probably wouldn’t be allowed here.
“Guns, Germs and Steel” was a book with many good points, like how the precursor to civilization was whether you had domesticable crops with sufficient caloric density to be worth the effort and a farmable area capable of supporting a lot of people. Northern California and South Africa had great climate, but not much local people could raise to generate a lot of calories per acre. Papua New Guinea got crops, but lacked a large enough area of farmers to create civilization.
China, India, Egypt, the Fertile Crescent and Greece/Rome all benefited from local crops and animals to domesticate PLUS an ability to interchange information between civilizations. The Maya, Aztecs and Peruvians had crops, but almost now civilization interchange, hindering development.
Unfortunately, now that we have an increasingly global civilization, Mr. Diamond thinks we should emulate the savage because it’s more natural.
And who would be more qualified on the topic of development?
Dr. Spock said never to punish a child and look where that “expert” got us.