The BEST Mistake in Human History
History 1
The BEST Mistake in Human History
In his article titled The Worst Mistake in Human History, Jared Diamond states that the invention of agriculture was the worst thing to happen to human beings ever in their history. He says this, arguing points such as that when agriculture came along, so did sexual inequalities, social inequalities, and diseases. He makes all of these viable points, yet he does not touch on, or maybe even think about, other points that can be argued against him. Jared Diamond was wrong in his article; agriculture was not human beings' worst mistake, it was actually a very big step forward in our progress as a dominant race.
Diamond presented many facts in his article that persuade the reader to agree with his opinion. He said that hunter-gatherers enjoyed a varied diet, of whatever they could find, while farmers focused on one or two or maybe three crops that they ate. He also stated that because of the limited number of crops farmers were able to grow, they ran a risk of starvation. If one harvest failed, then they would have trouble eating much of anything else. Diamond also stated that agriculture encouraged people to clump together and create societies, which then turned into trade with other societies, which then spread diseases and parasites. Along with these three main differences between hunting and gathering, and farming, Diamond explains how farming encouraged inequality between genders. He tells the reader how once women were not needing to carry their babies around in their nomadic lifestyle, they began to have more kids, and took on their role as child watchers as well as manual laborers.
I have a problem with most of the stuff Mr. Diamond is saying. I do agree with some of the ideas he has, and a lot of the things he is saying are true, he is just over-exaggerating everything. At one point in his article, Mr. Diamond tries to convince us that agriculture was to blame for the "shrinking" of some Greek and Turkish skeletons found. Some of the skeletons found were thought to be from the end of the ice ages and were averaging 5 foot 9 inches for men, and 5 foot 5 inches for women. Those found of Greeks and Turks from around the time of the adoption of agriculture, around 3000 B.C., were averaging 5 foot 3 for men, and 5 foot for women. This seems like a concrete piece of evidence against agriculture, right? Well here, Jared Diamond is being a little tricky with his words. Firstly, he is right about a little part, and he expanded that little part to make his point seem reasonable. Yes, part of what we eat, the nutrients we take in, helps our growth, but not a large part. The majority of how we grow comes from our genes, it is genetic. That is why a 6 foot 8 man and a 6 foot 1 woman will most likely have a son who turns out to be very tall, or why a couple under 5 and a half foot will most likely have a daughter who is very short. It is how genetics work. There is a chance that a couple over 6 foot could produce a short statured child, but not a big one. Most of the time, if big pairs up with big, and little with little, their offspring will be the same. So this has little to nothing to do with the agricultural revolution, rather, mating patterns with the Greeks and Turks back then.
In his article, Diamond tells the reader that agriculture created groups of people, and those groups of people created societies, and those societies began to trade with other societies, and soon after that, diseases were spread through these trade routes, all because of farming. This just seems a bit close minded to me, and yes, I just called Jared Diamond closed minded. It seems though, that Mr. Diamond would have realized that whether or not farming even came into the picture, people were going to start noticing that there were other people around them, and they were going to start helping one another, and then eventually start trading, and spread diseases anyway. If agriculture did anything, it just speed that process up a bit. Which is good, if it's bound to happen sometime, why not get it over with?
Diamond also says that agriculture encouraged social, and sexual inequalities. I find it a little hard to argue this point, seeing as I am a white male, and I also agree with him a little bit, still, I see some flaws with this argument. Inequalities against gender and races have been a gigantic piece of human history, no matter what part of the globe you are from, and I'm making the same argument as I did about the spread of diseases; it would have happened anyway. It is in the human nature to not want to do hard work. As lazy as it may seem, nobody wants to hurt themselves to try and accomplish a simple task, therefore we try and make other people do it. Agriculture is a prime example of this. Mr. Diamond said that agriculture encouraged this only because he couldn't think of anything else that could have started prejudice such as that.
Jared Diamond, although incredibly smart in lots of subjects, seems to have forgotten, or maybe just overlooked simple details in human history, biology, and just common sense that change his article dramatically. He tries to convince readers that the worst mistake in human history was the invention of agriculture, and that we still have not recovered from it's affects. Agriculture was not a step down in human history, it was a step up, and yes, with that step up came some rocky parts, but all of the rocky parts that we as a race have encountered, were going to happen to us anyway, they were unavoidable. Agriculture helped us forward both physically, and mentally, and we are a better people now that we have it than we would ever have been.
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