And now for something completely different ..

[James Coplin]

The other thing to consider is the massive Eurocentric assumption of the
author.  Even if there was a massive conspiracy of Western hegemons
controlling academic research (one that I as a Western academic would of
course fall under and therefore my observations are of course suspect and
in keeping with the power structure's aims), there are lots of other
people not in the Western world who are also smart academics.  In fact,
there are far more of them in the non-Western world than in the Western
world.  If 1% of the population on average is of genius level IQ, the
Chinese have more geniuses than we have people in the US.  India is right
behind them.  The fact that there are no Balinese or Mayan descended
peoples or specialists making this claim makes this all the more suspect.

What I find most ironic is that the author suggests that the Western world
doesn't want to acknowledge this golden tradition as it threatens our
position somehow.  In fact, the reason older scholars were so desperately
trying to make these connection is that having a unified origin cultural
allowed Europeans to claim ascendancy over others as they clearly were the
pinnacle of advancement of that original tradition.  In fact, much of
Western Anthropology, Sociology, and History were directly attempting to
make such claims backed by "science."  The inclusion of voices into the
narrative (women, people actually ethnically part of the subject group
etc.) has largely shattered these older notions of Western dominance and
supremacy.  That being said, as a specialist of China, I am constantly
fighting against this old tradition even with younger students, grad
students, and faculty who are still largely wedded to the old colonial
view of the world.

James R. Coplin

> -----Original Message-----
> From: music-bar-bounces at lists.music-bar.org [mailto:music-bar-
> bounces at lists.music-bar.org] On Behalf Of punkdISCO
> Sent: Thursday, August 02, 2012 12:21 PM
> To: 'Music-bar'
> Subject: RE: And now for something completely different ..
>
> > Thank you, James, for getting some sense back into this discussion. :)
>
> It was an interesting article so, thanks for posting Jay.  But like
James's very
> well put observations, I was kinda thinking all the way through the
article
> "hmmm, square doorway in Mayan; square doorway in Balinese - wait a
> second! My doorways are square - fuck me, am I part Mayan/part
> Balinese?!!"
>
> Clearly Im being flippant, there were comparisons made that were eyebrow
> raising but the idea that this evidence has been supressed does not hold
for
> me.  If there is one thing that I would assume about your average
historian is
> that the way you make a name for yourself is you look for the big story,
you
> don't supress it as the article suggests..  Unless of course, you are
writing an
> article such as this one where you suggest that the world is not as we
know it
> and, your predecessors have supressed the evidence ;-)
>
> But it was fun and I will defo lookup Gerts extra links when Im not
getting
> badgered by Leah to finish a track..
>
> Paul
> London
> www.punkdisco.co.uk
> Text SLUT to: 29 7 29 7
> Here's the video:  www.youtu.be/Zl0PTZKy7fg
>
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