Quickies
Quickies: Men and guns, Columbusing, and the peaceful Harappan civilization
- The scary reason some men like guns better than women – “Conflating women and guns is nothing new. Anyone who’s been to a gun show will tell you they’re rife with bumper stickers commenting on the relative utility of women versus firearms (like: “My wife YES, My dog MAYBE, My gun NEVER!”) and jokes about bloodsucking ex-wives.”
- Finally, a perfect term for when white people “discover” something – Columbusing: When a white person discovers something for white people.
- More helpful advice – A comic on people’s reactions to using medication to treat mental illnesses.
- How did this ancient civilization avoid war for 2000 years? – From Criticaldragon1177.
Is anybody here going to look even a little askance at the notion that Harappa managed to last two thousand years without war? I mean, we hardly have any real Harappan artifacts–and this person’s leaping around and speculating about some matriarchal PoC tumblrtopia that’s never been evidenced anywhere else on the planet throughout the whole of history. It raises all my red flags–it’s like reading some indulgent article about bonobos.
Jonathan, der Ewige Noobe,
I posted an excerpt of that story over at Little Green Footballs.
Someone going by the name of “Eigth Immortal” posted this comment,
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We know very little about the Harrapans. Maybe they didn’t really avoid war, but had the habit of recycling weapons when they were not needed. They did not leave behind any writing either, so we still do not know their language.
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To which I replied
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that could well be the case, and maybe even if they were more war like they appear to be, maybe they had some kind of Taboo against depicting combat in their art for one reason or another.
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http://littlegreenfootballs.com/page/309479_How_Did_This_Ancient_Civilizat/#cc10454410
I agree, it is very unlikely they went that long without engaging in warfare, even in self defense. However, its interesting that so far it sounds like we have found little evidence that they did. I have to wonder why through.
I’m pretty certain that eventually we’ll find a dark side to their society if we look far enough. The world is not a fairy tales and things are never perfect.
What’s funny about Columbus is he wasn’t even the first white man to cross the Atlantic, though I’m not sure the concept of “white” existed in AD 1000. Or 1491, for that matter. But what’s most relevant is, people forget the rest of the story, like how Queen Isabella (hardly a model of tolerance herself) fired his ass because of his cruelty. But he still retired a very rich man.