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Do you agree with Thomas Sowell's take on why Africa is so behind? (rejects IQ hypothesis)
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:33 pm
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:33 pm
He blames 2 main things: awful and unlucky geography, and leaders educated in left-wing european/western schools
quote:
Nature and man have combined to make Africa the most tragic of the continents — and the men who did this have been both black and white.
The great French historian Fernand Braudel said, "In understanding black Africa, geography is more important than history." Much of Africa's history was in fact shaped by its geography.
Almost every great city in the world has risen on navigable waterways — and such waterways are more scarce in Africa than in any other continent. An aircraft carrier can dock on the Hudson River in midtown Manhattan, but there is not a single river where that is possible on the vast continent of Africa, which is larger than Europe or North America.
Even smaller boats can travel only a limited distance on most African rivers because of cascades and waterfalls. Most of the continent is more than 1,000 feet above sea level, and more than half of Africa is more than 2,000 feet above sea level. That means its rivers and streams must plunge down from those heights on their way to the sea.
Water transport was crucial in the thousands of years before there were trains or automobiles. It was crucial for developing an economy and crucial for developing a culture in touch with enough other widely scattered cultures to make use of advances in the rest of the world. But many African societies have been isolated by that continent's dearth of both navigable rivers and harbors.
Isolated regions have almost invariably lagged behind regions in touch with a wider cultural universe. One among many signs of the isolation and cultural fragmentation of much of sub-Saharan Africa is that African languages are one third of all the languages in the world, even though African peoples are only about 10 percent of the world's population.
Small, tribal societies were another consequence of geographic isolation — and the vulnerability of such societies to conquest by outsiders was another.
If cultural diversity was all that the multiculturalists claim, Africa would be a heaven on Earth. Too often and in too many places it has been a hell on Earth.
quote:
Many people expected great things from Africa when new independent African nations began to emerge from colonial rule in the 1960s, often headed by leaders who had been educated in Europe and America.
Unfortunately, what these new leaders brought back to Africa from the West were not the things that had made the West prosperous and powerful but the untested theories of Western intellectuals and ideologues who had taught them. Such African leaders by and large lacked both the common sense of the African masses and the technological and economic experience of the West.
The net result was that African leaders, full of confidence because of their Western education and the adulation of the Western intelligentsia, made their people guinea pigs for half-baked theories that had contributed nothing to the rise of the West and had contributed much to its social degeneration.
Poverty-stricken Africa could afford these economic and social disasters far less than the affluent West could. However, African leaders were not judged in the West by their results but by their rhetoric and their visions that resonated with the rhetoric and the visions of the Western intelligentsia.
Thus Julius Nyerere became virtually a secular saint in the Western media while he was driving the people of Tanzania deeper into poverty and tyranny. Nor was he alone.
Conversely, when Felix Houphouet-Boigny made the Ivory Coast an oasis of economic advancement and civil peace, he was either ignored or disdained. He was one of the few new African leaders with any previous experience in business or any understanding of economics. His successors have ruined the country.
Whatever damage European colonialism did to Africa during its relatively brief reign, that was probably less than the damage done later by well-meaning Western would-be saviors of Africa. Africans do not need to be treated as mascots but as people whose own efforts, skills and initiatives need to be freed from the tyranny of their leaders and the paternalism of Western busybodies.
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:39 pm to HailHailtoMichigan!
Yes.
Tragically, Marxism is as much a legacy of Western Civilization as the notion of individual rights.
Destructive culture is not limited to such incidentals as race.
Tragically, Marxism is as much a legacy of Western Civilization as the notion of individual rights.
Destructive culture is not limited to such incidentals as race.
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:39 pm to HailHailtoMichigan!
Yes.
He brought some of this up with the german women having kids with black soldiers after ww2.
No drop in IQ and no black subculture draging them down.
They performed as good as whites across the board.
He brought some of this up with the german women having kids with black soldiers after ww2.
No drop in IQ and no black subculture draging them down.
They performed as good as whites across the board.
This post was edited on 5/11/21 at 12:41 pm
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:39 pm to HailHailtoMichigan!
quote:
Do you agree with Thomas Sowell's take
I have yet to find a take he has on anything I disagree with.
quote:
on why Africa is so behind? (rejects IQ hypothesis)
He's studied the subject far deeper than I and probably from far more different angles than most (that's just what he does). If he's not dead on, he's probably not too far off.
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:41 pm to HailHailtoMichigan!
quote:
Thomas Sowell's take
I almost want to go ahead and agree without reading through the post. Sowell is typically so spot on its hard to refute, or at least you’d look really foolish if you tried.
One thing he touched on briefly, that is a big contributor is the general tribalism in continent.
Overall, the IQ hypothesis is pretty lightweight to me. They’re smart enough, but they have so much going against them and they have been indoctrinated by the worst of the worst. Africa has gotten the worst of the east and the worst of the west. Now with China looking to make what equates to a land grab; their outlook is worse than ever.
This post was edited on 5/11/21 at 12:46 pm
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:44 pm to RolltidePA
Tribalism and the leaders had all the guns which prevented their ability to take advantage of the industrial revolution technologies and the secular growth the west enjoyed from it.
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:50 pm to HailHailtoMichigan!
Sowell's scholarship is impeccable.
Africa drew a weird mix of blessing/curses from a geographic standpoint. The Sahara was a formidable barrier against Western (Northern?) incursions for millennia. But the rivers (other than the Nile) were wild and unpredictable - as wild and unpredictable as those in the fertile crescent.
Blessed with gold and diamonds, they (those South of the Sahara) were short of things like accessible tin and so forth which allowed the Bronze Age cultures to hurtle past them technologically and scientifically.
In the post-independence era, corrupt native leaders mostly wielding Marxist (and increasingly Maoist) rhetoric are no different than tyrants who build cults of personality. It is all about power.
Just as it is in the West, but at least our centers of power are more broadly distributed, and so must be the corruption. In Africa (and this is largely true in Central and South America), control of just a handful - I'm talking a dozen or so folks, can tip an entire nation.
It is no coincidence that the most democratic African nations are quite small - Mauritius and Botswana (two of the better examples), combined, are about the population of Louisiana.
Africa drew a weird mix of blessing/curses from a geographic standpoint. The Sahara was a formidable barrier against Western (Northern?) incursions for millennia. But the rivers (other than the Nile) were wild and unpredictable - as wild and unpredictable as those in the fertile crescent.
Blessed with gold and diamonds, they (those South of the Sahara) were short of things like accessible tin and so forth which allowed the Bronze Age cultures to hurtle past them technologically and scientifically.
In the post-independence era, corrupt native leaders mostly wielding Marxist (and increasingly Maoist) rhetoric are no different than tyrants who build cults of personality. It is all about power.
Just as it is in the West, but at least our centers of power are more broadly distributed, and so must be the corruption. In Africa (and this is largely true in Central and South America), control of just a handful - I'm talking a dozen or so folks, can tip an entire nation.
It is no coincidence that the most democratic African nations are quite small - Mauritius and Botswana (two of the better examples), combined, are about the population of Louisiana.
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:51 pm to HailHailtoMichigan!
Great book and great chapter.
Yes. He’s nailed a major reason.
Yes. He’s nailed a major reason.
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:51 pm to HailHailtoMichigan!
River thing is BS - they have tons of coastline. Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, Miami, Atlanta, etc.
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:52 pm to HailHailtoMichigan!
bullshite to almost all of that. I’ve spent considerable time in Africa (north, east, and west). Almost every excuse pointed out in the article is bullshite. Are there challenges? Sure, but those challenges are secondary to the fact that the inhabitants of Africa are basically savages. It is what it is.
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:56 pm to HailHailtoMichigan!
Somewhat. That’s no excuse for the failed countries in Northern Africa, or in the south.
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:57 pm to RolltidePA
China is going to transform and re-colonize Africa in the next 20 years. They will be exporting everything of value back to China.
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:58 pm to HailHailtoMichigan!
quote:
Almost every great city in the world has risen on navigable waterways — and such waterways are more scarce in Africa than in any other continent.
Dems/Media: Waterways are racist
Posted on 5/11/21 at 12:59 pm to HailHailtoMichigan!
quote:
Do you agree with Thomas Sowell's take on why Africa is so behind?
Partially...the main reason is bc every leader of every African country steals billions then retires on some island
Posted on 5/11/21 at 1:00 pm to HailHailtoMichigan!
quote:
leaders educated in left-wing european/western schools
Always comes down to whitey's fault, even for people like Sowell.
Posted on 5/11/21 at 1:04 pm to Pvt Hudson
"River thing is BS - they have tons of coastline."
I can't claim familiarity with the geography of the African coast, but the piece noted the absence of natural harbors, not coastline.
I can't claim familiarity with the geography of the African coast, but the piece noted the absence of natural harbors, not coastline.
This post was edited on 5/11/21 at 1:56 pm
Posted on 5/11/21 at 1:05 pm to thejudge
quote:
He brought some of this up with the german women having kids with black soldiers after ww2.
I don't think I've heard or read about this. Were they German settlers in Africa?
Posted on 5/11/21 at 1:05 pm to Pvt Hudson
quote:
River thing is BS - they have tons of coastline.
Making a ship seaworthy requires a much higher level of craftsmanship than making one for a river. Plus much of the southern coastline has very few natural harbors and very rough seas. The southern tip of Africa is well known as one of the most treacherous places to sail in the world.
Posted on 5/11/21 at 1:07 pm to Bard
quote:
I have yet to find a take he has on anything I disagree with.
Aye. And If I would find something then I'd first question my own beliefs/assumptions on that topic.
Posted on 5/11/21 at 1:08 pm to HailHailtoMichigan!
Not saying he's wrong, but even coastal African countries that could easily construct ports are shitholes. Europeans built railroads through Africa that they allowed to fall into disrepair post-Colonialism. Then there's agriculture. They have vast amounts of VERY fertile soil with plenty of rain in most places, yet can't produce enough food to feed themselves. Even places not constrained by geography (Haiti, Chicago, Detroit, etc.) always seem to go to shite once blacks assume power.
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