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I was about to start writing exactly this, but didn't want to get into an argument with another Internet stranger about what the unspecified "we" (i.e. the gene

I was about to start writing exactly this, but didn't want to get into an argument with another Internet stranger about what the unspecified "we" (i.e. the general population) believes nowadays. Even the original explorers of that region, back when it was known as Verzin, were quite objective in their reports. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_First_Voyage_Round_the_World/Pigafetta%27s_Account_of_Magellan%27s_Voyage https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_First_Voyage_Round_the_Wo... The journalistic style at the BBC is to push an outdated colonization narrative onto everything, and I am also quite tired by it.

palmfacehn 3y ago
The topic is interesting. I would also prefer a less politicized source.
defrost 3y ago
Pigafetta's Account of Magellan's Voyage may well be an objective report on what was seen in 1519. The BBC article is on city structures that date to a full thousand years earlier. If had been written, Pigafetta's Account of Magellan's Ship fitting and Departure wouldn't neccesarily shed light on the state of civilization in Portugal in 500 BCE.
- primitivesuave 3y ago
  I brought up Pigafetta's account to point out that even five centuries ago, people were capable of making fascinating discoveries and simply stating the objective truth about what they found. Nowadays, the announcement of a discovery is usually paired with hyperbolic statements (e.g. "this changes everything we know about X") and veiled social commentary (e.g. "there is a widely-held Eurocentric view of civilization"). Had the sentence read more like "some academics have a Eurocentric view of civilization", I would probably take that argument at its face. But nowadays, with improvements in education and the vast quantity of good information available to anyone on the Internet, telling your readers that "we are Eurocentric in our view of culture and civilization" is tantamount to calling them ignorant.
  - defrost 3y ago
    Sure, it's absolutely qualifications all the way down; > five centuries ago, people were capable of making fascinating discoveries and simply stating [their perceived] objective truth about what they found. As I hope we can agree, Pigafetta with the best intentions in the "New World" was hardly capable of objectively writing anything other than his own perception .. that whole "New World" thing itself is a bit of a tell about contemporary writings on what for the subjects was the same old same old Old World they'd been living in for thousands of years. > telling your readers that "we are Eurocentric in our view of culture and civilization" is tantamount to calling them ignorant. The context for that is the BBC directly quoting Prof Stephen Rostain, director of investigation at the National Centre for Scientific Research in France. That is absolutely (I would hope) what the Prof said and it gives his opinion on the bulk of his European peers and mentors in studies of ancient civilisation. It's certainly the case that there are some acedemics who are not Eurocentric in outlook, a large number of those are out in front and in the public eye thanks to what some call "woke politics invading everywhere" but it's entirely possible there is still a dark mass of rarely popularised eurocentric professors of gravitas that create a well others are vocal about escaping from.
    - primitivesuave 3y ago
      I completely agree with your point about Pigafetta only writing from his own perspective. Perhaps a more poignant example was his naming of modern-day Guam as “Isla de Los Robos” (island of thieves) because he could only perceive their communal society as one where people are constantly stealing from each other, despite spending over a month living amongst them while giving accounts of their harmonious society. As for the general state of academia, I would opine that modern scholarship’s “dark mass” is rooted in postmodernism, and the most successful way to operate as a modern academic is to present all evidence from a racial/colonial perspective. Although your guess is as good as mine, as is the BBC’s, since people also need to contend with the potential Internet backlash from presenting their views nowadays.
- lolinder 3y ago
  The article very clearly is trying to make it sound like we didn't think there were any pre-Columbian cities in the Amazon: > While we knew about cities in the highlands of South America, like Machu Picchu in Peru, it was believed that people only lived nomadically or in tiny settlements in the Amazon. Machu Picchu was built in the ~1400s, not long before Magellan's voyage. Bringing that in as the example of the cities we knew about is clearly trying to communicate that we didn't believe in pre-Columbian cities in the Amazon, which is completely false. One example among many: https://news.mongabay.com/2005/10/pre-columbian-amazon-supported-millions-of-people/ https://news.mongabay.com/2005/10/pre-columbian-amazon-suppo...
  - defrost 3y ago
    Thanks for the reply. Which part of the article you linked supports the notion of large well established pre Columbian cities being a generally accepted notion prior to 2000? Indeed which part of that article supports large pre Columbian cities? Note: I do not dispute such things in the slightest, it's just that your 2005 article strongly supports the notion that until recently there were: long-held views that the region was sparsely populated by tribal groups who peacefully coexisted with the apparently hostile environment that surrounded them. The article you linked also supports recent (within past decade) changes in common though to embrace large sedentary populations of people clearing sections of forest for managed agriculture, etc. That supports large dispersed agrian populations but doesn't go so far as large concentrated urban areas which seems to be what the primary BBC article is attributing to the Prof. in question here. In the arc of academic studies these are all "recent" changes in the traditional scholastic views .. although admittedly they perhaps originated a little before your own birth?
    - lolinder 3y ago
      > although admittedly they perhaps originated a little before your own birth? I'd started putting together a reply, but this turned me off. I'll just leave a note saying that this is ineffective discourse and you might want to reconsider your approach in the future.

palmfacehn 3y ago

The topic is interesting. I would also prefer a less politicized source.

defrost 3y ago

Pigafetta's Account of Magellan's Voyage may well be an objective report on what was seen in 1519. The BBC article is on city structures that date to a full thousand years earlier. If had been written, Pigafetta's Account of Magellan's Ship fitting and Departure wouldn't neccesarily shed light on the state of civilization in Portugal in 500 BCE.

primitivesuave 3y ago
I brought up Pigafetta's account to point out that even five centuries ago, people were capable of making fascinating discoveries and simply stating the objective truth about what they found. Nowadays, the announcement of a discovery is usually paired with hyperbolic statements (e.g. "this changes everything we know about X") and veiled social commentary (e.g. "there is a widely-held Eurocentric view of civilization"). Had the sentence read more like "some academics have a Eurocentric view of civilization", I would probably take that argument at its face. But nowadays, with improvements in education and the vast quantity of good information available to anyone on the Internet, telling your readers that "we are Eurocentric in our view of culture and civilization" is tantamount to calling them ignorant.
- defrost 3y ago
  Sure, it's absolutely qualifications all the way down; > five centuries ago, people were capable of making fascinating discoveries and simply stating [their perceived] objective truth about what they found. As I hope we can agree, Pigafetta with the best intentions in the "New World" was hardly capable of objectively writing anything other than his own perception .. that whole "New World" thing itself is a bit of a tell about contemporary writings on what for the subjects was the same old same old Old World they'd been living in for thousands of years. > telling your readers that "we are Eurocentric in our view of culture and civilization" is tantamount to calling them ignorant. The context for that is the BBC directly quoting Prof Stephen Rostain, director of investigation at the National Centre for Scientific Research in France. That is absolutely (I would hope) what the Prof said and it gives his opinion on the bulk of his European peers and mentors in studies of ancient civilisation. It's certainly the case that there are some acedemics who are not Eurocentric in outlook, a large number of those are out in front and in the public eye thanks to what some call "woke politics invading everywhere" but it's entirely possible there is still a dark mass of rarely popularised eurocentric professors of gravitas that create a well others are vocal about escaping from.
  - primitivesuave 3y ago
    I completely agree with your point about Pigafetta only writing from his own perspective. Perhaps a more poignant example was his naming of modern-day Guam as “Isla de Los Robos” (island of thieves) because he could only perceive their communal society as one where people are constantly stealing from each other, despite spending over a month living amongst them while giving accounts of their harmonious society. As for the general state of academia, I would opine that modern scholarship’s “dark mass” is rooted in postmodernism, and the most successful way to operate as a modern academic is to present all evidence from a racial/colonial perspective. Although your guess is as good as mine, as is the BBC’s, since people also need to contend with the potential Internet backlash from presenting their views nowadays.
lolinder 3y ago
The article very clearly is trying to make it sound like we didn't think there were any pre-Columbian cities in the Amazon: > While we knew about cities in the highlands of South America, like Machu Picchu in Peru, it was believed that people only lived nomadically or in tiny settlements in the Amazon. Machu Picchu was built in the ~1400s, not long before Magellan's voyage. Bringing that in as the example of the cities we knew about is clearly trying to communicate that we didn't believe in pre-Columbian cities in the Amazon, which is completely false. One example among many: https://news.mongabay.com/2005/10/pre-columbian-amazon-supported-millions-of-people/ https://news.mongabay.com/2005/10/pre-columbian-amazon-suppo...
- defrost 3y ago
  Thanks for the reply. Which part of the article you linked supports the notion of large well established pre Columbian cities being a generally accepted notion prior to 2000? Indeed which part of that article supports large pre Columbian cities? Note: I do not dispute such things in the slightest, it's just that your 2005 article strongly supports the notion that until recently there were: long-held views that the region was sparsely populated by tribal groups who peacefully coexisted with the apparently hostile environment that surrounded them. The article you linked also supports recent (within past decade) changes in common though to embrace large sedentary populations of people clearing sections of forest for managed agriculture, etc. That supports large dispersed agrian populations but doesn't go so far as large concentrated urban areas which seems to be what the primary BBC article is attributing to the Prof. in question here. In the arc of academic studies these are all "recent" changes in the traditional scholastic views .. although admittedly they perhaps originated a little before your own birth?
  - lolinder 3y ago
    > although admittedly they perhaps originated a little before your own birth? I'd started putting together a reply, but this turned me off. I'll just leave a note saying that this is ineffective discourse and you might want to reconsider your approach in the future.