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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 objecti

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.

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.