Paling celaka, seorang pengarang bukan seorang talibarut, bukan seekor
kuda tunggangan, bukan seberkas perkakas, bukan pengikut buta tuli dan
bukan pencatit upahan.
—Shahnon Ahmad, Malaysia's National Literary Laureate
(My translation: Damn it! A writer is not a rumormonger or someone's
hobbyhorse; nor is he the party's apparatchik, a blind follower, or a
hired hand.)
Chapter 2: Why Some Societies Progress, Others Regress
Man is the child of customs, not the child of his ancestors.
—Ibn Khaldun, 14th century Muslim historian
The development of human societies can be analyzed from three
perspectives: biology, geography, and culture. This classification is
arbitrary, adopted for the convenience of discussion. In reality the
factors are interrelated.
Briefly, the theories that favor biological factors posit that there are
inherent differences among humans such that certain groups are favored or
better endowed with capabilities that facilitated their progress.
Conversely, others are less fortunate. Stripped of its sophistry, these
are essentially racist viewpoints. It was such thinking that gave rise to
Hitler's fascist regime, with its attempted extermination of not only
members of the "inferior" races but also Germans deemed not "up to
snuff." In Australia it was manifested in its discriminatory "White
Australia" immigration policy; in South Africa, its abhorrent and now
defunct apartheid rule. In ancient times it was the Chinese who
proclaimed they were the best, smugly declaring that they had nothing to
learn from the barbarians of the outside world.
Theories based on geography emphasize the role of the physical environment
and climate in human development. Intuitively one can be easily persuaded
by this argument. A nation blessed with abundant natural resources would
be more likely to thrive and prosper, compared to one that is barren and
harsh. Civilizations are not likely to thrive in extreme climatic zones
like the tundra, rather in fertile alluvial plains of great rivers like
the Nile and Indus.
The third of the series of theories presume that human progress is more a
function of the social institutions and culture. Some cultures are
resistant to changes and new ideas, others more receptive. The latter
would be more likely to develop faster.
It is also easy to see the how these three main elements are interrelated
in charting the course of human history. It is not coincidental that the
major monotheistic faiths – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – originated
in the desert of the Middle East. In the vastness of the barren sand, with
the stark contrast between life and death, desert and oasis, the scorching
heat of the day and the frigid cold of the night, one sought a unifying
theme to relate these profound differences. Thus the belief in an
omnipotent deity took hold, to bridge the polar extremes and to link the
present world with the hereafter.
Faiths like Buddhism and Hinduism that began in warmer climes view the
cosmos differently. Inhabitants of the lush tropics with their different
hues of life forms instead of the stark, dichotomous contrasts of the
desert developed a belief in multiple deities and in reincarnations. The
dead tree in the forest is not really dead, but gives rise to multiple
life forms – fungi, ants, and worms. The variety of colors and sounds of
the jungle make absolute silence impossible. This richness in the
environment is reflected in their belief in the different deities – thus
a god for this, and another for that.
Similarly there is a close relationship between known biological traits
and geography. For example, the sickle gene trait common among African
Blacks confers certain survival value in the tropics. With it the human
hemoglobin takes a particular form that makes it resistant to malarial
infection. Also, the dark skin of tropical people protects against the
cancer-inducing ultraviolet rays of the sun. Melanoma, a deadly skin
cancer, is predominantly the disease of fair-skinned individuals.
If biology affects such physical attributes as forms of hemoglobin and
skin color, it does not take a huge leap of imagination to extend it to
other human qualities, including intelligence and the propensity to
progress. Geography thus operates through the process of natural
selection, by enhancing the survivability of those with particular
favorable traits and gradually eliminating those less fortunately
endowed.
The difficulty with using biology and geography to explain the progress of
human development is their limited utility. Members of a society are
either lucky to possess the inherent "good" biological attributes, or
lacking that, they would be trapped and doomed. Likewise with geography;
a country is either blessed with a balmy climate, endowed with rich
resources, and located in a desirable strategic area, or be cursed with a
barren desert, devoid of precious minerals, and located at land's end.
Nothing can change those fundamental facts.
Granted, air conditioning has turned the hot humid American Southeast into
"sun belts" and central heating makes living in Canada more bearable, but
beyond those simple adjustments there is nothing much that can be done to
alter the environment. That being the case, there is not much sense in
studying such factors, as we cannot alter them; it would be purely
academic. Human societies would then be at the mercy of their biological
and geographical attributes – a form of predeterminism no less crippling
than the more familiar religious one.
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