Jared Diamond asks easy questions: “Japan’s population increased by an astonishing factor of 70 during [War-God] Yayoi times [300 BC to AD 300]: What caused that change?” (Go HERE, to Discover Magazine, for more of Diamond's article, titled "Japanese Roots").
The answer: The jump from Goddess to War God.
Goddess says it’s women who know when to make babies.
Before the Yayoi, the Goddess-loving Jomon took care of Japan for 10,000 years (See their goddess figurines below). For 10,000 years they never overpopulated those islands – not one inch or iota.
It took the Yayoi less than 700 years to get the islands crawling with human flesh.
Why? ‘Cause their nervous-ninny War-God constantly shrieked in their ears, “There’s never enough! There’s never enough!” [Search on this blog under "Starvation Culture" for more on this.]
So this Yayoi War-God dude, he turns women into breeding machines, brood bunnies bearing barnfuls of babies who become soldiers taught to steal stuff from the neighbors across the mountains. (Today this same dude whispers about stealing from the oil-rich in neighboring boroughs, counties or countries, or from those across the Big Pond).
5 comments:
This is going to sound obvious, but it really struck me today that the resentment men feel toward women is rooted in the idea that they felt betrayed by Nature when the land dried up in Sahrasia.
How are you, Athana?
Yeah, it really fits well, doesn't it? Everyone trusts totally in the Great and Unconditionally-Loving Mother Earth -- and then suddently -- She seems to totally disappear. Not for a season or two, but for generations. And of course She takes all your food and water with Her.
It would seem to explain why men began to mistrust women. And it might even explain why women began to hang their heads and mistrust themselves, and to let men push them around.
I'm very, very good, Morgaine, and very very busy. I promised to have this book done by November, and I'm only on chapter three out of ten (arghhhh!). So I've had to shorten the book (cut chapters) and also revamp my schedule. So now instead of taking two months for each chapter, I've given myself 11 days. Thing is, I need to have time to edit (and re-edit) each chapter before I give it to a few friends to read over, and then I'll need time to fix what they find to fix.
So I'm really on a sail, here, trying to meet this new (slave driver of a) schedule. Afraid the blog is suffering for it. And I'm missing everyone in the b-sphere!
How are you doing?
I'm doing ok right now. I have a lot to do, and I'm getting nothing done on the book, except for some reading. At some point, I'll catch fire and get it done, but I don't know when that will be.
Hang in there - I can't wait to read your book.
I just found your journal. I like the way that Diamond writes, but much of his sociobiological reasoning has always rubbed me the wrong way. I also feel like he is rediscovering the wheel most of the time when he writes about the Americas. It was important to compare what happened in prehistory in the Americas with Australia and the Pacific Islands, though.
Don, I've tried twice to read Guns, Germs & Steel, and got so dismayed at all the blunders that I gave up -- twice. But on small points like the one I brought up here, I trust that at least with them Mr. Diamond gets his facts straight.
Post a Comment