Long ago, a wise man I knew who’d traveled up and down the spine of the Americas on foot observed on the subject of race:
I don’t believe there are meaningful differences you can ascribe to race. But I know for certain that there are unsuccessful cultures.
Following cultural patterns that were optimized for survival in non-industrial societies will doom you to a life of poverty, pain, and hunger in modern civilization. My wise man saw it in South and Central America; I see it among some of my in-laws in the Central Valley and in the inner cities; my wife’s doctoral thesis is about how it’s reflected in college persistence; The Bastidge sees it in Afghanistan. Race has nothing to do with it.
Very true. Been to some of the same shitty places – the southern Appalachians, the Middle East, and South Asia. Americans always wondered “why tolerate this shit?†and “why the f*ck do you stay here?â€
I laughed at my wife while on vacation in the Caribbean – she thought she was looking at poverty. She has no idea what poverty is.
Americans (at least middle-class ones) would either clean up the mess and make things work, or just leave and find a decent place to live. Maybe that’s how we got here.
Bram, that last is an interesting observation. As I recall, the soldiers who were portrayed in Band of Brothers commented on the difference between the French, who weren’t in any particular hurry to clean up after a battle went through their town, and the Germans, who were very good at organizing a clean-up with whatever and whoever was available.
Culture will tell.