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Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

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Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#191

Post by tyler-groves »

eloff wrote: post #182
alvarezbjm-hn wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is a self sufficient society with its own language not a civilization? Maybe you meant to say "We didn't leave much of that civilization"

I mean they didn't have much in the way of writing, architecture, science, or organization. They were thousands of years behind the more advanced civilizations. They had a primitive civilization. There wasn't much left of their civilization 120 years ago (thanks to Europeans) and they didn't leave much behind that endured.

Native Americans wrote in an alphabet of their design, organized societies (sometimes at a large scale e.g. Cahokia), they clearly built structures of their own architected design, and they had science depending on your strictness in evaluating its definition.

I am disheartened by your comment.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#192

Post by relaxing »

philwelch wrote: post #187
relaxing wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The French national identity goes back to Charlemagne, not merely de Gaulle.

And the American national identity goes back primarily to the Anglo-Saxons.

We fought multiple wars to sever those ties. Then allowed generations of non-Anglo immigration, not to mention slavery.

There are far more Americans who claim German descent than English. Irish, too. And Blacks.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#193

Post by pgh »

spopejoy wrote: post #185
pgh wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s German meaning “commons" - communal lands.

Alemania(SP)/Allemagne(FR) for Germany -- must be related??

Similar etymology, I would suppose “All mans” https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alamans

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#194

Post by eloff »

tyler-groves wrote: post #191
eloff wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean they didn't have much in the way of writing, architecture, science, or organization. They were thousands of years behind the more advanced civilizations. They had a primitive civilization. There wasn't much left of their civilization 120 years ago (thanks to Europeans) and they didn't leave much behind that endured.

Native Americans wrote in an alphabet of their design, organized societies (sometimes at a large scale e.g. Cahokia), they clearly built structures of their own architected design, and they had science depending on your strictness in evaluating its definition. I am disheartened by your comment.

All of that is pretty cool, but it's nothing compared to what the Greeks accomplished over 2000 years earlier. Or the Romans, or the Chinese, or the Egyptians, or the Incas, etc. The Native Americans were downright primitive by comparison with other civilizations. Especially on the prairies of Canada where they were basically hunter-gatherers living in small bands. I am likewise disheartened by your wilful ignorance of the truth.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#195

Post by philwelch »

relaxing wrote: post #192
philwelch wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the American national identity goes back primarily to the Anglo-Saxons.

We fought multiple wars to sever those ties. Then allowed generations of non-Anglo immigration, not to mention slavery. There are far more Americans who claim German descent than English. Irish, too. And Blacks.

That’s one of the reasons I used the word “primarily”, which is a word that I would defend. Even if many Americans don’t personally have much English descent, the shared cultural narrative of the country starts there. The central complaint of the American Revolution was that the British were infringing on our traditional “rights of Englishmen”, which evolved over centuries. We’ve retained the English language and the English common law. Many of our cultural and regional variations to this day, even down to our regional dialects, can be traced to those that existed in different parts of England.

Also, please find a reliable citation that says that more Americans have African than English heritage. That strikes me as a very surprising claim.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#196

Post by PhasmaFelis »

eloff wrote: post #194
tyler-groves wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Native Americans wrote in an alphabet of their design, organized societies (sometimes at a large scale e.g. Cahokia), they clearly built structures of their own architected design, and they had science depending on your strictness in evaluating its definition. I am disheartened by your comment.

All of that is pretty cool, but it's nothing compared to what the Greeks accomplished over 2000 years earlier. Or the Romans, or the Chinese, or the Egyptians, or the Incas, etc. The Native Americans were downright primitive by comparison with other civilizations. Especially on the prairies of Canada where they were basically hunter-gatherers living in small bands. I am likewise disheartened by your wilful ignorance…

"the Egyptians did it bigger" is a far cry from your original claim that there was "not much in the way of civilization" there at all.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#197

Post by brnt »

relaxing wrote: post #173
tomrod wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly there is, from the industrial revolution forward. France tried to completely recreate itself several times during this period. By way of example, we no longer call it the Frankish lands nor the monarchy. Aggregate governance structures have changed tens of times, whereas the US really hasn't changed dramatically in the post Native American and post Revolution periods.

The French national identity goes back to Charlemagne, not merely de Gaulle.

Napoleon, in case you studied the subject. The history of Franks and France is certainly not one of direct descendence, nor was there such a thing as a nation or national identity at the time of Charlemagne. Did you know the only surviving Franconian language is Dutch?

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#198

Post by panick21_ »

bluGill wrote: post #137
eloff wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we disagree on the definition of "a lot". Were there even any permanent settlements on the Canadian prairies? Most of the natives were nomadic.

> Most of the natives were nomadic. Prior to the horse they were not nomadic, the prairies don't support a nomadic way of life without some animal you can ride, and the prairies didn't have one that can be tamed, so it is clear they were not nomads. The natives didn't have access to the types of building materials that would result in permanent structures, which means there is limited evidence for archeologists to wo…

The nomadic way of live also turned to same way it does on the Eurasion steppe, all of a sudden you can have large scale raiding and proto-empires. Those tribes that could buy weapons from Europe and have horses could basically exploit the others. This likely transformed the societies in lots of ways but its hard to know because we do not have good records of those times.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#199

Post by eloff »

PhasmaFelis wrote: post #196
eloff wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of that is pretty cool, but it's nothing compared to what the Greeks accomplished over 2000 years earlier. Or the Romans, or the Chinese, or the Egyptians, or the Incas, etc. The Native Americans were downright primitive by comparison with other civilizations. Especially on the prairies of Canada where they were basically hunter-gatherers living in small bands. I am likewise disheartened by your wilful ignorance…

"the Egyptians did it bigger" is a far cry from your original claim that there was "not much in the way of civilization" there at all.

I see it the same way. Semi nomadic bands of a couple hundred people without permanent structures is "not much in the way of civilization".

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#200

Post by tomrod »

relaxing wrote: post #172
fnordpiglet wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are ancient indigenous civilizations that continue to this day in America, or do we deny their history is part of the history of America? The history of the political Germany is very short if we are talking about established political institutions.

Yes, we worked very deliberately to eradicate those indigenous civilizations, and finally isolate what remained of them from white America. I’m not sure why people keep bringing up political institutions when the conversation is clearly about cultural institutions.

As the numerous other commentators have identified, people are bringing up politicl institutions because your key point proposing differentiation is defined by political institutions, such as the American revolution, but fails to account for continuity and evolution of cultural institutions that persist beyond those changes. Like continuity of the tossed salad blend of Americans.

But, my original comment to you is that noting continuity and shared evolution of cultural institutions between America and Europe during the industrial revolution is not American Exceptionalism, and isn't really something to have umbrage regarding when others note it.

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