Re: cultural entertainment's ambivalence towards technology

In a message dated 6/9/2006 8:26:25 AM Eastern Standard Time,
mrb22667@kansas.net writes:
The recent Disney movie “Tall Tale” has the familiar theme of small family
farm
vs. the evil developer buying up all the land, and generally upsetting all
the
local community in the name of fistfuls of money and inevitable “progress”.
 

Is it my imagination or has our popular entertainment always romanticized the
self-appointed preservers of an old way of life as they make their stand
against the behemoth of progress?

rich:
It is not necessarily progress. The centralization of agriculture has
heralded the decline of civilization throughout history.
And it's not just technological. In the persian and roman empires, slaves
were imported that displaced the indigenous independent small farmer. In the dust
bowl, on the other hand, it was technology that replaced the small farmer.
(grapes of wrath)
In each case, power over agriculture was wielded by fewer and fewer people.

merv:
If our popular entertainment does romanticize the former side more than the
latter, does this effect spill over into the perceived warfare model of science
vs. religion?

rich:
I'm not sure what you mean but genesis tells us all about the centralization
of agriculture. Read the story of Joseph in genesis. Most literature on the
Joseph story talks about how Joseph saved Egypt. That's not what he did. He
centralized agriculture by buying the farms of the Egyptian small farmer when they
were starving. (remember, he could have had ALL the small farmers cache their
crops. He only warned the pharoah - Joseph put all the power of Egypt in the
pharoah's hands and impoverished the indigenous small farmer). Those small
farmers lost their land and then migrated to the cities, just the way the oakies
migrated to california for jobs.

The Egyptologist Redford in Canaan, Israel and Egypt in Ancient Times and the
ANE historian Mario Liverani in his history of Israel both cover the Joseph
story and its focus on economics.

Now you know why Cain's gifts were unacceptable and why most Jews eschew
farming. Independent small farmers always lose their farms as a civilization makes
the transition to empire.

Paul Colinvaux, the ecologist says the replacement of the small farmer on the
italian peninsula with latifundium (large agricultural estates manned by
slaves) made it possible for Hannibal to ravage italy. The slaves would not defend
the land the way indigenous roman farmers had. (the fates of nations, a
biological theory of history).

It's an inevitable transition.

richard faussette
Received on Fri Jun 9 12:43:05 2006