Challenging My Own Assumptions

Finally, just when I had decided once and for all that Guns, Germs and Steel was an interesting idea for a book half its size but deadly dull at its present length, and just as I was reaching the end of the book only because I'm stubborn and will not quit a book unless it's really incredibly dreadful; just at this point, the book finally gets interesting.

Prof. Diamond talks about why Europe rather than China came to dominate the modern world when China had a clear head start in the development of its civilization. (The Fertile Crescent failed early on, largely because its inhabitants exhausted the local environment, a clear lesson for today.) He suggests that despite China's big head start, and its plethora of important inventions (like paper, gunpowder and the compass), its geographical advantages became disadvantages: China developed a unified political system that repeatedly stifled and sometimes reversed technological developments. In the early 15th Century, Chinese treasure ships dominated the seas, but between 1405 and 1433 a squabble between two Chinese political factions ended up halting naval exploration when the anti-exploration faction gained the upper hand. This faction also dismantled the shipyards, so that even when interest in exploration might have been renewed, there were no facilities for supplying new ships.

The Europeans, however, benefited from their political instability. Geographical disadvantages became an advantage: individual regions were more fragmented and thus, in comparative isolation, developed stronger regional and ethnic identities, thus resisting political unification. As a result, even if one local ruler went a little soft in the head and decided to repress naval exploration, another neighboring principality would gleefully step into the void (which in turn would force other countries to follow suit, just to keep pace). And with Chinese ships absent from the scene, several decades later the Spanish sent Christopher Columbus sailing toward the edge of the world, which may be why you and I don't speak Mandarin.

I find this fascinating. For my whole life I have assumed that globalism is a good thing, that the consolidation of individual regions into larger confederations could only have salutary long-term benefits. It's borne of my deep-seated belief that as human beings, we all have far more in common than the petty little nonsense that divides us, and that we will all be better off when we find ways to live together as people first and Africans/Americans/Asians/Europeans second. The American experience seemed to bear this out: clearly the United States benefited enormously from the difficult process of knitting together the various colonies into one political entity, even though that involved the awful consequence of a civil war.

But Prof. Diamond has made me wonder whether it's a good idea to take my assumptions to their ultimate conclusion. If all the world were to be united as one political entity, do we then lose the benefits of competition? Do we lose the value of contrasting voices? If the world becomes one monolithic colossus, does it simultaneously lose its ability to innovate and advance?

An interesting question. Maybe it's the basis for a science fiction story I'll have to write someday. Something to drop into the back of my mind and let it germinate for a while; then, some months from now, it will emerge as--whatever. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where stories come from.