Guns , Germs , and Steel

Guns, Germs, and Steel is a documentary describing a theory by Jared Diamond an environmental determinist. Diamond theory consists on providing an explanation on the inequalities in the world. Mainly explaining why certain groups of people or countries have better conditions in all aspects (economically, living conditions, education, resources, etc.) as oppose to those that don’t.  According to Diamond the inequality of the world has an origin, and that origin stems from geography itself. During the Stone Age humans began to develop the skill to farm. This was due to the limitations that migrant hunting had. According to Dr. Ian Kuijt an archaeologist of Norte Dame University whom studies early agriculture, found a primitive village in what used to be in Prehistoric times the Fertile Crescent, now the Middle East. This is believed to be one of the first organized villages in the World. The Fertile Crescent was a land with an abundance of grains, as well as animals that were domesticated into framing According to the documentary  first animals to be domesticated in ancient times was goats and sheep. These animals provided muscle power, food, clothing, and manure to continue farming. As the land of the Fertile Crescent become uninhabitable, these people began to migrate to the neighboring continents of Asia and Europe, taking with them these new found skills. Again Geography helped in this process of migration according to Diamond this was due to the fact that Europe and Asia share the same latitude, and places that share similar latitudes share similar climate and vegetation. This other geographic advantage allowed the people of Asia, Europe, and Northern Africa to prosper in more skills then just farming. According to Diamonds theory with  large quantities of food humans were now able to focus less on finding food , allowing them to focus on providing other needs, and developing other skills. According to Diamond this is the reason behind the technological advancements made in early centuries everything from writing to planes. I agree with Diamond’s view, because he gives a clear explanation as to how geography plays a major role in the advancements that Europe had in early centuries that allowed them to conquer other lands. On the other hand I also believe that inequality apart from being a geographic disadvantage is also created by humans themselves. Geography might have given Europe and Asia an upper hand in producing weapons such as guns. These guns were later used to force Africans into slavery, but can geography explain by a human would enslaved another human being? Or why the children of Zambia die in large numbers of malaria, because there government is unable to properly irradiate the illness.   An illness that in countries like Malaysia has been irradiated years ago, can this also be explained as a geographical disadvantage? In a world that is becoming more globalized, it can be difficult to believe that all inequalities are geographical disadvantages. Although it is logical to conclude with Diamonds theory that the origin of inequality is geographically, but I don’t know if it can explain inequality on moral levels.