Getting into malaria. The author refers to reports that the inhabitants of the Tidewater were basically sick with malaria constantly and as a consequence quite generally "[sluggish, indolent, and idle]" as well as fucking cranky Makes me wonder about observed regional moods.
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You see claims about regional or national character in history. Lots are self-serving (eg la perfide Albion, the barbarous Hun, w/e) and obviously shouldn't apply uniformly to inhabitants, but I wonder if psychometric features apart from That One That I Dare Not Name . . .
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actually vary in distribution across populations and time, and have an effect on history. These don't need to be (and if I were to guess aren't) principally genetic, but often culturally and here, tantalizingly, pathogenically determined. Hm. Something something xenoestrogens
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"As we shall see . . . these new forms of slavery did not create the culture of Tidewater Virginia; that culture created slavery." This is a pretty profound claim on a first pass: institutions are downstream from culture. Heavy implications from this model.
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Replying to @eigenrobot
every time somebody says one long-lived thing is causally prior to another long-lived thing that it obviously coevolved with, i kill myself
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Replying to @regretmaximizer
Generally agree Here it seems plausible as the chattel slavery was the novelty and the cultural clipping from England of established stock (no?)
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Replying to @eigenrobot
usually the two things do not start to recognizably exist simultaneously, there is no denying it
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Replying to @regretmaximizer @eigenrobot
if author means "the culture of tidewater virginia specifically before slavery, not afterward" then sure
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Replying to @regretmaximizer
I think that's his specific claim yeah Basically a culture that would do its damnedest to build something like American chattel slavery given half an opportunity Generalization was just me getting overexcited by a new framing
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Replying to @eigenrobot
it's kind of boring to claim that only the portion of the lifespan of thing A that precedes thing B wasn't caused by thing B, though, isn't it?
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