"Back to school, back to school, to prove to daddy i'm not a fool..."

Welp, i'm on my second day of classes and work and things are pretty cool. Being a senior is a strange thing. My classes ROCK and are all pretty much on the same thing (culture) except covering different angles and perspectives on it. I love it. I've had 4 of my 5 classes so far and they are all terrific.

A quote from my professor of Social Change and Trends:

After talking about how in class discussions we shouldn't shy away from religion and politics one student in the back said something about how those aren't discussed in polite company. "In polite company is the only time you run into people who don't absolutely agree with you."

Also in the class we split up in groups and discussed a question that ran across my mind this past year but I was too afraid to really rest on it and think about it. It came from Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel. The question is basically this: why is it that out of all of the races and cultures on planet Earth, it seems as though White Westerners have dominated all others. Or, as Diamond phrases it, "why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents?" I have an immediate bad reaction to the question, but one can't deny that it begs to be asked.

So we discussed it. In Diamond's book he rules out the possible answers of genetic superiority (thank God) and climate/environment differences. I think the direction he is going is that it was geography and the type of animals indigenous to the region (horses are better than muskrats for farming, for example) gave certain people groups an edge until around 1500 and then established culture took over after that.

If your culture values dominance, independence, and competition over family, not getting stressed out, and peace, then chances are you will be able to take over more land in your region than other people. But will you be necessarily happier because you have technology and "guns, germs, and steel?" No.