Guns, Germs & Steel

  I recently finished Jared Diamond's excellent Guns, Germs & Steel.  When I purchased it, I had thought it was a recently released blockbuster when, in fact, it actually came out last millennium, back in 1999 when we all thought the world was going to end because our computers wouldn't be able to function in the year 2000.  That seems like a really long time ago.  (National Geographic did a series on it a bit more recently, and the website is still up.)

  The book attempts to tackle the question of why humans developed the way we did.  Why did some cultures, such as the Europeans, develop technology and race around the world, conquering other civilizations using their guns, germs and steel?  Why were the conquered civilizations not the ones building ships to conquer Europe?  Why didn't germs to which Native Americans have immunity wipe out the first settlers?

  It's easy to attribute such success to the individuals that made up the societies.  We can assume that because some societies didn't develop technology at the same pace that they are less intelligent or inferior beings.  But Diamond demonstrates that the reasons society developed at different speeds has more to do with the available plant and animal species that surrounded them than intrinsic abilities.  Had the original Europeans been in North America while the Native Americans were in Europe, Diamond argues, world history might be very similar, owing to the environment of Europe versus North America.

  What Diamond is proposing is that things are far more complicated than they seem, and there are reasons societies are the way they are.  The Africans couldn't control the fact that they got the rhinoceros and hippopotamus while the Europeans and Asians had horses and cattle.  This shaped far more of history than we might initially believe.  History is complicated.

  What this teaches me, as someone trying to learn about other people, is that things are complicated.  They are usually far deeper than we believe, and the reason we are the way we are often has its roots deep within us.  I might never follow the rabbit trail deep enough to understand fully many of my attributes.  Many aspects that make me who I am are beyond my control.  The same is true of others.

  Diamond teaches me to be patient.  Guns, Germs & Steel is a lesson that we all wander our path of life filled with complicated histories that have shaped who we are today.  To know someone deeply takes a lifetime's worth of effort and love, and it is not a thing to be done casually, carelessly.  There are reasons we act the way we do, and to make sweeping assumptions about large communities can be a dangerous thing, because we often don't fully see the entire picture.

  I trust that God understands this all.  I trust that God, who stands above and outside of time and space can grasp the enormity of each and every complex situation, and I trust God's love, because he enters into our time and space and loves us all the same.  May we endeavor to love as deeply, despite our limitations, and trust that one day we will see on a wider plane. and we will understand beauty all the more.