17 October, 2011

 

Say what?

"Africa, birthplace of civilization"

Laurie Taylor speaking on the repeat of the Thinking Allowed programme this morning on the steam wireless while introducing an interview with Ian Goldin, co-author of this celebrationist crap.

As relics from the Sixties go, I generally find the ever enthusiastic and amiable Laurie quite endearing and his sociology magazine programme predictable but listenable, but this tiresome and unthinking celebrationist sycophancy — basically a more articulate variant of Jai the Prolix's thesis (Pickled Politics passim) that the British were aggressive cave-dwelling primitives who spent their days gnawing on woolly-mammoth bones and holding woad-daubing parties until those nice foreigners kindly turned up and brought us civilization, technology and curry — was pretty damned cringe-making. This Goldin character sounded like Philippe LeGrain on speed.

Comments:
I always thought that Ur of the Chaldes and other cities, cradles of civilisation, were in Mesopotamia not Africa!

 
It's black history month innit ?
Afro-centric pseudo-history rules OK !

 
The cradle of civilisation was that in Africa they gathered the rushes that went towards making the crib.

 
The fancy thing to believe now is that European culture did not begin 17,000 years ago with the cave paintings at Lascaux but in South Africa several thousands of years before that since they found a rock with some scratches on it, once.

I used to like Laurie too, where has he been? Was he unpersoned by the beeb?

 
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