My history teacher says “geography is destiny” and made us watch guns germs and steel. I think bad empanada said this narrative promotes a lack of remorse for colonization because it’s characterized as inevitable. He didn’t explain why it was wrong though iirc. My teacher (who likes orwell) says it’s just material conditions. It could be argued that geography is created the original conditions that led to class society before class forced largely took over, though this could be taken to the extent of class being secondary. Anyone know about this?
Geographic Determinism overstates the role of geographic conditions in the development of society (though I think some people in the thread are making it out to be worse than it is).
Dialectics are a useful framework for dissecting this problem. Geography does play a part in the development of human societies, but it is not the only part - there is also the world of ideas, individual people and events, and pure random chance.
Geographic Determinism is almost the most extreme form of Historical Materialism - that material conditions are the absolute driver of societal development. This debate is useful in that it shows us Historical Materialism is not absolute - that the actions of individual people and groups, movements and inventions, do matter - even if the material conditions and class interests are always the more important factor.
The “absolution of guilt” part is trickier. Marxism is not a moralistic ideology. If anything, GG&S hews more to the Marxist orthodoxy than many people in this thread. Marxism presumes that classes will always tend to act in their own class interests - that it is natural for the oppressor to oppress, and that it is up to the lower classes to secure their own power. White people were never going to feel guilty about colonialism - it is in their class interests to apologize for themselves in whatever small way they can to ease their conscience. To expect them to do otherwise is un-Marxist; it is un-Marxist to expect the upper classes to change society for you, instead of the oppressed class changing society proactively.