iceaura
No, it isn't. That kind of "inference" is profoundly wrongheaded - circular, for starters.
You made the inference yourself. Your description of Polynesian expansion from Taiwan to Micronesia and Melanisia -
“… the exploration of the Pacific and sucessful colonization of distant islands involved intelligence, expansion, great cultural sophistication, …”
- supports my argument candidly. The Polynesians were significantly more intelligent and therefore more sophisticated and innovative than many of their cultural neighbours. It is this advantage in intelligence which allowed the Polynesians to explore and colonize distant lands using innovative seafaring technologies whilst their immediate cultural neighbours did little to no colonizing and offered the rest of the world practically nothing in the field of technology.
I will not bother comparing sexual aspects of these different cultures because they were practiced by different peoples. This is the underlying theme in all of my posts, one you have yet to understand. Furthermore, Unwin never compared different cultures practiced by different peoples; he focused on individual cultures and the changes they underwent during extended periods of female promiscuity and sexual repression and monogamy.
Your examples of Dorset Tuniit peoples, Inuit peoples, Vikings, Scots, Polynesians, and so on, all argue that such cultures were more innovative and sophisticated than certain cultural neighbours which were seemingly less promiscuous. One by one, I detailed whether these trends were in fact true -
Pre-Inuit Dorset Tuniit - “They had few technological innovations to speak of, none of which were 'deeply sophisticated'. Also, their expansion did not occur because their culture was more sophisticated and innovative than other nearby cultures; their expansion occurred because it covered uninhabited and unsettled lands which featured climates they had already adapted to pre-expansion.”
Inuit - "The early Inuits of the Arctic, who traveled eastward from western Alaska, experienced territorial expansion, but not as one might expect. The Inuits gained a significant portion of their territory through warring with the Dorset Tuniits, who were extremely primitive and had very little to no technologies to speak of. Although the Inuits were not strictly monogamous, monogamy was the social norm, exceptions being examples of polygyny rather than polyandry. Inuit women were pressured socially to marry, sometimes even forced by their community, when they were able to efficiently run a household."
Vikings - "Viking women certainly had rights to property, limited divorce, and inheritance, but they were not sexually promiscuous, and their sexual freedoms were nowhere near the freedoms Viking men enjoyed. Viking women were forced into marriage by their fathers in their early teens, and were expected to efficiently run households. Socially, it was understood that Viking women would be chaste until marriage, whereas the same standard was not applied nearly as strictly to men. Polygyny also existed in Viking societies, most times amongst upper-class men, and especially amongst kings and earls. Adulterous behaviours amongst women were taken very seriously, as the husband retained the right - which he oftentimes used - to kill his wife and the man whom she had had a secretive affair with."
Scots - "The Scottish people converted to Christianity in the third and fourth centuries through Saint Ninian, and were universally Christian come the eighth century. Your era of interest for the Scots - the post-Viking era - is even more supportive of my argument as they were at such times at the peak of their sexual repression and monogamy. During this era they 'inspired many a ballad, claimed various territorial conquests, and established widely used trading routes'. Especially significant is their territorial expansion and colonization during this era."
Polynesians - “Outside of Han China, the cultural groups Polynesians were most likely to come in contact with - from their area of origin, Taiwan, to Micronesia and Melanesia - were very primitive and non-expansionist. By examining cultural innovations and territorial expansion - albeit across largely unsettled and uninhabited territory - it is reasonable to infer a superiority in intelligence of the Polynesians over many of their immediate cultural neighbours. The significance of this intelligence gap may very well explain their cultural superiority over slightly less promiscuous cultural neighbours.”
- and yes, some of them partially were. But whether they were or not is not relevant to Unwin’s thesis, and furthermore, my own, because it compares different cultures practiced by different peoples. To reiterate Unwin’s thesis, individual cultures become more innovative and prominent than what they were (not “more innovative and prominent than other cultures”) when their females become more sexually repressive and monogamous over extended periods of time. Similarly, individual cultures become less innovative and prominent than what they were (not “less innovative and prominent than other cultures”) when their females become more promiscuous for extended periods of time.
In the first place, that's a very limited field of "cultural sophistication" - surely you are not claiming that the most intelligent and sophisticated cultures universally have the best weaponry, and vice versa? That would be conflating military and cultural sophistication - which you deny.
Military and cultural sophistication “should be conflated … in general, but not completely.” The conflation becomes more apparent and applicable as we progress through the ages. Military sophistication in the modern era requires great technologies and applications of science; these great technologies and applications of science also help various cultural institutions progress. Finally, important aspects of military sophistication you seem to be overlooking are sustainability and ability to occupy, neither of which Genghis Khan's Mongols - an example you offered - were capable of doing.
Neither are they relevant. The original observation remains: that the exploration of the Pacific and sucessful colonization of distant islands involved intelligence, expansion, great cultural sophistication, and in the case of the Polynesians who did it (especially in the case of the Eastern Polynesians who did the majority of it, settling most places including Hawaii and New Zealand and Easter Island, the boundary corners of Polynesia as a whole) a higher rate of female promiscuity than was found in the stagnant cultures they left behind.
You’re comparing different cultures practiced by different peoples, which seems to be your fundamental error. As I explained before:
“Your examples of Dorset Tuniit peoples, Inuit peoples, Vikings, Polynesians, and so on, all argue that such cultures were more innovative and sophisticated than certain cultural neighbours which were seemingly less promiscuous. … But whether they were or not is not relevant to Unwin’s thesis, and furthermore, my own, … To reiterate Unwin’s thesis, individual cultures become more innovative and prominent than what they were (not 'more innovative and prominent than other cultures') when their females become more sexually repressive and monogamous for extended periods of time. Similarly, individual cultures become less innovative and prominent than what they were (not 'less innovative and prominent than other cultures') when their females become more promiscuous for extended periods of time.”
I compared West and East Polynesian cultures because they are practiced by the same people. Also, during the Polynesian era of colonization, the West and East Polynesian cultural divide was not yet in place, which indicates deception on your part when you, referring to colonization, wrote: “especially in the case of the Eastern Polynesians who did the majority of it, settling most places including Hawaii and New Zealand and Easter Island, the boundary corners of Polynesia as a whole.”
Eastern Polynesia was settled by Polynesians who initially resided in Western Polynesia. The East and West cultural divide occurred after both Polynesias were settled. It was the Western Polynesians who settled East Polynesia. After both Polynesias were settled, cultural divisions began to occur. Before East Polynesia was settled, there was no such thing as East and West Polynesian cultures - there was only one people, Polynesians, who resided in the west (nearer to their alleged origin of Taiwan).
The East and West Polynesian cultural divisions occurred after permanent settlements were established. Over time, West Polynesian cultures came to be more sexually repressive and monogamous than East Polynesian cultures, which may explain their extremely significant gap in cultural innovation and sophistication, which I detailed earlier:
“West Polynesian cultures feature large, high-density populations, whereas East Polynesian cultures do not, despite having similar resources, people, and territorial size. West Polynesian cultures have monumental architecture, whereas such architecture is relatively absent in East Polynesian cultures. West Polynesian cultures have much stronger marriage institutions and therefore higher-investment parenting tendencies than East Polynesian cultures. West Polynesians cultures also have much more advanced monetary and political structures than East Polynesian cultures, and are more prominent traders.”
Make up your mind - is this "promiscuity" you pretend to be able to "observe" the explanatory cause of the stagnation and stupidity you likewise claim to be able to "observe", or not?
If a culture becomes increasingly promiscuous over an extended period of time, its innovation and sophistication will gradually lessen; if a culture becomes increasingly sexually repressive and monogamous over an extended period of time, its innovation and sophistication will gradually increase. This is the theoretical basis to Unwin's thesis; if you're looking for distinct historical examples, read his work
Sex and Culture. Unwin studied eighty different historical cultures - civilized and primitive - and observed how they stagnated or weakened when they became more promiscuous for extended periods of time, and grew intellectually, technologically, and territorially when they became more sexually repressive and monogamous over extended periods of time.
