[PEN-L:7319] Re: Harvey

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Rectilinearity or Cartesian coordinates as the abstract real property grid across all of North America (lots and sublots, quarter sections on plats)  is a specific way in which European conception of land differed from many indigenous peoples'conceptions of land thereby becoming an obstacle to a meeting of the minds in contracts or treaties for sale of land between the two cultures upon contact.

>>> "J. Barkley Rosser, Jr." <rosserjb@xxxxxxx> 05/27/99 12:37PM >>>
      French long lots are "feudal" and square-grids are
"capitalistic"?   Give me a break.
       The French long lots simply guarantee that everybody
has access to the main transportation route, which was
rivers in French North America.  The idea is that people
would be trading.  Pretty capitalistic.
      The origin of the square grid was Roman urban
planning (also seen independently in the layout of
Beijing).  It was Thomas Jefferson who imposed the
square grid in the Northwest Territories Ordinance drawing
on the classical model.  Capitalistic?  Not any more
particularly than the French long lots.
Barkley Rosser
-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Burgess <burgess@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Wednesday, May 26, 1999 5:09 PM
>Subject: [PEN-L:7260] Harvey


>
>First, I had a similar reaction to Louis P, that Harvey flirts with
>idealism in his latest book, and this can be seen in his application of
>Liebnitz and Whitehead and the distance he takes from Engel's "strong
>version" of dialectics. (If I understand these issue at all, I think that
>Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin's _The Dialectical Biologist_ provides
>an excellent statement of the "strong" position, as against B. Ollman's and
>(perhaps) Leibnitz's "internal relations" approach.)
>
>But on other points about Harvey I think Louis is simply off-base.
>
>On p. 189 of his book Harvey does not question the Sioux claim to the
>plains, but rather that such a claim is based on ecological practice. What
>he targets here is the "**uncritical acceptance** [i.e. by some
>**non-Sioux** environmentalists] of of 'ecologically conscious' statements
>[which] can, furthermore, be misleading."
>
>Hello, Louis, have you been following the Makah whaling story [The Makah
>Nation in Washington state killed their first grey whale in 80 or so years
>a couple of weeks ago]? I agree completely with what you and J. Craven have
>written in defense of the Makah's right to whale. Harvey's point is exactly
>that the uncritical application of 'ecologically conscious' positions (like
>killing whales is a **Bad Thing**) leads to the reactionary rejection of
>Makah rights unless they are 'real Indians' who are starving to death and
>don't use outboard motors to tow their whales back to shore. Another
>example here in BC is opposition to logging by Natives on the part of some
>environmental groups, e.g. the Friends of Clayoquat Sound.
>
>Louis also reacts to Harvey's claim that New York is an ecosystem, as if
>Harvey doesn't know how capitalism has fucked up cities, especially in the
>U.S. Again, Harvey is simply challenging the mythical, romantic notion of
>Nature and ecology as something separate from human society.
>
>Louis has Harvey's view on "militant particularisms" backward. Harvey is
>not an opponent of militant particularism; he is a supporter, with Raymond
>Williams's condition that they are "properly brought togeather", i.e.,
>united by a univeralist notions like class. I think that Louis doesn't
>appreciate that Harvey's book is **mainly directed** against
>post-modernist-type rejection of univeralist and materialist positions. It
>is a re-statement of his 'historical-materialist-geographical' Marxism
>against the pomo accusations of 'totalizing meta-narative' and the like in
>his earlier _The Condition of Post-Modernity_. As noted above, I have my
>doubts too, but let's discuss them in their proper context.
>
>One view is that the 'paleo-Indian' migration from Asia had a role in the
>extinction of the giant beaver, camel etc. in the Americas after the last
>ice age (10,000 or so years ago). This is speculation, but it is foolish to
>deny and underestimate the impact of Native societies on the environment.
>For example, I think it is environmenal historian William Cronan who
>convincingly shows that the tree species dominating 'New England' forests
>at the time of contact with Europeans [pine?] were the result of burning by
>Natives. Native settlement and activity DID alter the environment,
>including "destroying" previous ecosystems. How could it be otherwise? I
>don't know if Harvey's criticism of Foster for using phrases like
>"destroying" the world or the environment is fair, but it is an elementary
>materialist point that does occasionally need to be made.
>
>It is false that Harvey holds the idealist position that the clash between
>Indians and European settlers was fundamentally between the **notions** of
>time of space. Rather, he is making the basic materialist observation that
>ideas are influenced by class society, i.e. settlers from capitalist
>society viewed land as private property and capital, which has to be
>measured and demarcated, and precisely represented on maps for the purpose
>of legal documents, land title offices, etc. It is an an ABC point in
>Harvey's discipline of human geography to show how different land survey
>systems, i.e. different "ideas" affect how agriculture and towns develop.
>(An example is the difference between the French feudal long lots in the
>1600s along the St Lawrence River, and the 1800s capitalist square-grid
>township system inscribed onto the prairies).
>
>Again, I'm for discussing whether or not Harvey goes too far down the
>idealist road on some of these points, but Louis' version is a gross
>exaggeration.
>
>BTW, I thought the related thread on the contradiction of academic writing
>and politics is worth discussing more in a forum like Pen-L. My take on
>this is to try to remind myself every day to not confuse my academic
>activities with advancing left-wing politics. How do others view this?
>
>Bill Burgess
>
>