Second, racism is... old. After all, recall that Greeks were the ones who named their out-class of foreigners after the sounds sheep made ("bar-bar", hence modern "barbarian").
In Ancient Greece, the Greeks used the term not only towards those who did not speak Greek and follow classical Greek customs, but also towards Greek populations on the fringe of the Greek world with peculiar dialects.
Did Cassandra cry wolf? Some folks need to stick a finger in the undead to accept the least charitable interpretation.
It's not like the argument is irrefutable. But you have to at least engage with it to do that.
In that comment there was not an argument to which someone might engage. There was a string of free associated claims. The post did not contain any links to substantive support for the claims that Atlantean theory is “inherently racist.”
As a form of argument, it was of the class “when did you stop beating your wife?”
This is the comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33860417
Claim:
First, the Atlantis theories are essentially racist.
To make an argument the supporting sentences would address what is meant by “racist” and provide some evidence that “Atlantis theories” meet the criteria established definitionally.
Four supporting sentences:
Fundamentally, what it does is take some impressive structure--Great Zimbabwe probably the most notorious example--and ask who built it.
Claim, not argument. Additionally, as far as I can tell there is no claim that a lost Atlantic civilization built stone forts in SE Africa.
The natural first place to start looking is among the indigenous inhabitants (and in basically all cases, there is substantial evidence that this is indeed the case), but this theory is instead built by another group of people for whom there is really no evidence.
Claims not argument.
In other words, the theory is going well out of its way to avoid the explanation that the indigenous inhabitants, to such a degree that you have to ask why.
Claim and query, not argument
Speculation, not argument.In that comment there was not an argument to which someone might engage. There was a string of free associated claims. The post did not contain any links to substantive support for the claims that Atlantean theory is “inherently racist.”
As a form of argument, it might be of the class “when did you stop beating your wife?” or the Democratic Party of the US are racist because senator Robert Byrd was a member of the KKK.
This is the comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33860417
Thesis:
First, the Atlantis theories are essentially racist.
To make an argument the supporting sentences would address what is meant by “racist” and provide some evidence that “Atlantis theories” meet the criteria established definitionally or at least in common understanding.
Four supporting sentences:
Fundamentally, what it does is take some impressive structure--Great Zimbabwe probably the most notorious example--and ask who built it.
As far as I can tell there is no claim that a lost North Atlantic civilization built stone forts in SE Africa.
The natural first place to start looking is among the indigenous inhabitants (and in basically all cases, there is substantial evidence that this is indeed the case), but this theory is instead built by another group of people for whom there is really no evidence.
This does not establish that proponents of Atlantis theory make speculative claims due to a racist essence. The claim of “natural” isn’t a true claim. Given what is known about human mobility it would not make sense to link the builders of Cahokia with those of Chicago.
In other words, the theory is going well out of its way to avoid the explanation that the indigenous inhabitants, to such a degree that you have to ask why.
Again, doesn’t establish a link between Atlantis folks and the described behavior. In the case of Greater Zimbabwe there was a effort by the Rhodesian government to separate precolonial people from local architecture. Did the Rhodesians invoke Atlantis or is there some link between Atlantis theory people and Rhodesians other than they both engage in speculation? This is not established by the argument of the comment.
And the "why" is probably an inability to believe that the indigenous people could be capable of building such structures.
This is not related to the claim that Atlantis people are racist or not since the series of claims do not establish that Atlantis people do this. Additionally, this statement engages in hedged mind reading. It does not establish a likelihood of beliefs of Atlantis theory folks.
1) the claim of racism is a claim about the intent of the alleged racist. What makes us think Hancock thinks X civilization wasnt capable of Y feat because of their race? Has he ever said anything remotely like that? He hasnt. Furthermore, whats to say that the civilization that he posits actually accomplishes feat Y is not the same race as cilivation X? Hes never said as much.
The racism bullshit is tiring as fuck. And by that I mean actual racism and flippant accusations of racism are old hat. Very tiresome.
In his first book on the topic, he did specifically make the point that the advanced culture was "white", although to his credit, he hasn't explicitly repeated that since.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/12/oreo-cookie-...
So Hagia Sophia was built by Turkics and the Königsberg Castle by ethnic Russians.
This is all separate from saying that historical people would have identified as 'Turkic' or 'Russian' etc, or even understood anything resembling modern definitions for those terms.
One of the hallmarks of colonial archaeology was conflating these things and throwing in a touch of racism for good measure. They'd walk up to a Mayan site (ex.) and say "well these modern primitives couldn't have invented the techniques for this fine stone- and metalworking on their own, therefore a group of now-extinct people who suspiciously resemble Europeans must have either done it directly and been replaced or taught these barbarians how to do it". Thor Heyerdahl of kon-tiki fame is a prominent example that you may have heard of, but this was a thing that permeates a lot of old archaeology/anthropology. There are even terms for this like diffusionism and hyperdiffusionism. Being called a diffusionist is basically one step above being accused of plagiarism for modern archaeologists, which should give you an idea of how badly such theories are regarded today.
Semi rhetorically: What makes fantasies, conspiracies, hoaxes, gossip so much more enticing than reality? What itch does having "sacred knowledge" scratch?
For me, reality is so much more interesting. Looking up at the Milky Way, I'm just gobsmacked. Microscopic images of cells, proteins, and frikkin atoms just breaks my brain. Whole universes left to discover and understand. Woot!
The truth is so much more compelling than fiction.
There's a few things to unpack here.
First, the Atlantis theories are essentially racist. Fundamentally, what it does is take some impressive structure--Great Zimbabwe probably the most notorious example--and ask who built it. The natural first place to start looking is among the indigenous inhabitants (and in basically all cases, there is substantial evidence that this is indeed the case), but this theory is instead built by another group of people for whom there is really no evidence. In other words, the theory is going well out of its way to avoid the explanation that the indigenous inhabitants, to such a degree that you have to ask why. And the "why" is probably an inability to believe that the indigenous people could be capable of building such structures.
The second thing to point is the degree of lack of evidence. This isn't "oh, we haven't found any evidence;" no, it's "we have to posit something completely unlike every known explain to explain why we haven't found any hint of evidence." Yes, global sea levels were at lower doing the last glacial maximum--but note that every early civilization we have spread out substantially far from the coastline. Most of them weren't even centered on the coast.
Third, the framing of "just asking questions" and "I'm a journalist, not an archaeologist" is something that just pisses me off. Hancock has been pushing this narrative for several decades now (and the underlying theories are over a century old)--the questions he's asking have already been answered. He's clearly not interested in listening to the answers--and that makes him not even a journalist but a propagandist instead. If he's proven so unwilling to change, we shouldn't give him the benefit of the doubt and pretend that he's some kind of pop psychologist.
And the final, and most frustrating thing is, this sort of stuff sucks the air out of actual interesting archaeology. A great example of pop archaeology that covers "challenges to mainstream archaeology" [1] well is Charles Mann's 1491, which has the benefit of everything being supportable by actual evidence. And it still manages to bring up interesting questions like "what is a writing system?" (is the Andean quipu a writing system?) or "is agriculture a prerequisite for civilization?" (Norte Chico suggests perhaps not). But instead of stuff like that in documentaries, all we get is... Ancient Aliens^H^H^H^H^H^H Atlanteans. Again.
[1] One really unfortunate aspect of pop archaeology is that it's generally stuck in the early 20th century. This means that the current "consensus" in archaeology is actually surprisingly against what people think of "mainstream archaeology."