Blog 3

The fur, spice and silver trade was beneficial to many nations however it gave rise to slavery. Although we still benefit from these trades today, enslaving others was detrimental to humanity and society then and today. Further, it led to competition and the desire for control between nations. Perhaps this was where racism and/or prejudices all started. The desire to control people and use them in order to make an individual’s life easier was desirable. It seems that humanity took steps leading up to this. In other words, control over the living progressively got worse. For example, it might have first started with Paleolithic people’s taking advantage of nature and the environment. One example could be seen in the burning of plants in order to keep warm. Although this was vital to their survival, it still harms the oppressed group that cannot speak for itself, nature. Then, perhaps the next step was controlling another oppressed group that cannot speak for themselves, animals. For example, the domestication of animals, such as horses. Then perhaps, it led to the control over humans. Perhaps there is something within us that feels the need to control something whether it is humans or the way we look. Perhaps the control of fire was where it all started… who knows?