Humans are by nature obligate tool users and we compete with each other using our tools, consequently those cultures that do not pursue the advancement of technology are doomed to be the victims of, or subsumed by, those that do or those that do so more effectively.
So why should I give a crap about the native people's of wherever, why should I value their culture or their heritage, why should I thank them for the use of their land and pay my respects to elders past, present and future?
Where is the utility in trying to revive a largely dead and hopelessly outdated culture?
Isn't the perpetuation of the noble savage myth a racist and exploitative practice?
I share the frustration. I think of it as an attempt at joining of people. We can't erase what occurred and we do need to move on, but we can't do so while natives and colonizers are seeing each other as separate people. I think it's unfair to assume they will just assimilate into the culture of their colonisers, but maybe if we co-assimilate each other we can move on together. They have had far more of our culture forced on them than vice versa, it makes sense to balance the scales a little top-down.
While I don't want to erase history, I'm also not a fan of continuing intergenerational feuds (regardless of whether this benefits me or not).
That's just it though, co-assimilation is impossible.
Pour a bucket of fresh water into the ocean and the water from the bucket is going to take on a lot more salinity than the ocean is going to lose. We can meet them half way but that halfway point is so hilariously skewed to one side that it's effectively no different to "You lost LOL".
Originally I was going to post the "Trump Lost LOL" flag, explain the humor is the absurdity of denying such an obvious truth, then follow up with a picture of Aboriginals plastered with "You lost LOL". One one hand that would have been extremely tactless, on the other being extremely tactless may be necessary, again there is no room to compromise here, the assimilation is going all one way.
I agree that a perfectly even cultural distribution isn't realistic. I think we largely agree on how to address the issue in terms of financial support for those in need regardless of ancestry, you just sound like you also want to be a dick about it too? Not really sure what you're saying.
It's like being a room full of adults and a child with an old bandaid and the child won't pull it off because pulling it hurts and the adults won't do anything because nobody wants to be the one to upset the child. I want to walk up and decisively rip it off, just a moment of pain and it's done, sure now the child's upset but they'll get over it, just like we all got over it when we were children.
How many years, how many decades, how many centuries is it going to take?
We can't all be nice all the time, somebody needs to be the dick.
Somebody needs to tell the "natives" they need to stop LARPing and grow the fuck up, not pander to their nonsense because we don't want to hurt their fucking feelings.
You know what white guilt is? It's entitlement, it's feeling good and hash-tag doing the right thing, but not actually helping, it's throwing money at a problem because that's the easy way out, the "oh well I tried" solution.
What's hard would be saying something like this in a setting where I'm not anonymous because I could be doxed, I could lose my job, fuck I could lose my life if the wrong people figure out where I live.
So yeah call me a dick, I'll wear your label with pride.
Sure the Mongolians raping and pillaging the Chinses for over hundred years because they were excellent horse archers shows proficiency that "entitles" them to domination.
But shortly after gunpowder became a thing they fell into obscurity. No one today, at least in the west points at the Mongols and says: look at those fucking imperialist occupants on the Chinese land!!!
Meanwhile, Israel has subjugated Palestinian people to specific zones and treats them like second-class humans on land they previously owned.
Seems like you are indignant that culture has formed a long term memory and sympathizes with those who get their history and dignity destroyed. I didn't know the crime of losing was punishable by eliminating some ones culture.
Countless religious and philosophical texts destroyed. Imagine if we didn't have Greek mythology nor Plato because some neighboring civilization destroyed it all because "Well we kicked their ass, might as well erase all this useless nonsense". The fucking Romans weren't that fucking stupid.
"Rip the Band-Aid off"? You're not just being a dick, you're being retarded. I would argue we amputated one of their whole fucking limbs.
Its like apples and oranges, the different cultures can NOT be compared to each other, they can only be appreciated kind of like a bowl of fruit on your table, you appreciate each one for having its very own unique flavor, but don't try to mix them up or it just confuses the senses. I have that with some of my different heritages, I know its just impossible to assimilate them, so just enjoy them separately. Variety is what makes the world go around.
But we are made of all the different dna from ancestors and so we are helped by knowing what each one does for us in different ways. One culture might NEED to have family near to feel that sense of community, and the sense of different roles making a large family, another might have incredibly interesting superstitions that are just part of the culture of who we are today. Its all fascinating and I wouldn't shun any of it.
What you might think of as advanced in one culture - that culture has completely lost other knowledge that the indigenous culture lived by, and so, in fact, may be much closer to the land and earth and have a more advanced knowledge you don't understand yet. Technology is not really better. Everything has merit. Even the smallest detail has merit.
I didn't call you a dick, I said it seemed like you wanted to be one. As in, you seem to want to dunk on aboriginals:
Originally I was going to post the "Trump Lost LOL" flag, explain the humor is the absurdity of denying such an obvious truth, then follow up with a picture of Aboriginals plastered with "You lost LOL". One one hand that would have been extremely tactless, on the other being extremely tactless may be necessary, again there is no room to compromise here, the assimilation is going all one way.
You yourself describe it as tactless, and IMO It's worse than you think because the analogy is poor. Telling Trump he lost is a dunk on Trump because of the claims Trump makes about winning and about losers (it's not very funny but w/e). Aboriginals have not claimed to have won any war, this does not challenge any statements they've made. Rather, it makes a proactive statement that if you've had your land and culture taken from you then you should shut up and forget it because you lost, equating wanting justice with denying that they "lost".
I think an elegant way to frame this is to say that as we get older, we want peace in our lives. The problem is, the outcome of that peace is different for many people. Some people want quiet, some people want a resolution, a type of quiet that's mingled in their heritage and being.
Because we both seek a type of peace, we could argue about it- but if we want peace together, as a community, some opening for dialogue and empathy should be left open.
Humans are by nature obligate tool users and we compete with each other using our tools, consequently those cultures that do not pursue the advancement of technology are doomed to be the victims of, or subsumed by, those that do or those that do so more effectively.
So why should I give a crap about the native people's of wherever, why should I value their culture or their heritage, why should I thank them for the use of their land and pay my respects to elders past, present and future?
Where is the utility in trying to revive a largely dead and hopelessly outdated culture?
Isn't the perpetuation of the noble savage myth a racist and exploitative practice?
Only in destabilizing the current culture, which western 'leadership' seems hellbent on doing.
This is the same thing that is happening in Mexico. The government is now pursuing a policy of actively promoting nativist movements, trying to revive dying languages, irrational 'tolerance', and unburying historical grievances that most people had put to rest decades ago; if this is allowed to grow it will ultimately become a wedge to split apart society.
Here up north selling a 14 year old child as a bride is considered a crime, but down south in some native communities it's alright because "it's their culture". This is bullshit.
As it is now, lots of indigenous tribes have their own government within reservations.
These are legislative nightmares and laden with crime and corruption because no one knows what to do with them and the progress towards reformation is at a crawling pace.
Honestly, we can't forcefully assimilate them even if we wanted to. Well theoretically anyways. We have treaties and laws protecting their governance, so it would have to be a consensual agreement if we wanted to take that away from them. I don't see that happening though.
They're pretty neutered in every respect and with the recent shift in supreme court towards the right, we are trying expand exploitation with corporate acquisition of their resources and such and such.
There's plenty of treaties we haven't honored with them that we debatably should honor at some point and that might give them a better footing in The broader economic world, but I wouldn't expect them to be anything approximating a formidable political economic power anytime soon. Lots of Americans feel bad for Palestinians but don't feel bad about the natives for some reason.
They hunt and gather and make fire by rubbing sticks together, as did my ancestors 10,000 years ago, as did everybody's ancestors if you go back far enough.
Humans are by nature obligate tool users and we compete with each other using our tools, consequently those cultures that do not pursue the advancement of technology are doomed to be the victims of, or subsumed by, those that do or those that do so more effectively.
So why should I give a crap about the native people's of wherever, why should I value their culture or their heritage, why should I thank them for the use of their land and pay my respects to elders past, present and future?
For one thing, because your country is going to be one of those groups.
For another, once China has spy satellites that can see everything that Australians do in their cities, the only people in Australia that the Chinese won't be able to control will be the Aborigines that can blend into the Outback and become invisible.
None. But considering how many Westerners that drive between cities in Australia, get stuck, and then die within days, and how the Aborigines seem to do OK there, it sounds like you're asking why anyone would want to keep Western culture alive, when so many are dead and/or hopelessly outdated by Aborigine traditions.
Totally. But remember that the noble savage doesn't speak English. He doesn't know what you mean by "noble savage" and so has zero effect on him.
The point of calling him a "noble savage" is to convince people like yourself, because if you knew him, you would say he is the opposite.
1) "savage" => irrationally violent, like a pitbull that is out of control. Has to be stopped. Easily conquered by smart people.
It's a term that people like the Romans used to refer to people like the Persians, because the Persians had advanced tech and clever strategies that stopped the Romans from ever conquering the Persians.
Think of the Wakandans. You can't defeat them with your tech. You can only infiltrate them and convince them to turn on each other, and have a civil war. Then their armies are annihilated, and those left are exhausted. Easy pickings. Then you take their technology and claim it for your own, and wipe out any remnants of evidence that show it was their tech.
If you knew that your government was trying to start a war with an advanced race with advanced tech, that was not violent, you'd be horrified, and worried that they would conquer your country.
But if you think they are savage like a pitbull, you'd think that they need to be stopped by your government, and easily stopped by your government.
You'd also believe that they have no advanced tech, and thus when your people present their advanced tech as yours, you'll probably believe that it was your tech.
2) "noble" => they have a moral code like the nobility of the Feudal Era. Moral according to them. But since your people rejected the nobility for oppressing the proletariat, you believe that they are wrong, and deep down, are immoral.
Think of the Wakandans. They won't attack your country without provocation. They have a decent moral code. But if you think they are like the nobility of the Feudal Era, you'll think that they deserve a bit of respect for having any moral code at all, but would still believe their moral code is wrong, and so there's no reason to treat them with genuine respect and equality.
So then you'll be OK with conquering them and controlling them, until they become "civilised" by making them adopt your cultural values. You expect that they will reject their oppressor's moral values, i.e. your moral values. So you're OK with killing half of them and putting the rest in chains, until they become subservient to your moral values, i.e. until they become subservient to whatever your people want.
Then if their land contains uranium, but they don't want to mine it because of danger from radiation, then your people will be told that they don't want to mine it because of tribal traditions that make no sense in your morality, because they are like the nobility of the Feudal Era, and so their morality is invalid.
So then you will support your government mining the uranium deposits. If they oppose such an action for good reasons, you will support your government forcing them to stop trying to stop the mining.
Then you will support whatever your government does to those people, because you believe that you are "civilising" them, i.e. stop them from being irrationally violent and killing each other.
Your government will take their tech, give it to their friends and claim it's theirs. You will believe them, because you will not believe that they had advanced tech, because you believe they are "savages".
So when your government exploits them, you will believe that your government is actually doing them a favour.
You will wish to show them token respect due to them being like the nobility and having any moral code at all. But like the nobility, you believe that their moral code is defunct and invalid. So you will expect that most of the time your morality trumps theirs. So you will not care about them, except for a token effort.
So then when your government treats them like Third-Class people and/or as slaves, you will believe that your government is doing them a favour.
Since calling them "noble savages" is to perpetuate a myth that only your people will believe, then you are the noble savages, while they are more like the Wakandans.
Once you have crushed them utterly and made them your slaves, then you will make films like Black Panther, to pretent that you aren't racist, while you are treating them worse than your animals.
But how did you get the idea for all that advanced tech, and how could you have the idea that such people have such advanced tech, when you believe that they were nothing but "noble savages"? Because they HAD such tech, before you started interfering in their countries.
Not since the USA banned exports of their technology thus crippling the Chinese tech industry, something the USA is the position to do because they have technological supremacy.
For another, once China has spy satellites that can see everything that Australians do in their cities, the only people in Australia that the Chinese won't be able to control will be the Aborigines that can blend into the Outback and become invisible.
The Chinese don't' want to control anyone who isn't Han Chinese, the people in power are so racist they can barely tolerate other Chinese people much less other Asians, much less still anyone that isn't Asian.
None. But considering how many Westerners that drive between cities in Australia, get stuck, and then die within days, and how the Aborigines seem to do OK there, it sounds like you're asking why anyone would want to keep Western culture alive, when so many are dead and/or hopelessly outdated by Aborigine traditions.
Wha- oh you mean tourists, yeah it's hilarious how many we lose.
Everybody's like snakes and spiders and crocodiles oh my and then BAM! Heatstroke.
Also drowning, Asians jumping in the ocean like lemmings and they don't know how to swim, we have an entirely separate emergency service called "Lifesavers" whose job is to stop Asians killing themselves.
But how did you get the idea for all that advanced tech, and how could you have the idea that such people have such advanced tech, when you believe that they were nothing but "noble savages"? Because they HAD such tech, before you started interfering in their countries.
Not since the USA banned exports of their technology thus crippling the Chinese tech industry, something the USA is the position to do because they have technological supremacy.
Not since the USA banned exports of their technology thus crippling the Chinese tech industry, something the USA is the position to do because they have technological supremacy.
Not since the USA banned exports of their technology thus crippling the Chinese tech industry, something the USA is the position to do because they have technological supremacy.
The Chinese tech industry is being crippled? They're moving into cloud tech and green tech, and making more money than ever. Do you have any evidence to support your claim?
So Ughyurs in China are being allowed to do whatever they want?
These days, with globalisation, even what affects other countries also affects China. If the Chinese wish to control the Hans, they have no choice but to attempt to control everyone else.
The Chinese tourism business is huge now. 50 years ago, hardly anyone in the West would even consider taking a holiday in China. Nowadays, I know lots of people in the West who have taken a holiday in China, even retired Boomers.
Moreover, China is doing lots of engineering projects all over Africa and the ME, and is offering to invest upfront, but only when they send over Chinese engineers to be in charge.
Moreover, there's 50 million Chinese outside of China now, running all sorts of businesses.
How is any of that the behaviour of people who want nothing to do with the rest of the world?
None. But considering how many Westerners that drive between cities in Australia, get stuck, and then die within days, and how the Aborigines seem to do OK there, it sounds like you're asking why anyone would want to keep Western culture alive, when so many are dead and/or hopelessly outdated by Aborigine traditions.
Also drowning, Asians jumping in the ocean like lemmings and they don't know how to swim, we have an entirely separate emergency service called "Lifesavers" whose job is to stop Asians killing themselves.
Wouldn't it be simpler, cheaper and safer simply to keep these Han Chinese out? After all, the Han Chinese dislike everyone else so much, that they would never visit Australia, right? So what's the problem?
But how did you get the idea for all that advanced tech, and how could you have the idea that such people have such advanced tech, when you believe that they were nothing but "noble savages"? Because they HAD such tech, before you started interfering in their countries.
The British took over the whole of India, by getting the Indians to turn on each other, instead of using their more advanced technology. Why did the British not do what you suggested?
Moreover, the Americans used their advanced tech to fight the Viet Cong in the Vietnam War. Did the Americans win that war?
Moreover, the Americans used their advanced tech to fight the Teleban in the Afghanistan War. Did the Americans win that war?
The primitive cultures in Star Trek are usually begging the Federation for their advanced technology, and would offer anything to get hold of Federation tech. Why would the Federation every need to invade anyone?
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