Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
Yes
40%
[ 15 ]
No
48%
[ 18 ]
America wasn't screwed up
10%
[ 4 ]
Total Votes : 37
Author
Message
BO Heavy Crude
Joined: Sep 02, 2005 Posts: 113 Location: Philadelphia, PA
Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 2:34 pm Post subject: Re: Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
gnm wrote:
Quote:
Women, children, and elderly never involved? Puh-lease.
Source?, or are you assuming?
Quote:
Perhaps you should do some research on the "Moche" - they were so brutal in thier torture executions of captives in war that defeated enemies would suicide to avoid capture.
I am not saying there were not bloodthirsty tribes, I am saying it was not widespread. Asians and Europeans have been hacking each other apart, women and children included, for 10,000 years, bloodshed DEFINES our culture. And it has nothing to do with better weapons, the Native Americans weren't sitting around trying to figure out better ways to butcher each other, they tried to avoid conflict, again, with the exception of some tribes.
There culture wasn't based on greed, theft, slavery, and competition, therefore, warfare, for the most part, was a means of last resort, not first.
Maybe you should do some research and provide some proof of your assertions. _________________ Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
-Edward Abbey
Widespread human sacrifice of men, women and even children?
wikipedia
Oh but I'm sure they would never kill them in war... only after they captured them right? So that makes it ok...
Now who needs to back up their assertations?
Go back to school Pollyanna... every culture does terrible things. Or did they train you that only "white" people do bad things?
I think if you compared European stone age culture to early American Indian you would get a fair approximation so don't say that greed, theft, etc are somehow a European exclusive.
People in general and particularly drummed up in nationalistic/racial/religious frenzies do their worst given the extent to which they can... be it widespread stone-axeing or nuking a city.
-G _________________ All right, you primitive screw-heads, listen up!
Posted: Tue Jan 31, 2006 4:08 pm Post subject: Re: Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
Native Americans would have destroyed their environment just like any other culture if provided the tools. Tools, meaning horses, cows or any large beast of burden. Since these creatures were not available, natives could not scale their farming to the size of Indo-Europeans farms.
This prevented them from focusing any surplus of possible population to invent/create metal weapons (even though the components exist in the ground). The lack of horses prevented them from pursing mobile warfare. I refer everyone to Jared Diamond's masterpiece, Jared Diamond - Guns, Germs and Steel for illucidation on why some cultures advanced as they did and others didn't. It all comes down to what your given.
Joined: Aug 19, 2004 Posts: 1719 Location: Republic of Texas
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 7:35 am Post subject: Re: Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
BO wrote:
There culture wasn't based on greed, theft, slavery, and competition, therefore, warfare, for the most part, was a means of last resort, not first.
Spare us your romantic wishful thinking.
gnm posted links to documentation for his views. You are regurgitating some fantasy a fat hippie spun during a sabbatical in Santa Fe and typed into his lecture notes.
You should be more discerning. _________________ Conform . Consume . Obey .
Joined: May 14, 2005 Posts: 2123 Location: Along the banks of the muddy Mississippi
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 8:26 am Post subject: Re: Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
Torjus wrote:
White innovations accelerated the process. The horse and gun accelerated the depletion of the buffalo already before the white man arrived.
Uh, there were no guns and horses among American aboriginals before the white man arrived.
Torjus wrote:
But white man of course is to blame for most of it.
In the early 1800s, Lewis and Clark reported that the multitudes of buffalo darkened the whole plains. The estimates are that there were between 35 and 75 million at that time. There were essentially none at that time east of the Mississippi River, since European settlers had killed them off to protect their own livestock and farmlands.
Buffalo were "hunted" almost to extinction from the windows of trains during the late 1800s. It turns out that buffalo hides were useful as belts in the machinery of the Industrial Revolution and so their hides were hunted (while the meat was left to rot). There is also documented evidence that the buffalo were hunted to deprive the natives on the plains of their primary food source.
White man was to blame for ALL of that. _________________ “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.” (Ted Perry)
Joined: Sep 02, 2005 Posts: 113 Location: Philadelphia, PA
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 8:51 am Post subject: Re: Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
gnm wrote:
Quote:
OK..... Oh, and I majored in Anthropology/Archaeology.
Hmmmmm where to start?
No slavery? Hows this...?
OR this?
Cannibalism?
Here...
here
etc...
Killing women and children?
Or is it ok if they are "white" women and children?
Widespread human sacrifice of men, women and even children?
wikipedia
Man, someone might think I just insulted your mother. Sorry to have an opinion.
It just goes to show, you can send a man to school, but you can't make him think.
Once again, I NEVER said that those things didn't happen, I said that mass murder wasn't the dominant dynamic in MOST North American tribes, as it is with European and Eurasian EMPIRES, or even South American EMPIRES. And how the hell would any of you know what a race, of which Europeans wiped out 99% of, would have done to the environment?
This Eurocentric, dogmatic, US government brochure version of Native American society is ridiculous.
It is easier to justify what white people did to the red people when you can visualize them as violent, brutal, savages, who would have wiped themselves out had we not. Much easier to accept.
Quote:
Go back to school Pollyanna... every culture does terrible things. Or did they train you that only "white" people do bad things?
I think if you compared European stone age culture to early American Indian you would get a fair approximation so don't say that greed, theft, etc are somehow a European exclusive.
Pollyana? what the hell is the matter with you? And the only thing you learned studying Anthropology/Archaeology in school, was how to not think critically about the subject, and regurgitate what you were told, when challenged by someone who opposes that viewpoint. This is how most people react to a new idea. And who exactly is THEY that TRAINED me? I believe we have already established the fact that you have been trained.
I will post backup for my claims later, when I get home. In the meantime, I can trade insults with the best of them, but I would much rather engage in intelligent debate, which is why I post here. crap like this is unnecesary:
TommyJefferson wrote:
Quote:
BO wrote:
There culture wasn't based on greed, theft, slavery, and competition, therefore, warfare, for the most part, was a means of last resort, not first.
Spare us your romantic wishful thinking.
gnm posted links to documentation for his views. You are regurgitating some fantasy a fat hippie spun during a sabbatical in Santa Fe and typed into his lecture notes.
Once again, I never challenged gnm's views about those things taking place, but tell me Tommy, if having a favorable opinion about a lost race which white people wiped out in the biggest mass genocide the human race has ever witnesed, is "romantic wishful thinking", than I guess I am a romantic wishful thinker.
Tell me, how many races did the red people wipe out? Oh thats right, they just didn't have the weopons to do it.
Everyone should have a revisionist history lesson, whether you want to subscribe to it or not, One terrific book on the subject is, " Lies My Teacher Told Me : Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong " by James Loewen.
And get a grip you two, there is no reason to get so mad. _________________ Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
-Edward Abbey
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 9:04 am Post subject: Re: Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
I do not know enough about the Native Americans to give an overall view, but in searching for information on Easter Island and the collapse of that society I came across the following with a section (about half way down) about the Anasazi and how they destroyed their environment. Their location was "in our south west, in the four corners area of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah".
I just guess that people are much the same everywhere. We are all, and not just the Native Americans, are 'noble savages'. But I also agree with the postings that having more technology allows one to make the mess at a faster pace, as the saying goes (from my programming days) 'to err is human, but to totally mess it up you need a computer'.
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 9:24 am Post subject: Re: Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
BO, I never said they were violent brutal savages nor do I think of them that way at all. They are just people. And people have always done what the Europeans did once they gained the tools to exploit thier surroundings and oppress other groups. Your rose colored view of early American Indian society just didn't happen. They were always struggling to improve their live s and took whatever advantages they could up to and including exceeding carrying capacity in various regions. Slash and burn agriculture in the Mayan culture reached critical mass at one point and their food output collapsed as the farmland was denuded.
Oh and yes the US government did terrible things to the american Indians.
The Aztecs did terrible things to smaller and weaker tribes around them as they expanded their empire.
Oh and yes the European/now americans were mostly responsible for wiping out the buffalo. Although it may have happened with the Plains Indians as well had they had rifles. It just would have happened slower I think since their population would have to grow as they used the "resource" whereas the "whites" (and black soldiers took part as well) were given financial incentives to rape and pillage buffalo pelts and ship them back east. Very lucrative.
I apologize for calling you a Pollyanna. I just think you have a very unrealistic view of early Indian cultures.
Oh and besides the fact that "race" is a subjective term the american Indians couldn't wipe out any other "races" since they were essentially homogenous throughoutt the americas. Although there is some evidence that ther americas were originally colonized by people of australian aborigine /pacific islander descent who were then subsequently wiped out by groups of asian descent moving in from the north.
-G _________________ All right, you primitive screw-heads, listen up!
Joined: Aug 19, 2004 Posts: 1719 Location: Republic of Texas
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 9:52 am Post subject: Re: Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
BO wrote:
if having a favorable opinion about a lost race which white people wiped out in the biggest mass genocide the human race has ever witnesed, is "romantic wishful thinking", than I guess I am a romantic wishful thinker.
When you single out "white people" as being extra-ordinarily evil, I take exception.
Like gnm said, Native Americans were just people. People, like every other organism on this planet, consume all available resources until they reach stasis with their environment. Europeans just happened to be better at it, at that time.
If you wish to compare numbers of "percentages killed" by various ethnic groups, we can play that game all day. Just pick your favorite group.
Your rose-colored view of Native American society is romantic and disingenuous. We just want you to be more open-minded and honest by not promoting the idea that "white people", as you call us, are uniquely evil. _________________ Conform . Consume . Obey .
Joined: Sep 02, 2005 Posts: 113 Location: Philadelphia, PA
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 11:04 am Post subject: Re: Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
Great!
I understand and respect your opinion, and I am sure you have much more knowledge than I do about individual cultures that existed in the Americas. However, I don't think I clarified my point, I admit I have limited understanding of the written history of Native Americans, but I was kind of focusing on the tribes that lived in the original 13 colonies, Canada, and perhaps midwest. It seems that much of the violent behavior happened in Maya, Aztec, Anasazi, etc., you even linked to eskimos. The atrocities commited by white settlers I have read about, mostly happened in the areas of the Northeast, where the first colonies were set up. I read the Wiki link about the Jamestown massacre, but come on, can you imagine the horror that ensued after the first Virginia settlement, when the settlers started going hungry? or in Massachusettes, when the setters/conquerors passed out smallpox infested blankets? What would you have done, if invaders came into your neighborhood, and did those things. I mean, how do we know what really went on? Historians are only now discovering some of the events that took place, that were never before acknowledged.:
http://www.slate.com/id/2130677/
I would be very interested in any links or info regarding the behavior of the early North and Southeastern Native Americans. It just seems to me that the accepted history is way off the mark, since it was mostly written by the conquerors.
And thanks for the honest debate gnm.
TommyJefferson wrote:
Quote:
Like gnm said, Native Americans were just people. People, like every other organism on this planet, consume all available resources until they reach stasis with their environment. Europeans just happened to be better at it, at that time.
If you wish to compare numbers of "percentages killed" by various ethnic groups, we can play that game all day. Just pick your favorite group.
Your rose-colored view of Native American society is romantic and disingenuous. We just want you to be more open-minded and honest by not promoting the idea that "white people", as you call us, are uniquely evil.
My view is neither dishonest nor disingenuous, and I also take exception to the assertion that "white people" are uniquely evil". I did not say that, and certainly did not mean to imply it either.
I am only using "white people" as an example in this case. If you remember, I said European and Eurasian EMPIRES, using them as an example here. I also said that this behavior was rampant in many South American EMPIRES like the Aztecs, and Mayans. For a great book (and it is free online) read "Final Empire" by W H Kotke. Here is the link:
Howard Zinn, in "Passionate Declarations" talks about this. He says that both Freud, psychologist, and I forget the biologists name, both say that Humans have a "violent" nature. Yet, neither can provide any physiological, or psychological reason for it, it is just not in our genetic makeup. Yet they both say that humans do, simply because of our 10,000 years of written history. Zinn then says this is a falacy because this history has been continually marked by "Hierarchal Society" Our written history is that of slave and slave master, and war, and violence has ALWAYS benefitted the slave masters, and the slaves have always paid the price, and always been blamed for there violence.
Its time to reject the concept that the stupid little humans are to blame, and start rejecting the oppresvie institutions that force us into this paradigm.
Lots is being said about Jared Diamonds fantastic book "Collapse", but notice it is about how "Complex Societies" collapse, not about how smaller scale simpler societies collapse. There are small forager societies that exist today, like the !Kung of the Kalahari, and the Kogi of Columbia, that have prevailed over thousands of years.
And let me reiterate, I did not say that white people are "uniquely evil", I said the EMPIRE is uniquely evil. I also am saying that the worst atrocities have been committed by Asian, Eurasian, and European races.
By telling me I need to be honest and open minded, while at the same time completely closing your mind, and being dishonest about what I am saying, is quite the paradox.
Also, I thought we were talking about Native Americans, which is why I am focusing on the destructive nature of white Europeans. I will leave you with this opening segment of Howard Zinn's "Peoples history of the US"
Take your own advice TommyJefferson, and be honest, and try to look at things from the perspective of the slave, instead of the dominant slavemaster dogma.
Quote:
Arawak men and women, naked, tawny, and full of wonder, emerged from their villages onto the island’s beaches and swam out to get a closer look at the strange big boat. When Columbus and his sailors came ashore, carrying swords, speaking oddly, the Arawaks ran to greet them, brought them food, water, gifts. He later wrote of this in his log:
They…brought us parrots and balls of cotton and spears and many other things,
Which they exchanged for the glass beads and hawks’ bells. They willingly traded
Everything they owned….They were well-built, with good bodies and handsome
Features…They do not bear arms, and do not know them, for I showed them a
Sword, they took it by the edge and cut themselves out of ignorance. They have no
Iron. Their spears are made of cane…They would make fine servants…With fifty
Men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.
These Arawaks of the Bahama Islands were much like Indians on the mainland, who were remarkable (European observers were to say again and again) for their hospitality, their belief in sharing. These traits did not stand out in the Europe of the Renaissance, dominated as it was by the religion of popes, the government of kings, the frenzy for money that marked Western civilization and its first messenger to the Americas, Christopher Columbus.
_________________ Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
-Edward Abbey
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 11:21 am Post subject: Re: Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
Well there have been studies which tend to point to a maximum of about 200-400 for a functioning "tribe" of humans. The tribes along the NE/SE were more widely spread out and smaller bands than a lot of the mesoamerican/SW groups (Anasazi were SW) and ( I think) the NW tended to be about that size for any one group although I am sure some areas exceeded that. The !Kung are interesting in that any single group tends to be about that as well. When they exceed that population you generally get migration of some members to another tribe or splinter groups which eventually end up being their own tribe. Given sufficent land/resources a number of small tribes could coexist peacfully or not even see each other except for trade or possibly trading of members (which happened and had the benifit of ensuring more genetic diversity).
Fierce competition for resources (SW in particular is harsh) or development of taxes/written language/ample food to sustain soldiery (Aztec/Mayan/Inca) probably contributed to the empire building and general complexity/violence of the mesoamerican and SW Indian groups.
Now if you go back far enough I think you will find similar factors existed in early Europe as well. Peaceful coexistence before competition/complexity.
My argument is that you are incorrect in stating that somehow Europeans have this loot,plunder enslave and conquer doctrine that did not exist in american Indians. I would argue that its related to competition and complexity of the given society and not endemic to any one group/"race".
-G _________________ All right, you primitive screw-heads, listen up!
Joined: May 14, 2005 Posts: 2123 Location: Along the banks of the muddy Mississippi
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 12:02 pm Post subject: Re: Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
gnm wrote:
Now if you go back far enough I think you will find similar factors existed in early Europe as well. Peaceful coexistence before competition/complexity.
My argument is that you are incorrect in stating that somehow Europeans have this loot,plunder enslave and conquer doctrine that did not exist in american Indians. I would argue that its related to competition and complexity of the given society and not endemic to any one group/"race".
Excellent point. My hunter-gather ancestors ... the indigenous natives of northern Europe ... were raped and killed and had their culture destroyed by the same agriculturist empire builders who eventually made their way across the Atlantic to continue their nasty ways.
And speaking of nasty, I find your avatar extremely disturbing, G. _________________ “Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.” (Ted Perry)
Joined: Nov 24, 2005 Posts: 743 Location: The ever shrinking wilds of Norway
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 12:31 pm Post subject: Re: Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
TheTurtle wrote:
Torjus wrote:
White innovations accelerated the process. The horse and gun accelerated the depletion of the buffalo already before the white man arrived.
Uh, there were no guns and horses among American aboriginals before the white man arrived.
Torjus wrote:
But white man of course is to blame for most of it.
In the early 1800s, Lewis and Clark reported that the multitudes of buffalo darkened the whole plains. The estimates are that there were between 35 and 75 million at that time. There were essentially none at that time east of the Mississippi River, since European settlers had killed them off to protect their own livestock and farmlands.
Buffalo were "hunted" almost to extinction from the windows of trains during the late 1800s. It turns out that buffalo hides were useful as belts in the machinery of the Industrial Revolution and so their hides were hunted (while the meat was left to rot). There is also documented evidence that the buffalo were hunted to deprive the natives on the plains of their primary food source.
White man was to blame for ALL of that.
The indians aquired horses and guns through trade long before they actually encountered any white people themselves.
The bison was already in decline, but it was the white man who finished them off. That was my point.
Advanced technology is bad for the long term survival of our species. (Well, that is not entirely true. If we don't spread out of this solar system we will be destroyed someday. But that will have to be the works of another civilisation. Because this one is doomed!!!!!)
Joined: Sep 02, 2005 Posts: 113 Location: Philadelphia, PA
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 1:48 pm Post subject: Re: Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
gnm wrote:
Quote:
My argument is that you are incorrect in stating that somehow Europeans have this loot,plunder enslave and conquer doctrine that did not exist in american Indians. I would argue that its related to competition and complexity of the given society and not endemic to any one group/"race".
You are absolutely correct. In my earlier post, I got a little over-zealous with my defense of Native Americans, and did alot of generalization. There is certainly a corelation between complexity and violence. The methods of Empire are the same whether they are Sino, European, Incan, Mayan, whatever, I should have been more clear, I was only using whites because we are talking about North America. I would bet that you could isolate sustainable societies in any race, based on population (I have also heard of the studies regarding 200-400 humans) and complexity.
Perhaps the more stable and sustainable NE/SE Native American tribes, were the result of both a virtually inexhaustable resource base for the population scale, and also a spiritual connection to those resources, (Native Americans blessing and thanking the animal they killed for its sacrifice), that allowed SOME societies to live in harmony with there surroundings.
Of course the Incan, Mayan, Aztecs had huge resource bases, and still Empire culture emerged, and collapsed. I think we can pretty clearly see why complex societies fail, perhaps the question should be, why do they begin?
It is also fairly clear that the Chinese basically invented resource depletion, and environmental destruction. This from Final Empire:
Quote:
The environmental crisis began thousands of years ago, when the Han Chinese began to destroy the vast forests of China and when the Indo-Europeans began to overgraze the vegetation and exhaust the soils of central Asia. For two to three million years humans lived on the planet in a stable condition; then suddenly with the cultural inversion to civilization, the earth began to die. Civilization is the environmental crisis and the loss of topsoil is our measure of the etiology of the disease.
Regarding Europeans, while we certainly are not "uniquely evil" I would argue that, with the creation of enough nuclear weopons to wipe out the earth a thousand times over, we qualify as the "Most Evil" _________________ Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
-Edward Abbey
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 12533 Location: zombie horde wonderland
Posted: Wed Feb 01, 2006 7:20 pm Post subject: Re: Would the Native Americans have screwed up as royally?
Mostly, no. Some were civilized and their civilizations collapsed, as civilizations tend to do. The others weren't civilized and had no apparent need or desire to become so. In fact, some decided not to be settled and turned from farming to hunting buffalo after the introduction of horses by the Spaniards, because being nomadic/semi-nomadic hunters was easier than farming.
Civilization is based on a whole different set of cultural ideals, it's not "the destiny of mankind" or any such crap. It's just a particular kind of culture that tends to overrun its resources. Which HG and horticulture doesn't,by its very nature. _________________ No original ideas are contained in this post.
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