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What does your (and the GP's) definition of "competent" mean, "imperialistic"? Were the native Americans less competent because they weren't always trying to e

by ytinas 17y ago

What does your (and the GP's) definition of "competent" mean, "imperialistic"? Were the native Americans less competent because they weren't always trying to expand and conquer? Looking at today's rat race, I don't think it's conclusive that we did a better job than they would have. Sure, it seems likely that we ended up with better medicine than they would have had by now, but the rest of it? "I should probably mention that much of the reasoning behind the Bush invasion of Iraq was along these lines." This statement seems extraordinarily naive to me. What is it based on?

thaumaturgy 17y ago
Which native Americans? The Yaqui? Or the Iroquois, pre-league or post-league? Or the Chiricahua Apaches? Or the Pequot? Each of those had their own unique culture, their own identity, their own language, their own technology. Some were cruel to their captives and in times of war; others were not. Some wanted to expand their territory and conquer lands and other tribes, while others had found territory to settle in and had no desire to expand, while still others were purely nomadic. If you have any love at all for history, stop referring to all those pre-colonial nations under a single name and title. Doing so is a vestigial prejudice in our culture, and worst of all, it's completely destroying any chance we have of learning what they were actually like. As to relative "competence" -- well, we've begun exploring space. So, I guess it all depends on what you consider to be important.
- ytinas 17y ago
  Any of them. They were all steam rolled by us. >Some were cruel to their captives and in times of war; others were not. What bearing does this have on anything? Most of the bad things we hear about were learned from someone else (e.g. scalping from the French). >Some wanted to expand their territory and conquer lands and other tribes, There was in-fighting between certain groups, but obviously none had the same appetite we did. >If you have any love at all for history, stop referring to all those pre-colonial nations under a single name and title. You seem to have an axe to grind. In normal usage, one provides as much detail as is relevant. If I were talking about people of earth in relation to some other alien race I would most likely say "humans" unless there was a real reason to be more specific.
  - thaumaturgy 17y ago
    So, if some alien race conquered our planet, destroyed nearly all of human culture -- and thus human history -- if not our species altogether, and then other members of that alien race said things like: It's such a shame. Humans were so peaceful, so quaint. We could have learned so much from them, because all humans lived in great harmony with each-other and with their environment... ...Your reaction would be, "Well, that's about as much detail as is relevant, sure"? Mine would be, "You're completely ignorant of human history, and that should change." Scalping is a popular subject to bring up, because it's so simple, so easy to understand. It's not like all of the other varied forms of torture, which have to be described and require a certain amount of attention to discuss; instead, you just say, "...scalping...", and everybody goes, "Ohhhh yeah, that horrible thing that whites taught the innocent natives." ...but then, what were the French doing in South Dakota in 1350? [1] Yes, I certainly do have an axe to grind, and it is this: history is rich, and amazing, and valuable, and I wish it to be taught and revered, and not swept under the Rug Of Oversimplification with statements like, "the Roman Empire was grand", and "native Americans were beautiful". [1]: http://www.uiowa.edu/~anthro/paleopathology/crowcreek/vignette.html http://www.uiowa.edu/~anthro/paleopathology/crowcreek/vignet...
    - ytinas 17y ago
      >It's such a shame. Humans were so peaceful, so quaint. We could have learned so much from them, because all humans lived in great harmony with each-other and with their environment... >...Your reaction would be, "Well, that's about as much detail as is relevant, sure"? No. In that case, they are making a blanket statement that all humans were peaceful, etc. In this case I was suggestion that the native Americans who were here before us were not necessarily inferior or incompetent. I think that statement stands for most any specific native American group, if not all. >Yes, I certainly do have an axe to grind, and it is this: history is rich, and amazing, and valuable, and I wish it to be taught and revered, and not swept under the Rug Of Oversimplification with statements like, "the Roman Empire was grand", and "native Americans were beautiful". Fair enough, but comments get long enough on their own without having to completely qualify every part of every point ever made.
  - 17y ago
nostrademons 17y ago
For "competent", I think an adequate definition would be "Having the institutions in place that encourage technological innovation and then allow the fruits of that innovation to spread freely through the population." Happiness is a funny thing, because it tends to depend more on relative status than on absolute standard of living. We can look back now and say those people were so primitive and boy am I glad I live today (well, except you ;-)), but that doesn't really the fact that we murdered a few million people who were probably quite happy with their life the way it was. It'd probably be morally unacceptable today, but it happened. I'm not trying to make a moral judgment here. My comment is an argument based on facts - "this is what happened, this is how things tend to work extrapolating from what happened, and here is why it is still relevant today." If you want to make a morality play out of it, go for it - I don't exactly think that the native American genocide or Bush's justification for Iraq was a particularly nice thing to do either. But I think a debate on how things work is a bit more productive than a debate on how things should work. "This statement seems extraordinarily naive to me. What is it based on?" It's based largely on personal memory of a lot of the things said during the lead-up to the invasion. "Beacon of democracy" was used several times in his press releases to drum up support for the war. The "domino theory" of liberalization was discussed in my International Relations course. In both the Bush and Kerry campaigns, there were widespread discussions about how to "win the peace".
- dkimball 17y ago
  This is an extreme nitpick, but the American Indians (most American Indians prefer this name over "Native American," but see Wikipedia for more details on the name question) weren't entirely happy with how they were living, as of the time of the European colonization... So they fixed it. The parts of the Jesuit Relations dealing with the Jesuits' first missionary work among the Hurons relates how the Hurons weren't particularly interested in accepting or rejecting the Jesuits' religious message; what they were interested in was how to build French-style houses. The Cherokee tribe took this even further than the Hurons, developing a syllabic script, and assimilating completely to the norms of the American South (even to the point of owning African slaves, unfortunately). Personally, my complaint about the wars with the American Indians is not that the United States all but annihilated deadly enemies like the Iroquois and the Sioux (although coexistence with them would have been better, and we're doing a little better that way at present); my objection is that the United States all but annihilated peoples like the Cherokee, who were better Europeans than most of the American frontiersmen who wanted them displaced. Like the American Indian casinos, I try to avoid twenty-dollar bills.

by ytinas 17y ago

thaumaturgy 17y ago

Which native Americans? The Yaqui? Or the Iroquois, pre-league or post-league? Or the Chiricahua Apaches? Or the Pequot? Each of those had their own unique culture, their own identity, their own language, their own technology. Some were cruel to their captives and in times of war; others were not. Some wanted to expand their territory and conquer lands and other tribes, while others had found territory to settle in and had no desire to expand, while still others were purely nomadic. If you have any love at all for history, stop referring to all those pre-colonial nations under a single name and title. Doing so is a vestigial prejudice in our culture, and worst of all, it's completely destroying any chance we have of learning what they were actually like. As to relative "competence" -- well, we've begun exploring space. So, I guess it all depends on what you consider to be important.

ytinas 17y ago
Any of them. They were all steam rolled by us. >Some were cruel to their captives and in times of war; others were not. What bearing does this have on anything? Most of the bad things we hear about were learned from someone else (e.g. scalping from the French). >Some wanted to expand their territory and conquer lands and other tribes, There was in-fighting between certain groups, but obviously none had the same appetite we did. >If you have any love at all for history, stop referring to all those pre-colonial nations under a single name and title. You seem to have an axe to grind. In normal usage, one provides as much detail as is relevant. If I were talking about people of earth in relation to some other alien race I would most likely say "humans" unless there was a real reason to be more specific.
- thaumaturgy 17y ago
  So, if some alien race conquered our planet, destroyed nearly all of human culture -- and thus human history -- if not our species altogether, and then other members of that alien race said things like: It's such a shame. Humans were so peaceful, so quaint. We could have learned so much from them, because all humans lived in great harmony with each-other and with their environment... ...Your reaction would be, "Well, that's about as much detail as is relevant, sure"? Mine would be, "You're completely ignorant of human history, and that should change." Scalping is a popular subject to bring up, because it's so simple, so easy to understand. It's not like all of the other varied forms of torture, which have to be described and require a certain amount of attention to discuss; instead, you just say, "...scalping...", and everybody goes, "Ohhhh yeah, that horrible thing that whites taught the innocent natives." ...but then, what were the French doing in South Dakota in 1350? [1] Yes, I certainly do have an axe to grind, and it is this: history is rich, and amazing, and valuable, and I wish it to be taught and revered, and not swept under the Rug Of Oversimplification with statements like, "the Roman Empire was grand", and "native Americans were beautiful". [1]: http://www.uiowa.edu/~anthro/paleopathology/crowcreek/vignette.html http://www.uiowa.edu/~anthro/paleopathology/crowcreek/vignet...
  - ytinas 17y ago
    >It's such a shame. Humans were so peaceful, so quaint. We could have learned so much from them, because all humans lived in great harmony with each-other and with their environment... >...Your reaction would be, "Well, that's about as much detail as is relevant, sure"? No. In that case, they are making a blanket statement that all humans were peaceful, etc. In this case I was suggestion that the native Americans who were here before us were not necessarily inferior or incompetent. I think that statement stands for most any specific native American group, if not all. >Yes, I certainly do have an axe to grind, and it is this: history is rich, and amazing, and valuable, and I wish it to be taught and revered, and not swept under the Rug Of Oversimplification with statements like, "the Roman Empire was grand", and "native Americans were beautiful". Fair enough, but comments get long enough on their own without having to completely qualify every part of every point ever made.
- 17y ago

nostrademons 17y ago

For "competent", I think an adequate definition would be "Having the institutions in place that encourage technological innovation and then allow the fruits of that innovation to spread freely through the population." Happiness is a funny thing, because it tends to depend more on relative status than on absolute standard of living. We can look back now and say those people were so primitive and boy am I glad I live today (well, except you ;-)), but that doesn't really the fact that we murdered a few million people who were probably quite happy with their life the way it was. It'd probably be morally unacceptable today, but it happened. I'm not trying to make a moral judgment here. My comment is an argument based on facts - "this is what happened, this is how things tend to work extrapolating from what happened, and here is why it is still relevant today." If you want to make a morality play out of it, go for it - I don't exactly think that the native American genocide or Bush's justification for Iraq was a particularly nice thing to do either. But I think a debate on how things work is a bit more productive than a debate on how things should work. "This statement seems extraordinarily naive to me. What is it based on?" It's based largely on personal memory of a lot of the things said during the lead-up to the invasion. "Beacon of democracy" was used several times in his press releases to drum up support for the war. The "domino theory" of liberalization was discussed in my International Relations course. In both the Bush and Kerry campaigns, there were widespread discussions about how to "win the peace".

dkimball 17y ago
This is an extreme nitpick, but the American Indians (most American Indians prefer this name over "Native American," but see Wikipedia for more details on the name question) weren't entirely happy with how they were living, as of the time of the European colonization... So they fixed it. The parts of the Jesuit Relations dealing with the Jesuits' first missionary work among the Hurons relates how the Hurons weren't particularly interested in accepting or rejecting the Jesuits' religious message; what they were interested in was how to build French-style houses. The Cherokee tribe took this even further than the Hurons, developing a syllabic script, and assimilating completely to the norms of the American South (even to the point of owning African slaves, unfortunately). Personally, my complaint about the wars with the American Indians is not that the United States all but annihilated deadly enemies like the Iroquois and the Sioux (although coexistence with them would have been better, and we're doing a little better that way at present); my objection is that the United States all but annihilated peoples like the Cherokee, who were better Europeans than most of the American frontiersmen who wanted them displaced. Like the American Indian casinos, I try to avoid twenty-dollar bills.