I posted something here late last week about a formerly unknown tribe that was recently found in the Amazon. A lot of great comments were left in the thread. Following are two of my favorites. As I know a lot of you don’t read the comments, I thought that I’d move them up here. The first comes from Ol’ East Cross.
So, from my assumed perspective of many of you dear readers, I had a rather bizarre upbringing. But, in retrospect, it was fairly interesting.
The backstory is too long to go into in this format, but, as a mid teen, I was face-to-face with an alleged cannibal, of my own then teen age, from a recently discovered Papua New Guinea tribe. Previously, I, like I think many of us, had pictured these remote tribes like simple folk. Almost like children. (Me, Tarzan … you Jane.) But, as I interacted with my new cannibal peer, I found he was like me in every sense. My equal on intelligence and every other human level.
Stay with me… I’m getting there.
Imagine every other planet in the solar system had intelligent life and knew about all that was going on in the stars, except us, but they chose not to tell us because Earth was the last place “undisturbed.” Wouldn’t you be a little pissed that everyone else was in on something and they thought us too quaintly primitive to disturb? That they were watching us, without our knowledge, and deciding our fate without our input? How is that equality or respect? It’s demeaning, coddling, patronizing.
I’m a little conflicted, because I do understand the desire to protect the way of life of the orange men. But, they are people not historic monuments. They aren’t artifacts or children. They are our equals. I feel like the most truly respectful thing we could do is say, “Hey. Here’s what’s going on in the rest of the world, want a Happy Meal?”
The next comes from retired blogger Dirtgrain.
“I feel like the most truly respectful thing we could do is say, ‘Hey. Here’s what’s going on in the rest of the world, want a Happy Meal?'”
Note that diseases would be potentially inflicted on them–to which they have little defense.
Hey, science fiction has covered this ground quite a bit (and I’m not just talking Planet of the Apes). A flip is to consider John, the savage (AKA just like 20th century man), who was brought into the “civilized” world in Brave New World. His mother became a soma addict, and he wound up killing himself. We’d have to consider that this might be the fate of these tribes, some of them anyway.
Is ignorance bliss? Do you think that’s fresh air that you’re breathing? Nope, it’s Chemlawn. Would they prefer to go on without knowing much about us and our world? Here, I wonder if we would be destroying their religions and their cultures. Ol’ E Cross, would you be in favor of confronting other isolated groups? Perhaps we should subject the Amish, the Mennonites, those polygamist Mormons and others to Mark’s mysterious box from Hustler. But they seemingly would choose not to look. Perhaps these tribes of South America have chosen not to look, as well. They could try to find out what’s up with the helicopters and planes.
How about the Prime Directive?
“The Directive states that members of Starfleet are not to interfere in the internal affairs of another species, especially the natural development of pre-warp civilizations, either by direct intervention, or technological revelation. When studying a planet’s civilization, particularly during a planetary survey, the Prime Directive makes it clear that there is to be ‘No identification of self or mission. No interference with the social development of said planet. No references to space, other worlds, or advanced civilizations.’ Starfleet personnel are required to understand that allowing cultures to develop on their own is an important right and therefore must make any sacrifice to protect cultures from contamination, even at the cost of their own lives.”
We could adapt it to fit our circumstance: until they develop sufficient fast food technology (or maybe other benchmarks for technology development) on par with our own, maybe we should let them be.
Just found this term, Wesphalian sovereignty, while double checking the Prime Directive. I don’t remember seeing that term before. Check it out.
Then again, Ol’ E Cross may be right, when I think about how the desire to maintain their isolation might be a selfish notion on our part. Are we just imposing our own fear of the modern world on these people? Is our own call to be primitive (like Chris McCandless (Into the Wild)) and get away from it all (with romantic whitewash and sans grub eating and what not) coloring our perception?
“Imagine every other planet in the solar system had intelligent life and knew about all that was going on in the stars, except us, but they chose not to tell us because Earth was the last place “undisturbed.” Wouldn’t you be a little pissed that everyone else was in on something and they thought us too quaintly primitive to disturb? That they were watching us, without our knowledge, and deciding our fate without our input? How is that equality or respect? It’s demeaning, coddling, patronizing.”
For you, Ol’ E Cross: They’re Made out of Meat, by Terry Bisson.
Last summer, I read “Original Wisdom: Stories of an Ancient Way of Knowing,” by Robert Wolff (an okay book, but I didn’t find it as meaningful as Thom Hartmann, who writes about primitive peoples with whom he had lived and worked. One thing he realized is that we are confronted with too many choices in our society. I can feel that. Shit, at work as a high school teacher, I make hundreds (thousands?) of decisions each day (from the mundane “Can I go to the bathroom?” to the more involved “What can I do to get these kids to read a damn book?”). Then again doing nothing is only fun when you have something to do.
Dammit, we have hundreds of different cookie options when we go to the store. Yah, what a wonderful world when you can get exactly what you want–but you have to pay the price of donating a considerable amount of your life to the act of deciding.
It reminds me of a suicide note, unattributed, that I read in the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations: “All this buttoning and unbuttoning.”
So, shall we vote?
I say we sneak in while they’re sleeping and hide small video cameras everywhere. I’m thinking it would be entertaining as hell…. kind of like this.
43 Comments
If you follow that last link, you have to wait for a while to get to the part I wanted to show you…
Do you remember the episode of Gilligan’s Island where the NASA Mars probe lands in the lagoon, and, just as it was supposed to start broadcasting video back to NASA, Gilligan somehow manages to get everyone covered in glue and feathers? Well, I wanted just that scene, where the men at NASA were watching all of them running around like bird people. I couldn’t find it, though, so I just linked to the entire episode.
Roughly … I don’t have the dates in front of me … but following the arrival in South and Central America by the Spanish and Portugese … and the proselytizing of the natives … say, 1550-1650 … merely 250 years later … explorers in the Northwestern American continent found entire villages and native populations disappeared. Villages were mpty. They had been wiped out by diseases. The trade routes had carried our wonderful goods along with our exquisite diseases that far into the new world. Thank you, Cristobal Colon.
It’d be interesting to take part in noninvasive surveillance of the tribe just to learn about them if it was possible, but other than that, everyone should leave them alone. what are they gonna gain from us? probably nothing they care about. hopefully they’ll just live in peace, without some asshole wanting to disturb them, or take over their land.
Clearly, the natives themselves have decided that their solution to the problem is to shoot down the helicopter. The only obstacle to their implementing their chosen solution is that they need more technologically advanced arrows to take down a helicopter.
Okay. So I have some predispositions.
One, and I realize this may be heresy to the blogging crowd, is I don’t accept the modernist “our advanced technology and learning is supreme” notion of Star Trek. I’m more of a Blade Runner guy.
Another, is I don’t believe in the happy native that is somehow immune to human experience by living in relative isolation. I think people are people and we all share various angst and joys.
That said, I think Dirtgrain has an excellent point about introducing disease. When we intrude on this tribe we should bring an ample supply of big drug vaccines to counteract the happy meals.
But, I don’t think DG and I really disagree. I think we’re asking the same questions. And, as much as I’ve settled on a hand to play, I remain conflicted.
I don’t believe these folk will be better off or happier if we intrude. And, I often imagine how much “happier” I’d be if I only had to worry about where the next antelope came from rather than the (individually) unresolvable problems of global warming, earth quakes in China and which cookie has the most “ahoy.”
The Amish and Mormons are aware of other views and choose else. Every day (or nearly), I’m confronted with alternate views to my own and choose otherwise. We all are/do. If these folk choose to stay put I’m glad for them. But, knowledge and choice are rather key.
All I’m getting at is that six billion people are privy to information that these fellow humans don’t have. And, I like to think they are equally evolved. Not letting them in on the secret is parental, patronizing, and demeaning, even (or especially) if it’s for their own good.
Will contact make their life better? I doubt it. More likely, they’ll all catch enniu and influenza.
Contacting them may seriously fuck them up. But, if it were me, I would like to be contacted. Fuck star fleet command. They always intruded anyways. The helicopters are there (who knows how disturbed they’ve been by the satellites darting across the sky at night). The air is cracked. How long can we go on pretending?
If there’s any sense of equality, somebody needs to let them in on the joke.
My vote? Anyone up for a field trip?
Again, I think we should first consider what the natives want and respect it. They clearly want the helicopter to fuck off.
I saw an episode of the Crocodile Hunter wherein Steve Erwin grabbed a spitting cobra. He had goggles on, so it couldn’t really do him any harm, and his intentions were to educate us. He told the cobra it was alright, commented about it’s beauty, and acknowledged it was grumpy. The cobra was indeed grumpy at getting manhandled by an intruder, regardless of Mr. Erwin’s intentions. It spit at him and spit at him over and over, hissing in anger. I could not stop yelling at the TV: “put down the cobra you jackass, it clearly doesn’t want to be held!”
I’m getting a similar feeling about these tribesmen. Those arrows and that warpaint can’t hurt the helicopter, but I don’t see it as their way of saying, “welcome, white gods with strange new technology, teach us your ways.” Maybe we should just take their response as the universal signal for “fuck off” and respect their wishes.
Of course, fucking off never seems to be a viable course of action for our overbearing, meddling culture, so much so that venom and arrows are often necessary to convince us of its merits. Too bad we have goggles and helicopters to protect our consciences.
Ted Nugent just announced that he’d be heading an expedition to hunt them. Tickets, if you’d like to join, are $25,000 a piece. (That doesn’t cover taxidermy.)
You can get slighly less recently discovered tribes to lead you on a poaching expedition for a bottle of Jack, 3 lukewarm sliders, and a sleaveless Spuds McKenzie T-shirt.
I’ll go with you OEC, but first we should learn some simple universal sign language to help us communicate with our new native friends.
(Basic signs)
I’m choking.
Howdy, I am your new best friend.
Please leave us alone.
I regret not respecting your desire to remain undisturbed.
Here’s a communications shortcut or two …
“Yo soy hombre sincero …”
“I speak for the Dalai Lama …”
“My name is Yahweh and I will smite you if you don’t put that blowgun down.”
“I’ll show you my piercings, if you you me yours.”
Do NOT say … “Let’s take a meeting.” The film company tried that and lost two Production Assistants to the savages in return for their Range Rover and camping gear. (Fair exchange IMHO)
I’d like to see Ted Nugent hunt something that could shoot arrows back at him.
There are also famous isolated tribes on the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean. They shot arrows at the helicopters that attempted to provide help after the tsunami.
Anonymatt: any word on what happened with the Andaman Islands tribes after that?
Sonic Reducer. I think it’s Howdy. I am your new best friend.
If that helicopter dropped a load of Krispy Kremes, those folks would drop their spears and pray for the second coming. They may not want a big scary bug flying over but that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t enjoy an ice cold coca cola.
The Travel Channel had this documentary “Tribal Life.” I liked it. Remote tribe, living as they always had (albeit with TV cameras). Some members had left for big cities and returned. Like the Amish, they made a choice.
I think this new tribe should be able to choose, not have a choice made for them. I don’t think a helicopter drive by gives them enough info to make an informed choice. They need to be wined and dined a little.
We should bring them to Ypsi. Buy them a few drinks. Take them to a concert. If at the end of the week, they want to go back. Fine. But it’ll break my heart to see them go. I love them already.
OEC, I know you tailored that response to elicit a rejoinder on my part that had to do with me deciding to go back with them. Well, I fell for it.
So they get addicted to Krispy Kremes and wine, have to move to the city to get crappy jobs to buy more (only the first helicopter load is free), stop manufacturing seratonin because of the sugary toxins (making them hate their crappy jobs even more), have to go on an expensive diet that exactly mimics their old hunter-gatherer diet, wonder what it’s all for because their jobs are so many steps removed from basic survival needs, end up shooting arrows at anyone who they percieve as threatening the old run down freight house so they feel like they have a good cause to fight for and a purpose in life, get trendy tribal tattoos and dreads, and pose for pictures so some photographer guy can get his commission from whatever news agency he works for so he can keep his family in wine and Krispy Kremes.
Oh, and so we can burden ourselves with the depressing illusion that we have some kind of moral responsibility to decide what should be done with them, even though we don’t have any power to do shit about it.
BA. Yes. Exactly. At which point we may stop treating them like puppy dogs or wet dreams spilling from our own disenchantment and start treating them as equals.
Above comment in response to 23:35 post, not 23:37.
To 23:37 … what does moral responsibility ever have to do with power, except depress us?
And BA, you have to admit this is an interesting role reversal. As I’m all like, “Let the free market decide” and you’re all “Big Government needs to protect them from intruders.”
I mean, shouldn’t their wits, will and weapons be enough to fight off the choppers, missionaries and land developers without government intrusion into the free market?
Does so much really boil down to personality? Your “I’m miserable, leave me the fuck alone” vs. my “I’m miserable and in need of good company”?
For you: What role should government play in this scenario?
For me: How do we get these fuckers on the tax roll?
To get these “F-s” on the tax rolls … sell’em some property in Ypsilanti … I’ll take two blowguns and a quetzal headdress and 20# of jade for my place.
As for Krispy Kremes and etc. … some kind of addiction is really crucial to getting native people “hooked” into our culture. Booze, welfare, patent medicines, SOMETHING … whatever works.
Once they’re in … cool. We have a new minority … they have a political voice … the money flows … and a new IGUANA STEW COMPANY restaurant sign goes up on a building downtown. WHAT a country!
“wet dreams spilling from our own disenchantment”
Now that is one brilliant string of words. You’re a god, aren’t you OEC?
OEC: Government what what in the what now?
My whole argument is based on understanding that when someone points arrows at you, that means they want you to go away. So you should go away. I do not recall petitioning the Government for anything. I do not automatically consider Government action as a solution to problems, and wasn’t even thinking along those lines. I’m saying what we should do personally is fuck off. Furthermore, I think if you want to brave the arrows and go tell them the gospel of Western consumerism, go for it, but if you get shot with arrows, well, sorry. I will welcome them outside of their tribe when they come over to Ypsi and teach them stuff if they want to know. In our fantasy scenario where we actually have some hand in what happens to them, I might even see hanging around in their neck of the woods and letting them come to me if they’re curious. But I won’t disrespect their property rights, even if all they have to defend their turf and privacy is laughable arrows and I outgun them. Government doesn’t factor in to my thinking at all.
I’m just choosing an argument and sticking to it at this point. Not fucking with the injuns is not really an important cornerstone of my world view that I’ve given a lot of thought to. But this stance seems right to me so far and is fun to argue.
Are we really making the choice for them? We have information that they don’t have. Have they shown in any way that they are interested? If they care and wonder about what else is in the world, then why don’t they explore (if they haven’t already–we assume they don’t know about the “civilized” world, other cultures, technologies–yah, I understand how isolating rain forest can be)? If their beliefs and culture hold that they should stay put in isolation, then it would perhaps be an ethnocentric act (an imposition?) for us to inform them about ourselves.
If corporate bulldozers don’t force the “new world” on them, then perhaps we should just wait until they knock on our door. Until they show they are interested in communicating with us, maybe we shouldn’t communicate with them.
Could knowledge of our world be like a disease to them? A disease to which they are vulnerable? I ask, as we all seem to agree we shouldn’t get them sick (either by avoiding contact with them, or by vacinating them (assuming we can)). Maybe our world cultures should be viewed as diseases. That would make the choice a difficult proposition, as they cannot choose without being exposed to the information about our cultures; it might be like having to lick some hepatitis in order to decide if you want some or not.
Then again, if I do decide that our culture is poison, then why did I decide to create a son?
Is this scenario of deciding if we should contact the isolated people akin to a decision to procreate? Yah, I know that they are equals as human beings in terms of worth. But there is an innocence. Holden Caulfield wants to preserve the innocence of children, all the while wrapping himself up in corrupt adult culture. He wants to be Tipper Gore, but he fronts like Kwame Kilpatrick, hiding his own corrupt nature. Can one really preserve innocence in this dark world? No. I get you on that, OEC. We can’t censor these people from the world–it will eventually bite them. And they may well have their own corrupt nature. Hell, maybe their culture is more poisonous than our own. Maybe they will corrupt us further.
Sorry for randomness.
Also OEC, while I appreciate that your argument seems to rely on accusing me of forming my opinion based solely on base emotions, miscreant longings, and disrespect for the natives, it just ain’t so.
The reality is that I am looking at them as my equals, and if I wanted someone to go away enough to risk my life by pointing arrows at some huge metal monster in the sky, I’d say that’s a pretty good sign that they want to be left alone. I’d want you to respect my wishes if I did that, if I really really wanted you to go away that bad, no matter what superior education or other good things you might have to offer me. Because even if they are ignorant of what I might have to offer them, they know how to live their own lives better than I do, simply because they are them and I am not. Respect for their self-ownership at its finest. If they change their minds on their own, then so be it. They know we’re out there some where and they can go find us.
If you really think we aught to solve this problem otherwise, maybe we can get a sponsorship from Krispy Kreme to set up a kiosk near their hunting grounds, and stand there waiting in our bio-hazard DEVO suits for them to make first contact with us. We can then develop a respectful trading relationship with them, wherein we exchange sugary treats and other Western goodies for their folk art or whatever. We learn to communicate over the years, teach them to read, give them Everything There Is To Know About The Risks and Benefits of Western Culture for the Complete Idiot, and then everything will be rosy.
OEC: to answer your question as to our Government’s proper role, it falls down to jurisdiction. In which of the United States of America did they find these guys?
Brackache: AFAIK, the Andaman Islanders continue to live in isolation. Their existence has been known for a long time and they’ve always resisted visits from outsiders. I believe they are technically part of India.
BA/DG: An excerpt from an interesting article on other Brazilian tribes that have been contacted:
Until they have contact, they are proud and beautiful and think they can defeat the white man,” he says. “But when they see their first towns and the thousands of people, and begin to discover the size of the white nation, they lose all their spirit and their shoulders stoop.
The article also mentions they love television.
Ultimately, I think you’re both right. But, it’s circular dilemma. We can’t know if they would really prefer to be contacted until they have enough knowledge to decide it they want to be contacted which can only be given through contact…
I simply, personally and emotionally, don’t like the idea of all this knowledge out there that someone else (the Brazilian Ministry of Justice) is deciding to shield me from.
But, I realize that is also me projecting my western, scientific, democratic values on them. I want to know things. They may not. So, I admit forcing knowledge upon them is no better than enforcing the lack of it.
I would want to be contacted, but I can’t speak for them. None of us can, until we ask them, which we shouldn’t do, until we know if they want us to…
Okay. I’ll leave them be until they e-mail me.
I don’t think that anyone was arguing that, if one of these people made it to a city, we should gouge out his eyes and remove his tongue so that he can’t repeat our great secrets. It’s not that we’re – or at least I’m – trying to keep them from information. I’d just rather see them take the first step. I don’t want to force “civilization” on them. And, sure, they might really love TV, booze and antibiotics, and I feel bad about depriving them of that, but I also realize that once you open that door there’s no going back, no matter how hard you might want to.
After what OEC said about how arrogant they are, maybe we should go in there and kick their asses so they know what the score is.
Or make them watch “The Day After” and be all like, “that’s gonna be you, bitches. Hand over the photon beetles.”
Give them the apple Eve!
This would be so much easier if we just had a little blue pill we offer after our arrival.
Remember that tribe that was discovered a few years back that the papers were referring to as the “red haired yellow men?” We were all so concerned about wether we should expose them to our corrupting ways. Boy did we have that situation pegged all wrong. It was our own exposure we should have been worring about. Now we may never recover.
hoax, hoax, hoax
NOT! NOT! NOT!
And Richard Nixon was NOT a crook — he said so.
speaking of he said so Booboo
nice blog ya got going there
6 friends
1 whole person that comments _ is STELLA your mom?
lame art / gee i can download GIRLIES pictues from the web and play with colors look at me i’m a profound artist / booboo says so __ get laid much?
quotes / i can type i is deep / booboo says so
and i’m a tough guy / i’ll slander people then take down the post when they complain and then I’LL GIVE MY SELF CREDIT FOT STANDDING UP TO THEM BY DELETING THE POST??????!! BUT I’M A TOUGH GUY / booboo says so
my big mystery is why Mark links to you?
bye bye booboo
Wow, I’m sensing some hostility here…
Ubu. You have a stalker. For the first time, I’m almost impressed.
Will this be on the next Shadow Art Fair undercard?
I’m not prepared to fight about it but I can only humbly say that
Aljazerra (which is a very fair news source despite what the wingnuts say) seems to be agreeing with Faux News on this story. [I can’t do links]
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2008/06/200862516391861956.html
Have a nice day.
Cluck, cluck, cluck!
Whatever…just wipe the spittle off your cheeks, take your meds and go to the the lunchroom — maybe Nurse Ratched will have some of that green jello you like.
Ol’ E Cross:
I take strong acception to the stalking remark.
From what I know about the internet version of the Marquis Du Queensberry Rules if 99% of your posts in Mark’s blog are snarky pontificating putdowns and you shamelessly self promote your own unread blog with crummy photoslopped “art”, which does not allow unapproved response to be put up, with a link to it in 99% of the first 99% posts, the chickens come home to roost.
If you want to see some real creepy cyberstalking g**gle “jordan miller” + radiofreeubu and read those results. She is attractive so I can sort of understand that.
Don’t ever tell booboo you’re impressed as this will only incourage him.
Now I will crawl back to the TV lounge to try and get the nurse to change the channel.
BTW it has been pretty well conclusory prooved that the tribe photos were NOT A HOAX, just g**gle for your own and see. That’s how this all started I just read the guy’s links.