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The Caretaker Myth?

Posted by: Cynic on December 03, 1999 at 11:14:20:

In Reply to: Hopi Indians: Caretakers of the land, or cruel jerks? posted by MDG on November 30, 1999 at 22:23:23:

I am unimpressed by claims that the lifestyles of Native American tribes in aggregate were any more perfect than that brought to this continent by white settlers from Europe.

Before the arrival of Europeans there was still war. There were also still barbaric religious rituals (no I don't believe in ritual sacrifice or making "offerings" to any deity) that fail the test of common sense.

I'll go out on a limb and further assert that given a suffeciently large population and growing concerns about how to feed it, the Native American cultures would have evolved into Neo-industralists in their own right, given time. Perhaps the European method that was introduced has proved exceedingly wasteful, of this my argument is unconcerned. But I think it is too easy and deceptively simple a statement to make that Native American culture bore the traits of utopian perfection.

Human nature exists outside the boundaries of culture--and ensures that underneath it all, our aims are quite similar and our ends of like kind.


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