Simply by agreeing on some basic human rights, or just being opposed to murder, is enough to show these societies are bad. Interference isn't intrinsically bad, and there's nothing unethical about putting an end to such atrocities. (It might be easy to fall into the trap of committing your own ethical violations while ending atrocities, but it's not required.)
The book does a good job of providing solid evidence of the harm these cultures inflict on people.
Using your metric of "messed up society" ie the public, condoned torture and murder of "outsiders", the point am making is that all societies are pretty messed up.
And when you start labelling whole groups of people that way, thats actually step 1 in the plan to exploit, colonize or commit genocide.
And I don't think colonization belongs on the same level as genocide. Having lived in a shitty country, they'd be far better off if they were colonized by a decent country (even today). They might be better off after a genocide, too, but that has a negative effect on everyone that's killed so it's unfair. Colonization doesn't have that issue. The people of said country seem to agree, given their persistence of trying to immigrate to other countries, while expressing a fondness for their home country. If their home country was colonized, they could enjoy the benefits of both. (To be absolutely clear, I'm saying that e.g. Elbonia would benefit greatly by having e.g. Canada peacefully take over their government and run it as a second tier province.)
What does colonization mean to you? What value did colonization bring (lets talk factual specifics here) that weren't there before.
> They might be better off after a genocide, too
So what exactly are the benefits of a genocide?
As a thought experiment, what does one do, when entering a room only to discover an entire family, all members old enough to know better, is engaged in depraved incestuous rituals?
Moral relativism is always a painful psychological quagmire.
And I used the term "outsider" to refer to any perceived differences, whether its race, gender, religion, beliefs etc. And yes, some people condone; while others actively participate.
I'll repeat, as you seem to have missed mine: every culture, modern or historic, has its fair mix nobles and savages. Tagging a whole group of people as savages is just good old fashioned racism.
Drawing conclusions for whichever labels I present, when I did not specify how I might choose to apply the labels. Do you see where you're jumping to conclusions about my disposition yet?
My last words to you are this:
A burning death after mutilation is cruelty. The aggressors are torturing and burning the victims. The murdered suffering before the mob are victims. Everyone else witnessing the events is a spectator, although some of the spectators may be accomplices to the aggressors. Evidence for many of these events will surely be incomplete, and likely skewed. Without evidence in any direction how would anyone know.
But you, you're lashng out at people on the internet. At some point you marked me as an enemy. Maybe you'll realize you misread my remarks. Oh well, done with this conversation. I won't be replying to you again.
And yes, from the negro burnt to death in the american south; the salem witch-hunts of the early settlers and the same in PNG, it is all barbaric.
They liked it, they explained, because the trumpets
sounded exactly like the brassy screams of captive
women selected for feasting.
Considering that these people aren't particularly sophisticated in a social sense, you can't interpret a statement like that directly.
It needs to be examined as:
a. i like this sound, and appreciate what i'm hearing.
b. gee, it reminds me of that time the woman was
tortured, and her cries echoed across the valley.
something i can never forget. something that
cannot be stopped when mobs rule our culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazen_bull
Imagine people crafting a sculpture in the likeness of an animal, large enough to load an adult person inside, and being entertained by the noises of people (maybe your enemies, maybe not) being burned to death inside of it. Probably sounds like trumpets, no? Lest we forget what ancient Greece was like.
Cruel and unusual punishment isn't as far into the distant past as we'd like to imagine, either. This is just what that quote happened to remind me of.
Mob rule, in a place where social stratification is not adequate enough to provide for objective behavior modification by third party authoritarian paramilitary forces, takes on similar shapes around the world.
To drive the point home, I like a lot of ridiculous music, and some of the vocalists in the bands I like, they scream like they're being tortured to death. Having never witnessed any form of actual torture, firsthand, I still like the music, even though I'm not gripped by any particular desire to induce screams like that in any of my fellow human beings.
Also, your own armed forces tortured, raped and murdered people. And still do.
You people talk a lot about moral relativism... But then you ignore your own history, past and present, of atrocities. You could try being honest about your real beliefs and intentions at least once in your lives.
And then later:
> Our social harmony was going along until the white man arrived … You intrude, and suddenly the things that used to go smoothly no longer do.
I'll go out on a limb and suggest that a social harmony in which people love the cries of those they are about to eat is a social harmony which needs disruption, destruction and replacement with something better.
What Papua New Guinea needs is more, not less colonialism; it needs a governor like General Sir Charles Napier, who put down the practice of suttee in Sindh, and who upon being entreated by the native priests that it was a sacred rite which should be respected, responded, 'Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation also has a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs!' (from Sir W.F. Napier's 'History of General Sir Charles Napiers Administration of Scinde').
It's a tragedy that civilised powers did not stay there longer and correct more of PNG's broken society; it would be a crime (of ethics, if not of law) if the Western energy companies aren't doing something to fix that society, rather than live on its edges.