Re:Why We Dominate the Earth
by crispinb on Thursday January 24, 2019 @09:37PM
(#18995099)
> primitive people
The only indigenous population I know about in any detail is that of my nation (Australia). They were far from "primitive", rather constituted an unimaginably ancient continent-wide civilisation.
> native Americans had already hunted the rest of the megafauna to extinction
Again, speaking for the Aus equivalent: there's an arguable case that descendants of the original settlers arriving across the PNG land bridge may have caused species extinctions. Given what we know of H. Sapiens, it's pretty likely.
But that has little to do with the indigenous Australians who the European invaders encountered. By this time they had undergone 40-60,000 years of cultural and social development. By this advanced stage they had an extraordinarily detailed understanding of the ecologies they lived in and managed. The "in tune with nature" phrase is not to my taste, but if any population could be described this way, it was them.
> The truth is more likely that being "in tune" with nature was simply a matter of survival
Well this assumes they were not true human cultures, a hallmark of which is rarely doing anything only for survival. All known human cultures have myths and institutions, beliefs, roles and manners of life woven deeply with all the acts that also happen to perform survival functions. It's a bit of a dehumanising stance to expunge everything but the survival aspect. It's also not a stance that ever withstands even a modicum of familiarity with any real human culture.
The only indigenous population I know about in any detail is that of my nation (Australia). They were far from "primitive", rather constituted an unimaginably ancient continent-wide civilisation.
> native Americans had already hunted the rest of the megafauna to extinction
Again, speaking for the Aus equivalent: there's an arguable case that descendants of the original settlers arriving across the PNG land bridge may have caused species extinctions. Given what we know of H. Sapiens, it's pretty likely.
But that has little to do with the indigenous Australians who the European invaders encountered. By this time they had undergone 40-60,000 years of cultural and social development. By this advanced stage they had an extraordinarily detailed understanding of the ecologies they lived in and managed. The "in tune with nature" phrase is not to my taste, but if any population could be described this way, it was them.
> The truth is more likely that being "in tune" with nature was simply a matter of survival
Well this assumes they were not true human cultures, a hallmark of which is rarely doing anything only for survival. All known human cultures have myths and institutions, beliefs, roles and manners of life woven deeply with all the acts that also happen to perform survival functions. It's a bit of a dehumanising stance to expunge everything but the survival aspect. It's also not a stance that ever withstands even a modicum of familiarity with any real human culture.