https://www.johnralstonsaul.com/non-fiction-books/a-fair-cou...
Has some good ideas for a mental model shift
Children in households affected by poverty are more likely to be at risk, and indigenous households are more likely to be affected by poverty.
What would you have child services do, leave children who are determined to be at risk where they are, just because they're indigenous? Because that has happened, and children have died as a result.
1. Which is definitely true in Canada https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/89-645-x/2015001/income-... (sorry it looks like this report was discontinued after 2015 so no more current data is available)
Yes, indigenous poverty is absolutely something which should be addressed -- but it's not a simple matter. One obvious "solution" would be to say "pack your bags and move to a big city" -- rural communities across Canada are poorer than urban communities -- but of course that would mean leaving traditional territories behind.
The huge question: how to lift populations / cultures from their natural state of deep poverty. This effort by necessity involves radical changes in culture, which may take decades if not longer. One can't live a traditional lifestyle of fishing, hunting or subsistence farming and afford a modern heated house with indoor plumbing, driving a modern automobile to the supermarket for fresh produce in the middle of the winter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regions_by_past_GDP_(P...
Imagine aliens from Alpha Centauri arriving on earth and say your words, but referring to the entirety of human culture, and a need to forcefully "uplift" humans, without asking us humans what we think.
...I now understand why someone said History is the sci-fi's author secret weapon - I'm sure a half-decent author could make most readers empathize with the poor, subjugated humans who may be a little unenthusiastic about being uplifted (into a hive-mind, perhaps), and having their children shipped off to a different star system as wards of a "Galactic College" to cure them of their humanity.
Another issue that is touched on in some episodes is that non-interventionism as a blanket rule disadvantages the members of the community that might in fact want to be "uplifted", whether because they are currently oppressed in that community or because they simply are drawn to new and different things.
I think the key thing, for me, is that each individual should be entitled to make the decision about how (or if) they choose to be "uplifted" for themselves, and they should also retain the right to withdraw from that process at any time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boarding_school#United_Kingdom
> Boarding schools in Britain started in medieval times when boys were sent to be educated at a monastery or noble household, where a lone literate cleric could be found. In the 12th century, the Pope ordered all Benedictine monasteries such as Westminster to provide charity schools, and many public schools started when such schools attracted paying students. These public schools reflected the collegiate universities of Oxford and Cambridge, as in many ways they still do, and were accordingly staffed almost entirely by clergymen until the 19th century. Private tuition at home remained the norm for aristocratic families, and for girls in particular, but after the 16th century, it was increasingly accepted that adolescents of any rank might best be educated collectively. The institution has thus adapted itself to changing social circumstances over 1,000 years.
A very harmful tradition, IMO, even in elite schools like Eton.
In my hypothetical, the aliens consider a hive-mind as an ideal as it would wipe out all wars and conflict, and improve collaboration (imagine if all 20th century mathematicians had a Erdős number of 1, and all his insights retained after the death of his biological unit). All this progress would come at the cost of getting rid of "individualism" - a very backward, romanticized, but inefficient notion that is clearly outweighed by the benefits (in the aliens mind).
At the very least, if you insist your way of treating less advanced cultures, democracy should never be spread to countries that were previously authoritarian, because that was their natural way of living.
Iain Banks makes this point about human nature many times in his books. Many people will voluntarily choose a more painful lifestyle even when more comfortable options are available.
I’d largely go as far as saying it’s a fundamental human right to decide what lifestyle to follow, as long as it’s consentual and doesn’t step on the huma rights of others.
That's where I think this gets muddled and especially difficult. Will there be people struggling in this traditional culture that really wish to live a life more in tune with western values but feel constrained by their local community to remain in a traditional setting.
When it comes to children and which path the next generation takes - that's where this problem gets really hard to think on. Just the other day on HN there was a discussion of transgender rights and part of it included considerations on whether children should be able to freely elect to have non-reversible surgery (that is something of a strawman since it is an extremely rare desire in child but :shrug:) and it's a place I feel torn because developing minds are still trying to learn their identity.
1. Seem to at least from everything I've read and Pennsylvanians I've spoken to - I wasn't raised Amish and can't give a first hand account.
However, it is highly likely that indigenous American parents would rather choose a modern education for their children. The myth that the indigenous American parents, given an informed choice, would somehow condemn their children to a life of deep poverty, malnutrition and disease outside of the industrial society is just a myth. Like indigenous Europeans, the vast majority of indigenous Americans would rather join the modern culture and enjoy the fruits of its incredible wealth generation structures. Small isolated pockets, like the Amish, notwithstanding.
To those glamorizing preindustrial lifestyles, take a summer off your cushy six figure office job and go live in an unelectrified hut on some remote mountain, living off the land. With your spouse and kids. Wake up as soon as the sun rises, do hard labor all day long (e.g. manually mow a meadow with a scythe), eat polenta and maybe a bit of cheese, crash for the night, lather, rinse, repeat. Chances are you'll last less than a week. How do I know? I lasted about 10 minutes.
This is exactly why “we know the right way, why won’t you just follow it” is just as an imperialistic and honestly arrogant point of view.
That’s an absurd statement. That’s like saying “well people still die of cancer with modern medicine so you can’t criticize my use of essential oils to treat my brain tumor”.
Based on childhood mortality alone, let alone any other measures of childhood development, the current western approach is objectively the far better one.
> So your argument is “things aren’t perfect in the US, so the US has no right to claim its approach is better”? That’s an absurd statement.
The core of the problem is exemplified with cherry-picking a few metrics and generalizing it to a sense of superiority.
In other words, the real absurdity is reducing complex multidimensional problems to a single "better than" metric, and acting as the world's savior based on that self-aggrandizement.
US is by far not the best in many of childhood related metrics, yet have a disproportionate amount of arrogance regarding the superiority of its approaches. You are welcome to check PISA scores, ADHD diagnosis and medication rates, childhood obesity rates , adverse childhood experiences, single parenthood, juvenile delinquency etc. among the first world countries and see where US lands.
I can't imagine any civilization that would say that isn't an objectively superior outcome. Well maybe the Aztecs are willing to make an exception for child sacrifice?
Not sure why everyone is so afraid to say one civilization has superior outcomes to another. To claim they don't is just hiding the truth and setting back the human condition.
How would you even know if you are correctly setting it, even against what you think are your own standards ?
What if your worldview is extremely warped, but you can't realize it, because you haven't ever looked outside of yourself ? What if you don't even know how to ?
And what if, by chance, if by inheritance, you're very powerful ?
Wouldn't that make you an immature inconsiderate ignorant twisted bully thinking he knows better ?
If you’re arguing that “fewer dead children” is a standard that is culturally subjective, shouldn’t be applied to other civilizations, and might not be “the right standard” then I don’t know what to tell you.
TLDR:
Your make a lot of unfounded assumptions, you assume intentions and then you project implications. In so doing, you answer to a question which wasn't asked (see further below how).
Similarly, in stumbling while believing to be running, a "civilization" thinking the same way you do might be unknowingly crushing children dead itself. Which is why such though pattern are dangerous at large population sizes, when judged against their own values.
"Hell is paved with good intentions", as the proverb says.
Of course, if you see actual children dying, go save them because children are precious, period. Do not mix some "civilization level" morality judgment into the mix, or justify your helping them with it.
----
In more detail:
If you want to bear with me, I'll repeat the same as in my original comment, under a different form. This time I'll err on the side of verbosity to make sure nothing is lost.
What I responded to specifically was our last paragraph: that one gets to judge superiority of "civilizations", or judge whether how an act sets the human condition ("setting back", "advancing", "better", etc), and that the western is "objectively" better, even in the face of what you believe is a correct measure of the number of dead children.
What I _wasn't_ commenting on is the Canadian situation, or dead children. I wasn't implying _anything_. That is you projecting on me. I believe I was quite direct that it was about _you_: you'll note I used the word 15-20 times. I was explicitly NOT saying anything about dead children being a culturally subjective standard. Those are your assumption.
I'd argue that the same way you just projected upon me your assumptions wrongly, believing there were implications where there weren't, you do the same at the civilization judgment level in your comment I responded to. That is benign at in individual level, but terminally dangerous when societal.
Note: as a premise to what follows I do not deny that a one-, two- or multi-dimensional measuring scale which _may_ be imagined or that in the absolute, somebody _may_ compare two large groups of humans (tribe, nation, peoples, NOT a civilizations), or even pronounce a assessment _in the abstract_, NOT a judgment.
---
What I strenuously object to in your point of view is :
- That one even _can_ be objective in such things.
One may be suffering, while not being conscious of it, from historic or contemporary factual ignorance, as well as cultural, moral, and ethical myopia. Basically, being victim to the Duning-Kruger effect in such matters.
- That consequently one _should_ even judge such things in practice.
If you "haven't done your homework" value/morals/ethics wise, tried to counteract your ignorance or myopia, explicitly going through perspectives not your own, or even not western, how do you know you are fit to judge ? Maybe you lack the mental model to do so, because you are prisoner of your limits, which you are not conscious of. If you are not reasonably sure you are fit to judge, how can you allow yourself to judge ? And I'm not even talking about facts here, even though I should.
- That using a concept as broad as "civilization" is useful in such matters.
How do you circumscribe a civilization historically ? Last 20 years ? Last 50 ? Last 100 ? Last 500 ? How do you circumscribe its values ? How do you circumscribe constitutive peoples ? What about exchanges of values btw. civilizations ? Of knowledge ? What if a Civilization's internal "good" depends on external "bad" ? At the level of a Civilization, does a good today here neutralize a bad yesterday over there ?
- That inferiority or superiority are valid concepts in such matters. If you can't describe fundamental elements of a problem (see 3 points above), and you limit yourself in your methods of thinking (same), you won't be able to say in what direction you missed the mark. The mark is still in the box.
---
What I conclude to is you shouldn't make standards for "civilizations". One should refrain of making such arguments even if only for practical reasons.
In the Western though, such defective superior/inferior arguments have perennially been explicitly used as justification for actions against others in the last 200 years (from the individual to nations).
Yet, the measurable results of these actions were precisely the opposite of what the foundational values of said arguments would describe as desirable. So such arguments are counter productive much more often than not. They are used as an "western identitarian" cloak of infallibility, much like the Roman Catholic Church's (if you allow me the anachronism).
Why even use such arguments then ?
I conclude one shoud only precisely circumscribe its thinking groups and situations in time and space. If you don't, "right and wrong", become meaningless, undermining your whole construction.
---
My personal opinion on your apparent positions, expressed in my comment's last sentence:
Even within what seems to be your own moral framework, your own thinking about the matter is somewhat narrow. You are describing at a tree and missing the forest. As such, I do not believe you are fit to judge about superiority and inferiority of civilization, yes, even when using the relative quantity of dead children.
---
Finally, to answer your accusation of insanity, I argue not to make standards for "civilizations", even concerning dead children. It is dangerous. Only think with precisely well defined groups and situations in time and space.
Of course, if you see some children dying, go help them, but do not mix "civilization level" thinking into the mix. And do not believe yourself superior, or inferior. It is a gross, ridiculous, useless oversimplification.
If you are then interested in continuing this discussion, or asking "what's the alternative". I'll provide much shorter arguments and examples for each (this WAS vebose !) .
I'm saying that while also believing that modern industrial lifestyle is unsustainable, ecologically and psychologically, and that the Amish have a better long-term handle on sustainable life that most of us. Alas, humans are notoriously poor at long-term planning, and human aggregates even worse.
The text was long, you probably missed it. It do now preach moral relativism. I preach against civilizational value judgment relatively with one's own.
As I wrote : I argue against making value judgments and standards for "civilizations", even concerning dead children. It is dangerous. It is safer for all to reason factually with precisely defined groups and situations, limited in time and space.
---
I don't argued to reject industrial approach wholesale either, as long as it's voluntary. As for itself, it has to be changed, sure, it must evolve, and get out of agriculture, IMHO. It's still an extremely useful tool in humanity's survival toolkit.
In regards to the rest and to borrow your metaphor:
My parents voted one way. I voted the reverse way quite recently, due to some ills you mentioned. After working around the planet for a while, I also didn't share some of the values anymore.
Take this take from someone who's both an emigrant and re-emigrant: as with political votes, people vote either when promises are made, or because they want to effect change. One way or another.
So there you go if we're to debate that.. But I believe it's another subject entirely.
In the absence of sufficient data for nearly all economies until well into the 19th century, past GDP per capita often cannot be calculated, but only roughly estimated. A key notion in the whole process is that of subsistence, the income level which is necessary for sustaining one's life. Since pre-modern societies, by modern standards, were characterized by a very low degree of urbanization and a large majority of people working in the agricultural sector, economic historians prefer to express income in cereal units. To achieve comparability over space and time, these numbers are then converted into monetary units such as International Dollars, a step which leaves a relatively wide margin of interpretation.
Also note that people "back then" were capable of providing for themselves many of the goods and services for which we rely today on others, so "GDP" translating to purchasing power is not a straightforward comparison of the capability of pre-industrial rural populations to satisfy their material needs.
There was some decline in quality of life in the transition from hunter-gatherer life to early agricultural life, but there is still a huge gap between the quality of life in hunter-gatherer societies, or medieval agricultural societies, and modern societies.
SA was a society with small GDP that became wealthy through development of natural resources. Similarly Canada has a significant amount of resources. Colonial expropriation meant that these resources have not been controlled by the previous regimes.
[A] major source of income for the ruler of Hijaz was the taxes paid by pilgrims on their way to the holy cities. After the depression hit, the number of pilgrimages per year fell from 100,000 to below 40,000.[2] This hurt their economy greatly and they needed to find alternate sources of income. This caused Ibn Saud to get serious about the search for oil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_oil_industry_in...
Yes that is correct, and I see your point now.
I also agree it's an extremely complex matter since there are two strongly opposed factors - urban migration (with educational support and the like) could greatly improve the lives of indigenous individuals but that would erode native culture continuance and communities - and that's one of the worst parts of residential schooling. A number of the people involved thought that white washing natives to improve their economic futures and let them more easily integrate with common Canadian society was a good thing - and it's not entirely a bad idea from an egalitarian perspective.
So there is, I think, a continued push and pull of cultural preservation vs. individual prosperity. I don't think they're polar opposites, I mentioned elsewhere that the Haida Cultural Center on Haida Gwaii provides a lot of jobs to reservation residents and youths - but this approach can't just be blindly replicated to extremely remote reservations.
So yea - I've got no quick and easy solution to offer.
The fact is that social services does not visit and escalate issues the same levels controlling for poverty.
The correlation of poverty and being indigenous is a reflection of systemic racism and purposeful limitations on societal participation, and so they co-occur. Kids in abusive homes ofc need to be supported. Kids in poor homes need policies that allow their lives to become more stable.
--Source: I have worked as a Guardian ad Litem since 2008 and my mother is the director of a county department of social services, formerly the director the department's child protective services.
[1] "birth alerts" were discontinued in some provinces around 2019, but remain "under review" in NB, NL, and NS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birth_alert
And, this touches on a broader conversation about UBI. IMO, payments for the kid should start in the third trimester. Our society does not value stay-at-home parents nearly enough. It's a job, and a damned hard one at that. Doesn't do much good to give people a guaranteed income that's too small to raise kids on -- you'll end up with parents working multiple jobs and the cycle of poverty continues.
What insane arrogance. Do you have evidence or is this some gut feeling you're having?
Or "common sense"?
Or because you said so?
Edit: accidentally a word.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_by_law_enforc...
RCMP members are normally trained for situations that local police (that specialize in de-escalation) can't handle - but when it comes to reservations they're the authority in pretty much all cases. Being in the RCMP isn't an easy job and it'll leave you scarred and hardened in a way that can seriously impede your ability to properly deescalate non-violent situations.
First Nations deal with the (federal) Crown, and so the RCMP is the federal law enforcement agency. Unless (a/each) First Nation wants to run their own police force internally?
But there are entire regions that don't do that because of the costs involved, and so they contract out to the RCMP to be the provincial (and even municipal) police.
The larger provinces (ON, QC) have their own services, and they are also contracted out to the smaller municipalities. Not sure how provincial police would work (or not) on the reserves.
The way the residential school program was implemented was gross (it was massively underfunded leading to absurdly neglectful conditions and crowding, should never have been put in the hands of people who felt that Christianity was the purpose, and most importantly should have been voluntary), and was driven entirely by prejudice. However if you have essentially a people that time forgot in far flung locations while the rest of the world is rapidly progressing...it's a tough situation. There are people involved in the residential school program who probably really did have good intentions. They weren't a part of some broad "steal `their' resources" evil plot.
And we face the echos of this problem to this day. Remote, extremely low density aboriginal groups. No, they don't want to "live off the land" (and the reserve is full of snowmobiles, pick up trucks and guns, and we have regular newspaper articles complaining that watermelons are expensive or that there isn't piped water). Suicide and substance abuse are endemic -- up to 9x the non-aboriginal rate -- not because people are sad about something that happened a hundred years ago, but because they live in the middle of nowhere, with no prospects, and suddenly the things that amazed and entertained their ancestors four hundred years ago isn't engaging to kids who have an awareness that the rest of the world exists.
In a normal, functioning world, yeah their "indigenous culture" wouldn't be so defensively guarded and a part of their identity. I come from Scottish and Irish culture. I have never worn a kilt. I have never played a bagpipe. I have never eaten haggis. I have never flown scottish or irish flags, or concerned myself whatsoever with whatever happens there. Because I'm a part of a multicultural, rich, integrated society. I identify with the whole, not for some uniqueness that I demand be identified.
And I'll take the inevitable downvotes by the "yeah you're white you don't have a say" crocodile tear crowd, but this is all spot on.
Educating people is the last thing you'd want to do if you're wanting to 'get rid of their hindances'.
Every revolutionary you can think of (i.e. Gandhi, Castro, Ho Chi Minh etc.) had privileged educational opportunities usually by the very people they sought to ultimately overthrow.
In Canada specifically, there was actually a fear that providing education would give aboriginals too much power.
The 'hindrance' towards resource extraction didn't start to happen until fairly recently, when educated and literate aboriginal groups were able to make proper legal challenges to certain things, particularly their right to 'govern' the environmental aspects of certain areas of land.
A problem cannot be fixed until everyone agrees there is a problem (see race relations in the US and climate change), so the more people who can be educated on what went on the better, because then we have a chance starting to heal (which will take generations).
There will not be a “fix” because a “fix” for the victims or descendants of victims would require massive wealth transfers, mostly from people who were not alive or making decisions at the time. And that is not going to be politically popular.
My take on this, as a child of white immigrants, is that the Native Indian population would prefer something other than money. I think this kind of easy solution, just give them some money, is the type of solution that has been tried over and over without success. Even worse, we'll carve out some land and tell a tribe "this is yours" only to steal it back as soon as some commercial opportunity makes it valuable.
In the medium sized town I live nearby, large tracts of native land sit unused as undeveloped trash pits surrounded by condo and townhouse developments. How are natives expected to live a traditional life off the land when on one side there are supermarkets and strip malls and on the other side suburbs? Eventually many bands cave in and throw up their own gated communities which they lease to rich white retirees. One corner of the remaining land gets to stand for a local band community centre and maybe a small section of housing for a few lucky band members. My own perception is that corruption within the bands is rife, with chiefs and their family/friends benefiting from the rent-seeking and pretty much everyone else in the band losing out.
I think the harsh reality is that the kind of society and life that Native Indians dream of cannot be lived alongside modern industrial capitalism. It isn't just forestry, mining, oil and gas pipelines ruining their habitat. It is the very root of capitalist consumerist culture that is incompatible with the very conception of life they wish to maintain. You can't make that go away with money or by temporarily relocating them. It would require a cultural shift that would alter every aspect of Canadian life.
The funny thing is, we're all just jumping on to the global warming bandwagon. But the only communities I see taking environmental stewardship seriously are the Native Indians. They've been literally screaming at the top of their lungs about the destruction we are wreaking to this planet for decades. And instead of listening to them we just pressure them until they give in and accept whatever bribe we muster alongside a weak apology for past transgressions. And then they retreat into depression and alcoholism. It's a heart-breaking cycle and more money (or "wealth transfer") isn't the solution.
People of aboriginal heritage in Canada do not 'live off the land' as their ancestors did in neolithic conditions. Other than for some very specific activities like seal hunting etc.
"the kind of society and life that Native Indians dream of"
?? They definitely are not dreaming of this.
Or not in any different way that we often dream of maybe 'going fully organic / off the grid' - but we don't because we have regular jobs..
'What they want' is complicated. Definitely they want 'treaty rights' respected, but those are vague. They want certain municipal services (i.e. water) but it's really spotty - some places, water facilities are made for them, but they won't do the upkeep. In other very remote communities, it's exceedingly expensive. In others, private mining companies have polluted the water (the answer here should be easy though - the mining companies pay to fix the dam problem they created). There's also the problem of taxation and cost - my father pays $180/month for water for his tiny little flat in a small town because they live in a remote area. Municipalities, via taxes, pay for water treatment. So the question arises as to 'who the Federal/Provincial Government' will pay for, and who they will not.
There are very complicated band structures where by some band leadership positions are inherited and come with legal powers.
Some hereditary band leaders in BC who've maintained their 'titles' for centuries and who hold all of the power but have no support from the band members, and there's no democratic input, may decide to be 'against' a pipeline or some such thing - even as basically entire band/community themselves is 'for' it. The Canadian government is in a weird position they are forced to recognized the hereditary titles of the chiefs - which is democratically anathemic of course.
And it goes on like this. It's complicated.
What I wanted to combat was the assumption that the kind of "western values" that are represented by consumerism is what those communities are failing to achieve. It is the exact same kind of thinking that lead to residential schools in the first place. As if we give them enough money, give them education and health care then they'll finally integrate into our society. But if they don't want that life, if it isn't their dream to be successful western capitalists, it is hard to imagine how they can live alongside the western capitalists without constant tension. And accommodating any other alternative communities alongside our own isn't simply a matter of financing. That problem is distinct from any particular formulation of "alternative communities" including but not exclusive to "living off the land".
Basically, how can we allow Native Indians to form a distinct culture and identity when we constantly encroach on them and disrupt them. You can't pay that problem away.
The fact is, as Canadians we ought to feel ashamed of this. I know I do. When I feel shame, I want to make it go away. Our entire society has become adept at turning away and ignoring our past. But our task as citizens right now is to not do that. It's to grapple with the reality of what is very clearly a horrific injustice. It's to stop claiming the past is the past. The legacy of colonialism is alive and well in Canada and it is still actively destroying many lives.
There is no way to make this right. The only thing we can hope to do now is honour the dead, do our best to make amends to the living and carve out a new path forward.
Canada is, and continues to be a Colonial project. This is an objective reality, not an ideological statement. That's just what it is. It was put in motion a long time ago and continues to be that.
While it may have some negative aspects, Canada is actually a beacon many positive ways - largely because of what the Colonialists have managed to create.
It's also not really true at all to say 'Colonialism continues to hurt people', because it's mostly just the opposite. All citizens of Canada live immensely higher standards of living than they would otherwise under the Colonial umbrella - including aboriginals.
Canada is one the top destinations for immigrants, and Canada is probably hands down the #1 place for 'easy integration'. Swedes try to help Syrians but it's hard for them. Syrians and others, tend to do consistently well in Canada because integration is more manageable. People 'get along' in Canada probably more so than anywhere, which is firmly Colonial manifestation.
Paradoxically, even for the aboriginals, of the 'solutions' ahead amount to ... 'more colonialism'. For example, the Federal government building for aboriginals their housing, and water facilities. The really successful hockey program that's getting young Quebec aboriginals to stay focused and in school. The extra effort on getting Aboriginal kids to finish school and the availability of post-secondary systems. Most of these measures look like they have the same intentions as the Canadian Government in 1900 - just not as draconian. They are all de-facto 'Colonialist' measures.
The political situation on many reserves is more of a hindrance than not and will require reform, which will probably take the shape of falling more under the Canadian legal norms, i.e. 'Colonialist'. Many tribes have 'elders' who's positions are hereditary, and they lord over the tribes, sometimes against their will like literal Monarchs. There are problems with allocating land ownership and control to individuals making housing formation and especially small business formation very difficult. No tax base -> no ability to collect municipal taxes -> no water facilities etc.. The lack of transparency and inconsistent management has meant there's a 'more than comfortable' amount of corruption on some reserves, with Government money going into the pockets of a few.
I should point out that it's very different in almost every situation. Different bands, reservations, locations - there's no specific pattern.
Some 'non colonialist' aspects include opportunities for local, more traditional governance, which definitely should be experimented with, for example, the RCMP (i.e. justice system) can relinquish power in certain areas (i.e. Manitoba) in the hopes that local, more tradition forms of governance may work out at least on the criminal side of the issue.
On the whole, for every 'traditional measure' of improvement, there will be a bunch of measures which are effectively Colonialist.
It's fair to point out that there are aspects of Colonialism which haven't been very good, on the whole it's been totally the opposite. The groups trying to misrepresent the term 'Colonialism' I think have serious ideological underpinnings. I think they should find a different word.
Canada is a positive beacon in many ways in spite of its origins as a colony, not because of them.
> All citizens of Canada live immensely higher standards of living than they would otherwise under the Colonial umbrella - including aboriginals.
What is "the Colonial umbrella" you are referring to here? Canada's standards of living are attributable to a number of factors, including an immense land area with plentiful natural resources, a highly industrialized economy, a robust system of law and government, etc. Like Japan, the UK, the US and the other G7 countries (only two of which were originally colonies).
Secondly, I challenge your assertion that the native peoples of Canada would have lower standards of living were it not for colonialism. On the contrary, I think the evidence is clear that colonialism has been an unmitigated disaster for indigenous peoples. Unfortunately we will never know what standards of living the indigenous peoples of North America might have achieved in the 21st century had Europe respected their sovereignty.
> Paradoxically, even for the aboriginals, of the 'solutions' ahead amount to ... 'more colonialism'.
I take your point in the sense that many of these measures are "interventions" in a sense; they are initiatives imposed (or presented) by the federal government. I think they are fundamentally different from the original acts of colonialism, however, in that they seek to confer rights, status and resources as opposed to taking those things away.
Where this goes beyond my understanding of the issues is in trying to determine who wants what, who speaks for whom, and so on...for instance you point out "problems with allocating land ownership and control to individuals". Of course that is problematic when, as I understand it, in many indigenous cultures the idea of owning land is considered absurd. It is, indeed, colonialist to insist on answers to questions like "who owns this land?" without considering that perhaps, no one does - and perhaps no one ought to.
"Canada's standards of living are attributable to a number of factors, including an immense land area with plentiful natural resources, a highly industrialized economy, a robust system of law and government, etc." <--- Yes. The imposition and expansion of this into North America is Colonialism.
The expansion of education, language, justice, culture, industry, the economy, the political system, religion, and Enlightenment ideals - that is 'Colonialism'.
i.e. civilization (as we understand it).
The alternative, which was present before, is neolithic culture, which is how they would be living 'without colonialism'.
If there is a 'paternalistic' view it's that Aboriginals somehow don't want at least the advantages of 'civilization' which they benefit from tremendously.
Do you really think that Aboriginals would be happy and fruitful without hot water? Foraging for meals, living in tents and stick homes? No medicine, education, no effective social organization even at the tribal level?
Aboriginals want warm homes, cars and Televisions just as much as anyone else - and the material benefits require all the supporting systems of 'Colonialism'.
The 'situation' among Aboriginal communities is far better than it would be otherwise, they live at roughly the standards of the bottom 1/3 of Canadians. They have access to education, healthcare, homes, travel i.e. modernity in general - a relatively fair justice system - untold benefits - mostly provided to them for free (!!).
Their 'problems' are almost entirely local: drugs, alcohol, violence among themselves, and an unwillingness to participate in many of the things they'll need to do (i.e. jobs) if they want the material benefits of the system.
The current 'disequilibrium' is that they want access to modernity and all that comes along with it - without active participation in creating it.
It is also absurd to claim that “aboriginals” lacked access to hot water until European settlers showed up. I think some reading about the accomplishments of the native societies of North America would be beneficial.
There could have been a fruitful and mutually beneficial exchange of ideas, technologies, ways of life, etc., between Western and indigenous nations when Europeans made contact with native Americans. Instead what took place was genocide.
I mean, that was a typical argument in favour of slavery. After the apartheid ended in South Africa there was a pretty large movement of former slaves protesting about their lower quality of life and demanding a return to the previous status quo. We don't only consider standard of living when making moral judgements about structures of government.
It is the standard paternalistic European attitude. And the last vestige of justification remaining for residential schools so I'm not so quick to just let it slip. It's the analogy to a parent soothingly telling a child in tantrum: "You'll understand why I'm doing this when you're older". As if they should thank us for raising them out of their savagery.
I also reject your comparison to immigrants, like Syrians literally running for their lives from a civil war in their country of origin, to aboriginals who were living within their own land of origin and had this life thrust on them unrequested. The circumstances couldn't be any different. Immigrants make a choice of self-determination while aboriginals are being deprived of self-determination.
> The political situation on many reserves is more of a hindrance than not and will require reform, which will probably take the shape of falling more under the Canadian legal norms
On this we agree and it fits into the complexity of the situation. One area that most Canadians would find hard to stomach is that some traditional tribe hierarchies are patriarchal. It is a difficult balance to allow self-determination while also upholding concepts like universal human rights.
We've gone a bit deep here and I admit I'm pretty far out of my depth. In fact, the only real thing I'm confident on is that this issue is too complex to fix with money alone.
This isn't even anywhere near true.
First - Canadian colonialists did not, and do not, benefit from the labour inputs of aboriginal citizens. They were never some kind of advantage to Canadian development.
Second - that Canadians of Aboriginal descent live at considerably higher standards that the neolithic people they were, and would be otherwise - is unambiguously factual.
"aboriginals who were living within their own land of origin and had this life thrust on them unrequested"
They are living in homes, have cars and TV 'unrequested'?
We are 'forcing' them to do this? They couldn't just go ahead and live in huts and tents if they so chose?
How 'paternalistic' is it to contemplate that somehow Aboriginals really want to live as their ancients did, in skin tents and huts, with no hot water, no medicine, education or any of the advantages of material advancement?
In reality - they want all the same thing we do: homes, heating, hot water, grocery stores, cars, food, entertainment. They're just not organized enough to 'trade' services or labour to the point where we care to give them anything for it.
They want the material benefits of Colonialism for the same reasons we do.
So we end up mostly giving it to them.
Op has a Pocahontas imagination of what most indigenous are like.
Most are like everyone else and want to live life, party, hang out with friends. Reserves have kfc and grocery stores. Some hunt but if you’re a white guy in northern / rural Canada you probably hunt.
What a weird take. Always a laugh to hear what the city liberal thinks of the world. So out of touch and delusional, but so confident.
It’d be like saying African Americans want to hunt wild game.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Bay_and_Northern_Quebec_...
> My own perception is that corruption within the bands is rife, with chiefs and their family/friends benefiting from the rent-seeking and pretty much everyone else in the band losing out.
Look far north. The village doesn't have clean water, but the local chief has two hummers and brand new ATVs on the front lawn. Guess where your tax money went...
I'm not going to try justifying a Hummer, because I don't know what intrinsic value it holds in their circumstances. I have been to northern communities where expensive pickup trucks were the norm, for very good reasons. There are many parts of Canada where a car is basically useless. The communities are small enough that one can walk from end to end in a quarter of an hour, yet the roads leading to the town would be impassible to anything less than a decent truck (and even then are impassible to any vehicle at certain times of the year). That is before utility is taken into consideration. You won't get very far with hauling loads of firewood home and would not enjoy the trip to the dump with your household trash in a car. Owning a truck also makes more sense for the trip to the city, where virtually everything from food to furniture will be less expensive. Arguing that they should own inexpensive cars because it supports the suburban lifestyle of the south is even more tone-deaf than arguing that people in the suburbs should use public transit because it is sufficient for downtown residents.
I think that the Mayor of Vancouver's salary is pretty fair considering the job they're doing, I can't speak on the specifics of this village but I am extremely suspicious of anyone who demands that people live in visible poverty to receive aide. The concept of "the welfare queen" originated with Reagan and was entirely born to utilize as a political tool - we can stop playing into stereotypes.
1. I am 100% not a car person - if anyone else knows a better assumed value than 24k please feel free to revise or correct numbers
Hummers cost north of $100k USD. Assuming the mayor of Vancouver’s salary is listed in CAD it isn’t enough to buy one after tax. Furthermore on that salary it probably wouldn’t be prudent to buy one at all.
I'm personally a non-driver so I am quite clueless here. That said it does impact my understanding a fair bit since paying 24k for a car seems like a pretty nice price for a car (you can get used cars for thousands of dollars, but a new car is probably going to be well over 10k) but where there are definitely cheaper options - paying 100k is pretty ridiculous.
In particular this organization was opposing considerations of the Mohawk People to invite in outside investors that wanted to build casinos on reservation land - that's a hard decision to make and even harder when there is a single ultimate tribal representative that you can throw ten million dollars at without serious impacting long term financial expectations. The Mohawk Council of Chiefs in Akwesasne[1] represents a tribe with enough members, and historical precedent, that they benefit from and enjoy an actual government body, but many of these tribes are small enough or remote enough that a single member is vested with a lot of power and this will often go poorly. I don't think there's a really clear good solution here - it'd probably make sense to consolidate tribes into fewer regional bands but Natives are obviously pretty skittish about surrendering any of what little power of self-governance they have.
Source? I think this is a common argument and having lived among native reserves I have never seen it myself or seen reports of it. Feels like an urban legend crafted to justify not providing support, but willing to think differently if there’s evidence to support it.
The stated goal of the schools was to eliminate First Nations' culture and it was tragically highly effective. A culture doesn't recover from generations of ethnocide overnight.
While true, I think this is generally misleading without context.
The federal government took control of the schools from the churches around 1970. By the mid-70s, control of most of them had been transferred to the band councils in some form or another, and a third of the staff at the schools had Indian status. By 1980, only 15 were still left operating.
It's really hard to find any actual information on _what_ the schools that remained open were like in the 90s as most easily discoverable documentation is about beginning to unravel the abuses that had occurred prior, but what little I've ever been able to find sounds like they continued to operate as a school (presumably because the community needed a school), not as an implement of cultural genocide.
This would seem to be backed up by some sources saying that some of the communities that housed the schools resisted their closure. Not that it's a particularly great situation, but it's likely that it was the only source of formal education available to them at the time and they didn't want to lose it, rather reform it. The current school situation on reservations is abysmal, so this is... understandable.
None of this is to try and discount the atrocities that occurred at the schools, but I like to think saying "They operated until the mid-90s!" is a bit sensationalist, implying that the kidnapping, experimentation, abuse and murder was occurring at the same time Seinfeld and Friends were airing. I think there's more than enough to be horrified at here without implying a worse situation which may lead some people to discount some of the actual atrocities.
That said, if you (or anyone) can dig up some information to refute any of this, I'm more than happy to hear it. I am genuinely interested and I have a lot of difficulty trying to find concrete information.
I will admit I was trying for some shock value since a non-Canadian outsider was asking. It's far too easy to think about the abuse as happening long in the past and therefore more of an abstract conversation. It's really a conversation about the ongoing trauma of survivors, some of whom are not actually that old.
If we believe that this was genocide (and I think it's pretty obvious that it was), then they should be held accountable for their crimes.
The fact that they haven't been speaks volumes.
I'm sure there are initiatives and policy changes the govt is pursuing in this space. We'd do well to learn about them if we do truly care.
I understand and am partially sympathetic with what you are saying, but I don't think this is the time to bring up those concerns.
At the moment, Canadians have to reckon with yet another impact of the residential school system: many children died under the government's custody (even if it was indirect, through various churches). It doesn't matter if the mortality rate was similar to other demographics, since the decisions of the government placed aboriginal children in those schools which was the precondition to the specific cause of death. The "abolition" of the residential school system doesn't really mean anything, since many youth are still forced to leave their communities and are frequently placed in the care of complete strangers if they aspire to accomplish something that most Canadians take for granted: earning a high school diploma.
While the willful ignorance of these "very well known" deaths is difficult to excuse, the willful ignorance of the continuance of some of the hallmarks of the residential school system is difficult to forgive.
EDIT: for clarity.
But clearly a lot of people didn’t know that so these findings are a shock. Probably an instance of “one death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic”. Some countable number of graves has a more visceral effect than “disease was rampant in residential schools are up to 40% of children in attendance died”.
Only those who have actively avoided the issue. I was taught it in school, then again during university. The issue has been discussed on radio/TV for decades. At work (government) we all attend aboriginal awareness training, where residential schools are a big subject. It is an acknowledged part of Canadian history. Those who are shocked now are only so because they chose to remain ignorant year after year.
* Many people are shocked and surprised by these findings
* They are sympathetic to aboriginal causes and not sticking their fingers in their ears. They were not trying to avoid it
You are in the educated set (university), work for the government, and are commenting on a text based forum so you probably easily consume and retain text based information. You also had a school that taught death stats specifically (mine didn’t) and are young enough that these stats were known at the time the curriculum was formed.
If most people were like you, these findings would not be headline news. The fact that the finding are surprising sympathetic people should indicate that you’re not the majority.
And it is not fair to people to say they “choose” to remain ignorant because they didn’t pay close attention and integrate statistics at the time the truth and reconciliation report was released.
Do you have no gaps in your knowledge? In particular outside of bookish, text based knowledge, which you are surely top 1% in.
It is impossible to be Canadian without having been thoroughly exposed to the realities of the residential school system. There have been multiple government inquiries. There were reparations paid. There was a truth and reconciliation commission. This is not at all new news.
But it's being presented as new news making people think this is some new discovery, as if unknown murder pits have been exposed. As if it's in addition to what everyone already knew about the residential school system. But it isn't.
Aside from some exaggerated, unverified numbers, there is literally nothing new in these claims. And it has become essentially a PR vehicle, so it's going to percolate for months to come.
I think most people were aware on some level of what residential schools were and had an opinion that bad stuff happened there. I do not think most people knew there was high levels of death. Even though that was quite clear from the report.
The other key thing is social media was not big in the era of the truth and reconciliation report. You could easily tune out the details or take it in passively. But finding the graves now, in 2021, allows for virality.
My argument was that most knew about the schools but not about death counts.
Presented accurately in school? No. Never heard about all the dead children or the abuse. Just this week there was an online course being presented to students in Ontario that was found to require students to list the “positives” of the residential school system. It’s propaganda.
In reality there was a single class in a single school in BC that had such an assignment. Trying to broadly wash that is propaganda. Tiny, isolated case on the other side of the country. Neat.
[0] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1041751/canada-all-time-...
As for the story in general ... it's not new information really. We have records of the deaths, families were notified, governments were notified, they didn't want to pay to ship the bodies so they buried them near the residences. We also knew where the graves were.
The Canadian government was aware at the time of the higher rate of deaths than normal, it was recognized as a problem, but obviously they didn't do much about it.
[1] https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/newly-discovered-b-c-gr...
It is a grotesque period in history, and people should be angry, but a lot of people are effectively misleading people to try to anger. There is a huge amount of misinformation.
Here's one famous residential school death that has been heavily leaned into - https://c2cjournal.ca/2017/10/the-sad-truth-about-chanie-wen...
And the catch 22 is that any actual anthropological analysis is going to be restricted by the very group publishing the exaggerated numbers. So expect at the next location for it to be...why not 10,000?
The methodology to derive these numbers borders on farcical.
However we know that loads of children died at these facilities. Tragically. It has never been secret. It never had to be secret, sadly because native children were considered effectively expendable. That is the pox. The current culture of, effectively, horseshit isn't making it better.
Secondly, as far as I can tell you have made no substantive claims in this thread, your dismissals of the efforts in the article being backed solely by assertions, at a variety of levels of verbosity.
If it is as important, as your many posts on the topic indicate you believe, to discredit the progress these people claim to have made, then I think you should try and provide some evidence to support your case.
"I can’t even begin to fathom"
While there is zero sincerity in your trolling comment, for anyone else involved it's important to view all players as intelligent, rational, negotiating, and ultimately selfish human beings. It's important not to treat aboriginals as childlike, brainless caricatures like mrow84 does (e.g. the "noble savage").
I can’t figure out which part of my comment could be misinterpreted as having said this - please point it out to me so I can clarify my intent.
> “there is zero sincerity in your … comment”
I was very sincere in both of my points, those being, in summary, that your comments in the thread I replied into seem both insensitive and unevidenced.
> “ it's important to view all players as intelligent, rational, negotiating, and ultimately selfish human beings. It's important not to treat aboriginals as childlike, brainless caricatures like mrow84 does (e.g. the "noble savage").”
My only mention of people’s actions other than your own was to say that those searching for their relatives’ remains should probably not be characterised as engaging in a culture of horseshit. You can think what you like, but equating that with “treat(ing) aboriginals as childlike, brainless caricatures” seems like a bit of a stretch. If you think about it you might realise that there is quite a bit of ground between the two.
I feel compelled to note that your response contains no justification for your previous comments’ assertions. I am inclined to think that my original assessment was spot on.
Such as?
What’s happening now is political. The discovery of the Kamloops graves have just elevated this topic in Canadians minds (and the world). The actual knowledge of Residential Schools is quite old.
The First Nations are just being savvy about leveraging it for political power. And that’s not a criticism, that’s how things get done in a democracy - get the population on your side and politicians are powerless to say no.
Do you understand how perilous counting "graves? with ground radar is? Note that the people who actually did the study are very careful with their language, noting that they found ground anomalies. The actual correlation with that and graves is incredibly loose.
Ground radar grave analysis has a significant degree of reading tea leaves.
https://www.sensoft.ca/blog/cemetery-data-grave-locator-find...
GPR is a great tool for law enforcement to find possible disturbed soil sites. Its use declines when you're doing mass surveys unless it is merely guiding a dig.
How do you know this?
You either have specific knowledge of the scans and any associated archeological analysis done in BC and Sask, or you don't. What specific information do you have about the lack of analysis done in the Balcarres area?
The Sensoft link has nothing to do with what has been done in BC nor Sask.
> How do you know this?
How do I know that they haven't done an archeological dig to validate the accuracy of their scans? Because they explicitly have said so. Indeed, they've said they may never, and I would wager will never.
I said nothing about the "lack" of analysis, I'm just saying that you, like so many others, are incredibly accepting about information flowing through multiple parties, some of whom have a strong incentive to lean a certain way. The deficiencies of ground penetrating radar is very well known -- it's a very powerful tool, but read the words of the technicians who did it compared to the tribe spokespeople. They talk about anomalies, and how they have tried to be careful in the language they use (specifically noting that they can't say something is a grave, just that the patterns look similar to "a grave shaft").
How many grave locations do you think the team that did this survey have done? Have many tests of their claims? How has the rigor of their claims been validated?
What hardware is being used by the school sites? Can you provide more information about what specific GPR hardware that was used on Cowesess?
> but read the words of the technicians who did it compared to the tribe spokespeople
I can't find any of the information you mentioned about the technicians in this latest finds describing the GPR and the hedging language used. Maybe my Google skills suck. Can you provide a link to that as well? I was under the impression that the technicians at Cowessess have not made any public statements so far when it comes to the technology being used, methods, background work, etc.
Additionally, access to that property is pretty heavily restricted.
Edit: Please note I was specifically talking about the school in Kamloops and, actually, just yesterday a sharing agreement was reached as per my follow up comment below.
1. https://globalnews.ca/news/7975128/catholic-order-bc-residen...
2. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/catholic-ord...
Plenty of folks probably have not come to terms with this being the truth even if they have tidbits of knowledge pointing to it's existence.
Like that pastor who urged people to look at the positives which came from colonization.
Right. Everyone knew. There have been a number of inquiries on this. The deaths at residential schools has never been a mystery. There is nothing new being unveiled.
This is an absolute tragedy, but there is a bit of a lie happening in the presentation of it, with each "discovery" being treated like it is unveiling some dark secret. No, it is a dark, but very well known, truth that has been in the open for the entirety of the program. And the truth is that mortality across the entire demographics of Canada was bad in that time period (3 out of 10 children under 5 died across the country), so it isn't entirely atypical.
"we need real change in Canadian society"
What does this even mean? Should the country abolish the residential school system, despite it being long abolished?