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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.