Michael
7th February 2010, 05:59 PM
I promised Schrodinger I’d get back to him on this.
The subject of the Lakota came up in the thread, The Nazi Won WW2. Schrodinger pointed out that the Lakota have the shortest life expectancy of any group in the US. He went on to say that much of this was due to their lifestyle, with 80% alcoholism and he further observed that they weren't doing much to help themselves. All of which is quite true.
The Lakota is only one of the many indigenous cultures worldwide which have been destroyed, and are being destroyed, by their encounter with Western culture in its various manifestations.
In the last 200 years many hundreds of such peoples have vanished from the face of the earth together with their belief systems, traditions, art, crafts, spiritual and psychological understandings, songs, languages and their knowledge of their environment, its ecology, plants and animals.
While there is a great deal of attention given to the extinction of animals, scant attention is paid to the extinction of these human species. The loss to collective human knowledge and consciousness is vast and, I believe, will not ultimately be without consequence.
I raise the issue not to blame, but to tap into TBV contributors and guests, hopefully for positive suggestions and views on how it might be possible to positively accommodate these peoples in our world.
I believe that such accommodation could prove to be of great benefit to the world in time to come. Such accommodation is actually quite natural to us – 90% of the cells in our bodies, by number, are not ‘us’ but comprise an ecosystem of some 1000 microbial species!
When one culture meets another there is always initial incomprehension. The two classic examples are China and Japan. Of course both these cultures were powerful, centralised, had written histories and were used to meeting other cultures. Furthermore, both were wise enough and strong enough to limit initial exposure to Western influences during the early phases of contact, thus giving themselves time to set in motion the many conscious and unconscious adaptations necessary to deal with the impact of such an encounter. This introductory phase also gave the West time to reflect, to recognise there was much to be gained by means of trade and very little by the brutal aggressions displayed when meeting weaker cultures. Further, the logistics of attacking these cultures were overwhelmingly prohibitive.
The indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australia did not have the cushions of power, written history, or for the most part, the centralisation and logistical advantage which served to protect Eastern cultures from the depredations of the West.
For the majority of indigenous, or rather aborigional peoples, family, clan, tribe, their patterns of hunting and gathering, the land upon which they live, the animals and plants upon which they survive, the sun, moon and stars, their oral, musical and design traditions, their spiritual beliefs, their physical and metaphysical medicines are all integrated into a complex, multidimensional reality. It is virtually impossible for the Western mind to comprehend how these threads interwove to create not just a social fabric but the worlds of the different peoples, each world unique with its own ecosystem, grammar and reality.
Western man encountered these worlds and in every case where their interests were involved, set about methodically destroying them. Missionaries mocked, pillaried and outlawed their spiritual beliefs and practises while settlers stole their land and the white males diluted their stock by impregnating their women. Crimes against them included biological warfare in the form of smallpox. In many cases their children were taken away from them and given to white parents, their children were also sent to orphanages and forced to speak the language of the whites. They were forced to attend schools to learn the ways of Western man and Western thought. The invasion of vast numbers of whites into their lands destroyed their traditional methods of hunting and gathering and they became dependent on the whites for survival. The whites forced laws upon them that they didn’t understand and set up tribal councils that had no relationship with the authority structures that were in place previously. The destruction of tribal structure and culture took away the authority of the elders, the medicine men, the chiefs. Disease, for the most part introduced by the whites accidentally, caused further massive devastation.
These peoples were left without viable land, culture, government, spirituality, authority, traditions and in many cases not even their language. The blunt force trauma of their encounter with Western Civilisation was massive and devastating. Hundreds of tribes were destroyed, vanished from the face of the earth, never to share their knowledge, their understanding, their wisdom with us, for there is no one left to of speak of what they knew. The more resilient, in some cases the luckier or the more astute, tribes stagger on today, trying in what is for them a profoundly decontextualised world, to somehow bring the pieces back together into some form that makes some kind of sense to them.
The tiger pacing in his cage, tirelessly back and forth, back and forth, does so for a reason. This repeat activity releases endomorphines into the system. Endmorphines sit into the same synaptic centres as morphine, which is a derivative of heroine. The animal, decontextualised, is numbing itself against the intolerable and inescapable reality of its confinement in an alien environment.
Aboriginal peoples, the world over exhibit the same symptoms, excessive use of alcohol, high levels of domestic violence, teen suicide, low self esteem, with resultant abuse of the body in terms of diet, drugs and alcohol, and behaviours which are both unacceptable in terms of tribal tradition and western thinking. Alcohol for them was and is a highly toxic substance, genetically these people were totally unprepared for it and therefore lack the means we have to deal with it, yet even in our society it is a major force it the destruction of individuals many of whom would be otherwise highly valued, constructive and contributing members of society. There may be some exceptions, some tribes which have not fallen into such abuses and if there are I would very much like to hear about them.
It is easy to dismiss the aboriginal peoples by pointing out the alcoholism and the other social problems that are so prevalent amongst them. But the commonality of such behaviour across the world should at least give us pause for thought. Such commonality points to something which is at work in the collective rather than the individual.
Westerners conveniently overlook the fact that alcohol was and is used as a tool to suppress indigenous peoples. This in turn allows us to despise them which in turn allows us to avoid actually facing the reality of how we have and do behave towards them.
My first proposal towards reaching an accommodation with indigenious peoples would be that we attempt to objectively contemplate the history and the present reality of our relationship with them. We might begin by considering those among them who have overcome problems of alcohol and drug abuse and in doing so have demonstrated an extraordinary power of character
given their social context and physiological disadvantage.
On a personal note I would like to record that among the Lakota, poor, alcoholic, sick and troubled as they were, I was met with a grace, kindness and open-heartedness that I found profoundly humbling, being of the people who brought about the abject condition of their people.
The subject of the Lakota came up in the thread, The Nazi Won WW2. Schrodinger pointed out that the Lakota have the shortest life expectancy of any group in the US. He went on to say that much of this was due to their lifestyle, with 80% alcoholism and he further observed that they weren't doing much to help themselves. All of which is quite true.
The Lakota is only one of the many indigenous cultures worldwide which have been destroyed, and are being destroyed, by their encounter with Western culture in its various manifestations.
In the last 200 years many hundreds of such peoples have vanished from the face of the earth together with their belief systems, traditions, art, crafts, spiritual and psychological understandings, songs, languages and their knowledge of their environment, its ecology, plants and animals.
While there is a great deal of attention given to the extinction of animals, scant attention is paid to the extinction of these human species. The loss to collective human knowledge and consciousness is vast and, I believe, will not ultimately be without consequence.
I raise the issue not to blame, but to tap into TBV contributors and guests, hopefully for positive suggestions and views on how it might be possible to positively accommodate these peoples in our world.
I believe that such accommodation could prove to be of great benefit to the world in time to come. Such accommodation is actually quite natural to us – 90% of the cells in our bodies, by number, are not ‘us’ but comprise an ecosystem of some 1000 microbial species!
When one culture meets another there is always initial incomprehension. The two classic examples are China and Japan. Of course both these cultures were powerful, centralised, had written histories and were used to meeting other cultures. Furthermore, both were wise enough and strong enough to limit initial exposure to Western influences during the early phases of contact, thus giving themselves time to set in motion the many conscious and unconscious adaptations necessary to deal with the impact of such an encounter. This introductory phase also gave the West time to reflect, to recognise there was much to be gained by means of trade and very little by the brutal aggressions displayed when meeting weaker cultures. Further, the logistics of attacking these cultures were overwhelmingly prohibitive.
The indigenous peoples of the Americas and Australia did not have the cushions of power, written history, or for the most part, the centralisation and logistical advantage which served to protect Eastern cultures from the depredations of the West.
For the majority of indigenous, or rather aborigional peoples, family, clan, tribe, their patterns of hunting and gathering, the land upon which they live, the animals and plants upon which they survive, the sun, moon and stars, their oral, musical and design traditions, their spiritual beliefs, their physical and metaphysical medicines are all integrated into a complex, multidimensional reality. It is virtually impossible for the Western mind to comprehend how these threads interwove to create not just a social fabric but the worlds of the different peoples, each world unique with its own ecosystem, grammar and reality.
Western man encountered these worlds and in every case where their interests were involved, set about methodically destroying them. Missionaries mocked, pillaried and outlawed their spiritual beliefs and practises while settlers stole their land and the white males diluted their stock by impregnating their women. Crimes against them included biological warfare in the form of smallpox. In many cases their children were taken away from them and given to white parents, their children were also sent to orphanages and forced to speak the language of the whites. They were forced to attend schools to learn the ways of Western man and Western thought. The invasion of vast numbers of whites into their lands destroyed their traditional methods of hunting and gathering and they became dependent on the whites for survival. The whites forced laws upon them that they didn’t understand and set up tribal councils that had no relationship with the authority structures that were in place previously. The destruction of tribal structure and culture took away the authority of the elders, the medicine men, the chiefs. Disease, for the most part introduced by the whites accidentally, caused further massive devastation.
These peoples were left without viable land, culture, government, spirituality, authority, traditions and in many cases not even their language. The blunt force trauma of their encounter with Western Civilisation was massive and devastating. Hundreds of tribes were destroyed, vanished from the face of the earth, never to share their knowledge, their understanding, their wisdom with us, for there is no one left to of speak of what they knew. The more resilient, in some cases the luckier or the more astute, tribes stagger on today, trying in what is for them a profoundly decontextualised world, to somehow bring the pieces back together into some form that makes some kind of sense to them.
The tiger pacing in his cage, tirelessly back and forth, back and forth, does so for a reason. This repeat activity releases endomorphines into the system. Endmorphines sit into the same synaptic centres as morphine, which is a derivative of heroine. The animal, decontextualised, is numbing itself against the intolerable and inescapable reality of its confinement in an alien environment.
Aboriginal peoples, the world over exhibit the same symptoms, excessive use of alcohol, high levels of domestic violence, teen suicide, low self esteem, with resultant abuse of the body in terms of diet, drugs and alcohol, and behaviours which are both unacceptable in terms of tribal tradition and western thinking. Alcohol for them was and is a highly toxic substance, genetically these people were totally unprepared for it and therefore lack the means we have to deal with it, yet even in our society it is a major force it the destruction of individuals many of whom would be otherwise highly valued, constructive and contributing members of society. There may be some exceptions, some tribes which have not fallen into such abuses and if there are I would very much like to hear about them.
It is easy to dismiss the aboriginal peoples by pointing out the alcoholism and the other social problems that are so prevalent amongst them. But the commonality of such behaviour across the world should at least give us pause for thought. Such commonality points to something which is at work in the collective rather than the individual.
Westerners conveniently overlook the fact that alcohol was and is used as a tool to suppress indigenous peoples. This in turn allows us to despise them which in turn allows us to avoid actually facing the reality of how we have and do behave towards them.
My first proposal towards reaching an accommodation with indigenious peoples would be that we attempt to objectively contemplate the history and the present reality of our relationship with them. We might begin by considering those among them who have overcome problems of alcohol and drug abuse and in doing so have demonstrated an extraordinary power of character
given their social context and physiological disadvantage.
On a personal note I would like to record that among the Lakota, poor, alcoholic, sick and troubled as they were, I was met with a grace, kindness and open-heartedness that I found profoundly humbling, being of the people who brought about the abject condition of their people.