Debunking the `Tragedy of the Commons'

[Stephen Morgan]

So did Native Americans actually try to live in harmony with the land around them or is that just a stupid liberal myth?

Several groups in the US South West managed to eradicate themselves by damaging their environment, but Native America was a big place. Generally speaking, though, they were too few and too primitive to do too much damage, and where they established more densely populated societies they didn't last long. Didn't even have large domesticated animals, which makes intensive agriculture difficult.

So I'm going for stupid liberal myth.

[ShinShinKid]

Uh...no, it's not myth. It was part of Native American culture and religion. Trying to live in harmony with nature doesn't involve many of the techniques seen as "advanced". Living in harmony with the Earth is VERY difficult, and it's easy to see why some might see it as "primitive".
If you judge by Native American reactions to societal differences in regards to gender and sexuality; they are/ were light years ahead of their advanced European conquerors.
If you judge by who could mine and smelt the most metal, well, the Europeans win, and are light years ahead.

We don't know what "would have" become of many Native Amercian societies because many of them were forcibly destroyed.

[Searcher08]

Uh...no, it's not myth. It was part of Native American culture and religion. Trying to live in harmony with nature doesn't involve many of the techniques seen as "advanced". Living in harmony with the Earth is VERY difficult, and it's easy to see why some might see it as "primitive".
If you judge by Native American reactions to societal differences in regards to gender and sexuality; they are/ were light years ahead of their advanced European conquerors.
If you judge by who could mine and smelt the most metal, well, the Europeans win, and are light years ahead.

We don't know what "would have" become of many Native Amercian societies because many of them were forcibly destroyed.

I think a lot depends on which Native American cultures, to me they seemed as diverse as European cultures - there was a massive difference to me between the culture of the Lakota and that of the Iroquois Confederation.

[Rory]

So did Native Americans actually try to live in harmony with the land around them or is that just a stupid liberal myth?

Several groups in the US South West managed to eradicate themselves by damaging their environment, but Native America was a big place. Generally speaking, though, they were too few and too primitive to do too much damage, and where they established more densely populated societies they didn't last long. Didn't even have large domesticated animals, which makes intensive agriculture difficult.

So I'm going for stupid liberal myth.

The largest populations of native americans were located modern California: the South West of USA. An area where they managed to thrive without destroying their environ and eradicating themselves. They had a lot of horses by the way. One might say they were 'large domesticated animals' for want of a better phrase.
Native Amreicans were also lightyears ahead of the west in terms of dream magic, shamanism and sustainable living.

As well as being a unrepentant mysonginist, you are a materialist and racist 'Noble savage' supremacist. Nice to see your true colours.

[ShinShinKid]

Searcher:

They were quite diverse, but a Native American(N.A.) cultural staple is interdependence/ respect/ love of the environment. I can't actually think of a significant N.A. society whereby environmental sustainability was not key.
The Europeans, OTOH, were motivated by a different cultural set entirely--
To escape persecution, to enrich themselves; to explore a new place.
The Vikings had come, stayed a while, and then left.

Rory:

Horses were not here until the Spaniards arrived. The N.A. population quickly saw this valuable tool for transport, burden, and hunting/ war. I wouldn't throw out the baby with the bath water, sometimes people are just unaware of Native American culture, history, values, etc.

[Rory]

[quote="ShinShinKid"][/quote]

The horses were indigenous for sure. But, if you're right about their use being learned from the Spanish, then my bad.

[Stephen Morgan]

Uh...no, it's not myth. It was part of Native American culture and religion.

Uh-huh, and killing infidels is part of Asian religion and culture.

Trying to live in harmony with nature doesn't involve many of the techniques seen as "advanced". Living in harmony with the Earth is VERY difficult, and it's easy to see why some might see it as "primitive".

We're not talking about people who rejected metallurgy because it causes cancerous growths on amphibians, we're talking about people who never discovered it.

If you judge by Native American reactions to societal differences in regards to gender and sexuality; they are/ were light years ahead of their advanced European conquerors.

Back to "liberal myth" territory, along with the incredible generalisations often encountered with racists.

If you judge by who could mine and smelt the most metal, well, the Europeans win, and are light years ahead.

Or by who could produce enough food, or who had developed written language, or cetera.

We don't know what "would have" become of many Native Amercian societies because many of them were forcibly destroyed.

Who cares what would have become of them? We can see what they were like.

Uh...no, it's not myth. It was part of Native American culture and religion. Trying to live in harmony with nature doesn't involve many of the techniques seen as "advanced". Living in harmony with the Earth is VERY difficult, and it's easy to see why some might see it as "primitive".
If you judge by Native American reactions to societal differences in regards to gender and sexuality; they are/ were light years ahead of their advanced European conquerors.
If you judge by who could mine and smelt the most metal, well, the Europeans win, and are light years ahead.

We don't know what "would have" become of many Native Amercian societies because many of them were forcibly destroyed.

I think a lot depends on which Native American cultures, to me they seemed as diverse as European cultures - there was a massive difference to me between the culture of the Lakota and that of the Iroquois Confederation.

Someone talking sense.

The largest populations of native americans were located modern California: the South West of USA. An area where they managed to thrive without destroying their environ and eradicating themselves. They had a lot of horses by the way. One might say they were 'large domesticated animals' for want of a better phrase.
Native Amreicans were also lightyears ahead of the west in terms of dream magic, shamanism and sustainable living.

The largest concentrations of Native Americans were in the Andes, followed by Mexico, then probably the Mississippi, New England, and the Chichibu, I believe they were called, in the area of modern Columbia.

They did have horses, and camels, and so on. And completely wiped out every representative of those species on the entire American continent, before they were eventually reintroduced by the Europeans, who had instead domesticated those same creatures.

As for the South West, have you seen those Pueblo dwelling abandoned in the desert? That didn't used to be desert. Mankind made the desert by killing all the trees, for their settlements. Killed the soil with inefficient native irrigation systems.

Dream magic, that I'll give you. I'm feeling generous.

As well as being a unrepentant mysonginist, you are a materialist and racist 'Noble savage' supremacist. Nice to see your true colours.

Repentant, being a Christian, not a misogynist (although I won't be going into that again), not a materialist, being a fundamentalist religionist (although I do prefer focusing on wealth inequality and creature comforts to dream magic, I must admit), not particularly racist, and I believe my position is that the savages weren't noble, but were incompetent managers of land. You are the one admiring their spiritual, dream-magic, cuddly, nature loving ways as if you want to go back to a savagery characterised by premature death and wiping your arse with a leaf.

"To come to the point at once, I beg to say that I have not the least belief in the Noble Savage. I consider him a prodigious nuisance and an enormous superstition. [...] To conclude as I began. My position is, that if we have anything to learn from the Noble Savage, it is what to avoid. His virtues are a fable; his happiness is a delusion; his nobility, nonsense. We have no greater justification for being cruel to the miserable object, than for being cruel to a WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE or an ISAAC NEWTON; but he passes away before an immeasurably better and higher power than ever ran wild in any earthly woods, and the world will be all the better when this place knows him no more." -- Charles Dickens

Feel free to lecture me on how Charles Dickens was a secret imperialist and how dream catchers are a greater sign of civilisation that flushing toilets.

[Stephen Morgan]

Searcher:

They were quite diverse, but a Native American(N.A.) cultural staple is interdependence/ respect/ love of the environment. I can't actually think of a significant N.A. society whereby environmental sustainability was not key.
The Europeans, OTOH, were motivated by a different cultural set entirely--
To escape persecution, to enrich themselves; to explore a new place.
The Vikings had come, stayed a while, and then left.

All agrarian societies rely on the environment. There was no difference between the people of Herefordshire and New Mexico, except that Herefordshire is easier to manage and has better technology.

Rory:

Horses were not here until the Spaniards arrived. The N.A. population quickly saw this valuable tool for transport, burden, and hunting/ war. I wouldn't throw out the baby with the bath water, sometimes people are just unaware of Native American culture, history, values, etc.

Horses evolved, if one believes in evolution, in the Americas and migrated thence to Asia. They were first tamed by steppe nomads in central Asia or eastern Europe to pull chariots and selectively bred to gain size so as to be able to carry people, eventually displacing donkeys, onagers and other horse-family creatures used for similar purposes in other places. The horse family became extinct at an early date in the Americas, never being tamed or domesticated by the native population. The only large animals tamed by the American natives were Camellids, such as Llamas, Guanacus, that sort of thing, and dogs.

[Searcher08]

Sorry - double post!

[Searcher08]

Searcher:

They were quite diverse, but a Native American(N.A.) cultural staple is interdependence/ respect/ love of the environment. I can't actually think of a significant N.A. society whereby environmental sustainability was not key.

The Europeans, OTOH, were motivated by a different cultural set entirely--
To escape persecution, to enrich themselves; to explore a new place.
The Vikings had come, stayed a while, and then left.

I guess I see and celebrate the differences in them, rather than the similarities - for example I think the organisation structure of the Iroquois has much more in common with the Borg (assimilation of enemies into their culture and engaging in expansionist extremely vicious resource wars such as the Beaver Wars, than any celebration of spirituality. Their brand of sustainability seemed to be much more like a corporatist resource control approach.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver_Wars

I also dont care for the deeply institutionalised use of torture that seems to have been part of that society.

http://everything2.com/title/Iroquois+torture

[Rory]

Uh...no, it's not myth. It was part of Native American culture and religion.

Uh-huh, and killing infidels is part of Asian religion and culture.

Who cares what would have become of them? We can see what they were like.

Racist.

Back to "liberal myth" territory, along with the incredible generalisations often encountered with racists.

That'll be you then.

Or by who could produce enough food, or who had developed written language, or cetera.

Racist supremacist

As for the South West, have you seen those Pueblo dwelling abandoned in the desert? That didn't used to be desert. Mankind made the desert by killing all the trees, for their settlements. Killed the soil with inefficient native irrigation systems.

Once again with the supremacist stuff. White man has also created a few deserts in the Americas and in a shorter time frame. Is this what you mean; they were inferior because they weren't as efficient at destroying the planet as the white man?

Dream magic, that I'll give you. I'm feeling generous.

I don't 'want' anything from you. You're a repugnant, unrepentant misogynist; a materialist and racist supremacist.

the savages weren't noble, but were incompetent managers of land.

Racist supremacist

a savagery characterised by premature death and wiping your arse with a leaf.

Angry and hateful racist supremacist

dream catchers are a greater sign of civilisation that (sic) flushing toilets.

[/quote]

Materialist racist supremacist.

So: You hate half of the human race by default because they are female. Also, you hate or scorn the remaining non-whites as savages.
Dress it up in all the grammar in the world but you have utterly repugnant views.

[ShinShinKid]

Please find me the articles where they have found evidence of horses before the Europeans. I have yet to come across that.

As far as differences between people, if you see them all the same everywhere, that's your bad. I think that if you bothered to look, you would see amazing differences, from physical to (gasp!) historical. To say

Not all societies in the New World were agrarian in nature, yet all had a deep tie and connection to the earth.

The native population did very successfully domesticate and use the horse for a variety of purposes. Searcher's Lakota are an easy example of that. Don't forget the Nez Pearce, IIRC they developed the Appaloosa breed. It happeded after European reintroduction, but it doesn't mean it didn't happen. And it didn't happen under the European cultural model; as a matter of fact, much had been written of "insert Jay Jamusch quote here" who went to the frontier, thinking they could exist, nay thrive under the European model of culture and exisitence.

I'm not sure where you think that Native American culture and religion does not hold high significance for sustainability. I will find some articles for you. Dismissing me with some sort of shot from left field about Asian culture does not bear onto this subject, does it? Are we talking about Native American culture, or Asian culture, which is it? If we are still talking about Native American culture, please find me some sources whereby I can read about how their religion place no importance on being in tune with their environment. TIA.

I imagine you think the Maya are all dead too?

[Searcher08]

Rory, You have missed out the he is also a work-shy layabout, who ought to be in the Army. He is also from the East Midlands, which means he sounds like a duck when he speaks and is NOT called Stephen Morgan. His actual name is Sir Rupert Henry Ponsonby Allerton-Dingbat of Rutland. He hangs out with some guy called Linux.

[ShinShinKid]

Rory:

I take it back, chuck that baby as far as he'll go!

[Stephen Morgan]

Once again with the supremacist stuff. White man has also created a few deserts in the Americas and in a shorter time frame. Is this what you mean; they were inferior because they weren't as efficient at destroying the planet as the white man?

I never said they were inferior, I said your deluded belief that the natives were a bunch of saintly naturalists was wrong. There cultures was inferior due to environmental factors. Less domesticable animals, less productive cultivable plants, less opportunities for trade. Race is irrelevant, situation is what generates culture. The situation of the native Americans was less advantageous. This doesn't need to be excused, let alone plastered over with touchy-feely new age dream catcher bullshit.

The culture was inferior at making use of the land, converting acres into food production.

Not like it was Europeans who domesticated the sheep, or cultivated the first wheat, after all.

Dream magic, that I'll give you. I'm feeling generous.

I don't 'want' anything from you. You're a repugnant, unrepentant misogynist; a materialist and racist supremacist.

Don't forget Peak Oil denier.

a savagery characterised by premature death and wiping your arse with a leaf.

Angry and hateful racist supremacist

I'm not angry at all. You know why? The luxuriant softness of my toilet paper, created by cutting edge western technology unknown to previous peoples.

dream catchers are a greater sign of civilisation that (sic) flushing toilets.

Materialist racist supremacist.

So: You hate half of the human race by default because they are female. Also, you hate or scorn the remaining non-whites as savages.
Dress it up in all the grammar in the world but you have utterly repugnant views.

I feel I should point out that "Materialist racist supremacist" is not a properly constructed sentence. Also, I don't see non-whites as savages. The French are savages too. More seriously, I have been pointing out the effects of civilisation which were lacking amongst native cultures in America. While the white race definitely invented toilet paper, writing and our most productive crops came from others.