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Originally Posted by #Ian#
The misanthrope in me would say that everyone is ignorant. The humanist in me would temper that statement by adding "to some degree" to that statement.
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very well said. [img]smileys/smiley32.gif[/img] i hope you didnt take anything i said as antagonistic, it wasnt intended.
i personally feel that these cultures know something we dont. we can learn from them but instead we teach that these cultures are nothing but people who havent seen our way yet. of course, im only speaking of my own experience in america, i dont know what they say over onthe otherside of the ocean. but i grew up learning that the indians pretty much deserved their fate because they wouldnt change.they didnt understand. as if that is reason enough to wipe out a population of people. but i digress....
i believe in evolution. and evolution is just sorting out what works over time. a very long period of time. we've been here but a blink relatively speaking. these cultures have been around for , in some cases, a hundred thousand yrs. we at a young 10,000 have really been lucky that we havent destroyed ourselves. but its early. and can anyone honestly say we arent at least on the edge of that possibility at all times? not with the power of nukes that are on this planet. we got real lucky in '62 someone like bush wasnt in office during the cuban missile crisis. we got lucky in '67 and '73 that america had enough leverage over israel to push them not to use nukes during those wars. they
did ready them. i think its only a matter of time. and that may sound pessimistic. it is. believe it or not im not though. things could still change. but not before peoples vision of things changes.
before the renaisance, do you think people thought,
well one day i will not be forced to live as a slave on my lords land.
i will be able to own my own. probably some, who were then told to shut up and that this is the way things are.
before slavery was wrong, it was right. there were likely many slaves saying,
'well, someday, im going to own a home like master.'
'im gonna be free'. to which another slave would probably say, shut up before master hears you. dont rock the boat. this is the way things are.
100 years ago it was pretty acceptable to hit your wife. look up the origin of 'rule of thumb'. women would cry to girlfriends, '
someday, ill be able to do just what he does. work. vote. anything.' to which the other women would giggle and say, shut up and take it. things could be worse. this is just the way things are.
i could go on.....but my point is that people didnt change. what changed was peoples vision. vision is so powerful. regular german folk during the nazi era were no different than the ones before and after hitler. the only difference was their vision. thats what hitler sold them . a vision of them being superior. just like we had when we encountered the indians. a vision of superiority that allowed otherwise normal 'wrongs' to be considered ok.
and that i feel is the difference between our global culture and these tribal cultures. vision. theirs allows them to coexist with the world without detroying it. and allows them to coexist with others without destroying them. theirs is one where they are a part of the earth and everything on it and ours is one of superiority. the earth was given to us by god to conquer and rule. and that has allowed otherwise normal wrongs to be ok.
so its early yet to see if we can survive to the age of these cultures. but they have survived for a reason. it works. yeah i know , we destroy them wherever we meet and evolution is the strong survives. but just because i have the power to destroy a spiders web, doesnt mean im more evolutionarily stable than spiders.
sorry, not much work today so i went on a bit looooooooooooong.
jason
We are part of the earth and the earth is part of us.
There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities, no place to hear the leaves of spring or the rustle of insects’ wings. Perhaps it is because I am a savage and do not understand, but the clatter only seems to insult the ears.
Like a man who has been dying for many days, a man in your city is numb to the stench.
We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy - and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers' graves, and his children’s birthright is forgotten.
all qoutes attributed to chief seattle