Friday, February 02, 2007
Ostrich Mentality
In a couple of other places, I've written largely sympathetic pieces about the plight of aboriginal people in North America. But, as I promised over in Mentok land, I have a variety of opinions certain to offend nearly everyone on this and other topics.
Today, I'd like to tie in my view of the history of aboriginal North Americans with the current "debate" over climate change. I put debate in quotes because, when 90 per cent of the world's climate scientists have a particular view of the subject, there really is no debate, yet my colleagues in right-wing politics continue to embarrass themselves by clinging to the minority of nut-jobs and corrupt scientists-for-hire who still doubt the existence and causes of climate change. Their behaviour is consistent with some of the richest and most wonderful human traditions of self-destructive idiocy.
First, let me start by making a radical statement that may shock and astound some of you: aboriginal North Americans are human beings.
Ever since we Europeans first encountered them, we have tended, in spite of our many acts of cruelty towards them, to glamourize native people. Today, it is considered politically incorrect to talk about "noble savages", yet modern left-wing attitudes towards natives precisely mirror this sentimental 18th Century literary view of them. Natives in our culture are consistently depicted as being somehow genetically more intuitive, more spiritual, closer to nature and inherently wiser than other people. They are, in short, depicted as some sort of race of ecological saints.
This is, of course, a big pile of bullshit. Native North Americans, like all other humans, have consistently displayed the qualities of cruelty, greed, short-sightedness and stupidity that are the hallmarks of our species.
Much of what has happened to aboriginals has been due to the cruelty and greed of Europeans. Much, but not all. A significant chunk of the sad history of native North Americans was due to their own flaws as a culture.
Three hundred and fifty: That's a number I like to emphasize in examining the history of North America. We Europeans first encountered this continent in 1492. But the wholesale invasion of North America did not begin until the mid-19th Century. Up until that point, Europeans in North America were largely content to huddle around a few clusters of coastal trading colonies.
So the native people of this continent had 350 years to get ready for invasion. It was, after all, pretty obvious that was the direction things were headed. Yet throughout that time they did almost nothing to prepare themselves.
Yes, they learned to use horses and rifles. They did more than just learn to use them, they mastered the arts of horsemanship and cavalry warfare, far exceeding European abilities.
But what else? Heavy artilery? Naval warfare? Writing? Metallurgy, so they could make their own guns and knives instead of having to trade or steal them? Likewise, chemistry, to make their own gunpowder? Mining? Design and construction of fortifications? Diplomacy (wouldn't the Austrians, Turks or Napoleonic French have been interested in a second-front ally)?
No, none of it. Those things and a list of a million other useful things the natives might have picked up during their 350 years of lead-time were completely ignored. In geopolitics as in science, nature abhors a vacuum. Finally, their stubborn weakness made them too much of an easy, tempting target. This certainly doesn't absolve Europeans of their horrendous cruelty, but it does spread the blame around a bit.
The obvious question is, Why? Why did they stubbornly refuse to adapt to an iminent threat?
Well, part of it was that they were horribly racist. Most native peoples did not view Europeans as being truly human. In fact, many of the native tribe names translate out to mean "the real people." Europeans were known as "white ghosts", semi-demonic creatures sent to vex the "real people" for not being adequately pious. A centuries-long religious movement, known as the "Ghost Dance", sprung up in native societies, based on the notion that if enough "real people" did a particular dance, performed a particular ceremony, the evil "white ghosts" would simply vanish.
This partly explains their aversion to learning European technology. Why would you want to copy the ways of these sub-human monsters? (This attitude, shamefully, persists among modern native people who, in spite of every inducement, still have abysmally low levels of enrollment in engineering, medicine or other scientific professions, in part because these fields are still viewed by some natives as being too "colonial.")
But racism is only part of the explanation for aboriginal North American's phenomenal short-sightedness. In my view, another major aspect of this tragedy is the universal human propensity for willful blindness in the face of incremental change. It is always easier for people to deny trends and pretend that nothing has changed. By the time it becomes obvious that things have changed, it is too late to do anything, so once again it is just easier to continue to rationalize away the problem.
Can't you just imagine the debates amongst native leaders a couple of hundred years ago?
"There goes Chief Lone Thunder on again with this irresponsible talk about the European problem. Certainly, European settlement exists, but there is no evidence that we can do anything about it. European settlement has not changed for as long as anyone can remember. Any talk of an iminent invasion is just a theory. Lone Thunder would like to see us radically change our economy and our way of life, in the process throwing hundreds of braves in the buffalo industry out of work, all over some half-baked theory."
And so you see how this relates to the current climate change "debate." We will rationalize ourselves into the grave if we allow our worst natures to take over.
Ultimately, the human creature is part ostrich, too often content to hide from problems rather than confront them.
On the other hand, the human race is not completely defined by pettiness and stupidity. We can do great things, god-like things when we set our minds to it. The Pyramids took generations to build. Mining industries often operate on 50 year planning cycles. Numerous international planning bodies effectively regulate and manage vast complex river systems. My own province Saskatchewan went from being a quasi-desert to a lush agricultural area in the space of 20 years through the construction of a vast artificial lake. We went to the moon back when the most complex computational device available was the slide rule.
There are so many examples of humans amazing ourselves when we put our minds to it. Whether it's through adaptation or mitigation, it sure would be nice if we could take the high road rather than the low road on climate change.
Then again, maybe if we all just did a dance, the whole problem would just go away.
posted by The Propagandist @ 11:14 AM,
2 Comments:
-
At 1:15 PM,
Unknown said...
-
I've now read this three times. Once earlier today whilke at work and twice in the comfort of Villain Towers.
What a fantastic piece of writing. It's witty, scary, observant, entertaining and informative all at the same time.
It's a scandal when magazine & newspaper editors waste millions paying guest columnists for spouting vile hatred and/or for re-hashing old views and opinions when there's folk like your good self out there who should be given a wider audience.
More power to your fingertips. -
At 1:35 PM,
Mentok said...
-
Why thank you very much, JC. You certainly know how to get on a writer's good side, don't you? For the record, I do have a somewhat wider audience - I write professionally for magazines and newspapers - but I seldom have the freedom in those venues to voice my real opinions.
