“As early as the year 1000, for example, Huron, Neutral, Petun and Iroquois villages were increasingly fortified by a timber palisade that could be nearly 10 metres in height, sometimes villages built a second or even third ring to protect them against attacks by enemy nations.”
I was going to say. First Nations did not have some amazing peaceful utopia. They killed each other for resources too.
Almost as if they were human, doing human things
Damn humans. They ruined humanity!
You humans sure are a contentious people
There’s no way humans didn’t have human problems. This seems like an extension of the “good ol’ days” that views the past with rose tinted glasses. There absolutely would have been theft, murder, laziness, have-nots…whatever. People are people.
Ninja edit: found this.
Banishment, execution, murder, and theft among other things were absolutely a thing.
I would go so far as to say this is some classic “noble savage” bullshit that only serves to dehumanize people.
Yeah, in a big way. The European colonists committing genocide on the Native Americans does not have to have the Native Americans as inhuman angels to be a massive atrocity and grievous wrong, and trying to take the position that the Native American societies were is nothing more than a xenophilic form of cultural conservatism and chauvinism.
Native American peoples were people, like any other, with human problems common to any society, unlike what this quote implies. They do not have a ‘magic’ history for outsiders to aspire to become ‘as good as’, they do not have the secrets to the elimination of the dastardly social ills of ‘civilization’. They’re people. They’re people who deserved better than the atrocious treatment that they got, but the ‘Noble Savage’ stereotype is no more humanizing or acceptable than the ‘Ecological Indian’ stereotype.
It kind of goes both ways. Just because “people are people” doesn’t mean any comparison of the savagery of two cultures is suddenly invalid. Native Americans had war, rape, disease etc. but then they got colonized by one of the most brutal, violent cultures in the world at the time.
If I lived with a spouse and kids in the suburbs and a murderer came in and killed my family. It would be pretty silly for my friend to say “stop trying to paint your old life as perfect. You and your wife were people. You fought often and you were hiding a gambling addiction. I swear this “noble domestic bliss” stuff is really not helping your cause.”
but then they got colonized by one of the most brutal, violent cultures in the world at the time.
The past is filled with cultures which commit genocide, mass mutilations, torture, systemic rape, etc. The Europeans are only notable because they had unusual success, because that success came at the same time as philosophical development which began to make that treatment towards other Europeans taboo, and because that success eventually was leveraged into a system of strict hereditary privilege we’re still dealing with today.
The Europeans were not more torture-happy than the Natchez, not more murderous than the Aztecs, not more mutilatory than the Sioux.
What the Europeans were was hypocrites. At a time when humanist notions of basic dignity and universal brotherhood were being preached by scholars and theologians, European soldiers were murdering and enslaving Mesoamerican peoples en masse. In an era when tolerance was quickly becoming the watchword of the day, European priests burned ancient texts in the Americas for the suspicion of pagan notions. In an era when ‘all men are created equal’, American colonists denied not only the right of the Native American tribes to be equal polities, but even denied them the ability to be equal citizens.
It’s less jarring when a culture which believes that incorrect ritualism will doom the universe murders people for religious reasons, or when a culture admits that it finds the murder of women and children to be an honorable deed to slay civilians, or that a chauvinistic culture extols itself above all inferiors; compared to one that preaches one value and acts according to another entirely. Not even in a selfish manner, but in a manner suggesting a total reversal of their claimed principles.
When American colonists murdered American tribes from the youngest to the oldest, saying ‘nits make lice’, that was not some exceptional deed that had never happened before in the history of the world; a scant few generations ago Europeans were doing just that to one another; American tribes had done the same to each other since times immemorial; same with every other suitably wide collection of cultures on the planet. The difference was that we were supposedly ‘civilized’ enough to recognize the basic dignity of one color of our fellow man, but none of the others.
THAT is what makes European colonialism repulsive beyond the ‘normal’ passage of history, the butchering of Saxons by Franks, or of Pawnee by Sioux, or of Chinese by Mongols. We claimed to know better - we demonstrated an understanding of the values that should have prevented such action - we demonstrated the ability to restrain ourselves in dealings with fierce (European) foes - and yet we proceeded to indulge in the worst impulses of man that we claimed we had left behind anyway. We were not ignorant, we were not running on fundamentally different values that made murder somehow okay like Bronze Age fanatics - we made a deliberate choice to exclude subsections of our fellow man from the ‘enlightened’ values we were redefining our civilizations by.
They were not medieval peasants who knew no higher word than their lord’s. They were not Aztec warriors brought up in a culture of human sacrifice and flower wars. They were men who were raised reading the works of the humanist enlightenment, whose norms should have excluded many of the actions they took - but when they saw a human being of a different color than them, they turned every last goddamn one of those norms on its head like they were the Hebrews bashing in the skulls of gentile infants in the Bronze Age.
I really appreciate this perspective (it’s something I hadn’t considered before) Standing up for equal rights doesn’t mean we need to glorify or unconditionally defend a group, no matter who they are. For example, opposing police racism doesn’t require me to justify the actions of every Black criminal or attribute every single crime solely to systemic factors. (Though, of course, they often play a significant role.)
People are people. We all have the best and worst human traits somewhere inside of us, and we deserve human rights not despite of that, but because of that.
Were there not many different tribes? It stands to reason that there could well have been a range of different lifestyles too. Including that described above.
My point being that other recorded experiences with native americans do not invalidate this rosy reminiscence.
It is in no way a workable solution to the modern maladies of this fractious over-crowded planet but it does help to have a range of idealised utopias to draw from in our discussions of how to proceed.
Ok. An unsourced meme is not historical fact. It’s disturbing that it’s even taken as valid with no corroborating information, you arguing as if it were true, and using opinion to manufacture “proof” such a “different tribes” and “lifestyles”. There’s plenty of made up bullshit floating around on the internet in pic/text format, why is this one granted any more believability? Do you have a legitimate source indicating any such “utopias” or do you just want to keep making things up?
Why does it upset you so much? It is, as you say, a meme. Just a meme. It’s not peer reviewed or held to any measurable standard that warrants getting yourself worked up over. It’s not taught in schools or repeated on any serious news platform as fact. It’s just a meme.
I too doubt if it is real. It’s just entertainment. Just like when I watch a tv show, I can choose to momentarily suspend belief when I engage with it.
Is it flat out impossible for some native peoples to have had that quoted experience? I don’t think so. I don’t also think it would have been common at all. But not impossible.
Are you sure that it is not the sentiment of the meme that you are really objecting to rather than it’s credibilty. Why not write a critical analysis of it. It would make for a more interesting conversation.
For one (speaking from my experience reading about the ‘wild Irish’), there is often a might makes right in the anarchy of these losely connected groups of people that is often brutal. Those at the bottom of the social ladder probably wouldn’t have such a rose tinted overview of it.
So if I disagree with you I’m “upset”? Now it’s just a meme and not the basis for your theories on native peoples?
can choose to momentarily suspend belief when I engage with it.
This is ridiculous. I provided a factual and objective source of information. Now you’re going on about the Irish, grasping at straws, and flat out saying feels before reals. Goddamn no wonder we got trump for president.
Take a hike.
You’re still angry. And I don’t exactly understand why. You seem angry to me because you are being uncivil and closed minded.
But why? Do you think that meme is seditious or in some way undermines democracy? Do you think that there are only a limited range of responses to that meme that are acceptable, and you, somehow, are the arbiter?
My point being that other recorded experiences with native americans do not invalidate this rosy reminiscence.
I’d actually point to the excepts from Columbus’s own journals, catalogued in Howard Zinn’s “A People’s History of the United States” to identify a number of native tribes he initially encountered who were practically childlike in their innocence.
The Caribbean island peoples were documented in sharp contrast to more imperial mainlanders as extraordinarily passive, initially quite friendly, and devoid of the more rigid hierarchies and institutions common in those more technologically advanced societies.
The only bit that doesn’t really fit is the horses, which hadn’t arrived from Europe yet
Interesting stuff. I think remember hearing about that in the Behindthebastards episode on Columbus.
The spanish had a similar native experience during an unplanned visit to Ireland in 1517. While there were towns and villages in Ireland at the time, there was still a significant population of wild Irish.
They spend an marked amount of time talking about the free range boobs that were on show.
Good thing we’ve sacrificed that relative utopia to solve all those problems, eh?
Not even remotely close to a utopia, especially when compared to modern day, but I’m sure that doesn’t matter to you.
A fairer society where people largely take care of one another, or a society structured primarily to extract wealth from others with all those problems…
Pointing to a description of a society that on the face of it is better than ours, and saying that they still have some of the problems that we haven’t solved isn’t much of a point.
They went to war and took each other as slaves.
You’re just waxing poetic about things you don’t really understand, and it makes you look genuinely fucking stupid.
Slaves?! The society that displaced them was at least better in that respect, right?
…right?
Fuck me, you’re talking about my stupidity as you condemn them because of a series of flaws that were/are prevalent in the society that genocided them. You’re a little lacking in credibility, my guy.
You claimed it was a relative utopia. I disproved that. You’ve doubled down.
You’re just a fucking moron, eat the L.
You’re calling a moron when you understand what “relative” means? Not my L to take, champ.
The positive differences have been established from the outset, you’ve failed to point to any negative differences - relative utopia remains accurate.
Kinda weird that everyone had a horse. Considering there where no horses in the Americas before colonialism.
There were. They just happened to have died out. So, ancient native Americans, potentially horse-knowledgeable, and then they died out 10000 or so years ago.
Which is an even weirder and more fun fact, an addendum fact.
There were no horses in America, there were evolutionary ancestors of horses that would not be able to fulfill any horse role.
Just like zebras are not horses and wolves not dogs. They would obviously not be owned by Native Americans nor would the Native Americans have a remarkable body of knowledge about them (like they developed with actual horses).
Horses were bred to be big and strong enough in Central Asia.
We also learned about horses in America from the book of Mormon. They were also around approximately 2 - 3,000 years ago before all the good light skinned believers died out. Along with their horses…
Weird less fun non fact addendum to the weird fun addendum fact.
Wooaaahh?? TIL
As the other comment pointed out, horses used to be found in the America’s, but had since gone extinct before Europeans reintroduced them.
Horse-like ancestors, not horses. And they were 10,000 years ago.
In the same way that man wasn’t drastically different evolution wise from that period to now (science says we got a little shorter, but thats about it genetically) , horses were not some wild precursor species here. They were just horses. Potentially stockier, but still horses
Stupid argument. Bananas are very sifynkw than they were 100 years ago. The horses you know are not natural horses.
Stupid argument. Slective breeding has taken place for all of history, the beasts in your mideval paintings are no more Cats than they are unnatural felines.
Evolution takes a long time, the banana you’re talking about isn’t the same banana from 100 years ago, it’s a straight up different strain that grew/evolved parallel to the banana your great grandparents used to buy at the store. So, no, it’s not the same banana DNA wise, but it’s also not even the same banana strain. It’s like you’re pointing at Zebras and saying they’re not horses, we all already knew that part. But if a cave painting from 2000 years ago depicts a Quagga, we can all just go ahead and say ‘ancient Zebras’ and colloquially no one will be upset.
Lol. Cope.
Colonialism didn’t happen over night, but many generations.
This feels very “noble savage.”
You think so?
I read it as a native american highlighting good points of an already functioning model of civilisation before white men brought them, figuratively and literally, all the misery and disease of their ownIt was a knee-jerk reaction. I looked up the quote, and it was made by John Fire Lame Deer. The reason it sounds “noble savage” to me is because, as you say, it’s highlighting only the good points of his peoples’ history. They fought and killed one another just like all people have. On the other hand, it’s not his responsibility to describe every good and bad thing in said history and there’s no doubt they had a way of life that was working that the colonialists destroyed. I guess one very cold comfort is that the colonialists have continued their destructive way of life to the point that they will be destroyed as well.
The number of people that want to quote native Americans and talk about how native Americans were screwed over by the white man and how terrible it is all the things that have been done to them divided by the people in that group who are willing to give up their property and their lives and move back to their ancestral homes is the same as any number divided by 0.
And I’m saying this as a Lakota man.
You don’t want to actually do anything about the problem with native americans.
You just want to feel Superior to other people.
But don’t get off of your high horse because I’m sure the fall will kill you.
Are you sure about that? Because I’m pretty much for decolonisation
You can start by getting a passport and looking into emigrating away from the United States.
Edit: well, I guess people don’t like it when I’m flippant, and do like it when db0 condescends to a minority. Good show.
I’m not American and that’s not what decolonisation means anyway
Then what the fuck are you doing talking about American colonialism when it doesn’t fucking affect you?
You are very fucking brave taking a stance that other people should do something you yourself are incapable of doing.
I’m capable of caring for things other than my immediate self interest
I don’t know if you’re being obtuse or if you’re just not getting it.
My statement was that the people who use native American sayings to make themselves feel Superior to other people are fundamentally incapable of putting their money where their mouth is.
You’re saying “I’m all for other people putting their money where my mouth is” as if that somehow accomplishes anything or refutes my point.
You don’t seem to understand how stupid/pointless/arrogant/self-serving that is.
I didn’t try to make myself superior. I just quoted a Native American. All the rest is your interpretation.
arrogant/self-serving that is.
Some astronomical projection is going on here.
imagine thinking American colonialism doesn’t affect anyone outside America. not to mention the person who said they advocated for decolonization didn’t say for America only, so it’s even more absurd. news flash: colonialism affected the entire world.
these people are just right wingers trolling right? This has to be a troll
A number divided by zero equals infinity.
Except if it’s zero then (so 0/0) it is either undefined or any number IIRC.
If you plot out any number divided by x, as x approaches 0 the answer goes towards Infinity, yes.
When it reaches zero it ceases to be a number.
Every number divided by 0 is “undefined”, and it is not undefined because we can’t describe it, it is undefined because it does not exist, because you cannot divide things by 0.
Funny that you posted this in a dbzer0.com community (dbzer0 = device by zero).
You might say that if you don’t divide a number the number remains itself. But you are saying to divide a number by not dividing the number.
That mathematical process does not work. One or the other must be true for the operation to happen.
You might be saying that an infinite amount of nothing can go into any something, but that is also not true. For there to be nothing, there cannot be something.
Zero is not a number in and of itself save for when it is literally the descriptor of the lack of the existence of a quantity.
Trying to divide a number by zero is like trying to divide existence by non-existence. If existence exists, then there is no non-existence to divide it with.
Therefore you cannot mathematically compute how much non-existence there is in existence.
No. The standard field (that is, a ring where both operations are abelian groups) on the complex numbers doesn’t have a multiplicative inverse of 0; rings can’t have a multiplicative inverse for the additive identity. You can create an algebra with a ring as a sub-algebra with such, but it will no longer be a ring. My preferred method is to impose such an algebra on the one-point compactification of the Complex Numbers, where the single added point is denoted as “Ω”.
I started this project when I was 12, and when I could show that the results were self-consistent this was what I had settled on:
let z be a complex number that is not otherwise specified by the following equations. Note: the complex numbers contain the Real numbers, and so the following equations apply to the them as well.
0Ω=Ω0=1
z+Ω=Ω+z=zΩ=Ωz=Ω=ΩΩ
Ω-Ω=0. Ω-Ω=Ω+(-Ω)=Ω+(-1Ω)=Ω+Ω=0
The algebra described above is not associative. That is to say, (AB)C does not always equal A(BC).
Addendum: despite what my earlier statement implied, there is exactly 1 ring for which the additive identity has a multiplicative inverse: the trivial ring, which has only 1 element (that I will label as 0).
The operations are a such: 0+0=0=0*0. Note: this is also the only ring for which the additive and multiplicative identities are the same element.
I was originally going to mention it, but I didn’t want to make my comment more complicated than in needed to be. Then I realized that the way I phrased it was technically inaccurate, and so this addendum exists.
If I had money to own land, I’d return it to the appropriate tribe. I’m actively decolonizing my life and support the return of all federal land to tribes along with reparations. Don’t put words in my mouth
good for you oh savior
I’m not doing it because I believe I’m a savior. I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do. My point is that broad sweeping statements aren’t helpful and efforts to progress AIM and the landback movement are far more worthwhile.
First off it is incredible people are using the downvote button as an “I disagree” button even here. Vile fucking people.
Most efficient way to solve the issue of reparations to descendants of slaves and indians is poverty alleviation programs and land reform, they are disproportionately affected by these things. No more rich men owning forests, even if they do it through “conservation” nonprofits. No more wealth hoarding by white americans who inherited expensive housing from the era of redlining.
Also minority groups need special political representation in a democracy otherwise it is just wolves voting to have the sheep for dinner.
This is what they fight tooth and nail because they know who would win from evening the scales.
White political power is based on hoarding property, money, gerrymandering and preventing campaign finance reform.
My OpInIoN mAtTeRs MoRe CaUsE iM a lAkOtA mAn.
This is a logical fallacy called “ad hominem”, you’re attempting to tear me down as a human being rather than address the salient parts of my argument, and that’s because you don’t actually have a good answer to my argument so you’re just being a dick head.
In this case, me being a native American indicates at least some small portion of the native American viewpoint on a topic that was brought up about native Americans.
Had it not been relevant I would not have mentioned it.
You don’t seem to understand how stupid/pointless/arrogant/self-serving that is.
ad hominem you say.
tHiS iS a LoGiCaL FaLlAcY
I gotta say this one is actually funny (while still wrong)
I gOtTa SaY
Got em
gOt Em
A man’s worth was measured by how good he was at killing the other tribe’s men. So there’s that.
Native Americans weren’t/aren’t some monolithic people. Back then they no doubt had a lot of different ideas on measuring a man’s worth.
That’s how it works in civilized society too…
Really? You go to work and your boss says “hey, I’ve noticed you haven’t killed enough members of our corporate rival this year”?
Business is boomin’!
The irony being that this jokes existence proves my point.
Ed: don’t spam me with dumb shit and then ban me so I can’t respond when you look a fool.
Argue in good faith or I dunno get fucked?
Literally how? It’s a joke, that’s the point. Society doesn’t actually function that way.
I didn’t say business, I said civilization and yes you just described war which is what the comment was about anyway.
You said society
A civilized society is a civilization bud, that said if you think business = society I’d say you have bigger issues to tackle.
A civilization (also spelled civilisation in British English) is any complex society characterized by the development of the state, social stratification, urbanization, and symbolic systems of communication beyond signed or spoken languages (namely, writing systems and graphic arts).
Lol yes, you can’t be bothered to pick up a dictionary but it’s me who won’t ever learn anything. Totally.
Good luck with that shit bud.
bud
Blocked. Feel free to never learn anything because you think you’re above everyone. This is what happens when a leftist adopts a conservative mindset. Be warned, lurkers!
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Mod wants this comment unread. Click “source” to read it.
This perpetuates an inaccurate stereotype, and separately, it makes no sense. Downvoted.
Omg, I recently started playing an retired MMO on some emulated servers and this was totally the vibe. With no economy or large influx of new players all your old stuff just piles up and you keep it, hoping someone will someday show up who can use it. Things had value but not in the sense you could even start an economy. For me, I loved getting end game weapons, which are an absolute grind, then gifting them. I had a few but it was always more satisfying to give them away.
I was also told the most profound thing while playing. Someone said, “you’re hogging yourself.” Since I really like playing solo. I still haven’t reconciled it. Like I don’t want to hog myself but at the same time it doesn’t seem like others want to play with me. I try to be inviting but I guess the only thing I don’t really do is make myself vulnerable. Like truly vulnerable. I’m scared to though.
Wat game?
Me too gets curious, what game?
Imagine being able to successfully convince yourself that the existence of defences, and conflict, between neighbouring indigenous nations, is equivalent, to the point of nullifying, sailing around the globe genociding and enslaving its population as you go, for profit.
White supremacy is a hell of a drug.
The OP paints native culture as Utopian, when even some cursory historical knowledge of the Aztecs and Incas would refute.
But its upsetting to think three centuries of ruthless pogroms and genocidal wars can be so easily justified by announcing “Native life wasn’t perfect”.
White supremacy is a hell of a drug.
No one is claiming that, people are pointing out the image is wrong
damn, these savages noble af
lmao this is pure bullshit, like boomer on facebook, HRC lib bullshit
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All of this was false but
You were exiled or executed so there was no need for jails
Now you can apply this to the rest
A barter system != giving things away
Actually they didn’t even have words for exile or execution, it was literally kumbaya as fuck 24/7 until the British showed up
Who’s the quote from @db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com ?
John Fire Lame Deer
Thanks
Way too many motherfuckers want other to Google for them and are a bit too eager to cry “fake” or “noble savage”.
I’m not arguing that life was perfect and that native Americans had perfectly working anarchism, I’m just quoting one such person. Get over yourselves.
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You might be interested in this paper by Yvette Running Horse Collin, a doctor in indigenous studies: https://scholarworks.alaska.edu/handle/11122/7592
Chosen excerpt:
Although historians generally claim that the Indians of the Southeast first acquired horses in the 1690s from the Spanish, there is written Spanish record of the Southeastern Indians having been seen with horses as early as 1521 in what is now Georgia and the Carolinas. This is particularly interesting as it would have been impossible for the first horses that the Spanish brought to the mainland (what is now Mexico) in 1519 to have escaped unnoticed, “make it” to the Georgia and Carolinas area, and have multiplied in two years’ time.
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