This is a complex issue and I’ve been trying to think of a way to structure my response. Before Andy asked for my comment I had been thinking of writing an entry called ‘Do cultures have rights?’ The basic premise is that ‘the left’ has made the critical mistake of assuming that cultures have rights and can be treated in the same ways as individuals. This is a category error that reifies culture and which leads to a betrayal of progress in favour of cultural conservatism. It is not, as many falsely assume, cultural relativism, although that is part of the equation.
The other problem is reverse racism, where European/Western/White culture is blamed for the sin of colonialism as if ‘imperialism’ was inherent to the white race, rather than the inevitable consequence of a specific and universal stage of socio-political development. The reason Europe became dominant is not because they were white but, as Jared Diamond has argued, because they had a geographical advantage. The same geographical argument can be applied to Australia, but in this case it is about geographical disadvantage.
I think the way to proceed is to look at the current controversy by examining the failures of the traditional perspectives, in this case the Aboriginal, conservative/right and progressive/left, because in my opinion all sides have made serious mistakes.
First I’ll look at the Aboriginal side, but this requires a disclaimer of sorts – modern Aboriginal culture is extremely diverse and is stretched across the developmental spectrum.
In pre-white Australia Aboriginal societies were divided into complex language/tribal groups (around 200). Some were simple nomadic hunter-gatherer family groups, some were semi-settled tribes, and some in the South-East (around lake Colac) had become settled and had developed basic forms of agriculture and animal husbandry. It is here that we encounter the geographic disadvantage. In desert Central Australia food was scarce and so family groups had to roam to find enough food, but even then life was harsh and life expectancy low. In more abundant areas food still had to hunted and gathered simply because there was little that could be domesticated. In the Lake Colac area the Aborigines had built stone houses and started to farm eels, but the fact is that Australia does not have native species of either plants or animals that can be domisticated. There is solid evidence that some Aboriginal tribes had land and resource management strategies such as seasonal firing used to regenerate the bush and bring wildlife back. This means that if domesticable species were available agriculture would have been developed. Modern Australian agriculture is based on non-indigenous species, basically sheep, cattle and wheat. There have been attempts to create industries out of ‘bush tucker’ and you can buy ‘bush tomatoes’ and wattle seed, etc, at specialist outlets, but there remains a widespread aversion to eating kangaroo, goanna, turtle and snake meat (there could be a viable kangaroo meat industry but animal rights activists from outside Australia have posed a serious threat). Basically the geography, flora and fauna of Australia cannot sustain a large population, all the food has had to be introduced.
Now, as I said, ‘modern’ Aborigines range across the spectrum, from fully modernised professionals making a name in sport, the arts, politics, the media, the law, the academy, etc, to the uneducated traditional Aborigine who cannot speak English and who lives a destitute life on a remote community. The current recipient of the Miles Franklin Award, Australia’s principle literary award, is a part-Aboriginal woman, Alexis Wright (for her novel ‘Carpentaria’). One of the main critics of Aboriginal welfare is a highly educated Aboriginal leader from Cape York, Noel Pearson. I mention this to give some context. Indigenous Australians have a higher public profile than indigenous Americans. They are not invisible. However, many tribal Aborigines in remote Australia live in third world conditions. Why? Because there are vast areas of Australia that have not been developed, nor is there any economic imperative to develop them. Why? Because there is nothing of economic value there. No one would move there out of choice. Aborigines live there because they have always lived there. Some of these areas are extremely remote and some are cut-off during the wet season beacuse the dirt roads are impassable. Like the continent of Australia the ‘things’ of modernity have to exported in toto to these remote areas.
I’ve digressed somewhat, but I want to convey the idea that some Aboriginal communities are extremely remote. Things have been made worse because Aborigines have lost, dropped or been forced to stop their traditional ways and are now completely dependent on imported money, food and resources. Many Aborigines are unable to continue their nomadic search for food because they have been denied access to their traditional lands, but here we come across a harsh fact – not many would want to return to their traditional life even if they could. Even if they can still hunt and gather, some communities have stopped simply because it is easier to go to the local shop and spend the government cheque. Let’s not be romantic about pre-white Aboriginal lifestyles, it was harsh and unforgiving. Life expectancy was low and starvation and death by thirst a real threat, especially in Central Australia.
Now in respect to child abuse let me be perfectly blunt. Traditional Aboriginal morality in this regard did not recognise child abuse as a problem. Children were exposed to the reality of sex from birth and men had child brides and deflowered them as soon as they were physically able to. This is a detail that is often left out of this debate. There are two reasons for this. One is conservative political/moral correctness and the other is progressive political/moral correctness. The first doesn’t mention the details of sex and the other refuses to say anything bad about other cultures. I’m going to bust that moral correctness and describe exactly what happened. It depends on the tribal tradition but I know of two approaches. In one the women of the tribe would ritually deflower the girl with a specially carved stick. In the other the husband would stretch the girl’s vagina digitally until she could accept his erection. This happened around the age of 8 – 10. I am not aware of there being a specific age taboo, rather Aboriginal taboos are based on complex relationships and some Aborigines are forbidden to even look at someone who is taboo. If a girl was promised to a man he could have sex with her when he wished. Furthermore, there was ritual buggery as part of male initiation ceremonies.
Traditional Aboriginal culture has effectively collapsed. This means that traditional law has also collapsed and there are now no prohibitions on child sex, no traditional authority to judge if an offence has been committed and no mechanism to apply traditional punishment (which could be harsh and involve death). Furthermore there is no outside enforcement of ‘white-man law’ either, particularly in very remote communities. This means that Aboriginal men have been able to get away with it, whatever ‘it’ is. The problem is exacerbated by substance abuse, namely alcohol, cannabis and petrol sniffing. Some Aboriginal communities are in a severe state of collapse and cultural depression. The combined state of lawlessness and collapse means that parents are no longer capable of caring for their children and there is a huge problem of school truancy. The government does provide schools, but parents do not enforce attendance.
So how have Aborigines contributed to the problem? The main issue here is a romanticisation of Aboriginal culture. Aboriginal people will not admit that pre-pubescent girls were married to old men and they were free to have sex with children. And that Aboriginal sexuality was not about love and caring but was based on male authority, in other words it was effectively rape. The reality is that children were abused by modern Western standards, not just sexually, but in other ways as well. Infanticide was common and one method was simply to neglect the child. Children could also be killed if they were accused of sorcery, etc.
In order to protect Aboriginal culture they engage in spin and present a modified, ’sunny’ picture of a pre-white garden of Eden. I was watching an interview with Alexis Wright (the above award winner) and she was speaking romantically of Aboriginal spirituality – and this is now another politically correct bubble I want to burst. Aboriginal spirituality is magic/mythic level mumbo-jumbo. It’s nonsense. At the moment there is a public debate in Australia about atheism (another serious article today) and yet it would seem that some atheists are only Judeo-Christian atheists who engage in the hypocricy of condemning monotheism but respecting traditional Aboriginal spiritual beliefs. Do we really believe that such and such a geographical feature was caused in the Dreamtime when three sisters were killed by an angry uncle? The Aboriginal spiritual worldview is incoherent and full of overly complex rituals and taboos.
What is needed now is for Aboriginal people to stop the spin and admit that children were always vulnerable in traditional society and that the current problem is ‘partially’ an extension of Aboriginal culture.
It is also time to admit that magic/mythic worldviews must inevitably collapse when confronted with rational/integral worldviews. This is not about white versus black, but about incompatible worldviews and the harsh fact that the Aboriginal worldview cannot explain the modern world and cannot equip Aborigines to survive in it.
I’ll take a break now, but I’ll suggest that the conservatives have failed because of financial neglect and paternalism and the progressives have failed because they have not been critical of Aboriginal culture and have bought into the romanticisation of a doomed worldview.
I’m beginning to think that cultural and moral relativism is a misnomer, it is really cultural and moral ’selectivism’, where relativism is used to justify an ideological prejudice by permitting the ’selection’ of good and bad. For example there is a modern revisionist Aboriginal ideology that ignores the cruelty of traditional Aboriginal culture.
Should also add that part of the problem is violence against women. The reality is quite horrendous and again it is a fact of traditional society that men used violence to control women and that wife beating was acceptable. This core belief is made worse through alcohol abuse and the disempowerment of men (who then enter a cycle of rage and depression and then take it out on women).
There has been silence around the extent of violence against women. It is epidemic and serious. A few years ago some brave Aboriginal women broke the code of silence. Of course they faced condmenation from activists who wanted to maintain the idea that all was good.
The main thrust of this position was to support Aboriginal self-determination by creating a myth of a competent community. Recent events have shattered that myth and some (not all) communities have been shown to have failed self-determination. Left to govern themselves ’some’ communities have allowed serious abuse to occur unchecked.
Australia has just undergone a period of self-examination over the controversy of the ’stolen generation’. Under paternalistic and racist rule Aboriginal children (mostly half-caste) were taken from their mothers and raised in orphanages or adopted out. The program was instituted under the belief that Aborigines would not look after their children. This latest report would seem to vindicate that concern. Some Aboriginal communities are not looking after their children and some are suggesting that some children be removed as a matter of urgency.
“The other problem is reverse racism, where European/Western/White culture is blamed for the sin of colonialism as if ‘imperialism’ was inherent to the white race, rather than the inevitable consequence of a specific and universal stage of socio-political development. The reason Europe became dominant is not because they were white but, as Jared Diamond has argued, because they had a geographical advantage. The same geographical argument can be applied to Australia, but in this case it is about geographical disadvantage.”
Ooops, this kind of rationalization and self-justification is really very, very interesting. Let’s make a dissection of this blogger arguments.
“inevitable consequence of a specific and universal stage of socio-political development”
yes, a suitable neologism for plain ambition, violence and pillage; sure, how comfortable to hide behind this kind of “progressive” hypothesis; does it resist to be contrasted against reality?, (paradoxically I have been labeled precisely “progressive”, …maybe an ironical joke ?)
let’s see, oh yes, now you can kill thousands of people just pushing a button, you never has to bother and get sick at the sight of blood and dire human suffering; western developed countries, morally and socially developed had developed cleaned and impersonal ways of killing masses, you can easily drop some nuclear loads from a plane and bingo !!!, it’s done, we can have some beers to rejoice
now, let’s move to another interesting remark:
“The reason Europe became dominant is not because they were white but, as Jared Diamond has argued, because they had a geographical advantage. The same geographical argument can be applied to Australia, but in this case it is about geographical disadvantage”
uuhhh, that’s impressive; sure it works for Australia, a desert country, but, it fails miserably with other portions of the so-called “third world” and it ignores how has worked for centuries the transactions of natural resources between “colonized countries from the third world” and “colonizers from the first”; consider south america, even today the first world feed itself from the natural resources of this “geographical disadvantaged hemisphere”; yes, the blogger shows an alarming ignorance of the dynamics of the economical and social policies historically applied in this areas; the same happens in other areas; simply, without the natural resources of the “third world”, the “first world” would never had the opportunity to enjoy such an impressive wealth;
it is not coincidence how the next steps in the imperial enterprise has had the middle east in sight for decades, yes, this arabs are tough guys, their primitive religions give them an uncomfortable and inconvenient sense of group and union…
now the curiosity: “reverse racism”, it is funny, maybe it is the natural reaction to our xenophobia and racism?, what is happening in europe and the developed countries with third world old colonies masses immigration?
as my grandma always said, everything is paid before you die
my answer: sure it is not because we are white, it is because we have improved our rational intellect quicker than them, we have developed more suitable and complex systems and strategies to take profit from natural resources, yes we have “impressively progress” in our technological enterprises and used them efficiently to our advantage;
that’s progress ?? in a sense it is, however it is a very limited and miserable “progress”; have we really evolved in other areas?, well, it is enough to see around us; maybe we can find what we lack in this “third world” we want to modernize, technocratize and…what word used this blogger?…oh yes:
“to recreate an Aboriginality that can engage the postmodern world”
what a description !!!, that’s what I called the power of impressive words…why not say simply destroy ??
but, maybe I am wrong, sure, we don’t have pederasts, child abuses, our rational and technological society never produces men who violates their own daughters; we never suffer the effects of violent youth gun-killing their fellows in schools; X-rated on-pornography is something we could have never even imagine, our society is incapable of producing this kind of aberration… (!!!!)
a last remark, i am not moralizing, i don’t like the moral discourse; what i find abhorrent, really disgusting is the disguises some people uses, the masks; why not call things by its actual names?, is it necessary to hide the obvious behind a disguise of “progress” and accuse the other, the different of our own very sins?
“The main thrust of this position was to support Aboriginal self-determination by creating a myth of a competent community. Recent events have shattered that myth and some (not all) communities have been shown to have failed self-determination. Left to govern themselves ’some’ communities have allowed serious abuse to occur unchecked”
a suggestion, what about a position that support Aboriginal self-determination simply because of their condition of human beings?, is it too much to ask to leave behind, at least in public, our pervasive obsession with efficiency and utility, our pragmatic action-oriented drives and our evolutionary thirst?
“It is also time to admit that magic/mythic worldviews must inevitably collapse when confronted with rational/integral worldviews. This is not about white versus black, but about incompatible worldviews and the harsh fact that the Aboriginal worldview cannot explain the modern world and cannot equip Aborigines to survive in it.”
this is really astonishing, what degree of magical and mythical thinking is required to sell this people our “meaningful civilization” as a paradise? have we really gone beyond the magical/mythical phase ? could it be that reason and magic/myth can exist side by side?
maybe we use reason to explain the outer world, however when it is about explain ourselves we are still stuck in magical/mythical thinking;
honestly i am convinced that many well trained and experienced psychologists will not be able to rule out such an hypothesis easily
H,
You seem to have an issue between ‘is’ and ‘ought’. I agree that it is tragic that imperialism exists, but it does. History is clear on this. I think you want me to condemn imperialism. Of course, and I have. I have been very critical of the US’s folly in Iraq. As for the history of imperialism – surely you know something of history?
Again, as for your suggestion about Aboriginal self-determination, you actually know nothing about the situation in Australia, or much about theories of self-determination. The key is ‘capacity building’, teaching the necessary skills. The reason there has been this problem is because in ’some’ communities the people do not have the necessary skills. In one community there were only two women (sisters) who had sufficient English to deal with the outside world and fulfill administrative requirements, but even then they weren’t particularly enthusiastic. What do you do in a communirty where half the people suffer some form of brain damage from alcohol and petrol abuse? H, you clearly have no idea.
Let me give you another example. In the Kimberley many of the children are malnourished. Why? Not because there is no food, biut because the mothers did not understand nutrition and diet. H, you take too much for granted. You were raised in such a way as to be taught about good and bad food, but these women knew nothing, so they had to be taught.
“As for the history of imperialism – surely you know something of history?”
yep, i didn’t read it in books, i have suffered it in my own flesh, did you?
what version of history do you embrace?, sure you know the is a garden variety of interpretations, which one do you choose? are you a revisionist?
maybe i know nothing about Australian Aboriginal, but i have lived nearly all my life in south america and know very well the situation of american aborigins; i suspect there are striking similitudes…
btw, do you know something of human nature? are you able to see around you and recognize what has been going on on this world for thousands of years? who is responsible?
do you believe that some ideological and political propaganda suffice to justify the on going drama of this world?
is enough to say that you condemn imperialism while at the same time reinforce and support the same machine that has killed and buried hundreds of thousands?
do you know that precisely your modernistic frenzy and hubris has violated and destroyed entire civilizations?
let’s see an example of this in your own words:
“Cultures do not have rights, they are collections of ideas that should be examined with a critical eye. Nor do cultures deserve respect as of right, they must earn respect on the basis of their effectiveness and accuracy. Many cultural memes are irrational, absurd and based on mistaken beliefs, many are lies portrayed as truths. Real progressivism is the systematic removal of irrationality and lies. If that means change then so be it. Who said that cultures must be conserved? Isn’t that the task of conservatives, to conserve tradition? When did progressives become conservatives? ”
do you realize that precisely this ideas are behind the colonizing, plundering and destruction of entire communities?
are you able to see that cultures are not only a “collection of ideas” but expressions of people like you and me? do you care a little for them?
are you aware that ideas are comes from people? why don’t just help australian aborigins “without” your ideological and political discourse?
are cultures only a collection of ideas? like books? and people? do they exist?
what about your cultural irrationality?, did you really understood what i said in my previous message?
who are you to condition people’s expression right to exist under the demand of “effectiveness and accuracy?
it is precisely your kind of “mind machinery” the activating force of the type of imperialism that has devastated the colonized part of the world;
however, behind your intellectual arguments there is a simple motivation: self-interest, this world you have constructed is good for you and you defend it, no matter the cost;
this is my last message, i know very well my reflections will have no effects on your convictions; worst yet, you don’t even seem to be aware of some of my observations and arguments;
my intention was only to counterbalance your fierce modernist proselytism and enrich the debate, provided the bloggers of this site really want a debate and critical production;
You make the mistake of thinking I am trying to justify history. I’m not, I’m trying to explain it. There’s a difference.
In reference to rationality. Look around you. You benefit from the advances of science and reason.
I’ll tell you a story. During the Muslim rule of Spain there were great advances in medicine. Muslim doctors were way ahead of their northern, Christian counterparts. One Muslim doctor tells of watching a Christian doctor diagnose a woman with consumption. He said she was possessed by demons, shaved her head and carved a cross in her scalp. She died. The Muslim doctor was appalled.
The Aztecs believed that to have good crops they needed to sacrifice humans. They would cut out their hearts while they were still beating.
Are you saying we shouldn’t criticise they things for the stupid cruelties they are?
H,
Thinking about it further it seems you are the type of person who sees the negatives of Western imperialism and then completely ignores the benefits. I happen to agree that imperialism has caused serious injustice that needs to be improved, but a balanced view accepts that this same imperialism has brought great benefits. I need mention only one, modern medicine. Modern medicine relies on the meticulous search for the truth. To save people you need to understand what works and what doesn’t. As a result people’s lives are saved.
I dare say that given the choice between a local witch doctor or a Western imperialist doctor you would choose the latter. How about your children? Would you send them to a doctor or a practitioner of voodoo? How do you fix your teeth?
The problem for Aborigines in remote areas is insufficient access to modern medicine, not too much.
Now we could list the various remedies proposed by traditional medicine but I end with one example. There was a tribe in Papua Nuigini that had the tradition of eating their dead. I make no moral judgement about this, they believed that by eating their dead their spirits would stay with them. The problem was it made them sick. Many of them were suffering from a disease they called the shakes. When modern doctors studied this tribe they found they were suffering from Cruxfeld-Jacob’s disease, a very bad degenerative disease that rots the brain. It’s related to mad cow disease. It’s caused by eating human flesh, particularly brain. The doctors told the tribe and they changed their practice of eating the dead and the disease ended.
Should we respect a cultural practice based on ignorance, particularly if it causes disease? What about people who fall ill and are blamed because someone has said they have been possessed by an evil spirit or have had a curse put on them?
i have said there was an impressive technological progress, by itself a neutral fact, everything depends on what use you make of it; sure there are healthy uses
however, i can not see a real progress in other areas; the violence and brutality is even worst, technological weapons are very sophisticated;
i will not repeat myself, i have given several arguments to prove that precisely your mentality, your kind of ideal world is responsible of every campaign and war for civilization, being today’s phase the conquest of middle east;
it is not that only your culture is guilty of these lethal deeds, the killing machinery has alternated between different civilizations and groups of people, now you are the agents and the scenery is already prepared for another blood bath of unexpected proportions;
the missing and hidden factor responsible of this long lasting tragedies lies in us, in men, can be accessed via a psychological process of observation of men actions;
central and neurally related to our mistakes is our degree of unconsciousness, the fact we ignore our internal reality and the actual reasons for we do what we do;
subjective apprehension of reality is pervasive in human societies, as such there is a general failure in recognizing and evaluating our own realities and that of our fellow human;
the process is simple, it resembles blind faith promoted by organized religions; the subject holds some strong convictions and ideals, idealized versions of reality a paradise constructed by his mind like a complete illusory reality;
if facts do not support his convictions, he provides twisted intellectual disquisitions, fallacious arguments, evident contradictions, illogical reasons trying to bend reality to satisfy their cherished ideals;
not only adherents of institutionalized religions fall prey of blind faith, in fact it is a general phenomenon in human civilization;
if it was only that we use our best technology to help our less developed fellows there would be no problems, no racism, no conquest, no colonies; regrettably that requires of us an equally developed ethics and morality we sadly do not possess;
you said:
“In order to protect Aboriginal culture they engage in spin and present a modified, ’sunny’ picture of a pre-white garden of Eden. I was watching an interview with Alexis Wright (the above award winner) and she was speaking romantically of Aboriginal spirituality – and this is now another politically correct bubble I want to burst. Aboriginal spirituality is magic/mythic level mumbo-jumbo. It’s nonsense. At the moment there is a public debate in Australia about atheism (another serious article today) and yet it would seem that some atheists are only Judeo-Christian atheists who engage in the hypocricy of condemning monotheism but respecting traditional Aboriginal spiritual beliefs. Do we really believe that such and such a geographical feature was caused in the Dreamtime when three sisters were killed by an angry uncle? The Aboriginal spiritual worldview is incoherent and full of overly complex rituals and taboos.”
ok, now i ask you, do we know better why this things happen?, do you know what is in the mind of our serial killers?, do you know which is the psychological makeup and mental structure of a psychopath?
i agree with you that Aboriginal spiritual worldview is incoherent and full of complex rituals and taboos, however what about our spiritual worldview?
is enough our sophisticated developed material science to explain human behavior, what is the best we can do with our more dangerous murders and sociopaths?, don’t they fill our prisons?, provided we don´t kill them, what is their fate? how do we explain the actions of our western uncle murderer of three western sisters?
this is a crucial issue, perhaps the most important we can handle if we want to understand why this world has always been a tragedy;
can anybody answer the simple question of the origins of human evil? how can we explain that, in spite of our best good intentions we persists doing wrong to our peers? in which way the best systems promoting an ideal world paradise ended bringing an actual hell on earth?
does our science study seriously the problem of human nature? what are its conclusions? is evil related to unconsciousness?
we have not found the answers, meanwhile we should help our less technological and intellectually developed fellow with humbleness and modesty;
I can’t find much to disagree with in this, so I wonder why you think I am making excuses for the plight of humanity. But one major correction. Comparative research has shown that we are becoming less violent, despite the technology of war. Recent decades have actually been the least violent of any time in history, not in total numbers, but in percentage of the population.
In regard to psychological explanations, we have progressed a great deal from believing that mental illness was caused by evil spirits or possession by the devil.
well, the alleged reduction of violence is a subjective conclusion; i do not agree with such a conclusion;
the worst blood baths in the history of humanity have occurred precisely in the XX century and are still happening;
of course, if you measure violence in percentage of population you will have lesser scores than previous centuries, this can be no more than a numerical illusion, consider the huge demographical explosion of the last century;
now we do not kill in the name of god, we do not kill to expel evil spirits from people, instead we kill in the name of civilization, in the name of freedom and democracy;
we kill more efficiently, cleanly and impersonally, our systems, robotic weapons and non-tripulated planes do it for us;
we are machines, as such we do not recognize responsibility in our acts, the situation is much worse than when in previous centuries;
“In regard to psychological explanations, we have progressed a great deal from believing that mental illness was caused by evil spirits or possession by the devil.”
are you sure? what do we know objectively about the source of evil and unconsciousness in human and groups? what can we do with pathological narcissism, sociopaths and psychopaths? why we are forever in the hands of governments that behave as corporative criminal gangs?
what do we have to replace the idea of evil spirits and possessions by the devil?
seeing the degree of dysfunctional and pathological behavior in families, schools, institutions, corporations, governments it is not easy to discard such an hypothesis, not in religious terms, of course, but in a scientific fashion;
do you know some serious scientific study regarding evil in humans? some treatment or therapy that cures this diseases? before trying to heal evil and wrong-doing in this world we first have to know its causes, do we know it?
our manicoms can do something to cure this people? electroshocks and lobotomies make better human beings?
we take pills to sleep, to wake up, to improve memory, to ameliorate our anxiety, to overcome depression…do we feel better?
It is not my conclusion, but the conclusion of the UN.
http://www.stwr.net/content/view/574/37/
Also see ‘The history of Violence’ by Stephen Pinker
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/pinker07/pinker07_index.html
I should also add that you dismissal of the proprtional argument is misguided. If the degree of violence that existed in past times existed today, the death toll would be far higher.
ok, those sources say that;
but other numbers keeps dancing in my mind, i will try to make an account, sure there will be some facts missing:
begin with the lethal ride of communism, maybe 20 Million deaths ? from beginning of XX century to more or less the 60’s; for accurate data read “the black book of communism”; add dozens of millions of abused, displaced, prisoners;
continue with both world wars, how many casualties? including Russians no more than 20 M again; add those who didn’t die directly but where abused in several and creative manners;
remember too Dresden’s butchery and massacre:
http://fpp.co.uk/books/Dresden/index.html
do not forget the thousands of deaths in Hiroshima and Nagasaki;
now go on, do not forget the more or less 1M Armenian deaths in the hands of Turks;
still more?, creation of Israel, hundreds of thousands of displaced, expelled, thousands of deaths; the real number of deaths?, well wait and Israelis revisionists like Morris, Finkelstein and others will tell you; continue with the now active violence in the region, do not forget six days war and alike;
do you want to go on?, well, take account of Cambodia, Corea, Vietnam, how many deaths? how many assaulted and abused people?
more? Iran-Irak wars, Hussein genocides on Kurds;
Russian and US invasion of Afghanistan;
first gulf war, Iraq invasion, killings and genocides continue at present day;
besides, the real degree of abusing and suffering is unimaginable, you will never be able to register the inner suffering of victims, the lethal and devastating effect this has on families and entire societies;
does primitive aborigin societies have an important contribution to this global violence of XX century? in their own times, was their violence more barbaric than ours?
does religions contribute the most to this violence, does magic/mythic world views stemming from pre-rational societies have a great share in this XX century savagery?
well, facts say something different; in XX century ideologies, social and political systems seems to have replaced the old faiths, are doing it any better?
aren’t they our new religions?, an irrational belief in progress, despite massive data that contradicts it is a clear sample of a monolithic belief, a new faith;
don’t we kill each day in a more impersonal, machine-like fashion; in ancient times it was not easy to kill, you had to have a body fight, the risks were high, when you had the luck to defeat your enemy his blood usually sprayed in your own skin, you could see his agony, you could feel it; can we feel something now?
are we rational?, and it it is so, why do we behave in this way? the fact is our own civilization is deeply irrational, we have not freed ourself from a mythic worldview;
this is precisely my critic on your ideas, they are religious in their own fashion;
Pinker says:
“On the scale of decades, comprehensive data again paint a shockingly happy picture:
Global violence has fallen steadily since the middle of the twentieth century. According
to the Human Security Brief 2006, the number of battle deaths in interstate wars has
declined from more than 65,000 per year in the 1950s to less than 2,000 per year in this
decade. In Western Europe and the Americas, the second half of the century saw a steep
decline in the number of wars, military coups, and deadly ethnic riots.â€Â
details?, does he speak only of western Europe and Americas ? it is not easy to do an accurate statistical analysis, do they count Iraq invasion? what are their sources?
does anybody has accurate registers of the “degree” of violence of past times? the rate of dead per capita in the middle ages? to talk about differences you have to provide detailed numbers and show your sources;
an example, the debate about the global heating phenomena, do you know that some experts say that we may be facing a cyclic phenomena? see, if you have a cyclic global heatings of a long period you will never be able to prove it, you don’t have enough historical data;
does anybody has detailed data of the “degree” of violence in ancient ages?
if in some previous era you have a 1 % of the actual population, 7 million dead will make a big proportion of the population; today 7 million maybe will make a much less proportion, has the degree of violence lessened? well tell that to the relatives of this 7 million
numbers and quantities are the hallmark of our technological civilization; can numbers really transmit with some fidelity human suffering? can they show the tragedy of human civilization?
sure you do not see violence and misery in your country, words are poor to transmit this reality; maybe you should see for yourself, do like Robert Fisk did, have a first hand experience of wars and poverty; a rich personal experience like this allows him to write a masterpiece like his opus “the great war for civilization” and can burn forever in our mind a horrific impression of the kind of beast that control us;