Where do you want to be buried?

[romp]

This year, the Idle No More movement called for Earth Day rallies to focus attention on the links between Indigenous issues and the environmental movement

Comments

[underlankers]

I think the idea that simply by being native to this continent that Native Americans are better at interacting with nature than white people is a bit problematic. And I am extremely skeptical that the extirpation of Indians in Mexico and in South America was any less a non-culture than in North America. In Peru and in parts of Mexico, to be sure, Native Americans have survived more than natives do in the Anglosphere countries

[squeeful]

There are a lot of factual problems with placing cause for the megafauna extinctions squarely on the shoulders of humans and human expansion. The giant lemurs, and the rest of Madagascar's megafauna, went extinct thousands of years before humans ever reached the island.

[underlankers]

I didn't say they were solely responsible, but that they go extinct invariably after human arrival is not a co-incidence. The idea that humans have no responsibility for that is rather problematic. Large animals tend to both breed slowly and have fewer offspring than smaller ones, and it's in a sense a relatively simple, if immoral, process to kill them off. It is literally so easy cavemen could do it and did do it.

[squeeful]

I'm not saying humans and human expansion aren't destructive or problematic. I'm saying your examples are shit. The demon duck went extinct millions of years ago, long before apes walked upright, let alone before humans went hunting. The giant lemurs went extinct 9,000 years before people arrived on Madagascar. Humans may have contributed to the extinction of American lion, but as it was adapted for a glacial environment closer to Siberia of today than the temperate grasslands North America became, it's a stretch to point to people only or even as the main cause

[alexvdl]

We concoct comic-book jet-pack Star Trek visions of future civilizations, while treating Indigenous peoples like primitive specimens

Uh... I don't think this author actually watched Star Trek.

[underlankers]

Actually, depending on which Star Trek, she kind of has a point. The Next Generation society is a Marxist utopia which in finest Marxist fashion didn't hesitate to suspend its own rules to serve self-appointed laws of justice whenever it was convenient. And the whole approach to economics and politics in Star Trek is about the level of sophistication as that in the DC or Marvel Universes...

[alexvdl]

Uh... My point is that in Star Trek they do treat indigenous species like primitive specimens.

My read is the author thinks that her quote is a sign of cognitive dissonance, that the author doesn't understand that is the reality Star Trek represents.

[underlankers]

Ah. In that case I misunderstood what you meant. My apologies, we agree.

[yeats]

something about this piece really sits wrongly with me -- something about the rooted/rootless : indigenous/whitness analogy, maybe. movement is a fundamental, universal condition of modernity. but i'm not sure.

i hope some smarter people read this, though, because i'd like to hear how it strikes others.

[squeeful]

It paints permanent settlement as the most human state, completely erasing traditionally nomadic peoples from the discussion and ignoring the entirety of human history and evolution.

[yeats]

i guess i am hesitant to interrogate the piece from that perspective. i'm a white person and i don't feel comfortable making statements that have the effect of arguing that the worldview expressed by the native peoples within is incorrect

[romp]

I think nomadic people are rooted, just in a large area. They know the plants and animals and seasonal changes of the landscape and are moving in response to all that. Their culture has stories and songs about all those things...and they have everything invested in their environment for that reason. So I think they fit what he's saying about indigenous people.

[angelus7988]

I'd really love it if the author elaborated on how Western culture doesn't count as culture.

[romp]

He mentions it but also quotes James Hillman, Tommy Akulukjuk, and Gary Snyder. What'd you think of what they said?

If you're so inclined. I haven't read on the subject but am interested.

[underlankers]

I'd especially love it if the author explained how the South American and Caribbean countries that killed off most of their natives and replaced them with pseudo-European cultures are both not Western and cultures where the North American and Australian anglosphere states that killed off most of their natives and replaced them with pseudo-European cultures are. Somehow I don't really see much difference between Chile and the United States or Australia in this regard, so if one isn't a culture, the other one must also not be.

[mahsox_mahsox]

I was more amused at how this interpretation of immigration could just as well be applied to recent immigrants than the white colonists, and how close it comes to the standard cry of the xenophobe "Fuck off we're full!"

[42months]

I think it's a huuuuge leap to say that people who are native to a certain place look after the land better than settlers / people who don't plan on being their permanently. Maybe it seems like it makes sense logically, and maybe it sounds like a nice idea, but I think reality is a whole different story. Saying what is said here is being willfully ignorant of plenty of countries outside of Europe or the Americas...

Interesting read all the same, though.