The Noble Savage
Avatar is essentially one big love song to a species of myth that has been long discredited, but continues to cast a long shadow: The Noble Savage. Mention the phrase and people will smile and nod, agreeing with you that the concept is silly and outdated, and then they will turn around and quote myths in your face as if they were true. Because we
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It is possible to respect a people and their heritage without pretending they were something they were not. It is possible to mourn for what was done to those people without pretending that they were all good. It is possible to believe that we owe some debt of responsibility for helping those people instead of destroying them further without pretending that their way of life was some perfect thing that, if we had just left it alone, would have continued on its peaceful way.
I'm with Marc on this. How the hell can we really respect something we don't know? Respect for history, even and especially the ugly truths, is a necessary basis for respect in the present -- if you want that respect to last. We don't need to spread lies, myths, to prove human beings are worthy of respect. We just areAlso, the idea that we should feel sorry for X category of people first and foremost is patronizing. I am a woman. I am crazy. I am bisexual. All those things lead people to treat others like me like shit. Do I want to be ( ... )
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I'll also point out that important cultural knowledge-- including, often, medical knowledge (I can't point to my source for this specifically, but I do recall reading it somewhere reliable)-- is always lost with the destruction of such cultures.
I posted a little while back about my personal moral confusion over whether different cultures/religious beliefs (they are too often inseparable) need to be protected, considering that, as a skeptic, I believe all religion to be utter bunk. I confess I tend to be somewhat more sympathetic towards animist beliefs than monotheistic traditions, but I don't know if that has to do with my tendency to root for the underdog, my own upbringing replete with Noble Savage Mythology, or the fact that, since I don't live in an animist/pantheist society, I don't have any idea what sort of dogmatic unfairness it may lead to.
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Shit, yes. I could have written that, sans the bit about the upbringing. I wrestle with the same questions sometimes. It's really frustrating. I have very mixed feelings about primitive cultures and how they do or don't coexist with more advanced cultures, and it's really difficult to explore that without shitting all over people whose heritage is from a people that were wiped out, conquered, etc. I don't know. It's a terribly complex issue laden with a great deal of sentimentalism, idealism, and refusal to deal with fact on both sides, none of which benefits anybody. Pile privilege onto one side of that equation, and it's a huge mess ( ... )
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(Watch out when I become a zombie, my dear-- I'm coming for your brain first!)
I mused a bit about the destruction of "primitive" cultures and their religions in my own Avatar post.
Er... I think I had more response, but I'm having a Slow Brain Day.
Oh! Yeah. I was going to mention, too, that our treating Native American cultures as All The Same Thing kinda makes me uncomfortable too. Really, there were a very wide variety of groups, nations, lifestyles, and even religions. While many of them shared certain salient features, I definitely don't think we should really categorize all Amerindian cultures together or make sweeping statements about them-- as the other comments here show!
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