Primitive tribes in a socialist world

[Questionable]

I was watching an anthropological documentary showing tribes living in the jungles of New Guinea that were still completely primitive, living in tree huts and having the bow-and-arrow as their most advanced technology with barely any contact with the outside world while warring with each other over hunting grounds.

I was wondering how these types of societies would be treated in a post-revolution world. Would we ignore them and let them develop on their own? Collectivize them and begin introducing new technology? Re-integrate them into a new society? We don't want a repeat of the Trail of Tears so I imagine most people would be against the last two options, but how do we deal with these societies without overstepping our ethical boundaries? Or should we even be concerned with ethics? Should we take whatever steps necessary to introduce them to the new socialist world?

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

I don't really see the need to mess with their way of life.

[cynicles]

Yeah, I think there wouldn't be any point in messing with them since most of the confrontations between us and them are centred around the excessive damage caused to the environment through capitalism. Once that factor is removed it would be reasonable to assume that there would be minimal interaction unless some members of their community wanted to assimilate, unless I'm missing some factor.

[Sea]

I'd rather not watch a mini-drama play out should they move on to agriculture and fight over the surplus. Give the option to for them to join the rest of society; don't make it mandatory.

Another trail of tears is an irrelevant worry in a socialist world and I shouldn't even have to explain why.

[RedHal]

Schools and Facilities should be set up in the surrounding areas for members of the tribes who wish to join a socialist society, this should not of course be forced.

As much as leftists criticise the backwardness of peasants, they shy away from criticizing the backwardness of primitive tribes.

[maskerade]

please don't call them primitive. just because they have different values and different social and economic systems does not make them less than us, as the qualifier 'primitive' implies. it's horribly ethnocentric to use that term.

everyone should have a right to their own cultural determination. the areas they live in and the land that they use should be left to them. any socialist society should offer free health care and the promise that such a socialist society would not commit ethnocide and destroy their way of life. it should be their choice whether or not they give up their customs.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

I say let them stand for as long as they can provided they're not doing any fucked up shit like FGM or something.

[Prometeo liberado]

These people are very smug, what with all their arrows and such. I think they are just showing off by with those "Green" houses while the rest of us obviously don't get.
Why would we destroy what we could learn from? But they are smug.

[Questionable]

please don't call them primitive. just because they have different values and different social and economic systems does not make them less than us, as the qualifier 'primitive' implies. it's horribly ethnocentric to use that term.

Is there a more scientific term I can use? I said nothing about their social values as you'll notice in my post, but it is an objective face that they are technologically inferior to other societies, whether that is good or bad I cannot say. I've seen the word "primitive" used before without it meaning any kind of insult, but if you have an alternative that is used by credible researchers in the field I will use it.



Another trail of tears is an irrelevant worry in a socialist world and I shouldn't even have to explain why

Well, obviously it wouldn't be the same fundamental thing because it's not being done for capitalist motives, but I was more referring to if this socialist society decided to integrate these tribes "for their own good" or something. I'm not saying what I want to do because I'm not sure yet, these are all merely just questions.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Is there a more scientific term I can use? I said nothing about their social values as you'll notice in my post, but it is an objective face that they are technologically inferior to other societies, whether that is good or bad I cannot say. I've seen the word "primitive" used before without it meaning any kind of insult, but if you have an alternative that is used by credible researchers in the field I will use it.I think "band societies" is generally used to describe small groups who produce through hunting and gathering with or without the aid of some level of subsistance farming. These terms are just problematic because of the relationship of capitalist society towards them - so words that may have begun as innocuous might take on an elitist or "white man's burdon" connotation. Hell the scientific terms for these societies in Marx's day (and the ones that he and Engels used) were things like "barbarism". Marx and Engels tended to also use "primitive" as in "primitive communism".

But because of the connotations today, it's best to try and use the most neutral term when possible.


Well, obviously it wouldn't be the same fundamental thing because it's not being done for capitalist motives, but I was more referring to if this socialist society decided to integrate these tribes "for their own good" or something. I'm not saying what I want to do because I'm not sure yet, these are all merely just questions.My view is that workers would not have any motivation to "force" people like this or small communes or groups like the Amish or whatnot to join the majority of society. People may even want to form communes and do subsitance farming outside of the main production of society and as long as they wern't going off to form some secret militia instead of just adopting another kind of lifestyle, then I don't see how this is a threat to a worker's society. As far as forcing people for their own good: well I don't see how this applies either because force (I mean other than against the oppressors) and self-liberation don't really go well together.

For the most part though, there are very few groups like this left and many contemporary family-band groups today are actually somewhat connected to market relations through trade or seasonal migrant wage jobs even if most of the time they use subsitance farming or hunting. The groups that are totally independant or isolated can be free to relate to the larger socialist society as they wish and on their own terms, and if they decide they want to continue as they are, then it really doesn't impact workers much at all.

[ind_com]

Is there a more scientific term I can use? I said nothing about their social values as you'll notice in my post, but it is an objective face that they are technologically inferior to other societies, whether that is good or bad I cannot say. I've seen the word "primitive" used before without it meaning any kind of insult, but if you have an alternative that is used by credible researchers in the field I will use it.



Well, obviously it wouldn't be the same fundamental thing because it's not being done for capitalist motives, but I was more referring to if this socialist society decided to integrate these tribes "for their own good" or something. I'm not saying what I want to do because I'm not sure yet, these are all merely just questions.

When the class war starts, communists will find some of their first bases in those tribes. They will be among the first groups to embrace the revolution. So we need not worry about them. They will bring socialism to us, and not the other way around.

[Igor]

It shouldn't be the job of socialist to run around liberating people and bringing nice things to the oppressed masses of the world, because that leads into bad shit. That kind of thinking can lead into a very dangerous mentality; what we are doing could be considered to be imperialist or otherwise condemnable, but because we're commies, you know, the good guys, it's ultimately the right thing. This is used all the time to justify Soviet atrocities, for example.

So yeah, any kind of revolution has to come inside the society. We can show solidarity and support these groups but when the situation is literally having a foreign army bringing about the revolution, it's bad. These societies haven't really changed for thousands of years and that's probably how it will remain but we will just have to live with that because to do otherwise would just make us the Hernan Cortezes of socialism. Acts of imperialism have always been justified with liberation of people who are for some reason lesser, to think it would be any different when we say "yeah but this time it's really for a good cause dude" is astonishingly ignorant of pretty much any history ever.

[maskerade]

Is there a more scientific term I can use? I said nothing about their social values as you'll notice in my post, but it is an objective face that they are technologically inferior to other societies, whether that is good or bad I cannot say. I've seen the word "primitive" used before without it meaning any kind of insult, but if you have an alternative that is used by credible researchers in the field I will use it.



Well, obviously it wouldn't be the same fundamental thing because it's not being done for capitalist motives, but I was more referring to if this socialist society decided to integrate these tribes "for their own good" or something. I'm not saying what I want to do because I'm not sure yet, these are all merely just questions.

In terms of cultural and social complexity, I could make the argument that we are the ones that are primitive compared to them. How would you like being called primitive? it's not a nice word. Most of these bands - you can call them band societies/hunter-gatherer societies/semi-nomadic hill tribes (in reference to many in Papau New Guinea) you get the drift, qualify them by what they are not by what we perceive them to be with our eurocentric lenses on - have had contact with Western technology and reject it completely. I wonder why...

I make this point and emphasize it because language is extremely political. To call them 'primitive' is to in many ways separate them from what we consider to be modern and thus our modern society, putting them out of place. But they are a part of our modern society - just because they reject scientific worship and technological deities doesn't make them not part of it - so making that distinction only serves to 'other' them and simplify their culture. They are not primitive. not in any sense. there is nothing objective about technology being some sort of indicator for cultural and societal sophistication, and the use of technology is a cultural and social act.

We don't decide what is for someone else's good. The day a socialist government forcefully assimilates unwilling people into a culture/society they don't want to be forced into - regardless of how much better we know it will be for them - is the day that socialist government should be abandoned. I don't see anything socialist about it. These people don't want to be integrated into capitalist economies now, that is their choice, it should be their choice whether they join a socialist one.

[Questionable]

In terms of cultural and social complexity, I could make the argument that we are the ones that are primitive compared to them. How would you like being called primitive? it's not a nice word. Most of these bands - you can call them band societies/hunter-gatherer societies/semi-nomadic hill tribes (in reference to many in Papau New Guinea) you get the drift, qualify them by what they are not by what we perceive them to be with our eurocentric lenses on - have had contact with Western technology and reject it completely. I wonder why...

If you called me primitive I would think you were crazy because we live in a rather advanced technological society where I'm speaking to you from thousands of miles away using a computer and the internet. I'm not saying that these hunter-gatherer tribes are bad people for the lives they live, you'll find nothing in my posts blatantly suggesting that. But technologically speaking, they are primitive, and I don't see the point in getting so uptight about me saying that when it's true. It doesn't mean they're savages or horrendous people like some pulp fiction comic, but it's true that we're more technologically advanced than them. More morally advanced? That I cannot say, but I never attempted to make that argument.


I make this point and emphasize it because language is extremely political. To call them 'primitive' is to in many ways separate them from what we consider to be modern and thus our modern society, putting them out of place. But they are a part of our modern society - just because they reject scientific worship and technological deities doesn't make them not part of it - so making that distinction only serves to 'other' them and simplify their culture. They are not primitive. not in any sense. there is nothing objective about technology being some sort of indicator for cultural and societal sophistication, and the use of technology is a cultural and social act.I would disagree that technology is JUST a cultural and social act. Well, actually, I take that back; obviously it is a social act, but is it not an indication of greater social cooperation and advancement on a larger scale? and I would also disagree that some of these tribes are part of our modern society. Some of them have more links than others, but there exist tribes that have never once had contact with any group of people other than themselves, no economic or cultural ties to speak of. And yes, they are primitive in the sense that they are economically and technologically far behind other societies. Once again, I am not making a moral judgement here, I'm simply observing a basic fact, and I don't see the point in getting worked up about this just because the word "primitive" makes some people feel bad. But, as you and other users have pointed out, the word is indeed mired in a history of ethnocentric white supremacism, and I believe the more correct scientific term is "band societies" as Jimmie Higgins said, so I will refer to them as that from now on, but my point still stands about the economic and technological development.


We don't decide what is for someone else's good. The day a socialist government forcefully assimilates unwilling people into a culture/society they don't want to be forced into - regardless of how much better we know it will be for them - is the day that socialist government should be abandoned. I don't see anything socialist about it. These people don't want to be integrated into capitalist economies now, that is their choice, it should be their choice whether they join a socialist one.I have still yet to decide my stance on this issue, but I have to ask about the underlying mentality in this position. Why shouldn't we attempt to integrate these tribes? Is it because it is immoral? What morality are we referring to here? Obviously it would be bad for them to be integrated into the system of shameless exploitation that is capitalism, but what is wrong with bringing people under the wings of a socialist system with the improvement of mankind in mind? What is the basis for this isolationist mentality? It seems to be grounded in subjective morality, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding you.

And I just want to clarify again, I'm not arguing here. I haven't decided my stance on the issue and I'm actually leaning closer to something like what Jimmie Higgins was saying. I just want to explore all possibilities before choosing a stance.

[piet11111]

Warring over hunting grounds ?

Maybe thats something that needs to be stopped or do we respect their cultural affinity for war ?

[Igor]

I have still yet to decide my stance on this issue, but I have to ask about the underlying mentality in this position. Why shouldn't we attempt to integrate these tribes? Is it because it is immoral? What morality are we referring to here? Obviously it would be bad for them to be integrated into the system of shameless exploitation that is capitalism, but what is wrong with bringing people under the wings of a socialist system with the improvement of mankind in mind? What is the basis for this isolationist mentality? It seems to be grounded in subjective morality, but perhaps I'm misunderstanding you.

I don't really give a fuck about "improvement of mankind", and that's exactly the kind of rhetoric that's used to justify all kinds of really questionable things. If the decision to overthrow their current system doesn't come from inside the society, it's basically imperialism, and even if we probably think we're just helping them out, that's basically how colonialism was justified for centuries. There is no white man's burden. If these people, or any people, don't show any initiative to change things, just marching in and saying that we're going to show you guys how things are done now, what has that to do with liberation of these peoples? We'd just be the new colonial masters of those people, yippe-kay-yay. The idea that the fact that we're socialists makes it okay for us to do things we otherwise condemn because we're not the bad guys here is absolutely absurd.

[maskerade]

If you called me primitive I would think you were crazy because we live in a rather advanced technological society where I'm speaking to you from thousands of miles away using a computer and the internet. I'm not saying that these hunter-gatherer tribes are bad people for the lives they live, you'll find nothing in my posts blatantly suggesting that. But technologically speaking, they are primitive, and I don't see the point in getting so uptight about me saying that when it's true. It doesn't mean they're savages or horrendous people like some pulp fiction comic, but it's true that we're more technologically advanced than them. More morally advanced? That I cannot say, but I never attempted to make that argument.

Look, using the word primitive has more connotations than just technological. it doesn't matter how you try to justify it to yourself because the word comes with ideological baggage. Why do you have to use the word primitive? They are not as technologically advanced. Boom. Problem solved? Yes. What I am saying is that language surrounding stateless societies have always tended to simplify them and construct them into an other, and this is exactly what using the word 'primitive' does. It fits in to a racist Western discourse that I would say places unjustifiable attention to technology as some sort of indicator of anything. It's not. There is no one true historical path that all people will follow; when you call them primitive you place them on a chronological scale and by implication make them less than us because they haven't come as far. They live the way they do by choice.

I would disagree that technology is JUST a cultural and social act. Well, actually, I take that back; obviously it is a social act, but is it not an indication of greater social cooperation and advancement on a larger scale? and I would also disagree that some of these tribes are part of our modern society. Some of them have more links than others, but there exist tribes that have never once had contact with any group of people other than themselves, no economic or cultural ties to speak of. And yes, they are primitive in the sense that they are economically and technologically far behind other societies. Once again, I am not making a moral judgement here, I'm simply observing a basic fact, and I don't see the point in getting worked up about this just because the word "primitive" makes some people feel bad. But, as you and other users have pointed out, the word is indeed mired in a history of ethnocentric white supremacism, and I believe the more correct scientific term is "band societies" as Jimmie Higgins said, so I will refer to them as that from now on, but my point still stands about the economic and technological development.

Technology is all about the way we use it. We give it agency but it doesn't give any to us. I'd say that the way technology is being used and consumed today, in the West, furthers alienation and societal isolation.

they are not primitive in any way. the word has no currency in describing anything about these societies because it only has meaning in a discursive context that favors a subordination of such societies.

Read this please: http://www.eco-action.org/dt/affluent.html

You cannot be outside of modern society. This magical place only exists in our imagination. These uncontacted tribes have contact among themselves and with other groups that have similar language structures. They know what the outside world is and purposefully reject it. Living 'beyond' modern society is still being a part of it as your way of life is a direct response to modernity.

As for why we should leave them alone: the only people we should be concerned with using force in any capacity are the owners of capital. Societies such as the ones in Papua New Guinea don't oppress anyone and, largely speaking, want to be left alone. We should respect that, and there is no need to make a moralistic argument about it.

[piet11111]

Or we could just say "hey guys you dont have to fight over food anymore we can supply you with all the food you need every other week if you want us to"

Just because they are living a traditional lifestyle doesn't mean that everything they do should be allowed to happen.

We would not let fundamentalist christians stone adulterers just because its in the bible and part of their fundamentalist religious culture.

So why even make such a distinction between the two ?
(assuming that the tribe would do such things but the OP mentions war over hunting grounds and that is something we should not let happen just because its their traditional way)

[maskerade]

Or we could just say "hey guys you dont have to fight over food anymore we can supply you with all the food you need every other week if you want us to"

Just because they are living a traditional lifestyle doesn't mean that everything they do should be allowed to happen.

We would not let fundamentalist christians stone adulterers just because its in the bible and part of their fundamentalist religious culture.

So why even make such a distinction between the two ?
(assuming that the tribe would do such things but the OP mentions war over hunting grounds and that is something we should not let happen just because its their traditional way)

Because fundamentalist christians are a part of our society and we should have the right to have a say in how our society is governed. There is a difference here, in that we are not part of these hunter-gatherer societies or 'band societies'. It is not our place to tell them anything. If there is something that we find reprehensible we should aid those native to such societies in their efforts to stop such practices - if such resistance occurs - but never impose our own moral and ethical values on to them. An example of this is FGM. There is huge resistance amongst women that are subjected to this, and we should do everything we can to help them help themselves change the situation according to their own demands, rather than come in and tell them that their culture is backwards and have aspects made illegal.

[l'Enfermé]

Ermm, so the bunch of you would feel perfectly fine enjoying the blessing of living in a socialist society, with all the comforts and advantages of modern civilization, while primitive tribes live without proper housing, nutrition, and literacy and education?

You don't see the "need to mess with their way of live"? You don't see the need to improve their terribly low quality of life? Why is their "way of life" so special? You do see the need to "mess" with the "way of life" of billions that live in capitalist societies, who are infinitely better off than primitive tribes.

Hey, one form or another of female genital mutilation is inflicted upon up to 90 percent of women in Eritrea. But we don't want to change that, you see, cause it's their "way of life", and opposing their way of life is RACIST!!!!! Hey, the rule of capital is the "way of life"

And enough with this political-correctness, we're not liberals, this is not chomsky.org. If a society doesn't even have electricity, then yes, compared to modern societies, it's primitive. Do you need a dictionary?

[Questionable]

Look, using the word primitive has more connotations than just technological. it doesn't matter how you try to justify it to yourself because the word comes with ideological baggage. Why do you have to use the word primitive? They are not as technologically advanced. Boom. Problem solved? Yes. What I am saying is that language surrounding stateless societies have always tended to simplify them and construct them into an other, and this is exactly what using the word 'primitive' does. It fits in to a racist Western discourse that I would say places unjustifiable attention to technology as some sort of indicator of anything. It's not. There is no one true historical path that all people will follow; when you call them primitive you place them on a chronological scale and by implication make them less than us because they haven't come as far. They live the way they do by choice.

Without coming off as rude, I do have to say I find it quite misguided and Idealistic that you're implying we should ignore technological differences between and say that "they live that way by choice" because that position is contrary to Historical and Dialectical Materialism. Societies don't have one big democratic meeting where they decide the right way to live and do it, they develop based on economic movements that are often times quite beyond their control. Furthermore, you say that there is no "true historical path" to follow, and while there is some truth in that statement, we can look at societies that are placed all across the world and see very similar development in their economic forms. I'm not saying there is a "right" way for a society develop, but I think it can be argued that there is a predictable way in which societies develop along similar lines. I don't think it would be a far-off assumption to say that should these band societies develop more economically that they will begin to show characteristics of later economic societies such as the accumulation of surplus-labor.


Technology is all about the way we use it. We give it agency but it doesn't give any to us. I'd say that the way technology is being used and consumed today, in the West, furthers alienation and societal isolation.

I'm confused by the first half of this statement. Technology doesn't give anything to us? How can you say that? Look, on philosophical grounds you can argue that technology may be harmful to the "human spirit" or something like that, but from an objective standpoint human advancements in technology have improved our lives. But technology as used under capitalism is stunted by capital and does indeed begin to turn on its handlers.


they are not primitive in any way. the word has no currency in describing anything about these societies because it only has meaning in a discursive context that favors a subordination of such societies.

I'm not saying anything about one society being culturally or morally or whatever superior to another, but to say that it is ethnocentric to point out the plain fact that some societies are more developed than others, well, it does not seem ethnocentric to me.


You cannot be outside of modern society. This magical place only exists in our imagination. These uncontacted tribes have contact among themselves and with other groups that have similar language structures. They know what the outside world is and purposefully reject it. Living 'beyond' modern society is still being a part of it as your way of life is a direct response to modernity.

I'm once again confused by what you're saying here. You say that we cannot be outside of modern society, but then you say that living beyond modern society is still being a part of it? It's like you're twisting the definition to include things that aren't a part of society as a part of society, unless I'm not understanding you correctly. That being said, there are greater economic tendencies at work in the fact that these tribes do not have any tangible ties to the capitalist world, it seems Idealist to imply that we showed a tribesman an iPod and he said "Nahh, I think I'll pass."


As for why we should leave them alone: the only people we should be concerned with using force in any capacity are the owners of capital. Societies such as the ones in Papua New Guinea don't oppress anyone and, largely speaking, want to be left alone. We should respect that, and there is no need to make a moralistic argument about it.

No, I think if you're going to take this position you should definitely have some kind of argument beyond a priori statements.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Ermm, so the bunch of you would feel perfectly fine enjoying the blessing of living in a socialist society, with all the comforts and advantages of modern civilization, while primitive tribes live without proper housing, nutrition, and literacy and education?

You don't see the "need to mess with their way of live"? You don't see the need to improve their terribly low quality of life? Why is their "way of life" so special? You do see the need to "mess" with the "way of life" of billions that live in capitalist societies, who are infinitely better off than primitive tribes.

Hey, one form or another of female genital mutilation is inflicted upon up to 90 percent of women in Eritrea. But we don't want to change that, you see, cause it's their "way of life", and opposing their way of life is RACIST!!!!! Hey, the rule of capital is the "way of life"

And enough with this political-correctness, we're not liberals, this is not chomsky.org. If a society doesn't even have electricity, then yes, compared to modern societies, it's primitive. Do you need a dictionary?

Primitive isn't a very good description. It doesn't tell us anything about how these societies live or produce. It does, however play into a lot of reactionary assumptions. For example, right-wingers in the US dismiss the genocide of Native Americans on the grounds that it was a conflict where both sides are equivelent in blame for conflict, but it just happens to be that the Europeans were more technologically advanced. This masks the fact that the settlers were using violence to supress and remove a population in order to take that land, whereas the native americans sometimes welcomed the europeans initially and the vast majority of violence on their part was a direct responce to the threat posed by the settlers.

Anyway if, after a revolution,. people in small band groups WANT electricity, want to be part of the larger societey, then I doubt workers would have any issue with that. But we can not force people marginal or outside of capitalist relations to assimilate into the larger society by force with decent outcomes - basically what we'd be talking about is a socialist version of how Canada "modernized" native americans.

And this is not about "racism" as isolated communities in Europe or North America should be treated the same way. Worker's will have better things to do than to force Amish people to use buttons.

The question of oppression within these groups - or within other sorts of social groupings within society - is a serious concern but the best course for workers IMO would only respond in the sense of allying with those who are oppressed within that group. If there was a small commune of fundamentalist christians somewhere who were abusing the women in that community and would not allow women to leave, then that would be an appropriate time for workers to organize some aid and support - with force if necissary. But if these mormons were allowing freedom to leave the group and people were choosing to live in a way that might seem "backwards" then workers can't really put a gun to people's head and say, "stop beliving this" if there is no direct threat - and with most of these groups being small and already marginal to larger society, there really wouldn't be a threat. Put a gun to people's head over lifestyle or spiritual views and you've just turned a group of 30 snake-handlers into 30 sabatures or into the ranks of any existing counter-revolutionary forces.

[maskerade]

Ermm, so the bunch of you would feel perfectly fine enjoying the blessing of living in a socialist society, with all the comforts and advantages of modern civilization, while primitive tribes live without proper housing, nutrition, and literacy and education?

You don't see the "need to mess with their way of live"? You don't see the need to improve their terribly low quality of life? Why is their "way of life" so special? You do see the need to "mess" with the "way of life" of billions that live in capitalist societies, who are infinitely better off than primitive tribes.

Hey, one form or another of female genital mutilation is inflicted upon up to 90 percent of women in Eritrea. But we don't want to change that, you see, cause it's their "way of life", and opposing their way of life is RACIST!!!!! Hey, the rule of capital is the "way of life"

And enough with this political-correctness, we're not liberals, this is not chomsky.org. If a society doesn't even have electricity, then yes, compared to modern societies, it's primitive. Do you need a dictionary?

what a horribly unintelligent post. you presume to know what these societies want, but you have no fucking idea. why is that the vast majority of ethnographic literature displays how societies confronted with the leviathan of modernity often long to go back to the way it was before? any development should be on THEIR DEMANDS not anyone else's. Provide them the means to identify and solve the problems most pressing to them, and that is it.

this has nothing to do with political correctness. if you use a racist discourse i'm going to call you out on it. no excuses

[Questionable]

Primitive isn't a very good description. It doesn't tell us anything about how these societies live or produce.

If people in small band groups WANT electricity, want to be part of the larger societey, then I doubt workers would have any issue with that.

But we can not force people marginal or outside of capitalist relations to assimilate into the larger society by force with decent outcomes - basically what we'd be talking about is a socialist version of how Canada "modernized" native americans.

And this is not about "racism" as isolated communities in Europe or North America should be treated the same way.

The question of oppression within these groups - or within other sorts of social groupings within society - is a serious concern but the best course for workers IMO would only respond in the sense of allying with those who are oppressed within that group. If there was a small commune of fundamentalist christians somewhere who were abusing the women in that community and would not allow women to leave, then that would be an appropriate time for workers to organize some aid and support - with force if necissary. But if these mormons were allowing freedom to leave the group and people were choosing to live in a way that might seem "backwards" then workers can't really put a gun to people's head and say, "stop beliving this" if there is no direct threat - and with most of these groups being small and already marginal to larger society, there really wouldn't be a threat. Put a gun to people's head over lifestyle or spiritual views and you've just turned a group of 30 snake-handlers into 30 sabatures or into the ranks of any existing counter-revolutionary forces.

I think a balance can be struck between leaving tribes completely alone and forcing them to "modernize" in the style of American colonialists. Can we not provide these societies with greater medicine, education, and comfort while still allowing them to hold on to their cultures?

I think a lot of users here fear the "humanitarian aid" of capitalist governments, but for them profit will always be the endgame so we can't except very much from them, but can a socialist society provide REAL humanitarian aid without fear of disrupting self-determination?

In addition, it is true what you say about these tribes being fine now as most of them have not developed to the point that surplus-labor is being is being produced, but once that point is reached, what then? What happens when we begin seeing the caste of priests arise who gather surplus-labor under themselves? Do we allow exploitation to happen on the grounds that it is none of our business?

[Questionable]

what a horribly unintelligent post. you presume to know what these societies want, but you have no fucking idea. why is that the vast majority of ethnographic literature displays how societies confronted with the leviathan of modernity often long to go back to the way it was before? any development should be on THEIR DEMANDS not anyone else's. Provide them the means to identify and solve the problems most pressing to them, and that is it.

this has nothing to do with political correctness. if you use a racist discourse i'm going to call you out on it. no excuses

These tribes most likely oppose the capitalist organization of social relations that leads to the exploitation of the majority of people in the search for profit and expansion of capital, a social system where technological development is ultimately harmful to society because its socialized character contradicts the individual mode of appropriation.

What I'm saying is, these tribes probably hate the way technology is used, not any intrinsic thing about technology.

[campesino]

first i would setup commissions, to study their languages, cultures and medicine. I would then integrate them into society, unless they are like the khoi-san who are very primitive and aren't living in a hierarchal or war society.

khoi-san
aborigine and other groups that are very primitive(hunter-gatherer) and just live off the land are good.

zulu
bedouin
other violent hierarchical tribes will be disarmed and their production integrated into the larger society

a point needs to be made that we don't need to be afraid to criticize indigenous groups because of white guilt.

I'm mexican
And I think it is so pathetic to see white liberals, apologize for the actions of their ancestors and dialectally then embrace the indigenous people's culture, without taking an objective look at indigenous culture.

just because there is a way of living that is ancient, does not mean it is worth preserving.

[maskerade]

Without coming off as rude, I do have to say I find it quite misguided and Idealistic that you're implying we should ignore technological differences between and say that "they live that way by choice" because that position is contrary to Historical and Dialectical Materialism. Societies don't have one big democratic meeting where they decide the right way to live and do it, they develop based on economic movements that are often times quite beyond their control. Furthermore, you say that there is no "true historical path" to follow, and while there is some truth in that statement, we can look at societies that are placed all across the world and see very similar development in their economic forms. I'm not saying there is a "right" way for a society develop, but I think it can be argued that there is a predictable way in which societies develop along similar lines. I don't think it would be a far-off assumption to say that should these band societies develop more economically that they will begin to show characteristics of later economic societies such as the accumulation of surplus-labor.


i suppose that's because i think historical and dialectical materialism is a bunch of horseshit. To think that we can make comparisons about large-scale historical development and then predict future development is a western phenomena. Western thought gives itself the power to make these sweeping declarations yet often, in my experience, is quite misguided. What does economic similarity matter when most hunter-gatherers do not make a conceptual distinction between culture/religion/society/economics? we're making that distinction, not them. Thus, from our perspective, these societies would have something in common but if we placed a hunter-gatherer from the amazon in the same room as one from the Kalahari, and magically gave them the ability to speak the same language, we'd find quite quickly that there is nothing in common between them save for some very superficial commonalities.



I'm confused by the first half of this statement. Technology doesn't give anything to us? How can you say that? Look, on philosophical grounds you can argue that technology may be harmful to the "human spirit" or something like that, but from an objective standpoint human advancements in technology have improved our lives. But technology as used under capitalism is stunted by capital and does indeed begin to turn on its handlers.

I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding me. I said that technology does not give us agency; we are the ones that use technology, so to make any judgment on technology doesn't make any sense. It is not good or bad, it all depends on how we choose to use it. I never made any type of argument regarding human spirits and such nonsense. I do, however, reject science and technology worship, because this is to separate these processes away from the social acts that they are and ascribe fetishistic characteristics to it. An example would be 'technology will solve all our problems'. No, it won't. Humans will solve our problems, possibly through the use of human-made technology.



I'm not saying anything about one society being culturally or morally or whatever superior to another, but to say that it is ethnocentric to point out the plain fact that some societies are more developed than others, well, it does not seem ethnocentric to me.

There is nothing ethnocentric to say that in specific regards some societies are more developed than others as long as you specify what regards you are referring to and in what sense you are using the word developed. To say that they are technologically and economically primitive is ethnocentric because, like Jimmie Higgins said, it tells us absolutely nothing about such societies other than the fact that racialized western discourse likes to simplify 'the other'.


I'm once again confused by what you're saying here. You say that we cannot be outside of modern society, but then you say that living beyond modern society is still being a part of it? It's like you're twisting the definition to include things that aren't a part of society as a part of society, unless I'm not understanding you correctly. That being said, there are greater economic tendencies at work in the fact that these tribes do not have any tangible ties to the capitalist world, it seems Idealist to imply that we showed a tribesman an iPod and he said "Nahh, I think I'll pass."

I used beyond in quotation marks. If a society chooses to live outside of the tangible and visible aspects of modernity then yes, they are still a part of it, because their choice was to limit their involvement. My point is an abstract one - our period of high modernity leaves nothing unscathed and if you were to do some research into these societies in Papua New Guinea you'd find that many of them have developed various techniques to avoid the interference of westerners and their technology. I don't understand what you think you're proving by using the word 'idealist' continuously. It doesn't bother me, I'm not a materialist nor an orthodox marxist, but that's a discussion for another time.



No, I think if you're going to take this position you should definitely have some kind of argument beyond a priori statements.

Any type of development should be directly contributing to the well-being of those being developed. To presume to know what is better for someone else is chauvinistic and in my opinion carries with it a resemblance to colonial discourse with all its racial connotations. We don't know what they want, we shouldn't presume to know, and we shouldn't force them into any type of situation unless they want to -regardless of how good we all think electricity is.

[Igor]

first i would setup commissions, to study their languages, cultures and medicine. I would then integrate them into society, unless they are like the khoi-san who are very primitive and aren't living in a hierarchal or war society.

You would integrate them into the society? Not let them integrate or allow them the possibility to get involved in the outside world, you'd just integrate them?

yes this proves you give lots of fucks indeed about what these people actually want :rolleyes:



a point needs to be made that we don't need to be afraid to criticize indigenous groups because of white guilt.

I'm mexican
And I think it is so pathetic to see white liberals, apologize for the actions of their ancestors and dialectally then embrace the indigenous people's culture, without taking an objective look at indigenous culture.

just because there is a way of living that is ancient, does not mean it is worth preserving.

point also needs to be made that even if we criticize something we don't need to be running in there "integrating" them because that's our burden as the civilized peoples

literally nobody is saying that everything indigenous people do is nice and ok because it's traditional, but more that if we try and change it for them, it's basically just traditional colonial powers forcing their views upon indigenous people all over again. insisting that we integrate any isolated tribes like that is just perfect continuation for the tradition of colonialism, which has been justified with different good intentions as long as colonialism has been a thing. you'd probably be very different from this yes

[maskerade]

first i would setup commissions, to study their languages, cultures and medicine. I would then integrate them into society, unless they are like the khoi-san who are very primitive and aren't living in a hierarchal or war society.

khoi-san
aborigine and other groups that are very primitive(hunter-gatherer) and just live off the land are good.

zulu
bedouin
other violent hierarchical tribes will be disarmed and their production integrated into the larger society

a point needs to be made that we don't need to be afraid to criticize indigenous groups because of white guilt.

I'm mexican
And I think it is so pathetic to see white liberals, apologize for the actions of their ancestors and dialectally then embrace the indigenous people's culture, without taking an objective look at indigenous culture.

just because there is a way of living that is ancient, does not mean it is worth preserving.

yea have you ever lost your way of life and had your cultural systems of thought physically and metaphorically destroyed? I come from an indigenous people and this post is a bunch of imperialist bullshit - the only reason, I'm assuming, that you have the comfort to spew this nonsense is that your cultural identity doesn't face an existential crisis. But why don't you let me ask my impoverished relatives who live detached from both the alien society at large as well as from each other because of their glorious assimilation into modernity? They were called primitive too. There is no way to objectively look at culture; the way we view the world is shaped by our culture.

[Questionable]

i suppose that's because i think historical and dialectical materialism is a bunch of horseshit.

Pardon me comrade, but I think if you want people to take you seriously you need to stop having these childish outbursts. I have not been rude to you at all, I've asked basic questions that I expect you to answer. If I see a weakness in your thinking I believe I have a right to question it, just as you do. I've even tried hard to be polite about it when questioning you. If you didn't want people to question you, you shouldn't be posting on the internet.


To think that we can make comparisons about large-scale historical development and then predict future development is a western phenomena.These methods of prediction have been utilized with successful results. It's not like the Western world just decided to make them up so they could feel better about being white or whatever it is you're implying here. They're based on the scientific method.


Western thought gives itself the power to make these sweeping declarations yet often, in my experience, is quite misguided. What does economic similarity matter when most hunter-gatherers do not make a conceptual distinction between culture/religion/society/economics? we're making that distinction, not them. Thus, from our perspective, these societies would have something in common but if we placed a hunter-gatherer from the amazon in the same room as one from the Kalahari, and magically gave them the ability to speak the same language, we'd find quite quickly that there is nothing in common between them save for some very superficial commonalities.What does this have to do with anything? As Marx pointed out, it does not matter what people of a particular historic and economic mode think of themselves. The ancient societies of North America and Europe would have seen each other as total aliens based on their cultural differences, but we know that their economic way of life was more or less the same. It's like you're ignoring any accuracy these theories have simply because they're Western and us dirty Westerners cannot possibly know more than these tribes.


I think you're fundamentally misunderstanding me. I said that technology does not give us agency; we are the ones that use technology, so to make any judgment on technology doesn't make any sense.In that case, what do you suggest? Is there some higher Ideal we appeal to in order to critique a society? If you deny the fundamental characteristics of any society as a way to measure them, then you resign to some form of Agnosticism.


It is not good or bad, it all depends on how we choose to use it. I never made any type of argument regarding human spirits and such nonsense. I do, however, reject science and technology worship, because this is to separate these processes away from the social acts that they are and ascribe fetishistic characteristics to it. An example would be 'technology will solve all our problems'. No, it won't. Humans will solve our problems, possibly through the use of human-made technology.I think you're misunderstanding the other position. No one thinks that same all-powerful Machine God is going to come save us if we believe hard enough, but as you yourself said, humans can and will use technology to improve themselves. Except I disagree with your "possibly" comment, we DEFINITELY have and we definitely WILL continue to use technology to improve ourselves. But yes, this technology is limited by the social relations that we find ourselves in. Am I being "fetishistic" by saying that modern medicine is a great improvement for all mankind, and I would like to see it given to tribes rather than watching them die of easily curable diseases because it's morally wrong to intervene?

Capitalist technocrats fail because they do not recognize that the capitalist mode of production is a hindrance to technology, but socialism has always been based on the concept of technological progress for the good of mankind in one way or another.


There is nothing ethnocentric to say that in specific regards some societies are more developed than others as long as you specify what regards you are referring to and in what sense you are using the word developed. To say that they are technologically and economically primitive is ethnocentric because, like Jimmie Higgins said, it tells us absolutely nothing about such societies other than the fact that racialized western discourse likes to simplify 'the other'.I'm seriously becoming astounded that you're arguing that Western societies are not technologically and economically more advanced than tribal societies. When I say we're more advanced because we have electricity and medicine, it's not because I feel like making an "Other" out of tribes.


I used beyond in quotation marks. If a society chooses to live outside of the tangible and visible aspects of modernity then yes, they are still a part of it, because their choice was to limit their involvement.So by not being a part of it, they're becoming a part of it? What? And I still resent your implication that tribal societies "choose" the way they're living, even if you think theories stating the contrary are "horseshit."


My point is an abstract one - our period of high modernity leaves nothing unscathed and if you were to do some research into these societies in Papua New Guinea you'd find that many of them have developed various techniques to avoid the interference of westerners and their technology. I don't understand what you think you're proving by using the word 'idealist' continuously. It doesn't bother me, I'm not a materialist nor an orthodox marxist, but that's a discussion for another time.It should bother you because Idealism is a highly perilous intellectual position that does not withhold close scrutiny, such as your implication that these tribes are choosing to be in that economic mode. Nope, they are no greater influences on society, all these tribes got together and democratically decided to be the way they are, just like with capitalist societies.

Once again, I would still maintain that these tribal societies fear the way technology is used by capitalism, not merely technology itself.



Any type of development should be directly contributing to the well-being of those being developed. To presume to know what is better for someone else is chauvinistic and in my opinion carries with it a resemblance to colonial discourse with all its racial connotations. We don't know what they want, we shouldn't presume to know, and we shouldn't force them into any type of situation unless they want to -regardless of how good we all think electricity is.I don't care if you think I'm a colonial racist. Your position does not answer any real questions, it just elevates tribal societies to some sacred status, and even questioning the validity of their society is automatically being a white chauvinist. You have more of a religious complex than any real scientific positions.

[campesino]

yes this proves you give lots of fucks indeed about what these people actually want :rolleyes:



point also needs to be made that even if we criticize something we don't need to be running in there "integrating" them because that's our burden as the civilized peoples

literally nobody is saying that everything indigenous people do is nice and ok because it's traditional, but more that if we try and change it for them, it's basically just traditional colonial powers forcing their views upon indigenous people all over again. insisting that we integrate any isolated tribes like that is just perfect continuation for the tradition of colonialism, which has been justified with different good intentions as long as colonialism has been a thing. you'd probably be very different from this yes

I actually don't care about what natives want, but i certainly will not rape and pillage.

I have no qualms about forcing socialism onto people, are indigenous people exceptions to proletarian class rule.

Denis Diderot said

"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

replace kings with chief and priest with witchdoctor/wizard/witch/shaman

Martin Luther King Jr. said
"I am not free until all men are free.

I know both aren't Marxist, but the point remains that it is the duty of the proletariat to free all people.
should the birth and ethnicity be the reason why a child should not receive the progress of socialism. I made exceptions about hunter gatherer people because, they already live in socialism and can choose to participate in the larger socialist system.
but do you feel the pain of the poor mother who gives birth to a child every year in a male dominated warrish tribe with high infant mortality, in which the elders or chieftains have decided to keeping away from civilization based on ignorant prejudices.

If a highly developed socialist society had developed in the american continent in the 1200s and had invaded feudalist Europe and organized the peasants into collective farms and factories and ended the ruling class, would that be colonialism?

There is no reason why the legacy of colonialism should worry the actions of the socialist.


But why don't you let me ask my impoverished relatives who live detached from both the alien society at large as well as from each other because of their glorious assimilation into modernity?


They weren't assimilated or integrated into modern society, also modern society isn't socialist and provides them with the opportunity for self-development. Lots of white people in america feel alienated. I used to live on a reservation and it is so sad and pathetic. If the USA government would just treat the indians like anyone else, it wouldn't have been so bad, but I also recognize that there are parts of rural Appalachia that are also experiencing the same level of poverty. the problem just isn't "colonialism, lack of respect for indigenous people" but also capitalism and how it exploits all people.

[Questionable]

yea have you ever lost your way of life and had your cultural systems of thought physically and metaphorically destroyed? I come from an indigenous people and this post is a bunch of imperialist bullshit - the only reason, I'm assuming, that you have the comfort to spew this nonsense is that your cultural identity doesn't face an existential crisis. But why don't you let me ask my impoverished relatives who live detached from both the alien society at large as well as from each other because of their glorious assimilation into modernity? They were called primitive too. There is no way to objectively look at culture; the way we view the world is shaped by our culture.

God, you really love the pleas to emotion, don't you?

What does this have to do with anything? You said you're not a Marxist and I can tell when you start saying shit like this. You're didn't even look at what campesino was putting forth as a solution and critically analyze, you just threw a tantrum about how your family is being treated.

I mean, yeah, it's horrible that those things happen in a capitalist society, but what does that tell us about how a socialist society should behave? I'm sure the bourgeoisie are gonna feel pretty shitty about their White Male Protestant Patriarchal culture being destroyed, too, but I'm not going to cry about that, am I?

[Igor]

@ campesino

if you honestly don't "don't care about what the natives want", i can't really see point in this discussion because we have basically no ideological common ground here and seriously i'm not sure why you'd even consider yourself a revolutionary leftist. you have weird, fucked up idea of liberation if you'd do it regardless of whether it's wanted at all. socialism should be in the end democratic, i am personally opposed to any attempts to undemocratically install socialism, especially by a foreign invading force. it's basically just occupation, and will result in fucked up power balance in a fucked up society if the revolution didn't take place locally but was forced upon the population. the view that they'd just give up and let the local people run things right after having first gone "well fuck i don't give a single shit about them" and taking over the system forcibly is so out of touch with reality that i don't even know what to say at this point. you have a really weird view on socialism and socialists if you're willing to trust them not to install oppressive institutions just because of their ideological views

[maskerade]

Pardon me comrade, but I think if you want people to take you seriously you need to stop having these childish outbursts. I have not been rude to you at all, I've asked basic questions that I expect you to answer. If I see a weakness in your thinking I believe I have a right to question it, just as you do. I've even tried hard to be polite about it when questioning you. If you didn't want people to question you, you shouldn't be posting on the internet.

I was talking about historical and dialectical materialism, not you, sorry if I appeared to be rude but personally I am not convinced that either of these theories suggest anything of importance. I can't really respond to the rest, but if you feel that you've been struggling to stay polite by all means let it all come out.


These methods of prediction have been utilized with successful results. It's not like the Western world just decided to make them up so they could feel better about being white or whatever it is you're implying here. They're based on the scientific method.
I'm not implying anything of the sort. As much as the scientific method can answer many questions I do not think that it is applicable to human societies. These theories come about in a cultural and societal setting; there is no conspiracy, i was merely pointing out that if you see them in their cultural and historical context you might be more hesitant in applying them as a blanket theory to the rest of the world. Especially considering the more nuanced theoretical models that have been made by numerous other thinkers since Marx's death.


What does this have to do with anything? As Marx pointed out, it does not matter what people of a particular historic and economic mode think of themselves. The ancient societies of North America and Europe would have seen each other as total aliens based on their cultural differences, but we know that their economic way of life was more or less the same. It's like you're ignoring any accuracy these theories have simply because they're Western and us dirty Westerners cannot possibly know more than these tribes.
No, not really, though I do think that without fully investigating and engaging in some sort of ethnographic study of these groups we cannot know anything about them. considering neither of us have done that, and as far as I know, haven't resorted to any such literature, I'm not going to presume to know anything about them, and my understanding from your posts seems to be that you don't have similar hesitations. But going back to your previous post - why is it that in numerous parts of the world hunter-gatherers persisted with their economic activities while their neighbors, whom they had contact with, changed from semi-nomadic pastoralists and eventually into agricultural societies? There is no meta-narrative for world history and quite frankly I find the assumption that there is to be quite arrogant.


In that case, what do you suggest? Is there some higher Ideal we appeal to in order to critique a society? If you deny the fundamental characteristics of any society as a way to measure them, then you resign to some form of Agnosticism.
i don't really think this is relevant. My point was that technology doesn't have any intrinsic qualities and how we determine the benefits of technology is largely culturally determined. What you're saying here has nothing to do with what I said.


I think you're misunderstanding the other position. No one thinks that same all-powerful Machine God is going to come save us if we believe hard enough, but as you yourself said, humans can and will use technology to improve themselves. Except I disagree with your "possibly" comment, we DEFINITELY have and we definitely WILL continue to use technology to improve ourselves. But yes, this technology is limited by the social relations that we find ourselves in. Am I being "fetishistic" by saying that modern medicine is a great improvement for all mankind, and I would like to see it given to tribes rather than watching them die of easily curable diseases because it's morally wrong to intervene?
No, being fetishistic would be to separate modern medicine away from the fact that it is used and made through a social set of actions. I'm merely saying that to separate technology and medicine and place it on some sort of pedestal that disregards the social parameters that made all that possible is the same as neoliberals worshiping 'the economy'. making technology and science - if you'll allow the awkward phrasing - is a social process that cannot be separated from the human actors that make it happen.


Capitalist technocrats fail because they do not recognize that the capitalist mode of production is a hindrance to technology, but socialism has always been based on the concept of technological progress for the good of mankind in one way or another.
No disagreements; this is what I've been saying this entire time. Technology, innately, is not good or bad - it has no intrinsic moralistic category or identity. We ascribe these categories to technology and scientific progress depending on how we perceive them to be used.


I'm seriously becoming astounded that you're arguing that Western societies are not technologically and economically more advanced than tribal societies. When I say we're more advanced because we have electricity and medicine, it's not because I feel like making an "Other" out of tribes.
I'm astounded that you've yet to understand that I never said that they are not more technologically advanced - my entire point has been about the use of the word primitive. In a few posts above I even told you that instead of saying primitive you should use 'less technologically advanced'. Where are you getting this stuff from??


So by not being a part of it, they're becoming a part of it? What? And I still resent your implication that tribal societies "choose" the way they're living, even if you think theories stating the contrary are "horseshit."
Look dude, would you like some ethnographies about this? this isn't what I think, this is what i've read. If you want to extrapolate some sort of grand theory from the very few uncontacted tribes that are out there, fine. but the ones that have been contacted still maintain their customary ways of life - even though they are aware of the changed modernity can offer. Whether or not you think this has to do with capitalist use of technology doesn't matter - they are still choosing not to be a part of it. how can you deny that?


It should bother you because Idealism is a highly perilous intellectual position that does not withhold close scrutiny, such as your implication that these tribes are choosing to be in that economic mode. Nope, they are no greater influences on society, all these tribes got together and democratically decided to be the way they are, just like with capitalist societies.
So is dogmatic marxism/materialism. You're also using a straw man argument and you're intentionally using rhetorical devices that escape the problem at hand. if you haven't investigated these phenomena - I'm an anthropology student btw, and i don't want to appeal to some sort of imaginary authority but this is sort of my jam - how can you be so confident in ascribing theories to explain them based on one documentary?


Once again, I would still maintain that these tribal societies fear the way technology is used by capitalism, not merely technology itself.

Cool.


I don't care if you think I'm a colonial racist. Your position does not answer any real questions, it just elevates tribal societies to some sacred status, and even questioning the validity of their society is automatically being a white chauvinist. You have more of a religious complex than any real scientific positions.

If you think Marxism is in any way scientific then this criticism makes sense, i suppose. But calling your position scientific in any regard is beyond comprehension, I'm sorry. I'm not elevating them to any status, I'm just saying that they themselves should be in charge of how modernist development affects their lives. I don't understand on what grounds you could disagree with that.

[Jesus Saves Gretzky Scores]

Ermm, so the bunch of you would feel perfectly fine enjoying the blessing of living in a socialist society, with all the comforts and advantages of modern civilization, while primitive tribes live without proper housing, nutrition, and literacy and education?

You don't see the "need to mess with their way of live"? You don't see the need to improve their terribly low quality of life? Why is their "way of life" so special? You do see the need to "mess" with the "way of life" of billions that live in capitalist societies, who are infinitely better off than primitive tribes.

Hey, one form or another of female genital mutilation is inflicted upon up to 90 percent of women in Eritrea. But we don't want to change that, you see, cause it's their "way of life", and opposing their way of life is RACIST!!!!! Hey, the rule of capital is the "way of life"

And enough with this political-correctness, we're not liberals, this is not chomsky.org. If a society doesn't even have electricity, then yes, compared to modern societies, it's primitive. Do you need a dictionary?

It's a choice. If people want to join the rest of civilization, they can. I don't want to be in charge of how people live. I never said I don't want to mess with them because of white guilt.

In addition to that, I can see intervention into practices like female genital mutilation.

[Questionable]

socialism should be in the end democratic, i am personally opposed to any attempts to undemocratically install socialism, especially by a foreign invading force. it's basically just occupation, and will result in fucked up power balance in a fucked up society if the revolution didn't take place locally but was forced upon the population.

But why? Do you just not like it? What is the rationale for such an extreme hands-off policy? I don't see how you can go about deciding who's a revolutionary leftist and who isn't without being able to prove your own opinion. Nobody has pointed out anything in campesino's views that will lead to failure or the expansion of negative affects, the issue is just how oppressive it is.

[maskerade]

God, you really love the pleas to emotion, don't you?

What does this have to do with anything? You said you're not a Marxist and I can tell when you start saying shit like this. You're didn't even look at what campesino was putting forth as a solution and critically analyze, you just threw a tantrum about how your family is being treated.

I mean, yeah, it's horrible that those things happen in a capitalist society, but what does that tell us about how a socialist society should behave? I'm sure the bourgeoisie are gonna feel pretty shitty about their White Male Protestant Patriarchal culture being destroyed, too, but I'm not going to cry about that, am I?

So you're saying that there is no difference between destroying a culture that directly oppresses us and destroying a culture that is alien to us and that we don't understand? The fact that so many posters in this thread find that 'critiques against (homogenized) indigenous culture' should be encouraged necessitates an appeal to emotion because it indicates a troubling disregard for how these people have been marginalized throughout history.

I said in my original post in this thread that we should provide health care treatment centers to any indigenous tribe. All the other things that he mentioned are already being done by anthropologists and linguists and they all essentially uniformally agree that these people should be left to their own devices (this means that they should not be forcefully assimilated into anything). if you're more interested in this i'll gladly provide some literature for you.

[Questionable]

I was talking about historical and dialectical materialism, not you, sorry if I appeared to be rude but personally I am not convinced that either of these theories suggest anything of importance. I can't really respond to the rest, but if you feel that you've been struggling to stay polite by all means let it all come out.

These theories have a more comprehensive, effective, and scientific framework for society's development than anything you have suggested thus far. And no, I'm not going to devolve into useless insults because I can handle my position without them. The quickest people to resort to verbal abuse are always the ones who are losing the debate.


I'm not implying anything of the sort. As much as the scientific method can answer many questions I do not think that it is applicable to human societies. These theories come about in a cultural and societal setting; there is no conspiracy, i was merely pointing out that if you see them in their cultural and historical context you might be more hesitant in applying them as a blanket theory to the rest of the world. Especially considering the more nuanced theoretical models that have been made by numerous other thinkers since Marx's death.I'm arguing that it has thus far proven itself as an effective system of analysis. Can you bring up some of these instances you're referring to where it does not apply?


No, not really, though I do think that without fully investigating and engaging in some sort of ethnographic study of these groups we cannot know anything about them. considering neither of us have done that, and as far as I know, haven't resorted to any such literature, I'm not going to presume to know anything about them, and my understanding from your posts seems to be that you don't have similar hesitations.I'm not expert yet but I have been attempting to do research into these societies and how they develop and what their relation is to the greater world at large. It seems like you're just pleading ignorance here and I don't see that as an effective excuse.


But going back to your previous post - why is it that in numerous parts of the world hunter-gatherers persisted with their economic activities while their neighbors, whom they had contact with, changed from semi-nomadic pastoralists and eventually into agricultural societies? There is no meta-narrative for world history and quite frankly I find the assumption that there is to be quite arrogant.I don't care if you think I'm arrogant, if you find these theories insufficient you're welcome to substitute your own that explain these developments. There are different dialectical forces at work, some of these societies may remain primitive because of their relation to the environment they're in, but I think it's silly to say that they just "choose" to live that way.



i don't really think this is relevant. My point was that technology doesn't have any intrinsic qualities and how we determine the benefits of technology is largely culturally determined. What you're saying here has nothing to do with what I said.So the benefits of modern medicine are culturally determined? Once again, it baffles me that you're saying we can't measure societies based on technology when the evidence is clearly there.



No, being fetishistic would be to separate modern medicine away from the fact that it is used and made through a social set of actions. I'm merely saying that to separate technology and medicine and place it on some sort of pedestal that disregards the social parameters that made all that possible is the same as neoliberals worshiping 'the economy'. making technology and science - if you'll allow the awkward phrasing - is a social process that cannot be separated from the human actors that make it happen.I agree.


No disagreements; this is what I've been saying this entire time. Technology, innately, is not good or bad - it has no intrinsic moralistic category or identity. We ascribe these categories to technology and scientific progress depending on how we perceive them to be used.You're right, it has no moralistic category that we can assign to it, and I've never once attempted to approach the issue from that perspective. But the development of technology in itself can be used to measure societies.



I'm astounded that you've yet to understand that I never said that they are not more technologically advanced - my entire point has been about the use of the word primitive. In a few posts above I even told you that instead of saying primitive you should use 'less technologically advanced'. Where are you getting this stuff from??The sentence I was referring to was "To say that they are technologically and economically primitive is ethnocentric because," as if you were somehow denying that they are technologically and economically primitive to other societies. If that was not the point you were trying to make, then I interpreted it incorrectly and I apologize.



Look dude, would you like some ethnographies about this? this isn't what I think, this is what i've read. If you want to extrapolate some sort of grand theory from the very few uncontacted tribes that are out there, fine. but the ones that have been contacted still maintain their customary ways of life - even though they are aware of the changed modernity can offer. Whether or not you think this has to do with capitalist use of technology doesn't matter - they are still choosing not to be a part of it. how can you deny that?I don't care what books you're reading, your views crumble when scrutinized closely. I'm saying that dialectical economic forces are greater than the will of any individual or group of individuals, and I'm curious as to how you're denying that. And as I've said multiple times already, the fact that these tribes may resent technology only means that they resent the capitalist relations of technology. You're going back on your own statement that technology was neutral except in the hands of its owners. Going further with this, what does it matter what these tribes think about technology? They might not like medicine, but does that mean its our moral obligation to let them die of easily cured diseases?



So is dogmatic marxism/materialism. You're also using a straw man argument and you're intentionally using rhetorical devices that escape the problem at hand. if you haven't investigated these phenomena - I'm an anthropology student btw, and i don't want to appeal to some sort of imaginary authority but this is sort of my jam - how can you be so confident in ascribing theories to explain them based on one documentary?Explain to me what is perilous about Marxism and Materialism, you flaws you see inherent in these that disallow them from analyzing these issues, and I will respond. You're just the pot attempting the kettle black. You're not really saying anything here, you're just taking things I've said in trying to spin them back on me in a feeble way. This whole paragraph amounts to "I know you are, but what am I?"

Historical Materialism is more than "one documentary," it is an entire system of social analysis based on the works of many intellectuals, not just Marx. But, once again, this really has nothing to do with the issue at hand. Whether I was using one source or not wouldn't matter, you'd still need to disprove that source.

Again, I don't care about what books you read or what you're majoring in. If your logic has holes in it, I'll criticize it accordingly.


Cool.So you're just going to ignore me? I'll presume you concede on the matter, then.



If you think Marxism is in any way scientific then this criticism makes sense, i suppose. But calling your position scientific in any regard is beyond comprehension, I'm sorry. I'm not elevating them to any status, I'm just saying that they themselves should be in charge of how modernist development affects their lives. I don't understand on what grounds you could disagree with that.If you're going to sit there and talk about how unscientific and useless Marxism is, I expect you to back it up in your arguments, but so far you have done nothing of the sort. I've attempted to use the methods of Marxism to approach the situation and analyze it, but now you're just putting down Marxism while repeating your own positions. You could have said "Marxism sucks and what I said is right" and it would have been as useful as this paragraph. If you're not going to exchange viewpoints in a manner conducive to discussion and criticism, we're done here.

[Questionable]

So you're saying that there is no difference between destroying a culture that directly oppresses us and destroying a culture that is alien to us and that we don't understand?

It bothers me because you're attempting to generalize all these tribal cultures as groups of people who decided democratically not to advance their technology and are capable of doing no wrong. Saying "BUT THE CULTURE, DUDE" is not a good enough justification for anything. You must explain what is worth preserving about that culture.


The fact that so many posters in this thread find that 'critiques against (homogenized) indigenous culture' should be encouraged necessitates an appeal to emotion because it indicates a troubling disregard for how these people have been marginalized throughout history.

There is a difference between the bourgeois exploitation that has occurred throughout history and a type of positive aid and development that could occur under socialism, a difference you're continually failing to see.



I said in my original post in this thread that we should provide health care treatment centers to any indigenous tribe. All the other things that he mentioned are already being done by anthropologists and linguists and they all essentially uniformally agree that these people should be left to their own devices (this means that they should not be forcefully assimilated into anything). if you're more interested in this i'll gladly provide some literature for you.

Why do you think I want to read literature by people repeating your viewpoint? I don't care how many anthropologists you can show me saying that we should leave cultures alone. If you can't defend the logic behind this decision, it is worthless. Repeating this information accomplishes nothing.

[maskerade]

you're not really criticizing anything and you haven't pointed out any holes in my logic - unless you believe that saying you have is the same as actually doing it. the books and literature i was going to recommend don't have a viewpoint/agenda, they explain the cultures you are theorizing about. I just figured it would make sense for you to know a thing or two about them before you ascribe these meanings and motives to them. not to mention they're extremely interesting.

You seem to be the essence of dogmatism. There are hundreds of marxist anthropologists, for example, that are much more eloquent than me, but when I offer to suggest them to you, you essentially tell me to fuck off.

I'm not gaining anything from this. I hope you read through what I've written again with an open mind, think about it for a bit, and stop being such an internet warrior.

[bcbm]

well after some of the post in this thread i can definitely understand why some of the 'uncontacted' gatherer-hunter societies prefer to just shoot arrows at anyone who comes close and retreat deeper into the jungle

[Questionable]

you're not really criticizing anything and you haven't pointed out any holes in my logic - unless you believe that saying you have is the same as actually doing it.

I've brought up many counter-arguments from a Marxist perspective that you've answered by saying "Well, dogmatic Marxism sucks and I'm right so hah!"


the books and literature i was going to recommend don't have a viewpoint/agenda, they explain the cultures you are theorizing about. I just figured it would make sense for you to know a thing or two about them before you ascribe these meanings and motives to them. not to mention they're extremely interesting.

The point is I don't what to hear what you're saying being repeated by a renowned anthropologist. If I don't agree with you here, what do I have to gain from reading a whole book about it?


You seem to be the essence of dogmatism. There are hundreds of marxist anthropologists, for example, that are much more eloquent than me, but when I offer to suggest them to you, you essentially tell me to fuck off.I never told you to fuck off, regardless of how you perceive it, I just didn't want to waste time reading what you've already been telling me. It's like if I was debating someone over Keynesian economics and they told me to go ready a book that summarized John Maynard Keynes's views. I mean, why? I already know what you're saying.


I'm not gaining anything from this. I hope you read through what I've written again with an open mind, think about it for a bit, and stop being such an internet warrior.Did you not expect people to disagree with you when you got on here? If disagreeing with someone and engaging in discourse means being an "internet warrior," someone bring me my blade.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I have no qualms about forcing socialism onto people, are indigenous people exceptions to proletarian class rule.There is a major difference between forcing socialism onto a minority of reactionary workers, the bosses, and petty-bourgeois on the one hand and forcing it onto a small marginal pocket of non-capitalist society either indigenous, or some commune, or isolationist religious group, or individual hermits somewhere. Workers need to organize and assert their power and reshape capitalist society and bosses, cops, etc are a barrier to that and should be "forced" to submit to worker's rule. These smaller groups I spoke of are not really a factor in capitalist production or relations and so what will it gain workers to "force" small groups of marginal people to assimilate into socialist society? Not much, because their existence and different social relations are not a factor or a threat. But, start forcing people to join the worker's society against their will and marginalized pockets of people can become very good at sabotage and gurella war and terrorism. They would become alienated from socialist society and a potential pool for any counter-revolutionary efforts.

How would this "conversion" even work? So workers hunt down people and force them into vans and take them to cities and then say: "here you go you are a worker and are self-emancipated, because we emancipated you!" Then they reply, "Oh I'm liberated? So I'm free to go back to my old way of life?" Then we say, "No, because you are liberated now".:confused:


"Men will never be free until the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest."

replace kings with chief and priest with witchdoctor/wizard/witch/shamanSo, um workers are oppressed by tribal band people in the way that pesants are oppressed by Kings and the Feudal Church!?

Working class revolution is not a moral crusade to make people behave or think one way, it's a class struggle to replace capitalist relations and rule with worker's self-rule and socialist relations. Small isolated groups do not really factor in. So it is better to win them as allies and supporters of the workers, than to force them to assimilate if it is not their wish to do so. A few hundred people doing substance farming are not going to develop into a new capitalist class when workers run and control the trains, shipping, and most of the productive power of the world - just like small socialist communes are not a threat to the capitalist system.


I know both aren't Marxist, but the point remains that it is the duty of the proletariat to free all people.Yes they do that by freeing themselves, expropriating the expropriators, and oppressing the oppressors. We get rid of the need for ruling classes because as workers, we only need cooperation and self-rule to produce what we need to make society run. Workers can potentially free non-working classes by eliminating class rule in the dominent social relations - but it's just contradictory to make people liberated against their will. At most we can get rid of the obstacles (oppressive ruling classes) but they will have to determine their path themselves.



should the birth and ethnicity be the reason why a child should not receive the progress of socialism. I made exceptions about hunter gatherer people because, they already live in socialism and can choose to participate in the larger socialist system.Will no one think of the children! Think of the children!

I'm pretty sure that if workers are secure in being able to provide necessities to people in society, then they will be more than willing to extend this to other small groups of non-workers who desire it.


but do you feel the pain of the poor mother who gives birth to a child every year in a male dominated warrish tribe with high infant mortality, in which the elders or chieftains have decided to keeping away from civilization based on ignorant prejudices.If a mother WANTS to join the worker's society, then workers should support that effort and if she is denied that right by an elder or Mormon poligomy cult leader, then it's a different issue. We would still be supporting "self-determination" by aiding people who want to be part of the larger society.


If a highly developed socialist society had developed in the American continent in the 1200s and had invaded feudalism Europe and organized the peasants into collective farms and factories and ended the ruling class, would that be colonialism?No, but it wouldn't be a working form of socialism either unless there was an actual base of support among the peasantry for supporting worker's rule and socialism in Europe. Even then it becomes difficult and peasants will tend to just want to work their own land. There was this thing called the Russian Revolution which had issues like this.

[piet11111]

To truly give them self determination would require us to educate all of them on our society in order to give them an informed choice.

The process of fully educating them could already be fatal to their traditional society.

Personally i am in favor of full education but who here also agrees ?

[MustCrushCapitalism]

Alright, it seems that I disagree with the majority of posters in this thread. Here's my take on this whole thing...

Does anyone here actually believe that, given the opportunity and education, the younger generations of these tribes would actually choose to remain in isolation from the world, with no access to the far higher living standards and more developed technology? Granted, the older generations would certainly not assimilate as well into a more advanced society, and would not be likely to give up on traditions which they've spent their entire life practicing, but all of this "don't make it mandatory" crap basically amounts to giving these older generations the ability to choose for the younger. Schooling, at least, absolutely should be mandatory, so as to give younger generations a choice - this will inevitably lead to eventual assimilation and destruction of traditional cultures - but this is far, far less important than the spread of progress. To oppose the assimilation of primitive (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Define+%22primitive%22) societies which have yet to surpass more primitive modes of production into a post-revolutionary society is a liberal, reactionary, and anti-internationalist position, I'd argue.

And for what it's worth - I'm positive that Marx would agree with me on that. Marx supported the British colonization of India (not that this would be an event at all comparable to the assimilation of primitive tribes into a socialist society) because it helped to spread the capitalist mode of production, which, at the time, was not necessarily negative, into India.

[ind_com]

And for what it's worth - I'm positive that Marx would agree with me on that. Marx supported the British colonization of India (not that this would be an event at all comparable to the assimilation of primitive tribes into a socialist society) because it helped to spread the capitalist mode of production, which, at the time, was not necessarily negative, into India.

Not many Indians will agree, despite this opinion being pushed in all mainstream texts.

[DasFapital]

By the time a socialist revolution is actually achieved most of these tribes will have probably already integrated into modern society anyway.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Count me in the "offer them education/assistance when accepted or asked for by them, but otherwise leave them alone" camp. It seems to me to strike the best balance between unwarranted interference and callousness.


Alright, it seems that I disagree with the majority of posters in this thread. Here's my take on this whole thing...

Does anyone here actually believe that, given the opportunity and education, the younger generations of these tribes would actually choose to remain in isolation from the world, with no access to the far higher living standards and more developed technology? Granted, the older generations would certainly not assimilate as well into a more advanced society, and would not be likely to give up on traditions which they've spent their entire life practicing, but all of this "don't make it mandatory" crap basically amounts to giving these older generations the ability to choose for the younger.

Nonsense. If they are aware of more technologically advanced societies, and wish to join them, how exactly will they be stopped from running away and doing just that, especially if the technologically advanced societies in question have arrangements in place to deal with exactly that kind of eventuality?


Schooling, at least, absolutely should be mandatory, so as to give younger generations a choice - this will inevitably lead to eventual assimilation and destruction of traditional cultures - but this is far, far less important than the spread of progress.

The problem as I see it is that there are many potential definitions of "progress", some of which might not include the decimation of certain cultures and lifestyles, which in my estimation are no less valid for being technologically primitive.


To oppose the assimilation of primitive (http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Define+%22primitive%22) societies which have yet to surpass more primitive modes of production into a post-revolutionary society is a liberal, reactionary, and anti-internationalist position, I'd argue.

Liberals oppose rape, as do I. Does that make me a liberal? Not everything liberals support is automatically wrong. Provide actual reasons, not political cuss-words.

Reactionary? My understanding is that reactionaries wish to crush cultures not of their own, which in this case would include technologically primitive societies.

Anti-internationalist? Since when does being an internationalist mean being in favour of a global monoculture? Because that's the kind of thing your position would lead to.


And for what it's worth - I'm positive that Marx would agree with me on that. Marx supported the British colonization of India (not that this would be an event at all comparable to the assimilation of primitive tribes into a socialist society) because it helped to spread the capitalist mode of production, which, at the time, was not necessarily negative, into India.

If it's not comparable, why are you making the comparison?

Further, Marx was a 19th century man so it wouldn't be surprising if he supported things that we shouldn't today in the 21st century.

[Conscript]

please don't call them primitive. just because they have different values and different social and economic systems does not make them less than us, as the qualifier 'primitive' implies. it's horribly ethnocentric to use that term.

Why do people post this garbage? Do they feel the need to be a contrarian or something?

[Questionable]

Count me in the "offer them education/assistance when accepted or asked for by them, but otherwise leave them alone" camp. It seems to me to strike the best balance between unwarranted interference and callousness.

Although my spout with maskerade might of made a few people think otherwise, this is also my stance.

I can understand why the horrific experiences of imperialist "humanitarian aid" might make some people hesitant to interfere at all with less-developed cultures, but under socialism we can have real humanitarian aid offered.

Although I guess I'm a bit more hands-on. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea of a tribe being wracked by disease because the local witch doctor is telling everyone not to trust the outsiders. But that's not to imply I went them all grouped into concentration camps either.

[Rafiq]

My view is that workers would not have any motivation to "force" people like this or small communes or groups like the Amish or whatnot to join the majority of society. People may even want to form communes and do subsitance farming outside of the main production of society and as long as they wern't going off to form some secret militia instead of just adopting another kind of lifestyle, then I don't see how this is a threat to a worker's society. As far as forcing people for their own good: well I don't see how this applies either because force (I mean other than against the oppressors) and self-liberation don't really go well together.

I completely disagree with uttermost unequivocalness. Especially considering a reference to the Amish was made. The problem with these communities (to the primitive tribes you mention and the islamic courts in the UK) is the catagorization of all members in one massive bunch. What of the children? How are they to make the "free choice" of living in one of those communities, if they are neither directly offered a choice or properly educated in regards? What of the women who are most likely coerced and do not possess the psychological mechanisms to leave these communities?

There are people here who say that the advocation to dismantle these communties, to refuse to "tolerate" them is nothing short of racist. I, on the other hand, assert the opposite: The real racism is assuming that these are animals, subhuman creatures which ought to be left alone. These are real humans, like you and I, whom under the right conditions would act and behave like you and I. The real racism is to assume that "leaving them alone" means leaving children there, as if that's where they belong because "they're one of them" and they "belong" there. I think Zizek pointed this out in his polemics against Liberal tolerance. When in truth, the immediate abolishment of these communities would be of absolute necessity, the removal of backward traditions and customs as well. What does this mean? Propaganda and pressure. Just note, (and this post was not in it's entirety directed at you Jimmie) that when we advocate the "right to self determination" of communities in such a specific regards, for example, Sharia societies, you are sustaining the social isolation of countless children and women of whom have no where to go because they know no better. Even if they do, they'd be eternally shunned by their communities and would be heavily pressured to stay. You are possibly sustaining what we would consider physical and mental abuse, while it's victims have to deal with the fact that they're in the situation that they're in because Western left leaning liberals decided that whole communities are singular and homogeneous interests which apparently have the "right" to self determine themselves. But any sociologist will know that the only homogeneous interest is the interests of the ruling entities in said community, property owning Males or tribal alpha males. That is your "community" which will determine the fate of everyone else who's so unfortunate as to end up there.

[Questionable]

I completely disagree with uttermost unequivocalness. Especially considering a reference to the Amish was made. The problem with these communities (to the primitive tribes you mention and the islamic courts in the UK) is the catagorization of all members in one massive bunch. What of the children? How are they to make the "free choice" of living in one of those communities, if they are neither directly offered a choice or properly educated in regards? What of the women who are most likely coerced and do not possess the psychological mechanisms to leave these communities?

There are people here who say that the advocation to dismantle these communties, to refuse to "tolerate" them is nothing short of racist. I, on the other hand, assert the opposite: The real racism is assuming that these are animals, subhuman creatures which ought to be left alone. These are real humans, like you and I, whom under the right conditions would act and behave like you and I. The real racism is to assume that "leaving them alone" means leaving children there, as if that's where they belong because "they're one of them" and they "belong" there. I think Zizek pointed this out in his polemics against Liberal tolerance. When in truth, the immediate abolishment of these communities would be of absolute necessity, the removal of backward traditions and customs as well. What does this mean? Propaganda and pressure. Just note, (and this post was not in it's entirety directed at you Jimmie) that when we advocate the "right to self determination" of communities in such a specific regards, for example, Sharia societies, you are sustaining the social isolation of countless children and women of whom have no where to go because they know no better. Even if they do, they'd be eternally shunned by their communities and would be heavily pressured to stay. You are possibly sustaining what we would consider physical and mental abuse, while it's victims have to deal with the fact that they're in the situation that they're in because Western left leaning liberals decided that whole communities are singular and homogeneous interests which apparently have the "right" to self determine themselves. But any sociologist will know that the only homogeneous interest is the interests of the ruling entities in said community, property owning Males or tribal alpha males. That is your "community" which will determine the fate of everyone else who's so unfortunate as to end up there.

How do you feel about egalitarian tribes, such as the Ju/'hoansi of Africa? Could they be more easily integrated into a new socialist society, or would they have to undergo similar propaganda efforts?

[Lynx]

To integrate them is to destroy them, probably for generations. What do you think of FUNAI, which operates in Brazil?

[Psy]

To integrate them is to destroy them, probably for generations. What do you think of FUNAI, which operates in Brazil?
How so?

If aliens right now came to Earth and imposed communism onto humans with humans workers being given power by these external agents would this destroy human culture?

It a similar situation here were we have external agents throwing the tribe directly to communism and getting rid of the class society. Or to put it another way, feudal Japan tried isolationism and not only did it hurt feudal workers of Japan but stagnated Japanese culture. So why should communist society repeat these mistakes?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I completely disagree with uttermost unequivocalness. Especially considering a reference to the Amish was made. The problem with these communities (to the primitive tribes you mention and the islamic courts in the UK) is the catagorization of all members in one massive bunch. What of the children? How are they to make the "free choice" of living in one of those communities, if they are neither directly offered a choice or properly educated in regards? What of the women who are most likely coerced and do not possess the psychological mechanisms to leave these communities?The CHILDREN! The CHILDREN! Will no one stand up for the poor children. Please this is the last line of reasoning whenever someone wants to force people to agree to things against their own desires. Some abstract figure who may or may not be negativly impacted but we'd never know because they inherently can't decide for themselves.

Sorry, it's shit, but we can't pick the conditions we are born into.

If young people or women or some other subcategory within some group wants to leave but is prevented - as I said this is another matter. In the case of the Amish, particularly - you know they only want people who want to be in their sect and all Amish children are required to live in the mainstream society before deciding to become part of that community.

But in this case, "thinking about the rights of children" is just and excuse for forcing action on adults against their will.


There are people here who say that the advocation to dismantle these communties, to refuse to "tolerate" them is nothing short of racist. I, on the other hand, assert the opposite: The real racism is assuming that these are animals, subhuman creatures which ought to be left alone. These are real humans, like you and I, whom under the right conditions would act and behave like you and I.Regular humans... just ones who can not think for themselves and make their own decisions eh?

Again, if people are being held against their will, then that's one thing as I have said. But if people are relatively content and have free mobility, then the best we can do is leave the door open to people who want to join the liberated society. But revolution isn't to create a world where everything is "nice" for everyone - it's about workers and worker's power over capitalism. Non working class groups who are marginal to capitalist production are therefore not really a major part of this equation.

To go through the world making sure that any small groups are living according to some set of conditions is not really of importance to worker's power IMO and it's really just a moral crusade - and I find it highly ironic that the side of this debate that keeps calling folks "liberals" seems to view one of the functions of revolution as some kind of charity for children born into remote and marginal societies.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Although my spout with maskerade might of made a few people think otherwise, this is also my stance.

I can understand why the horrific experiences of imperialist "humanitarian aid" might make some people hesitant to interfere at all with less-developed cultures, but under socialism we can have real humanitarian aid offered.

Although I guess I'm a bit more hands-on. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with the idea of a tribe being wracked by disease because the local witch doctor is telling everyone not to trust the outsiders. But that's not to imply I went them all grouped into concentration camps either.

To expand on the section you quoted, here is the most maximal kind of solution I would be comfortable with;

First, among those technologically primitive peoples who have already been in significant contact with technologically advanced society (which is presumably also communist of some stripe, for the sake of this argument), the establishment of a mini-consulate of sorts, to provide an easy point of contact with the aforementioned technologically advanced societies. I think it should consist of no more than a handful of people, mainly anthropologists, teachers specialising in tutoring non-literate peoples and similar, who are willing to live as unobtrusively as possible among them. All conditional upon the particular tribe/clan accepting this arrangement beforehand, of course. I think it would be counter-productive in the extreme to impose our presence on them.

From there, it may be possible (depending on the specific nature of inter-tribe/clan relations) to establish the beginnings of a network, propagating by word-of-mouth, which could provide the basis for further relations if the technologically primitive peoples decide to pursue them, or otherwise provide some kind of avenue for local concerns to be heard by the technologically advanced society. This kind of network would also be used to facilitate the establishment of more of the kind of points-of-contact aforementioned, should it be desired by a particular tribe/clan.

The idea behind this arrangement is to provide the opportunity for equitable avenues of communication, which the primitive peoples can pursue at their own pace. Needless to say, should the primitive peoples decide to withdraw from this kind of communication, then the point-of-contact should be disestablished ASAP, barring exceptional circumstances in which it is starkly obvious that to do so would result in more death and misery than had the point-of-contact remained.

What do people here think?

[l'Enfermé]

So you're all fine with condemning primitive tribes to the abhorrent lives they lead which are infinitely worse than those of proletarians, so you could pat each other on the back and say "Hey us, we're so great, we're preserving the lifestyle of these tribes, we're so tolerant and not racist you see, we value all cultures no matter how shitty they are!". Yo, they might be untouched by civilization, but they're people, not fucking animals, to isolate them in reservations for our amusement. Modernity and civilization must be brought to them.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

So you're all fine with condemning primitive tribes to the abhorrent lives they lead which are infinitely worse than those of proletarians,

I think your use of the word "infinitely" is hyperbole and thus compromises your argument.

Of all things, lack of knowledge is the worst I would say. But in the kind of arrangement I suggest, the knowledge of technologically advanced societies would be available to technologically primitive peoples if truly they wanted it, and also if we knew of their existence for us to offer it to them.


so you could pat each other on the back and say "Hey us, we're so great, we're preserving the lifestyle of these tribes, we're so tolerant and not racist you see, we value all cultures no matter how shitty they are!".

"Shitty" can be as much a point of view as it can be an objective assessment of reality. I'm sure techniques to reduce child mortality would be appreciated by almost all human societies. I'm not so sure our neuroses would be.


Yo, they might be untouched by civilization, but they're people, not fucking animals, to isolate them in reservations for our amusement. Modernity and civilization must be brought to them.

And if they reject it? What then? Force it upon them "for their own good"? How would that not place us in a similar position to our forebears who looked down upon such peoples as "savages"?

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Wait, wait, wait . . . I just wanna throw it out in to this mix - there seems to be the underlying assumption that communism will be "all the nifty technowizardry of capitalism, minus all the bad parts" - as though the two are somehow separable. Actually though, what person, free from the dictatorship of state and capital is going to go down in to the poisonous mines to get the rare metals for computers? Who's going to do the earth-destroying shitwork of keeping mass industrial society moving? What makes you so sure that a future communist society will be making any decisions about what to do vis-a-vis "primitive" peoples, or have any capacity to carry those decisions out?
There might be less antagonism and less difference between forms of life in a communist future than y'all seem to assume.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Wait, wait, wait . . . I just wanna throw it out in to this mix - there seems to be the underlying assumption that communism will be "all the nifty technowizardry of capitalism, minus all the bad parts" - as though the two are somehow separable. Actually though, what person, free from the dictatorship of state and capital is going to go down in to the poisonous mines to get the rare metals for computers?

I'd be willing to do it, especially in a communist society where there's no profit motive to cut corners when it comes to health and safety. If not that, then I'd be happy to contribute to the development of technology that improves conditions for both miners and the environment.


Who's going to do the earth-destroying shitwork of keeping mass industrial society moving?

It's "earth-destroying shitwork" because it's being done in the context of capitalism.


What makes you so sure that a future communist society will be making any decisions about what to do vis-a-vis "primitive" peoples, or have any capacity to carry those decisions out?

Absolutely nothing but the assumption that technologically advanced communist societies may share the planet with technologically primitive ones. Why is that unreasonable?


There might be less antagonism and less difference between forms of life in a communist future than y'all seem to assume.

So you want a monoculture, only approached from the other side?

[bcbm]

So you're all fine with condemning primitive tribes to the abhorrent lives they lead which are infinitely worse than those of proletarians

who is condemning anyone? most band groups in the world today are aware of civilization and many choose to take some of its benefits like education and healthcare while maintaining their traditional lifestyles.

and infinitely worse lives than proletarians? hardly, unless you think being a bauxite miner or working sixteen hours a day in a factory is somehow better?


Yo, they might be untouched by civilization, but they're people, not fucking animals, to isolate them in reservations for our amusement. Modernity and civilization must be brought to them.

uh most of them are not untouched by civilization though if only through fleeting contacts with anthropologists (or drug cartels) and trade. the idea of most band societies being completely isolated is a myth though. of those that are they are generally actively hostile to outsiders and kill them upon contact so if you want to 'bring' anything to them it will have to be by force.

oh and the contact will probably kill them all in a disease epidemic. progress!

[Yuppie Grinder]

please don't call them primitive. just because they have different values and different social and economic systems does not make them less than us, as the qualifier 'primitive' implies. it's horribly ethnocentric to use that term.

everyone should have a right to their own cultural determination. the areas they live in and the land that they use should be left to them. any socialist society should offer free health care and the promise that such a socialist society would not commit ethnocide and destroy their way of life. it should be their choice whether or not they give up their customs.
Marx used the term primitive when describing relatively undeveloped societies all the time. All it means is they are less technologically advanced than industrial society, which is true. The word has been used by colonialists historically to dehumanize native people, but that's not what it has always meant.

As for the few hunter-gatherer sorts left around, I'd say leave em too it. There's no use in interfering in their way of life, and besides it's not our place to interfere.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

oh and the contact will probably kill them all in a disease epidemic. progress!

Hmm, that's something that I forgot to consider in previous posts in this thread. What kind of diseases are we talking about here? The sort that can be transmitted through casual contact, or something more intimate?

If the former, then a certain degree of physical isolation may be unavoidable if we want something approaching a good result for all concerned. If the latter, then the execution of hygienic measures, as well as the screening for pathogens of those individuals likely to come into contact with such people (among other procedures such as sterilisation/regular cleaning of any equipment) should be enough to prevent disastrous epidemics.

It would be fucking awful if people ended up dying en masse, no matter how genuinely founded one's good intentions may be.

[Positivist]

please don't call them primitive. just because they have different values and different social and economic systems does not make them less than us, as the qualifier 'primitive' implies. it's horribly ethnocentric to use that term.

everyone should have a right to their own cultural determination. the areas they live in and the land that they use should be left to them. any socialist society should offer free health care and the promise that such a socialist society would not commit ethnocide and destroy their way of life. it should be their choice whether or not they give up their customs.

Umm even if there customs are racist and oppressive to minorities? I'm not saying this will necessarily he the case, but it could be. I don't understand the leftist fad around "cultural freedom." No fuck that, how about individual freedom.

As for how these tribes should be dealt with, I'd reccommend making some contact with them and making a transition to advanced social production possible however necessary. I'm all for the "leave them alone" in theory, but I'd imagine a lot of them would prefer to have a surplus.

[the last donut of the night]

well after some of the post in this thread i can definitely understand why some of the 'uncontacted' gatherer-hunter societies prefer to just shoot arrows at anyone who comes close and retreat deeper into the jungle

2 many dweebs itt

[Psy]

Wait, wait, wait . . . I just wanna throw it out in to this mix - there seems to be the underlying assumption that communism will be "all the nifty technowizardry of capitalism, minus all the bad parts" - as though the two are somehow separable. Actually though, what person, free from the dictatorship of state and capital is going to go down in to the poisonous mines to get the rare metals for computers? Who's going to do the earth-destroying shitwork of keeping mass industrial society moving?

Machinery, machines can labor better then any human worker and the only reason capitalists don't use machinery more is they can't exploit machines. Thus having totally automated mines with no humans other then a handful to service the machinery is very probable under communism just due to having a high output for very little human labor time (also machines don't care about working in dangerous mines around the clock and we don't care if mines collapse on machines).



What makes you so sure that a future communist society will be making any decisions about what to do vis-a-vis "primitive" peoples, or have any capacity to carry those decisions out?

Because these tribes outside from the communist world would be sitting on property in on a propertyless Earth. Take a scenario like Star Trek: Insurrection, in a true communist society the medical benefit of the radiation would outweigh the rights of the Ba'ku to the planet as the Ba'ku is simply wasting the wealth of the planet with their stupid farming commune (that utilized a tiny fraction of the planet's resources while most stays of the planets resources remain undeveloped), while countless people lives could be improved by researching and harnessing the radiation of the planet.

[Lynx]

How so?

If aliens right now came to Earth and imposed communism onto humans with humans workers being given power by these external agents would this destroy human culture?
Even if humans felt empowered there would still be the risk of human culture being eclipsed by these aliens' culture.


It a similar situation here were we have external agents throwing the tribe directly to communism and getting rid of the class society. Or to put it another way, feudal Japan tried isolationism and not only did it hurt feudal workers of Japan but stagnated Japanese culture. So why should communist society repeat these mistakes?
If you could demonstrate that indigenous people in Canada, the United States and Australia would become empowered under communism, then there might be a chance of integrating isolated groups. I don't think that is possible until the highest stage of communism has been achieved, among societies that have experienced capitalism, and whose members are workers.

What mistakes were made in Canada, the US and Australia?
Racism and the forcible nature of their integration were contributing factors in destroying indigenous culture. They continue to suffer to this day and there is no indication their future will be brighter.

[Psy]

Even if humans felt empowered there would still be the risk of human culture being eclipsed by these aliens' culture.

If you could demonstrate that indigenous people in Canada, the United States and Australia would become empowered under communism, then there might be a chance of integrating isolated groups. I don't think that is possible until the highest stage of communism has been achieved, among societies that have experienced capitalism, and whose members are workers.

What mistakes were made in Canada, the US and Australia?
Racism and the forcible nature of their integration were contributing factors in destroying indigenous culture. They continue to suffer to this day and there is no indication their future will be brighter.
This is a problem with how capitalism deals with culture, in communism we won't have unequal access to media and other aspects of society.

[Lynx]

This is a problem with how capitalism deals with culture, in communism we won't have unequal access to media and other aspects of society.
Indigenous peoples have equal access, in theory. They can choose to be workers or entrepreneurs. It hasn't helped them move on from the legacy of past injustices.

To force integration is a mistake.

[Psy]

Indigenous peoples have equal access, in theory. They can choose to be workers or entrepreneurs. It hasn't helped them move on from the legacy of past injustices.

To force integration is a mistake.
No they don't as becoming bourgeoisie is not a choice, if it was Marx would be wrong because the proletariat would all have freely chosen to be exploited.

[Lynx]

No they don't as becoming bourgeoisie is not a choice, if it was Marx would be wrong because the proletariat would all have freely chosen to be exploited.
You become bourgeoisie by chance, it is exploitation that is not by choice. What does this have to do with anything?

In theory, if there were no racism towards indigenous peoples, they could participate in society as fully as anyone else. Some will argue that their legal status and location on reserves presents obstacles to participating in society, and that these rights should be extinguished. In other words, just another part of the integration process.

[Veovis]

When the class war starts, communists will find some of their first bases in those tribes. They will be among the first groups to embrace the revolution. So we need not worry about them. They will bring socialism to us, and not the other way around.

:confused: Are you a Marxist?

[Psy]

You become bourgeoisie by chance, it is exploitation that is not by choice. What does this have to do with anything?

That under capitalism indigenous people has no choice but to be exploited by bourgeoisie society as they have no capital to become capitalists thus with only their labor to sell they become proletarianized.



In theory, if there were no racism towards indigenous peoples, they could participate in society as fully as anyone else. Some will argue that their legal status and location on reserves presents obstacles to participating in society, and that these rights should be extinguished. In other words, just another part of the integration process.
Under communism there is the problem of the a contradiction of property rights, if the indigenous people are allowed to do what ever they want with their property that means the communism world is granting them title to the land thus property rights even though no one in the communist world has such rights due to all production being collective.

This gets worse if valuable resources are found on the land the indigenous people own as now you have a situation where the communist world is not distributing the productive forces equally because it runs head long into property rights of indigenous people and has to treat them basically like capitalists offering them surplus value for access to their property meaning now the communist world has to generate surplus value thus the entire communist economy reverts back to capitalism just because it allowed property rights to exist.

I also fail to see how property rights would help indigenous people more then the liberating of the means of production, in which indigenous people would be getting a sweet deal of having access to the products of society on the cheap due to their primitive productive forces, thus basically the industrial world would be subsidizing them and expecting practically nothing in return with the only catch being not recognizing any land claims as they won't recognize any land claim period.

[Lowtech]

Ermm, so the bunch of you would feel perfectly fine enjoying the blessing of living in a socialist society, with all the comforts and advantages of modern civilization, while primitive tribes live without proper housing, nutrition, and literacy and education? indigenous peoples may be behind us technologically but surprisingly surpass us socially


You don't see the "need to mess with their way of live"? You don't see the need to improve their terribly low quality of life? Why is their "way of life" so special? You do see the need to "mess" with the "way of life" of billions that live in capitalist societies, who are infinitely better off than primitive tribes. the economically aware realize those that live in industrialized market-based societies have their "way of life" mathematically exploited via the profit mechanism, creating artificial scarcity


Hey, one form or another of female genital mutilation is inflicted upon up to 90 percent of women in Eritrea. But we don't want to change that, you see, cause it's their "way of life", and opposing their way of life is RACIST!!!!! Hey, the rule of capital is the "way of life"are you psychotic?


And enough with this political-correctness, we're not liberals, this is not chomsky.org. If a society doesn't even have electricity, then yes, compared to modern societies, it's primitive. Do you need a dictionary? "political-correctness" is another term for being polite, actually giving a damn about the fact we're all human and share the same human condition. if you wish to waste the mind you've been given via millions of years of evolution based on surviving due to better social organization, be my guest, you have a right to waste your ability to think.

[Lynx]

That under capitalism indigenous people has no choice but to be exploited by bourgeoisie society as they have no capital to become capitalists thus with only their labor to sell they become proletarianized.
Most reserves are economically dependent on the welfare state. That does not prevent a few individuals from climbing the wealth ladder and achieving bourgeoisie status. I'm sure we can find examples both on and off the reserve.


Under communism there is the problem of the a contradiction of property rights, if the indigenous people are allowed to do what ever they want with their property that means the communism world is granting them title to the land thus property rights even though no one in the communist world has such rights due to all production being collective.

This gets worse if valuable resources are found on the land the indigenous people own as now you have a situation where the communist world is not distributing the productive forces equally because it runs head long into property rights of indigenous people and has to treat them basically like capitalists offering them surplus value for access to their property meaning now the communist world has to generate surplus value thus the entire communist economy reverts back to capitalism just because it allowed property rights to exist.
This is true, but also symbolic. Expropriation in the name of public interest is continually used by government at all levels to get around the issue of property rights. Do you think indigenous people would consider the socialist argument for taking away their land a better one?


I also fail to see how property rights would help indigenous people more then the liberating of the means of production, in which indigenous people would be getting a sweet deal of having access to the products of society on the cheap due to their primitive productive forces, thus basically the industrial world would be subsidizing them and expecting practically nothing in return with the only catch being not recognizing any land claims as they won't recognize any land claim period.
Their status and property rights allow them to survive under capitalism. What would socialism be offering them other than a more generous welfare state?

For aboriginal people on and off the reserve, I would like to see their social problems addressed. Throwing money and resources at them is not a solution. Stripping them of their status and abolishing reserves may end their problems or sweep them under a rug, but that is hardly a socialist solution.

Uncontacted people are in a different situation, as they are still living off the land. But ultimately they too will end up on reserves or exist as marginalized people in 'modern' society. I don't think socialism could do a better job of helping them, and in the interim, they are running out of time.

The Brazilian agency tasked with protecting their rights is FUNAI.

[Lowtech]

Most reserves are economically dependent on the welfare state. That does not prevent a few individuals from climbing the wealth ladder and achieving bourgeoisie status. I'm sure we can find examples both on and off the reserve. the fact all value, including that retained by the plutocratic class comes from labor; the working class has the capacity to assimilate indigenous peoples while the rich have no interest in adopting these people so its obvious they would he absorbed into the working class, inaccurate romanticism of capitalism aside


Do you think indigenous people would consider the socialist argument for taking away their land a better one? communism is so self sustainable that aquiring resources that indingenious people occupy would not be needed; we could afford to do what's right and leave them be


Their status and property rights allow them to survive under capitalism. What would socialism be offering them other than a more generous welfare state? communism does not offer anyone a welfare state as everyone capable works. capitalism itself is a welfare state for the plutocratic class as they produce no value (do not work) yet consume thousands of times more value than they could ever need for long happy and healthy lives.


For aboriginal people on and off the reserve, I would like to see their social problems addressed. Throwing money and resources at them is not a solution. Stripping them of their status and abolishing reserves may end their problems or sweep them under a rug, but that is hardly a socialist solution. any solution without artificial scarcity and without a plutocratic class would fare far better than assimilation into a market economy and labor based subjugation


Uncontacted people are in a different situation, as they are still living off the land. But ultimately they too will end up on reserves or exist as marginalized people in 'modern' society. I don't think socialism could do a better job of helping them, and in the interim, they are running out of time. capitalism by design exploits 80% of humans, the few indigenous people left won't have any special accomidations under a system that prices everything based on exchange value and functions based on the wants of a plutocratic minority.

[MarxSchmarx]

Hmm, that's something that I forgot to consider in previous posts in this thread. What kind of diseases are we talking about here? The sort that can be transmitted through casual contact, or something more intimate?

If the former, then a certain degree of physical isolation may be unavoidable if we want something approaching a good result for all concerned. If the latter, then the execution of hygienic measures, as well as the screening for pathogens of those individuals likely to come into contact with such people (among other procedures such as sterilisation/regular cleaning of any equipment) should be enough to prevent disastrous epidemics.

It would be fucking awful if people ended up dying en masse, no matter how genuinely founded one's good intentions may be.

Generally the major problems are with vector and airborne ("casual contact") pathogens to which the natives lack natural immunity, although other diseases like water- and food-borne pathogens are also major players.

A real serious concern is that we just don't know which disease agents are going to cause disease in uncontacted tribes. There are the usual suspects (flu, small pox, etc...) but there are also other pathogens which we have a background level of infection that is not at chronic acute levels but sufficient to permit transmission that sterilization is not a realistic alternative.

This is one instance where the precautionary principle seems very valid. No matter how advanced socialist medicine is, it's a risk we shouldn't be in the business of imposing on others.


To truly give them self determination would require us to educate all of them on our society in order to give them an informed choice.

The process of fully educating them could already be fatal to their traditional society.

Personally i am in favor of full education but who here also agrees ?

True, it could be fatal, but it need not be. I think the north american amish rumspringa (which explicitly embodies this concept) and the Australian aboriginal walkabout (which is somewhat distinct but shares an educational purpose) are examples of ways in which people in those societies become more fully educated about the wider world without compromising their own societies. They might not be ideal ways to do this, but the point is many of these kinds of tribes also have their own mechanisms for providing their youth with informed decision making tools.

[Vanguard1917]

With the threat to their livelihoods from landowners and big business gone, i'd imagine that they, and especially their youth, would want to leave their tragic existence and take advantage of the best that a modern socialist society has to offer.

[Lynx]

the fact all value, including that retained by the plutocratic class comes from labor; the working class has the capacity to assimilate indigenous peoples while the rich have no interest in adopting these people so its obvious they would he absorbed into the working class, inaccurate romanticism of capitalism aside communism is so self sustainable that aquiring resources that indingenious people occupy would not be needed; we could afford to do what's right and leave them be communism does not offer anyone a welfare state as everyone capable works. capitalism itself is a welfare state for the plutocratic class as they produce no value (do not work) yet consume thousands of times more value than they could ever need for long happy and healthy lives. any solution without artificial scarcity and without a plutocratic class would fare far better than assimilation into a market economy and labor based subjugation capitalism by design exploits 80% of humans, the few indigenous people left won't have any special accomidations under a system that prices everything based on exchange value and functions based on the wants of a plutocratic minority.
With few exceptions, they have no choice but to be working class. As a group they are on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. They are discriminated against in every nation-state. I doubt that socialism will be their salvation.

Self-sufficient communities living off the land are the only exception to capitalist exploitation. They are not workers.

[Psy]

Most reserves are economically dependent on the welfare state. That does not prevent a few individuals from climbing the wealth ladder and achieving bourgeoisie status. I'm sure we can find examples both on and off the reserve.

The vast majority of indigenous people have to sell their labor to survive and benefits from the bourgeoisie state doesn't change this relationship.



This is true, but also symbolic. Expropriation in the name of public interest is continually used by government at all levels to get around the issue of property rights. Do you think indigenous people would consider the socialist argument for taking away their land a better one?


Their status and property rights allow them to survive under capitalism. What would socialism be offering them other than a more generous welfare state?

For aboriginal people on and off the reserve, I would like to see their social problems addressed. Throwing money and resources at them is not a solution. Stripping them of their status and abolishing reserves may end their problems or sweep them under a rug, but that is hardly a socialist solution.

Uncontacted people are in a different situation, as they are still living off the land. But ultimately they too will end up on reserves or exist as marginalized people in 'modern' society. I don't think socialism could do a better job of helping them, and in the interim, they are running out of time.

The Brazilian agency tasked with protecting their rights is FUNAI.

The problem is their means of production is too obsolete and labor intensive. The social problem of indigenous people would be solved with opening up the products of society to them in a far more equal relationship, and having them still slave away with their obsolete means of production is pointless. Even the backward productive forces of the Mennonites are pointless to that of industrial communist society, in which a modern farm can greatly outproduce Mennonite farm with a fraction of the labor thus Mennonites farms are a inefficiency and central plans probably force Mennoites to mechanize their farming operations to increase food output while lowering necessary labor time to give Mennonite farmers more free time.

[Lowtech]

With few exceptions, they have no choice but to be working class. As a group they are on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder there is no ladder, although class mobility is possible, its not designed for for this, only a minority can consume more than it produces, otherwise there is too too few people working to sustain the economy
. They are discriminated against in every nation-state. I doubt that socialism will be their salvation.

Self-sufficient communities living off the land are the only exception to capitalist exploitation. They are not workers.

[MustCrushCapitalism]

Bit of a late response, but...


Nonsense. If they are aware of more technologically advanced societies, and wish to join them, how exactly will they be stopped from running away and doing just that, especially if the technologically advanced societies in question have arrangements in place to deal with exactly that kind of eventuality?

If they were aware is a key word there. You sort of need to establish contact in order to do that. Beyond that, it's by no means easy to cross over into a new culture with new technology with little knowledge about it. Education in the more technologically advanced society gives each individual knowledge of what they'll be going into, and an idea of whether or not they want that.


The problem as I see it is that there are many potential definitions of "progress", some of which might not include the decimation of certain cultures and lifestyles, which in my estimation are no less valid for being technologically primitive.

Culture does tend to be eroded somewhat along with technological advancement, though. European cultures have undeniably changed drastically as technological progress has commenced. The same can be said for cultures in northeastern Asia. Of course, there's still distinction between them - you don't see European languages dominating Japan.

But I don't see how being technologically primitive can be considered intrinsic to culture. By progress, I mean technological progress, and that's not something specific to any given culture.

[Lowtech]

With few exceptions, they have no choice but to be working class. they have a right to be left alone. If we are to consider ourselves an advanced civilization, we must ignore them if assimilation is the more harmful action.with more power comes even greator responsibility
As a group they are on the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder. this is false. Although technologically inferior, they surpass us socially and have survived sufficiently without the aid of technology, an achiecement we should respect while we have made ourselves grossly dependent on technology and a market system designed for mass economic exploitation
They are discriminated against in every nation-state. the poor are who are discriminated. In the eyes of the plutocratic class, anyone outside thier circle are 'the poor'
I doubt that socialism will be their salvation. I am not advocating thier 'salvation' as they do not need us, its the reverse, we need them, as they far surpass us socially and demonstrate people don't require plutocratic subjugation and artificial scarcity, in direct contrast to elitist capitalist contentions.


Self-sufficient communities living off the land are the only exception to capitalist exploitation. They are not workers. yes, I agree. They are not workers in the capitalist sense, they are not dependent on a market economy, independent of wage slavery

[#FF0000]

Ermm, so the bunch of you would feel perfectly fine enjoying the blessing of living in a socialist society, with all the comforts and advantages of modern civilization, while primitive tribes live without proper housing, nutrition, and literacy and education?

You don't see the "need to mess with their way of live"? You don't see the need to improve their terribly low quality of life? Why is their "way of life" so special? You do see the need to "mess" with the "way of life" of billions that live in capitalist societies, who are infinitely better off than primitive tribes.

Hey, one form or another of female genital mutilation is inflicted upon up to 90 percent of women in Eritrea. But we don't want to change that, you see, cause it's their "way of life", and opposing their way of life is RACIST!!!!! Hey, the rule of capital is the "way of life"

And enough with this political-correctness, we're not liberals, this is not chomsky.org. If a society doesn't even have electricity, then yes, compared to modern societies, it's primitive. Do you need a dictionary?

ur rite we need 2 sivilize those savages

[Psy]

they have a right to be left alone.

Why would indigenous get to have bourgeois rights in global communism? We'd have a global society that rejects property rights but then turns around and defends it when dealing with cultures that the lack class consciousness enough to become communist societies and join the global communist community.



If we are to consider ourselves an advanced civilization, we must ignore them if assimilation is the more harmful action.

How would it be more harmful, pre-industrial society is primitive, wasting labor power with inefficient production processes plus lacking modern products of society that greatly raise the living standards of humanity.


Although technologically inferior, they surpass us socially and have survived sufficiently without the aid of technology, an achiecement we should respect while we have made ourselves grossly dependent on technology and a market system designed for mass economic exploitation the poor are who are discriminated.
Depending on technology is never a bad thing, technology has drastically increased the productive powers of humanity. This is basically hippie utopian BS of imaging we could have happy society living on farming communes ignoring modern technology has greatly reduces the necessary labor time thus why farming communes fail.

[Rafiq]

The CHILDREN! The CHILDREN! Will no one stand up for the poor children. Please this is the last line of reasoning whenever someone wants to force people to agree to things against their own desires. Some abstract figure who may or may not be negativly impacted but we'd never know because they inherently can't decide for themselves.

This is nothing short of a bad joke. While this little snip is nothing short of a bit unsettling, it does nothing but prove my point. Yes, they're kids of the other, they "belong" in those communities in the same way a chimp belongs in his, yes?


Sorry, it's shit, but we can't pick the conditions we are born into.


This is in itself intellectually atrocious, and is reactionary even by bourgeois standards. What, are you now implying the existence of some kind of "natural" order? No one can "pick" the conditions they are born into, but to assert the proletarian dictatorship must give these isolated communities "self determination" is contributing to the continuation of lesser, primitive conditions in which people are born into.


If young people or women or some other subcategory within some group wants to leave but is prevented - as I said this is another matter. In the case of the Amish, particularly - you know they only want people who want to be in their sect and all Amish children are required to live in the mainstream society before deciding to become part of that community.


Be that as it may in regards to the Amish, that certainly isn't the case with most communities. Listen, Jimmie, have you ever heard of the battered wife syndrome? Hmm? Is a women who stays with her abuse husband necessarily happy with her relationship and is thus devoid of abuse? Supposing your logic, certainly.


But in this case, "thinking about the rights of children" is just and excuse for forcing action on adults against their will.


Like, you know, forcibly removing conditions from harmful conditions of which devoid them of a real existing modern, social life? I don't know how that's forcing any adults against their will, unless of course the abolishment of slavery was forcing adults to take actions of which are against their will. So be it. Yes, I unequivocally demand adults be forced against their will in this regards. The horror! The Bourgeois family structure is the last family structure of which children are the property of their parents. Even in, though, relatively advanced capitalist countries the state has, to an extent, somewhat of an influence on the lives of children (vs. the Parents). This is a development which must not be done away with.


Regular humans... just ones who can not think for themselves and make their own decisions eh?


They can make decisions, but they are incapable of making the same decisions as, say, you and I, so long as they are constrained by their said mode of production. And by demanding the retention of this constraint, you do nothing but categorize them as lesser beings unable to "adapt" to modernity. They cannot make proper decisions in regards if they are poorly educated, and usually those who are educated are alpha males who use it to their advantage.


Again, if people are being held against their will, then that's one thing as I have said. But if people are relatively content and have free mobility, then the best we can do is leave the door open to people who want to join the liberated society. But revolution isn't to create a world where everything is "nice" for everyone - it's about workers and worker's power over capitalism. Non working class groups who are marginal to capitalist production are therefore not really a major part of this equation.


Well, you know, women in abusive relationships have "free mobility" and can seize several opportunities to leave their partners. This is nothing short of formal freedom. Asserting this dismisses and neglects other sociological dimensions, both physical and psychological. Again, how are they to make the decision to leave, if they are deprived of the same education that you and I receive? So comes the deadlock of supposed "Free choice".


To go through the world making sure that any small groups are living according to some set of conditions is not really of importance to worker's power IMO and it's really just a moral crusade - and I find it highly ironic that the side of this debate that keeps calling folks "liberals" seems to view one of the functions of revolution as some kind of charity for children born into remote and marginal societies.


The revolution exists in totality, though of course no moral crusade would exist, but for example, communities like the Amish survive as members of the petite bourgeois class and do indeed economically interact with the outside world. When the source of their living is done away with, what then?

All of that excluded, you failed to attack the point of my post, regarding liberal tolerance. Until you do so, the conversation between us two in this thread remains meaningless. Communities are not homogeneous interests and therefore cannot "self determine" themselves, though, leaders of said community can. To "leave them be" is nothing short of racist if you fail to see said distinction. See, this "western freedom" thing only works it exists by default, and when "adults" are ready to make decisions for themselves, they can do as they please.

[Rafiq]

Though this whole thread in itself is garbage, really, as I've said countless times, asking, speculating and attempting to formulate how anything would function under "socialism" amounts to nothing more than a worthless abstraction. OP, no one can answer your question, we aren't prophets here to impose our great ideas on how society should be run, socialism is or was, a real existing movement, an ideological embodiment of the interests of a real existing class of which was a product of capitalism. Socialism is not a new society or a product of the creative doodles of Utopian romanticists. The proletarian dictatorship, the abolishment and destruction of the bourgeois class (as a direct result of the interests of the proletariat as a class, not the desire to "achieve" a Utopia) is the only forces (besides capitalism's systemic contradictions excluding class) which can bring about an end to the capitalist mode of production, not the "desire" to directly destroy capital, market relations, as an exemplification of our "will" because "it's more effficient/It's more moral/we will survival for more longerz"

[Questionable]

Though this whole thread in itself is garbage, really, as I've said countless times, asking, speculating and attempting to formulate how anything would function under "socialism" amounts to nothing more than a worthless abstraction. OP, no one can answer your question, we aren't prophets here to impose our great ideas on how society should be run, socialism is or was, a real existing movement, an ideological embodiment of the interests of a real existing class of which was a product of capitalism. Socialism is not a new society or a product of the creative doodles of Utopian romanticists. The proletarian dictatorship, the abolishment and destruction of the bourgeois class (as a direct result of the interests of the proletariat as a class, not the desire to "achieve" a Utopia) is the only forces (besides capitalism's systemic contradictions excluding class) which can bring about an end to the capitalist mode of production, not the "desire" to directly destroy capital, market relations, as an exemplification of our "will" because "it's more effficient/It's more moral/we will survival for more longerz"

I see, but question; if we are abolishing capitalism because it is in our self-interests and some because of any high-sounding moral slogans, then what did you mean when you said, "When in truth, the immediate abolishment of these communities would be of absolute necessity, the removal of backward traditions and customs as well." Why is the existence of these backward traditions and customs in primitive societies the concern of proletarians?

[blake 3:17]

Thanks to all that have provided thoughtful comments here.

To the OP, the single greatest advance made in socialist thought in the past twenty years has been the rejection of colonialism as a force for Progress. In the past, some Marxists, including Marx, have mistakenly endorsed colonial and imperial projects as a means to impose order on peoples who appeared disorderly or backwards. This has been a terrible mistake socially, politically, morally and ecologically. These policies have been primarily carried out by the capitalist countries, but have also been carried out by the Soviet and Chinese Communists.

Revolutionaries in the Third and Fourth Worlds have repeatedly insisted that those in the global North would do them a great a favour by carrying out revolutions and building socialism and democracy at home rather than trying to impose those values abroad.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

3 things (some of which have already been mentioned in brief)

(1) Uncontacted tribes can suffer serious sociological and medical consequences for contacts with the outside world, even if the outside world is not a capitalist one looking to exploit their resources. Disease, alcoholism and extreme culture shock are disruptive to varying degrees - especially the first. Amazonian tribes which are unlucky to contact the outside world even today are horribly ravaged by the poxes, flu and other diseases to which they have no immunity. Forcing contact on these tribes is merely forcing a death sentence on many members, and even tribes which are "contacted" might still not be exposed to these diseases - while contact with the outside world may be inevitable, it seems most sensible to let medical science progress as greatly as possible.

(2) The members of uncontacted tribes are not animals, but people with their own agency. If members of a tribe chose to remain outside of the social realm of a socialist society, why try and stop them? It seems more important to protect tribe members who want to leave tribal life on their own behalf than to impose such a situation upon them. If we really want to revolutionize them and their values, those who want to be exposed to outside ideas from the tribes can be exposed and they can take it back, and be supported by the outside.

(3) There are many different types of tribal groups - some wholly uncontacted, some partially contacted, and some fully engaged with the outside world yet merely living a "simple" lifestyle. Examples of the first are the Sentinelese (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sentinelese_people) , examples of the second are the Yanomami (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanomami) and many groups of Paupuans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papuan_people), and examples of the third are the Huichols (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huichol_people) and the Bushmen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushmen). There is so much variety between various indigenous groups, and in fact within many indigenous groups, so it seems like it would be next to impossible to come up with a singular rule which can be applied to all groups equally.


Rafiq - despite your criticism of bourgeois moralism, your own POV implies a certain moral stance regarding the necessity for opening up these communities, purging them of reactionary customs and getting them out of some state of backwardness. Any "ought" statement is a moral statement, and you certainly seem to be saying society "ought" to intervene to help modernize these tribes or go after reactionary elements in their society. I'm not saying I disagree with the need to modernize these groups (I don't necessarily agree with that thesis either), but it certainly seems to be a contradiction to disagree with the other side on the grounds that their moralism is idealistic, then take up an equally moralistic stance on the other side.

[Jimmie Higgins]

This is nothing short of a bad joke. While this little snip is nothing short of a bit unsettling, it does nothing but prove my point. Yes, they're kids of the other, they "belong" in those communities in the same way a chimp belongs in his, yes?If chimp parents are likely to take up arms or sabotage the worker's society if workers come in and take their children, then yes, it's best to leave chimp children with their parents.


This is in itself intellectually atrocious, and is reactionary even by bourgeois standards. What, are you now implying the existence of some kind of "natural" order? No one can "pick" the conditions they are born into, but to assert the proletarian dictatorship must give these isolated communities "self determination" is contributing to the continuation of lesser, primitive conditions in which people are born into. It's not a moral question for me, it's not "should we do this for the benifit of some abstract people". To me the question is how workers might relate to groups of non-workers and non-capitalists, after a revolution -- in this case specifically small semi-egalitarian band societies.

I don't think it would be in working class interestes to go around forcibly modernizing people against their will. For one thing this will cause animosity towards the workers and if there is still a counter-revolutionary force, then people pissed off in this way are likely to be organized by that force. Secondly since most of the existing groups like this are pretty small and remote to begin with, there would be little chance of interference by these groups if left alone, so it just is not worth it to control people. Finally, what does it mean to be made a worker against your own will, are people forced to relocate going to have the consiousness and frame of understandting to suddenly be full and liberated and active participants in a liberated society?

This isn't about fetishizing or romanticizing some notion of "pure" cultures or whatnot, it's just an estimation of what I think the best course would be for a worker's society.


Be that as it may in regards to the Amish, that certainly isn't the case with most communities. Listen, Jimmie, have you ever heard of the battered wife syndrome? Hmm? Is a women who stays with her abuse husband necessarily happy with her relationship and is thus devoid of abuse? Supposing your logic, certainly.And how does contemporary society deal with this? Have cops go in and investigate every relationship and judge if it is healthy or not? Should worker's do this? Women who are forcibly removed from that relationship - if they truly are dependent rather than scared into submission, they GO BACK! You can't forcibly liberate people.

If people are being held against their will and those who've been able to get away petition for support, I'm pretty damn sure workers would organize to aid people. But we can't liberate people who don't want to be liberated from bad families or bad customs.


Like, you know, forcibly removing conditions from harmful conditions of which devoid them of a real existing modern, social life? I don't know how that's forcing any adults against their will, unless of course the abolishment of slavery was forcing adults to take actions of which are against their will. So be it.Yeah, but slaves wanted to be liberated - and they wern't waiting for the North either. Slave rebellions, runaways, and so on made it pretty abundant that this was a system which people wanted to be liberated from.

Oh, do you mean the slave owners? Yeah I have no problem "forcing" the people who keep us down, the capitalists, in order to overthrow the system.


Yes, I unequivocally demand adults be forced against their will in this regards. The horror! The Bourgeois family structure is the last family structure of which children are the property of their parents. Even in, though, relatively advanced capitalist countries the state has, to an extent, somewhat of an influence on the lives of children (vs. the Parents). This is a development which must not be done away with.Yeah I have no issue with this because it will necissarily be part of how workers reshape their own lives to make life easier and better for themselves - THEMSELVES being the main thing here.


Well, you know, women in abusive relationships have "free mobility" and can seize several opportunities to leave their partners. This is nothing short of formal freedom. Asserting this dismisses and neglects other sociological dimensions, both physical and psychological. Again, how are they to make the decision to leave, if they are deprived of the same education that you and I receive? So comes the deadlock of supposed "Free choice".No, there are structural constraints that make it difficult to pick up and leave - the psychological impacts are important subjectivly, but then it's just a question of induvidual temperments. Incidentially, it was common in Native American bands for women to just pick up and leave their mates for any reason from being too mean to just being boring. This is because having a place to sleep and a social group and food didn't depend on either a breadwinner or a two peson family income.


All of that excluded, you failed to attack the point of my post, regarding liberal tolerance. Until you do so, the conversation between us two in this thread remains meaningless. Communities are not homogeneous interests and therefore cannot "self determine" themselves, though, leaders of said community can. To "leave them be" is nothing short of racist if you fail to see said distinction. See, this "western freedom" thing only works it exists by default, and when "adults" are ready to make decisions for themselves, they can do as they please.Why should I defend a straw-man. I argued nothing of liberal tolerance and that is not the point. Again my argument is
1) that there is nothing positive to be gained in regards to worker's power, but there is much more potential of negative blow-back from forced modernization.
2) People can not be self-liberated against their will. They will only become part of a hypothetical new worker's society through an organic process. How can you be a full participating member of a society which is forced apon you?

As for class distinctions within these groups. First of all most of the ones that the OP seems to be talking about have pretty low class stratification and no real way of forcibly holding people to that group - except for maybe geographical remoteness. But in general, yes this is true of course. And if there is class conflict within those groups, again it would seem to indicate a consiousness and desire among part of the band for something else and in that case there is a base of people which workers could ally themselves to. Those folks can be liberated because they are fighting for liberation. But if people in the band are content and satified, then there is no other intepretation they could have of worker's coming in and forcibly removing them or taking their children than an act of agression against them - and they'd be correct.

[Sheepy]

It would be best to make contact and keep good relations, without downright tampering with their way of life. Leave them alone, we're not imperialists. If you want to improve their lives and teach them about Socialism, it should not be forced but rather influenced.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Ermm, so the bunch of you would feel perfectly fine enjoying the blessing of living in a socialist society, with all the comforts and advantages of modern civilization, while primitive tribes live without proper housing, nutrition, and literacy and education?

You don't see the "need to mess with their way of live"? You don't see the need to improve their terribly low quality of life? Why is their "way of life" so special? You do see the need to "mess" with the "way of life" of billions that live in capitalist societies, who are infinitely better off than primitive tribes.

Hey, one form or another of female genital mutilation is inflicted upon up to 90 percent of women in Eritrea. But we don't want to change that, you see, cause it's their "way of life", and opposing their way of life is RACIST!!!!! Hey, the rule of capital is the "way of life"

And enough with this political-correctness, we're not liberals, this is not chomsky.org. If a society doesn't even have electricity, then yes, compared to modern societies, it's primitive. Do you need a dictionary?


This. Fuck Classes, the Proletariat has to destroy the remnants of slave, feudal, Capitalist and Barbarian classes for real communism. It's rather annoying that RevLeftists are arguing with liberal arguments of "their" way of life; i don't believe in classes, and like l'Enfermè said, the Barbarians inevitably will need to be upgraded to get water, electricity, health and basic civilised means of living. Sure they can continue their mystic culture if they want, but in the end science will win. It should be said here that 70% of Native Americans were pacifist tribes and i am not advocating genocide, merely that all opposing and "backward" classes need to become Proletarians before we can stop producing guns.

[Vanguard1917]

Thanks to all that have provided thoughtful comments here.

To the OP, the single greatest advance made in socialist thought in the past twenty years has been the rejection of colonialism as a force for Progress. In the past, some Marxists, including Marx, have mistakenly endorsed colonial and imperial projects as a means to impose order on peoples who appeared disorderly or backwards. This has been a terrible mistake socially, politically, morally and ecologically. These policies have been primarily carried out by the capitalist countries, but have also been carried out by the Soviet and Chinese Communists.

Revolutionaries in the Third and Fourth Worlds have repeatedly insisted that those in the global North would do them a great a favour by carrying out revolutions and building socialism and democracy at home rather than trying to impose those values abroad.

Yes, but what should 'third-world' countries' policy be after they have a socialist revolution? How should such societies deal with the primitive tribes inside their countries? We shouldn't assume that people in the developing world are somehow more accepting of the tribal way of life than Westerners.

[MaximMK]

Everybody will live as he wants but i think we should medically aid them.

[Vanguard1917]

Everybody will live as he wants

Not really true. Surely important social decisions will need to be made collectively? Of course you may be correct to argue that it will be inconsequential to leave a few hundred tribes people to do as they wish in the small and remote part of the forest in which they live, but 'live as you want' is not necessarily a socialist motto.

[Luís Henrique]

please don't call them primitive. just because they have different values and different social and economic systems does not make them less than us, as the qualifier 'primitive' implies. it's horribly ethnocentric to use that term.

Primitive doesn't mean that and does not imply they are less than us in any way. It comes from Latin primitivus, which means "first of its kind". It is not "horribly ethnocentric" to use the term, and its use implies no kind of prejudice.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Everybody will live as he wants but i think we should medically aid them.

How do you provide medical aid to them without immediately putting their way of life into question?

Luís Henrique

[Lowtech]

Why would indigenous get to have bourgeois rights in global communism? the bourgeois felt compelled to "raise us up" into industrialized wage slave based society, how different would you and I be to disturb those we consider inferior to fit our agenda?
We'd have a global society that rejects property rights but then turns around and defends it when dealing with cultures that the lack class consciousness enough to become communist societies and join the global communist community. you are misusing the term 'class consciousness', you'd have to first be apart of a class before being able to be conscious of it and they are not subject to our industrialized plutocratic society



How would it be more harmful, pre-industrial society is primitive, wasting labor power with inefficient production processes plus lacking modern products of society that greatly raise the living standards of humanity.our current society does not utilize resources and productivity fully as most value is concentrated in the plutocratic elite so we're hardly an example of 'efficient productivity' or 'raised living standards' however, i agree that their lives can be improved but it doesn't need to be through assimilation, who are we to make decisions for them? they are technologically primitive but they are still human and we should respect that if we are to separate ourselves ideologically from the plutocratic class



Depending on technology is never a bad thing, technology has drastically increased the productive powers of humanity. the plutocratic elite exclusively enjoy the 'increased productive powers of humanity' so you lose much of your point here
This is basically hippie utopian BS of imaging we could have happy society living on farming communes ignoring modern technology has greatly reduces the necessary labor time thus why farming communes fail.i don't prefer being without technology, however i don't understand what you're defending as the so-called 'modern' industrialized society you and i are a part of is not 'our culture' as it has been designed from the ground up to make us into wage slaves via conditioned dependence on a market economy. as i stated before, we are 'grossly dependent' meaning we aren't simply using technology for our benefit, in fact until we are under a communist economic system, we can never utilize technology for our benefit and we'd continue using it as we do now, in whatever way is most lucrative for the elites; essentially in whatever way allows them to retain the most value they do not produce themselves.

these indigenous peoples are the last remnants of pre-capitalism humans. and represent the liberation communists seek because they have not yet been assimilated into wage slaves.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

Though this whole thread in itself is garbage, really, as I've said countless times, asking, speculating and attempting to formulate how anything would function under "socialism" amounts to nothing more than a worthless abstraction.

Then I take it you'll be peititioning the BA to delete the Theory subforum? Or are there certain "abstractions" which you think are actually worth discussing?


OP, no one can answer your question, we aren't prophets here to impose our great ideas on how society should be run, socialism is or was, a real existing movement, an ideological embodiment of the interests of a real existing class of which was a product of capitalism.

As a proletarian myself, why should I not give my own ideas as to how society should be run? How can we examine our own attitudes if we just ignore questions of policy that a rising proletariat will inevitably face?


Socialism is not a new society or a product of the creative doodles of Utopian romanticists. The proletarian dictatorship, the abolishment and destruction of the bourgeois class (as a direct result of the interests of the proletariat as a class, not the desire to "achieve" a Utopia) is the only forces (besides capitalism's systemic contradictions excluding class) which can bring about an end to the capitalist mode of production, not the "desire" to directly destroy capital, market relations, as an exemplification of our "will" because "it's more effficient/It's more moral/we will survival for more longerz"

If the proletarian dictatorship is to come about, then it will have a great many problems to solve. Just because we do not have a functioning crystal ball does not mean that it is worthless to discuss the potential issues arising that we can foresee.

[Psy]

the bourgeois felt compelled to "raise us up" into industrialized wage slave based society, how different would you and I be to disturb those we consider inferior to fit our agenda?

But I don't view them inferior thus why I call for to assimilate them into the global communist society where they would have the same powers as everyone else.



You are misusing the term 'class consciousness', you'd have to first be apart of a class before being able to be conscious of it and they are not subject to our industrialized plutocratic society

Yes there is a class relation this why when we went from hunter/gather societies to the first agriculture societies we instantly had a ruling class as hunter/gather societies already had this class division it was just the lack of surplus value prevented the gap in relations to production of these classes to widen.



our current society does not utilize resources and productivity fully as most value is concentrated in the plutocratic elite so we're hardly an example of 'efficient productivity' or 'raised living standards' however, i agree that their lives can be improved but it doesn't need to be through assimilation, who are we to make decisions for them? they are technologically primitive but they are still human and we should respect that if we are to separate ourselves ideologically from the plutocratic class

the plutocratic elite exclusively enjoy the 'increased productive powers of humanity' so you lose much of your point here

Really are you saying the average like of the proletariat is not better off then that of the serf? Even Marx agreed capitalism was a very progressive compared to feudalism due to its productive power.

And yes it has to be though assimilation as they lack the knowledge to even comprehend the world they live in, thus why primitive tribes of Sibera ran in fear in the sight of the Gaft Zeppelin flying over them while the proletariat around the world were mostly excised to get a glimpse this marvel of modern human technology (well at the time was a marvel), with most people stopping to look up as it passed over cities, towns and even farms. Lets not forget how iconic the moon landing was and how many people still go to watch lift offs while rural tribes are still are scared of planes.

There is a whole universe out there we are rapidly gaining the ability to explore and these tribes have problem grasping our ability to fly in the sky and never seen the Earth from space even through pictures and video.



i don't prefer being without technology, however i don't understand what you're defending as the so-called 'modern' industrialized society you and i are a part of is not 'our culture' as it has been designed from the ground up to make us into wage slaves via conditioned dependence on a market economy. as i stated before, we are 'grossly dependent' meaning we aren't simply using technology for our benefit, in fact until we are under a communist economic system, we can never utilize technology for our benefit and we'd continue using it as we do now, in whatever way is most lucrative for the elites; essentially in whatever way allows them to retain the most value they do not produce themselves.

You seem to forget the Internet, the ruling class has lost its ability to fully control technology some time ago.

Also we are talking about communist society assimilating these rural tribes.



these indigenous peoples are the last remnants of pre-capitalism humans. and represent the liberation communists seek because they have not yet been assimilated into wage slaves.
Again we talking about communist society assimilating these rural tribes, meaning after world communist is established modernizing rural tribes.

[blake 3:17]

Good for them!


Uncontacted Peruvian Tribe Attacks Eco Tourists
By Kacy Capobres
Published January 31, 2012
Fox News Latino

A group of isolated Indians in Peru – unseen by people for decades – have created a stir after they suddenly emerged from hiding and began attacking tourists with bow and arrows.

The advocacy group Survival International released photos of the tribe, which they describe as the "most detailed sightings of uncontacted Indians ever recorded on camera."

Known as the Mashco-Piro Indians, this once insular Peruvian tribe has been seen recently near Manú National Park. And with the sightings, have come attacks from the tribe that have startled and scared away environmental tourists.
Just one of a 100 uncontacted tribes in the world, it is believed that illegal logging and low flying helicopters have forced the Indians from their natural dwellings. Since the tribe has become more visible, and because environmental tourism to the area has increased, they have posed a greater threat to those who attempt to make contact.


Peruvian authorities have struggled to keep outsiders away to avoid conflict.

The danger of making contact with isolated tribes was reaffirmed after an indigenous Matsigenka man, Nicolás “Shaco” Flores, was killed when a tribe arrow pierced his heart.

Friends of Shaco have come forward with details about his relationship with the Mashco-Piro Indians.
Diego Cortijo, a member of the Spanish Geographical Society, said that because Shaco spoke two related dialects, he was able to communicate with the tribe and even provided them with machetes and cooking pots.
The worst part, as Cortijo said, is "that 'Shaco' was the only person who could talk to them," and "now that he's dead it's impossible to make contact."

Another friend of the victim, anthropologist Glenn Shepard, wrote "Shaco’s death is a tragedy: he was a kind, courageous and knowledgeable man. He believed he was helping the Mashco-Piro. And yet in this tragic incident, the Mashco-Piro have once again expressed their adamant desire to be left alone."
Expedition's Quest for Lost Mayan Gold Finds....
A Peruvian expert on uncontacted tribes, Beatriz Huertas, can only describe the relationship between Shaco and the Indians as "unusual, complex and extremely delicate."
The Peruvian government is implementing preventative measures with local authorities in order to prevent such an incident from happening again.
However, this continues to be difficult as the Mashco-Piro Indians increased visibility drives the culture clash between two opposing worlds.
Based on Reporting by the Associated Press




Read more: http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/lifestyle/2012/01/31/uncontacted-peruvian-tribe-emerges-attacks-tourists/#ixzz29JYeRMcr

[Lowtech]

But I don't view them inferior thus why I call for to assimilate them into the global communist society where they would have the same powers as everyone else. noble reasons I agree, however have you considered they may not want to be assimilated or perhaps we aren't as great a society as we think we are? we're simply more technologically advanced, we as communists are not thier gods or thier dictators



Yes there is a class relation this why when we went from hunter/gather societies to the first agriculture societies we instantly had a ruling class as hunter/gather societies already had this class division please elaborate, because a practical hierarchy, also known as "leadership" does not equate to a ruling class nor the reverse



Really are you saying the average like of the proletariat is not better off then that of the serf? materialistically better, but mathematically just as exploitative. You're perpetuating a capitalist contention
Even Marx agreed capitalism was a very progressive compared to feudalism due to its productive power. he had no other frame of reference (for a modern industrialized economic system) . retention of value by a polutocratic class reduces the availability and usefulness of all resources including productivity


And yes it has to be though assimilation as they lack the knowledge to even comprehend the world they live in, we have no practical need to assimilate anyone, communism isn't the ancient Roman Empire



You seem to forget the Internet, the ruling class has lost its ability to fully control technology some time ago. this is somewhat true, however the infrastructure is still in thier control and based on thier mode of production


Again we talking about communist society assimilating these rural tribes, meaning after world communist is established modernizing rural tribes. absolutely, and my stance is we as communists should not assimilate them as capitalists have assimilated us, especially as they represent natural communism

[Psy]

noble reasons I agree, however have you considered they may not want to be assimilated or perhaps we aren't as great a society as we think we are?

A thriving global communist society would better then isolate tribes just in health care as we'd have medical treatments based on science proven to work in controlled experiments and confirmed by other scientists doing independent controlled experiments. We also better at emergencies as we'd be able to deploy resources from around the world.



Please elaborate, because a practical hierarchy, also known as "leadership" does not equate to a ruling class nor the reverse

There was still property rights thus why tribes went to war and within the leadership there was the seeds of a ruling class that just needed surplus value to take hold.



we have no practical need to assimilate anyone, communism isn't the ancient Roman Empire

More workers less necessary labor time required per workers thus yes there is a practical need to assimilate tribes as the communist labor pool gets bigger. The tribal remember also greatly benefit as they will have much more free time then when they in their isolated tribe.



and my stance is we as communists should not assimilate them as capitalists have assimilated us, especially as they represent natural communism
So these people should remain ignorant and impoverished to defend their right to independence?

[Lowtech]

A thriving global communist society would better then isolate tribes just in health care... I agree. The issue is a philosophical one-Would we be excercising kindness or arrogance assimilating them?
There was still property rights thus why tribes went to war and within the leadership there was the seeds of a ruling class that just needed surplus value to take hold. pratical hierarchy or "leadership" does not lead to a plutocratic class as the plutocratic class does not lead at all. marrying the concept of ruler and leader in a capitalist sense is not only perpetuating capitalist ideology but is blatantly fasle



More workers less necessary labor time required per workers thus yes there is a practical need to assimilate tribes as the communist labor pool gets bigger. The tribal remember also greatly benefit as they will have much more free time then when they in their isolated tribe. this benefit is so minute that it has no barring on the philosophical question mentioned above



So these people should remain ignorant and impoverished to defend their right to independence?they are not subject to any capitalist system, therefore they are not an example of poverty

[Psy]

I agree. The issue is a philosophical one-Would we be excercising kindness or arrogance assimilating them?

We would be exercising practicality, as sooner or later we'd have to contact them and odds are they will be very pissed once they find out they been praying to super-natural beings to help them and we being the closest thing knew their plight but did nothing because we basically wanted to preserve them like animals in a animal reserve.



pratical hierarchy or "leadership" does not lead to a plutocratic class as the plutocratic class does not lead at all. marrying the concept of ruler and leader in a capitalist sense is not only perpetuating capitalist ideology but is blatantly fasle

Once you throw surplus value into the mix the leadership historically becomes the ruling class as it uses its power to expand its power since tribal society has no concept why this would be bad till it is too late. Once humans started farming they a hierarchy of masters all taking surplus from production in exchange giving "protection" from bandits.




this benefit is so minute that it has no barring on the philosophical question mentioned abovethey are not subject to any capitalist system, therefore they are not an example of poverty
The benefit is huge for those of the tribes as the time they spend working would be slashed in half at least. For communist society it means more workers willing to work with rural work crews, since those that lived in isolated tribes probably won't mind being part of work crews building infrastructure through uninhabited wilderness so those regions can be developed and so scientists can research these areas.

Lenin said "We must show the peasants that the organisation of industry on the basis of modern, advanced technology, on electrification, which will provide a link between town and country, will put an end to the division between town and country, will make it possible to raise the level of culture in the countryside and to overcome, even in the most remote corners of land, backwardness, ignorance, poverty, disease, and barbarism"

[Prof. Oblivion]

There was still property rights thus why tribes went to war and within the leadership there was the seeds of a ruling class that just needed surplus value to take hold.

What is the tribal structure of the Mashco-Piro? What strata, group or individuals within the Mashco-Piro tribe represent "the seeds of a ruling class"?

[Luís Henrique]

Good for them!

What exactly is good in this tragic story?

Luís Henrique

[Psy]

What is the tribal structure of the Mashco-Piro? What strata, group or individuals within the Mashco-Piro tribe represent "the seeds of a ruling class"?
Since they are unconnected that is hard to say but the leadership of hunter-gather society is what grew into the first ruling class in human history. When the leadership of a hunter-gather societies pushed their tribe to farm the leadership found itself in a position of power with surplus production that meant it was possible to have division of labor with a unproductive managing class. We see the seeds of this in shamans that became high priests through the division of labor and their class self-interest became furthering the developing class division, we see this all through the ancient world from Egypt to the Maya.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Since they are unconnected that is hard to say but the leadership of hunter-gather society is what grew into the first ruling class in human history. When the leadership of a hunter-gather societies pushed their tribe to farm the leadership found itself in a position of power with surplus production that meant it was possible to have division of labor with a unproductive managing class. We see the seeds of this in shamans that became high priests through the division of labor and their class self-interest became furthering the developing class division, we see this all through the ancient world from Egypt to the Maya.

While what you are describing is historically true, we are also talking about a change which is not automatic, but came as the result of a long development with a lot of induvidual groups reaching dead-ends long before more differerentiated agricultural class societis became pretty much ubiquitious. And even then these kinds of social arrangements only became dominent becuase they were favorable to more stable and larger populations and surplusess meant trade was possible which also then influenced other societies and their development towards agricultural production.

So in a world dominated by socialist relations, if an isolated culture were to abandon their modes of production for something more stable and advanced, I dounbt they would move to agrarian chiefdoms rather than some kind of rural commune of agricultural producers - or something else connected to the worker's society.

This is the kind of organic shift I would fully support and that I counterpose with the idea of pressured or forced modernization - which I argue would more likely result in resistance to and alienation of people against the workers. In fact since many band groups are now connected to capitalism and rely on trade or other things for some of the income for the group or families within it, I think it's likely that in loosing that connection some bands may not be able to support themselves on subsitance alone and will therfore form formal relations with workers. At the same time, other bands, in seeing a benign and non-oppressive society, might just decide there is no risk at developing stronger ties and becoming incorporated as part of that society.

So at any rate, I doubt in the short term some isolated band would develop a ridged class structure let alone radically alter their methods of production unless due to outside factors.

[Prof. Oblivion]

Since they are unconnected that is hard to say but the leadership of hunter-gather society is what grew into the first ruling class in human history. When the leadership of a hunter-gather societies pushed their tribe to farm the leadership found itself in a position of power with surplus production that meant it was possible to have division of labor with a unproductive managing class. We see the seeds of this in shamans that became high priests through the division of labor and their class self-interest became furthering the developing class division, we see this all through the ancient world from Egypt to the Maya.

Since you know absolutely nothing about them then nothing you are saying is valid. You can't argue whether or not it would be beneficial to forcefully and violently destroy their culture and society if you don't know anything about them.

[Lowtech]

We would be exercising practicality from your point of view, not thiers, and even then you're wrong, unless you mistake communism for capitalism that requires millions of worker drones
did nothing because we basically wanted to preserve them like animals in a animal reserve. you don't see them for what they are; they are very self sufficient and live in natural communism. I do not share your capitalist attitude toward them.

Once you throw surplus value into the mix the leadership historically becomes the ruling class.a practical hierachy cannot become a ruling class because a ruling class has no practicality.
The benefit is huge for those of the tribes as... I haven't disagreed there is a benefit, however thier assimilation benefits your agenda more than it does them
Lenin said...First of all, Lenin brings shame to the work of Marx. And its not suprusing that you, a believer in capitalist contentions would identify with Lenin's obviously capitalist attitude toward his fellow humans.

I am open to meaningful conversation, but please do not ruin this discussion with qoutes of an idiot

[maskerade]

Primitive doesn't mean that and does not imply they are less than us in any way. It comes from Latin primitivus, which means "first of its kind". It is not "horribly ethnocentric" to use the term, and its use implies no kind of prejudice.

Luís Henrique

and i suppose 'faggot' just means bundle of wood. it was continuously used through colonialism to justify 'civilizing' missions that have altered the meaning of the term.

[bcbm]

Since they are unconnected that is hard to say but the leadership of hunter-gather society is what grew into the first ruling class in human history. When the leadership of a hunter-gather societies pushed their tribe to farm the leadership found itself in a position of power with surplus production that meant it was possible to have division of labor with a unproductive managing class. We see the seeds of this in shamans that became high priests through the division of labor and their class self-interest became furthering the developing class division, we see this all through the ancient world from Egypt to the Maya.

this is all speculation

[Lowtech]

A bit off topic, but I was hoping to elaborate about my comment that a practical hierarchy cannot become a ruling class.

This cannot happen because a ruling class serves no social or economic practicality, and therefore by definition a ruling class is not a practical hierarchy; it is not a form of leadership; to rule is not the same as being a leader.

This distinction points out that in the examples of natural communism observed in the last indigenous tribes, practical hierarchies do not 'naturally become a capitalist ruling class';

this is a capitalist contention because they wish decieve people into believing that a ruling class has a practical role in society, contending that a ruling class maintains a practical leadership role.

this is more of capitalist ideology that people lack the ability to organize themselves, therefore in exchange for our consent to wage slavery, they organize us so we may aspire to be more like them as in thier eyes we are sub human.

communists are not capitalists, so by definiton we cannot look at indigenous peoples as sub human, especially as eventhough they are technologically inferior, they surpass current civilization socially.

many call the ideals of communism to be utopian, yet communism has existed for the entirty of human existence prior to advent of capitalism. perhaps they should revisit the definiton of the term 'utopia'

[Psy]

from your point of view, not thiers, and even then you're wrong, unless you mistake communism for capitalism that requires millions of worker drones you don't see them for what they are; they are very self sufficient and live in natural communism.

The problem is their society, they are not self-sufficient in the eyes of industrial society as they don't even have stockpiles to ride out disruptions in production or to deal with emergencies.



I do not share your capitalist attitude toward them.

I'm looking at them through the eyes of a industrialist, they have no industry thus primitive thus can't be self sufficient as how can you be sufficient without industry to mechanize labor?



a practical hierachy cannot become a ruling class because a ruling class has no practicality.

Actually a ruling class has a practicality thus why it dominated, communism will do away with ruling classes simply because technology has made self organizing of production practical, yet how the hell are isolated tribes suppose to plan their economy in a way all their illiterate members understand and how will tribal members have time to partake in planning their economy without mechanization of labor?



I haven't disagreed there is a benefit, however thier assimilation benefits your agenda more than it does them.

How so?

They will get free education and for the first time will understand how their world works, plus their living standards would sky rocket while their work day will shrink. Workers in the US today work 40 hour work a week, global communism would cut that in about half.




First of all, Lenin brings shame to the work of Marx.

That is your opinion.




And its not suprusing that you, a believer in capitalist contentions would identify with Lenin's obviously capitalist attitude toward his fellow humans.

You are also the first person I've seen bash Lenin when talking about its push for electrification of Russia, I guess you just take electricity for granted.

F0BY6hFeaso


While what you are describing is historically true, we are also talking about a change which is not automatic, but came as the result of a long development with a lot of induvidual groups reaching dead-ends long before more differerentiated agricultural class societis became pretty much ubiquitious. And even then these kinds of social arrangements only became dominent becuase they were favorable to more stable and larger populations and surplusess meant trade was possible which also then influenced other societies and their development towards agricultural production.

Yet we saw this development around the world even though distance isolated these civilizations from each other during this early period.



So in a world dominated by socialist relations, if an isolated culture were to abandon their modes of production for something more stable and advanced, I dounbt they would move to agrarian chiefdoms rather than some kind of rural commune of agricultural producers - or something else connected to the worker's society.

But if we allow them to remain isolated then the rest of the world being dominated by socialist relations would be unknown to them.



This is the kind of organic shift I would fully support and that I counterpose with the idea of pressured or forced modernization - which I argue would more likely result in resistance to and alienation of people against the workers. In fact since many band groups are now connected to capitalism and rely on trade or other things for some of the income for the group or families within it, I think it's likely that in loosing that connection some bands may not be able to support themselves on subsitance alone and will therfore form formal relations with workers. At the same time, other bands, in seeing a benign and non-oppressive society, might just decide there is no risk at developing stronger ties and becoming incorporated as part of that society.

A communist society winning over isolated tribes would be very easy due to our technology and logistics. For example we can promise that they will never go hungry again and actually have a high probability of succeeding in carrying out that promise.



So at any rate, I doubt in the short term some isolated band would develop a ridged class structure let alone radically alter their methods of production unless due to outside factors.
So what will happen when they discover agriculture and start on division of labor? How will they comprehend the dangers of ruling classes when it is their first time they had the means to allow it happen and the communist world won't warn them as it won't even make contact with them?

[Luís Henrique]

and i suppose 'faggot' just means bundle of wood. it was continuously used through colonialism to justify 'civilizing' missions that have altered the meaning of the term.

Well, of course, when the word "faggot" is used to refer to a bundle of wood, it just means "bundle of wood". When used against a person, with a derogatory intention, it means another thing.

Similarly, when any word is used to justify colonialism, it is being used to justify colonialism. When it isn't being used to justify colonialism, it is not being used to justify colonialism; there is no magic operation that turns an anti-colonialist discourse into a colonialist one just because the word "primitive" is used in it.

Luís Henrique

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Medicine is a technology of control.
"Health" is hella ideological.
Less bourgeois liberalism parading itself as communist theory, plz.

[Luís Henrique]

Medicine is a technology of control.

Of control of what, exactly?


"Health" is hella ideological.

So are life and death, but I "ideologically" prefer to be alive than dead.


Less bourgeois liberalism parading itself as communist theory, plz.

What exactly is not bourgeois liberalism? Theories that primitive communism is a lost paradise? They abound in 18th century ideologues bourgueoises. We have even a name for that: the bon sauvage or noble savage ideology.

Luís Henrique

[#FF0000]

Nobody's saying anything about lost paradise though, Luis.

Just that forcing people out of the woods and into society is a shitty idea.

[Psy]

Nobody's saying anything about lost paradise though, Luis.

Just that forcing people out of the woods and into society is a shitty idea.

Better then letting tribal people die of preventable diseases and poor nutrition. I would be totally pissed off if there are communist aliens right now that could easily assimilate Earth to be a communist planet in their communist universe but choose not because some stupid policy of non-intervention.

[Nihilist Scud Missile]

Primitive tribes are the revolutionary class! Lenin and Mao on LSD theorizing in the third dimension. (this post is trolling - my actual first attempt at it). The third dimensional revolutionary new synthesis.

Primitive tribes should be left alone and even encouraged under advanced communism. not everyone wants to live the industrial lifestyle. In fact, ecologically speaking not everyone can (under today's consumption standards). There's simply not enough resources. This isn't an argument for anything John Zerzan and company preach.

Anyway, so long as the tribe is communistic under as much equality as can be attained I'd say keep them around.

[Nihilist Scud Missile]

Better then letting tribal people die of preventable diseases and poor nutrition. I would be totally pissed off if there are communist aliens right now that could easily assimilate Earth to be a communist planet in their communist universe but choose not because some stupid policy of non-intervention.

Choice. Primitive tribes should have a choice. Anyway many of the things we die from in industrial societies comes from living in industrial society. There needs to be a diversity of culture on earth not some homogeneous industrial cement parking lot.

[#FF0000]

Better then letting tribal people die of preventable diseases and poor nutrition.

Is this even a problem?

And what if they resist?

[Psy]

Is this even a problem?

It is a problem in that those in isolated are suffering due to their lack of industrialization.



And what if they resist?
Why would they resist? The isolated tribes of Russia didn't resist modernization and they were quickly proletarianized through the industrialization process.

[Luís Henrique]

Nobody's saying anything about lost paradise though, Luis.

Just that forcing people out of the woods and into society is a shitty idea.

And "nobody" is saying anything about forcing people out of the woods into a worlwide communist society - much less into our society.

Luís Henrique

[#FF0000]

It is a problem in that those in isolated are suffering due to their lack of industrialization.

How are they suffering? Disease and malnutrition? Can you back that claim up?

Especially the "disease" one seeing as it would be a tremendous issue after making contact with these groups.


Why would they resist? The isolated tribes of Russia didn't resist modernization and they were quickly proletarianized through the industrialization process.

Hey, if they willingly join society, then great. But you can't say whether or not they will for sure. What do you do, then, about those who don't. Just assuming everyone will hop on board isn't an answer.

[#FF0000]

And "nobody" is saying anything about forcing people out of the woods into a worlwide communist society - much less into our society.

Luís Henrique

You're just saying joining society would be the better option for these people?

[Nihilist Scud Missile]

It is a problem in that those in isolated are suffering due to their lack of industrialization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushmen

They're suffering FROM capitalist industrialization. The sort of industrialization that takes NOTHING into account but profits. It's not the job of communism to "civilize" and industrialize every nook and cranny of the globe. They're (the bushmen) quite egalitarian and more civilized than most people on here - anyhow, I'm not sure Marx, in his study of the Iroquois, said we should put them in militarized labor (As Trotsky said about Russians) and form some homogenized global blue overall wearing death cult.


Why would they resist? The isolated tribes of Russia didn't resist modernization and they were quickly proletarianized through the industrialization process.
This makes me sick. Do you know how many people resisted the compulsory process of being "proletarianized" in Russia? See the Kautsky thread please.

[Luís Henrique]

You're just saying joining society would be the better option for these people?

No.

I am asking a question. What is not bourgeois liberalism? It is very chic to label other people's positions as "liberal", with or without any base in reality. But the truth is liberalism is the predominant brand of bourgeois ideology, and as such makes the bulk of the dominant ideas in our societies. Only by not participating is society can someone be uncontaminated by liberalism (by what would such person be contaminated is another discussion, but I would wage it would be something worse than liberalism). For everyone else, the ideological fight against liberalism is first of all an internal fight: how we deal with our own liberalism. And those who pretend to be completely untouched by liberalism are consequently, with all probability, just unaware of their own liberal tendencies.

Particularly when people accuse others of "liberalism" while at the same time spouting bourgeois nonsence such as "medicine is a technology of control" or "health is ideological".

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

How are they suffering? Disease and malnutrition? Can you back that claim up?

What would the life expectation in such societies be?

The problem with them joining the main society is a different one, and directly tied to the classist nature of our society at this point in history. They won't be invited to become part of the ruling class; they will be forced, or coerced, or persuaded, or invited (makes little difference from this point of view), only to compose the very lower layers of our society.

After a worldwide socialist revolution, the problem changes completely.


Especially the "disease" one seeing as it would be a tremendous issue after making contact with these groups.

Quite probably. Isolation from "society" means also isolation from the pathogens that abound in "society", and consequently a weaker immunological system. But there are differences of another kind at play there too. When the Europeans set to conquer and colonise the world, their task was made easier by the epidemiological differences between Europe and the Americas (meaning the aboriginal population was decimated by diseases that Europeans could resist well). But it was made more difficult by the epidemiological differences between Europe and Africa (meaning they had a hard time surviving diseases that Africans could resist much better than them).

But any group of humans can develop their immunity to any given set of diseases - particularly if they have access to vaccination. I am not sure avoiding all contact with pathogens is a good idea at the collective level.

And I am sure an international socialist society would take that problem into account when contacting primitive societies.

Luís Henrique

[Prof. Oblivion]

Psy knows absolutely nothing of the tribes s/he is willing to destroy. S/he is willing to do so merely on the basis of ideology. There's really nothing more to say about this.

[Nihilist Scud Missile]

Rick Roderick has a lot of interesting videos on youtube concerning Nietzsche.

http://youtu.be/R-vER18N4y8

[Psy]

Psy knows absolutely nothing of the tribes s/he is willing to destroy. S/he is willing to do so merely on the basis of ideology. There's really nothing more to say about this.
It is on the basis of said tribes having lack of adequate means of production thus lack of adequate products of society thus poor standard of living.

[Prof. Oblivion]

That sentence contains a long list of presumptions, none of which you can verify.

Do you think the destruction of the native Americans by settlers was a good thing? What about the carving up of Africa for capitalist exploitation? Wouldn't your same argument assert in these cases that these were indeed good things because it brought them into the capitalist system, a step forward for them based on your criteria?

[Luís Henrique]

Do you think the destruction of the native Americans by settlers was a good thing?

You are implicitly conflating two very different things. One is the destruction of a society by cooption of its members into something else. Another is the destruction of a society by the physical elimination of its members. The latter is genocide, and is what happened in the US (and colonial America before it). Evidently genocide is not a "good thing" by any means.


What about the carving up of Africa for capitalist exploitation?

However, this thread is about "primitive tribes in a socialist world", ie, about the relations between a global post-capitalist communist society and surviving primitive, pre-classist, communist societies. So the capitalist carving of Africa, while certainly to be opposed, isn't really relevant to the discussion, except in order to contrast the attitudes of global (or national) capitalist societies against the attitudes of a global communist society.


Wouldn't your same argument assert in these cases that these were indeed good things because it brought them into the capitalist system, a step forward for them based on your criteria?

As pointed before, being "brought into the capitalist system" is something that does not exist in the abstract. Given the classist nature of capitalist societies, people are only brought "into the capitalist system" by being brought into one of its classes. In the case, always or with few exceptions, into the lower layers of the proletariat, peasantry, or lumpen-proletariat. Nothing of this applies to a global communist society, where classes do not exist.

(And, of course, you cannot be "brought into the capitalist system", or into anything else if it matters, if you are physically eliminated, as it was the case of so many African and Amerindian societies - not all of them primitive or communist, by the way).

Luís Henrique

[#FF0000]

What would the life expectation in such societies be?

This is what I'm wondering. I actually imagine it to be around 65-70 based on the life expectancy in hunter-gatherer tribes.


After a worldwide socialist revolution, the problem changes completely.
I am aware of this. However, they still may not want to be part of our society and I don't understand what anyone gains from forcing people who do not want to join to join.


Quite probably. Isolation from "society" means also isolation from the pathogens that abound in "society", and consequently a weaker immunological system. But there are differences of another kind at play there too. When the Europeans set to conquer and colonise the world, their task was made easier by the epidemiological differences between Europe and the Americas (meaning the aboriginal population was decimated by diseases that Europeans could resist well). But it was made more difficult by the epidemiological differences between Europe and Africa (meaning they had a hard time surviving diseases that Africans could resist much better than them).Half of the Nahua tribe in Peru was wiped out when loggers accidentally made contact with them just back in the 80's. There's more than a few examples like this in recent history. Disease would still cause mass deaths. I don't see how an international socialist society would be able to do anything to prevent that unless they just force these people to accept our vaccines and medicines for diseases they never had to deal with until we decided we wanted to talk to them.

[Luís Henrique]

This is what I'm wondering. I actually imagine it to be around 65-70 based on the life expectancy in hunter-gatherer tribes.

Hunter-gatherers have a 65 years life expectancy?

This study, Longevity Among Hunter-Gatherers: A Cross-CulturalExamination (http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2007pdr.pdf) says otherwise (Among traditional huntergatherers, the average life expectancy at birth (e0) varies from 21 to 37 years). You may be confusing the life expectancy at birth with the life expectancy among those who have survived childhood, and those societies have a very high - appalling indeed - infantile mortality.

The study also shows that acculturated hunter-gatherers have a higher life expectancy than seldom contacted hunter-gatherers.


I am aware of this. However, they still may not want to be part of our society and I don't understand what anyone gains from forcing people who do not want to join to join.Who is talking about forcing anyone to do anything?


Half of the Nahua tribe in Peru was wiped out when loggers accidentally made contact with them just back in the 80's. There's more than a few examples like this in recent history. Disease would still cause mass deaths. I don't see how an international socialist society would be able to do anything to prevent that unless they just force these people to accept our vaccines and medicines for diseases they never had to deal with until we decided we wanted to talk to them.I doubt there would be an epidemics caused by individuals contacting an isolated tribe, especially if such individuals are trained and skilled anthropologists, prepared to deal with the situation, and previously checked for common infectious diseases. Such problems arise when there is frequent, uncontrolled contact. In which case the point would be that the best way to avoid frequent uncontrolled contact is to make controlled contact by specialised personel.

Luís Henrique

[#FF0000]

The study also shows that acculturated hunter-gatherers have a higher life expectancy than seldom contacted hunter-gatherers.

I think you're right on all points here, actually. The child mortality rate, though, is much lower among groups that rely more on foraging and less on hunting, if I remember correctly.


Who is talking about forcing anyone to do anything?

That's the entire concern here. No one has a problem with these groups joining a socialist society of their own free will -- even if it means the entire tribe joins the "old ways" are gone forever. I'm worried, though, that there will be people who don't want to join. If that is the case, they ought to be left alone.

[Igor]

Who is talking about forcing anyone to do anything?

I'd recommend you to read the first couple of pages of the thread. Here, have an actual quote:


I have no qualms about forcing socialism onto people, are indigenous people exceptions to proletarian class rule.

so he is, and he isn't exactly the only one. there's been lots of shit in this thread about forcing, and i don't think anyone is saying it's somehow preferable for those people to remain in their current society as opposed to socialism but that if that's how it's going to be we shouldn't march in and "liberate" them

[Prof. Oblivion]

You are implicitly conflating two very different things. One is the destruction of a society by cooption of its members into something else. Another is the destruction of a society by the physical elimination of its members. The latter is genocide, and is what happened in the US (and colonial America before it). Evidently genocide is not a "good thing" by any means.Actually, both of these happened. Both of them are required to destroy a culture and assimilate its members into another; those who can be "coopted" are, and those who can't, are killed. What else could "forceful cooption" mean; the term directly implies the latter.

[Psy]

That's the entire concern here. No one has a problem with these groups joining a socialist society of their own free will -- even if it means the entire tribe joins the "old ways" are gone forever. I'm worried, though, that there will be people who don't want to join. If that is the case, they ought to be left alone.

That is idealistic as eventually there will be disasters that requires the communist world to evacuate the tribe. One example is space crafts crashing down near them, which means we have to explain: Who we are, what radioisotope thermoelectric generators are, what radiation is thus why anyone that gets near the crash site without a HAZMAT suit will die from radiation poisoning and why they should orderly follow our evacuation orders.

[Vanguard1917]

What if the interests of the workers' state conflicted irreconcilably with the interests of a tribe's hierarchy? Say, in the event of a civil war against counter-revolutionary forces, a workers' military unit needed to pass through tribal land and was met with armed resistance by an acculturated indigenous tribal leadership allied to reaction?

Tribal communities are de-humanised in a lot of this debate. There's an implicit belief that they're beneath politics. But a revolutionary situation has the tendency to draw entire populations into its ambit. Unless a tribe is completely cut off from wider society (and there aren't so many of such tribes), there is a good chance that it will be drawn into the fight for society's future, either by the forces of revolution or those of reaction.

[#FF0000]

That is idealistic as eventually there will be disasters that requires the communist world to evacuate the tribe. One example is space crafts crashing down near them, which means we have to explain: Who we are, what radioisotope thermoelectric generators are, what radiation is thus why anyone that gets near the crash site without a HAZMAT suit will die from radiation poisoning and why they should orderly follow our evacuation orders.

Psy. This is a ridiculously specific situation and is barely on topic. We aren't talking about evacuating people from our radioactive space garbage, we aren't talking about a tribe allied with a reactionary force during a revolution. We are talking about whether or not an uncontacted tribe should be compelled to integrate into a socialist society. And I think it's really, really silly the way some of you are muddying the waters here.

[Psy]

Psy. This is a ridiculously specific situation and is barely on topic. We aren't talking about evacuating people from our radioactive space garbage, we aren't talking about a tribe allied with a reactionary force during a revolution. We are talking about whether or not an uncontacted tribe should be compelled to integrate into a socialist society. And I think it's really, really silly the way some of you are muddying the waters here.
You do know there is a significant number of radioisotope thermoelectric generators near rural tribes,radioisotope thermoelectric generators don't require human labor for maintenance once built thus why they are used in unmanned space craft, also why the USSR build many of them in remote infrastructure in Siberia like to power radio beacons and unmanned light houses. Since radioisotope thermoelectric generators make a logical power source for such isolated regions it means there is a threat of tribes getting hurt by them even outside space craft crashing near them.

But that is not the only issue, what do we do if a plane crashes near them or if work crews get off course and make contact with them due to getting lost? Or what about people that ignore the communist world banning everyone from making contact with the tribe?

It is just more forward thinking for the communist world to make contact in order to remove this potential issue or unconnected tribes being a issue later.

[#FF0000]

You do know there is a significant number of radioisotope thermoelectric generators near rural tribes,radioisotope thermoelectric generators don't require human labor for maintenance once built thus why they are used in unmanned space craft, also why the USSR build many of them in remote infrastructure in Siberia like to power radio beacons and unmanned light houses. Since radioisotope thermoelectric generators make a logical power source for such isolated regions it means there is a threat of tribes getting hurt by them even outside space craft crashing near them.

But that is not the only issue, what do we do if a plane crashes near them or if work crews get off course and make contact with them due to getting lost? Or what about people that ignore the communist world banning everyone from making contact with the tribe?

It is just more forward thinking for the communist world to make contact in order to remove this potential issue or unconnected tribes being a issue later.

psy i don't care about these situations though.

People crashing and making accidental contact: what do you want us to do? Sure, go rescue them or whatever.

People breaking the rules and making contact? Doho, they're in trouble, because they just put people's lives at risk.

But again none of this even matters because we're not talking about these specific little scenarios that we are crafting here. We are saying: How should uncontacted tribes be handled. Left to their own devices or compelled to integrate.

[Psy]

psy i don't care about these situations though.

People crashing and making accidental contact: what do you want us to do? Sure, go rescue them or whatever.

People breaking the rules and making contact? Doho, they're in trouble, because they just put people's lives at risk.

But again none of this even matters because we're not talking about these specific little scenarios that we are crafting here. We are saying: How should uncontacted tribes be handled. Left to their own devices or compelled to integrate.
My point is leaving unconnected tribes alone assumes there will never be an incident where this decision will come back to harm the communist world or the tribe.

[Luís Henrique]

That's the entire concern here. No one has a problem with these groups joining a socialist society of their own free will -- even if it means the entire tribe joins the "old ways" are gone forever.

I don't have the same impression. Some posters seem to be making the point that merely contacting those groups would be unbearably authoritarian, as it would lead to their destruction.

(And yes, I agree with them that it would lead to the destruction of those groups; I think it is naïve to belive otherwise.)


I'm worried, though, that there will be people who don't want to join. If that is the case, they ought to be left alone.

Perhaps.

Suppose they have a vote on the issue, and that 50 of them want to join while 49 don't want to join. Do the 49 have the right to quit the tribe and join the socialist society? What if the majority of 50 tells them they have lost the vote, and so must remain? What if they threaten those in the minority if they leave?

What if they don't have a vote, but their elders decide for them?

Do they count as individuals, as it would be in a global communist society, or do they count only as members of the group, as they probably are accostumed to? If the former, how are the tribes going to survive if significant minorities are allowed to quit? If the latter, what comes of those who would like to join, but will be forced not to by the majority?

Luís Henrique

[Prof. Oblivion]

This is just getting silly now.

[#FF0000]

I don't have the same impression. Some posters seem to be making the point that merely contacting those groups would be unbearably authoritarian, as it would lead to their destruction.

(And yes, I agree with them that it would lead to the destruction of those groups; I think it is naïve to belive otherwise.)

Not "unbearably authoritarian". Dangerous -- for everyone involved.

bcbm mentioned earlier that some of these tribes don't appreciate visitors and have been known to attack people who wander into their territory.


Suppose they have a vote on the issue, and that 50 of them want to join while 49 don't want to join. Do the 49 have the right to quit the tribe and join the socialist society? What if the majority of 50 tells them they have lost the vote, and so must remain? What if they threaten those in the minority if they leave?

What if they don't have a vote, but their elders decide for them?

Do they count as individuals, as it would be in a global communist society, or do they count only as members of the group, as they probably are accostumed to? If the former, how are the tribes going to survive if significant minorities are allowed to quit? If the latter, what comes of those who would like to join, but will be forced not to by the majority?

That's up to them to figure out. If I were to say "oh we should go in and get those people out" I'd really have to ask "how would we ever even know this vote took place?"

I also think it's a little silly to say "yeah we should go in and rescue that guy who wants to leave" when it could mean exposing the rest of the tribe to disease they can't fight and killing them.


My point is leaving unconnected tribes alone assumes there will never be an incident where this decision will come back to harm the communist world or the tribe.

But that's a totally different issue than integrating a tribe into society.

[bcbm]

What if the interests of the workers' state conflicted irreconcilably with the interests of a tribe's hierarchy? Say, in the event of a civil war against counter-revolutionary forces, a workers' military unit needed to pass through tribal land and was met with armed resistance by an acculturated indigenous tribal leadership allied to reaction?

wipe them out, like the drug cartels, obviously.

what you cant afford a helicopter after the fucking rev?

[Psy]

I also think it's a little silly to say "yeah we should go in and rescue that guy who wants to leave" when it could mean exposing the rest of the tribe to disease they can't fight and killing them.

That assumes incompetence of the workers assigned to work with the tribe since armies drill to practice dealing with nuclear/biological and chemical condemnations. I would say it safe a communist world would do the same for making contact with tribes, having dress rehearsals in HASMAT suits with actors playing the tribe that the workers would be making contact with.

Sure HASMAT suits will make us look alien to isolate tribes but they will make it impossible for either side getting the other side sick till doctors can examine them and figure out what their immune system is weak to.

http://response.restoration.noaa.gov/sites/default/files/images/vicki.loe/hazmat.suit_.jpg?1318543080




But that's a totally different issue than integrating a tribe into society.
Without integrating the tribe how can the tribe understand the issues that concern them?

[#FF0000]

Without integrating the tribe how can the tribe understand the issues that concern them?

So your answer is to integrate them (by force) just in case we accidentally spill some radioactive waste near them and need to evacuate them?


Sure HASMAT suits will make us look alien to isolate tribes but they will make it impossible for either side getting the other side sick till doctors can examine them and figure out what their immune system is weak to.

But we know what they're weak to -- everything they've never been exposed to. Colds, the flu, etc.

And what if they don't want to be examined? What do you do with them then?

[Psy]

So your answer is to integrate them (by force) just in case we accidentally spill some radioactive waste near them and need to evacuate them?

Or if our economic central plan calls for building a dam down river that would flood their land that would provide electricity that would benefit far more people then the population of the tribe.

In short if the tribes are getting in the way of the progress of industrial communism.



But we know what they're weak to -- everything they've never been exposed to. Colds, the flu, etc.

And what haven't been the exposed to?



And what if they don't want to be examined? What do you do with them then?
This is problem of not having them integrated, them having irrational fears like being examined by doctors.

[#FF0000]

In short if the tribes are getting in the way of the progress of industrial communism..

Neat. I don't agree but what if they're doing nothing? If they just exist?


This is problem of not having them integrated, them having irrational fears like being examined by doctors.

"If they lived like us this wouldn't be a problem"

[Psy]

.

Neat. I don't agree but what if they're doing nothing? If they just exist?

Theoretically that would be no problem if that was a stable relationship. Yet practically sooner or later contact will be made unofficially or something will come up to force communists society to interact with them.



"If they lived like us this wouldn't be a problem"
Well the way they are we can't even show them safety videos to warn them of the dangerous of our infrastructure like railway tracks and high tension wires, thus making building infrastructure near them problematic.

[#FF0000]

Theoretically that would be no problem if that was a stable relationship. Yet practically sooner or later contact will be made unofficially or something will come up to force communists society to interact with them.

I'm not convinced of that, frankly. I think we can and ought to consciously keep our distance. I don't believe there is anything that needs doing badly enough to displace these people.


Well the way they are we can't even show them safety videos to warn them of the dangerous of our infrastructure like railway tracks and high tension wires, thus making building infrastructure near them problematic.

If they are regularly interacting with our infrastructure then they have way more immediate concerns like the plague that is about to wipe them off the face of the planet.

[Psy]

I'm not convinced of that, frankly. I think we can and ought to consciously keep our distance. I don't believe there is anything that needs doing badly enough to displace these people.

Well there is scientific research like botany and zoology since these tribes are in the same areas scientists tend to be interested in for its isolation.

Then there is flight paths for example the Graf Zeppelin flew over Siberian tribes simply because it was the most logical flight path.



If they are regularly interacting with our infrastructure then they have way more immediate concerns like the plague that is about to wipe them off the face of the planet.
How so, our technology has allowed us to build infrastructure far from settlements that service it, thus why you do have railways go very long stretches through wilderness.

[#FF0000]

Well there is scientific research like botany and zoology since these tribes are in the same areas scientists tend to be interested in for its isolation.

Well they better tread lightly, then.


Then there is flight paths for example the Graf Zeppelin flew over Siberian tribes simply because it was the most logical flight path.


There's nothing wrong with flying over them imo.


How so, our technology has allowed us to build infrastructure far from settlements that service it, thus why you do have railways go very long stretches through wilderness.

Because I don't think we need infrastructure as far out as some of these tribes live.

But yeah this thread has gotten silly.

[Psy]

Well they better tread lightly, then.

So scientists have to limit their research to cater to the policy of keeping these tribes isolated?




There's nothing wrong with flying over them imo.

The Graf Zeppelin scared isolated Siberian tribes, reports from the zeppelin is the tribes on the ground ran in terror and tried to hide from it.



Because I don't think we need infrastructure as far out as some of these tribes live.

How about to go through the isolated area like the Trans-Siberian Line did, connecting Moscow with the Far East via 9 thousand kilometres of track that expanded even more under the USSR as the Trans-Siberian line developed Siberia to the point the Baikal-Amur Mainline was built to relieve traffic from the Trans-Siberian line.

I mean what if engineers can see the only viable route going near tribal villages as the tribal villages built near the same river the railway engineers want to hug to avoid steep grades?

[Luís Henrique]

Not "unbearably authoritarian". Dangerous -- for everyone involved.

So our main concern is their - and our - individual well being?


bcbm mentioned earlier that some of these tribes don't appreciate visitors and have been known to attack people who wander into their territory.Yup. Xenophobia predates class.


That's up to them to figure out. If I were to say "oh we should go in and get those people out" I'd really have to ask "how would we ever even know this vote took place?"

I also think it's a little silly to say "yeah we should go in and rescue that guy who wants to leave" when it could mean exposing the rest of the tribe to disease they can't fight and killing them.And so, our main concern is not their individual well being?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Because I don't think we need infrastructure as far out as some of these tribes live.

So let's suppose that our global communist society opts for a policy of non-expansion at all. I don't know if it would, but let's admit it for the sake of argument.

What, on the other hand, is going to keep the primitive societies from expanding and/or getting more technologically advanced? Remember, humankind is roaming over the planet for some hundred millenia; agriculture is merely 10 thousand year old. Those guys are delayed, compared to us, mere what, 3 to 5% in time? Or do you think those who haven't gone through the process of class stratification and post-agricultural technological progress are for some reason immune to it, or unable?

And if they do expand, do progress in technology, and do stratify into classes, then how do we avoid contact with them? Should we avoid such contact?

Luís Henrique

[Vanguard1917]

And if they do expand, do progress in technology...

I guess that will never happen under socialism if the latter has a policy of artificially isolating these tribes out of some sense of good will. They will never progress beyond their primitive forms of social organisation (wider interaction is a prior condition for social transformation), while the society which holds them in place like some nature reserve progresses year on year.

[Luís Henrique]

I guess that will never happen under socialism if the latter has a policy of artificially isolating these tribes out of some sense of good will. They will never progress beyond their primitive forms of social organisation (wider interaction is a prior condition for social transformation), while the society which holds them in place like some nature reserve progresses year on year.

Like in a human zoo?

Luís Henrique

[Vanguard1917]

Like in a human zoo?

Luís Henrique

Maybe that's the effect, but i don't think it's the intention (which would imply malice). The problem here is a misguided sense of 'doing the right thing', based on all kinds of deluded conceptions about tribal society that are currently in vogue, e.g.: 'They live like that because they want to; it's their chosen way of life; it's their cultural identity; modernity is a discourse; who are you to say tribal life is backward? all forms of lifestyle are equally valid' etc...

[blake 3:17]

What exactly is good in this tragic story?

Luís Henrique


People were standing up for themselves and letting the oh so well intentioned "eco" tourists to get lost.

I've been reading an excellent book called Radical Hope which takes as a kind of case study the experience of the Crow people who were assimilated by the Americans in their war with the Sioux. Their leader Plenty Coups in his memoir describes the world as ending with the destruction of their nomadic way of life. He, and they, did relatively well materially once being settled, but their entire way of life was gone. It simply ceased to exist.

In no way do we need to romanticize or idealize indigenous peoples to recognize their right to live as they see fit.

People may wish to consider Montaigne's essay Of Cannibals: http://faculty.smu.edu/rkemper/anth_4309-6309/montaigne-Of_Cannibals.html

[Psy]

People were standing up for themselves and letting the oh so well intentioned "eco" tourists to get lost.

I've been reading an excellent book called Radical Hope which takes as a kind of case study the experience of the Crow people who were assimilated by the Americans in their war with the Sioux. Their leader Plenty Coups in his memoir describes the world as ending with the destruction of their nomadic way of life. He, and they, did relatively well materially once being settled, but their entire way of life was gone. It simply ceased to exist.

In no way do we need to romanticize or idealize indigenous peoples to recognize their right to live as they see fit.

If the Sioux developed industrialization prior to colonization they would have had a chance of defending their territory. The Japanese ruling class realized this back in the Meiji restoration where they quickly industrialized once they realized there is no alternative to industrialization as it impossible to fight industrialized armies with non-industrialized armies.

[blake 3:17]

If the Sioux developed industrialization prior to colonization they would have had a chance of defending their territory. The Japanese ruling class realized this back in the Meiji restoration where they quickly industrialized once they realized there is no alternative to industrialization as it impossible to fight industrialized armies with non-industrialized armies.

The book is not about the Sioux, but the Crow. And they did embrace modern agricultural techniques and did OK at it -- Plenty Coups won a number of prizes for this and had a number of state acknowledgements. What he does describe is an end of experience, an end of history, that success in the Anglo-American sense was a total catastrophe.

I've thought of starting a discussion on Clausewitz's "War is politics by other means". I think that politics is war by other means. Anyways thread drift...

Edited to add: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plenty_Coups for some historical background

[blake 3:17]

One of the most sensible proposals out forward in the global justice movement in the late 90s was one around workers in the Global North organizing in solidarity with peasants and agricultural workers in the Global South around land reform and defence of the commons in Latin America and Asia.

International solidarity and socialist internationalism isn't about trying to make the underdeveloped world more integrated into imperialism.

[Psy]

The book is not about the Sioux, but the Crow.

My mistake



And they did embrace modern agricultural techniques and did OK at it -- Plenty Coups won a number of prizes for this and had a number of state acknowledgements. What he does describe is an end of experience, an end of history, that success in the Anglo-American sense was a total catastrophe.

And this is what the ruling class of feudal Japan feared once they saw came to terms of the industrial might of the major imperial powers. In reaction the feudal Japanese ruling class used its armies to crush traditionalists and put Japan on a rapid industrialization program only second to the USSR later. The new Japan bourgeoisie state subsidized its brightest engineers to study in England, France and USA with instructions to figure out how industrial production worked so the brand new Japanese capitalists class could copy industrialization. The USSR did rapid industrialization even better to the point the USSR was able to keep the imperial powers against it at bay.

Now what did the limited technology of Crow do for the Crow holding its own against imperial powers?

[bcbm]

The problem here is a misguided sense of 'doing the right thing', based on all kinds of deluded conceptions about tribal society that are currently in vogue, e.g.: 'They live like that because they want to; it's their chosen way of life;

once again, the idea that lots of tribal society have no idea about modern society is mistaken. many are aware of it and avoid it, others take part in some aspects of it but still choose to maintain a tribal lifestyle. i guess they have deluded conceptions about themselves?

[Luís Henrique]

People were standing up for themselves and letting the oh so well intentioned "eco" tourists to get lost.

They were standing for themselves - or for an ideology, a way of life, a set of rituals?


I've been reading an excellent book called Radical Hope which takes as a kind of case study the experience of the Crow people who were assimilated by the Americans in their war with the Sioux. Their leader Plenty Coups in his memoir describes the world as ending with the destruction of their nomadic way of life. He, and they, did relatively well materially once being settled, but their entire way of life was gone. It simply ceased to exist.

Everything that exists deserves to "cease to exist". Now, is the entire way of life that was gone something we should lament? Something we should strive to keep? Even if the costs are narrower, shorter, more brutal lives? Are "ways of life" valuable in and of themselves?

If so, what about other "ways of life" such as factory grunt labour in the 19th century, cotton picking in Southern United States, pyramid building in ancient Egypt, sacrificing people to keep the Sun circling around the Earth among the ancient Maya, or for whatever reason the Phoenicians had to burn their kids to their gods? Slavery, serfdom, war, ramsacking, misoginy, homophobia, death penalties, genital mutilation, etc.?


In no way do we need to romanticize or idealize indigenous peoples to recognize their right to live as they see fit.

Do they have the right to live as they see fit? Or does the life they live impose a given worldview on them, that makes them unable to actually chose what lives they want to live?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

i guess they have deluded conceptions about themselves?

Who hasn't?

Luís Henrique

[hetz]

I don't know, depends.
For example you had "primitive tribes" that were integrated into socialist society nicely in the Northern USSR, you had some that didn't ( in Central Asia for example ) and in Vietnam you had the Montagnards who mostly sided with the imperialists and their puppets.

[ind_com]

I don't know, depends.
For example you had "primitive tribes" that were integrated into socialist society nicely in the Northern USSR, you had some that didn't ( in Central Asia for example ) and in Vietnam you had the Montagnards who mostly sided with the imperialists and their puppets.

The conflicts with tribal societies and ethnic minorities were among the biggest blunders caused by the policies of the erstwhile socialist nations.

[hetz]

The conflicts with tribal societies and ethnic minorities were among the biggest blunders caused by the policies of the erstwhile socialist nations.

What exactly are you talking about?
Was it wrong for the USSR to start the collectivization and modernization in Central Asia which of course inevitably caused conflicts, as it did elsewhere?

[ind_com]

What exactly are you talking about?
Was it wrong for the USSR to start the collectivization and modernization in Central Asia which of course inevitably caused conflicts, as it did elsewhere?

Instead of mechanical changes brought from outside, it is always better to step up class struggle inside minority ethnicities. Without this approach, the implementation can have very negative effects on these populations, even up to creating anti-imperialist sentiment against the socialist nation. Let us not forget what happened in Chechnya.

[Psy]

Instead of mechanical changes brought from outside, it is always better to step up class struggle inside minority ethnicities. Without this approach, the implementation can have very negative effects on these populations, even up to creating anti-imperialist sentiment against the socialist nation. Let us not forget what happened in Chechnya.

The anti-imperial sentiment had nothing to do with modernizing it had to do with how the USSR went about projecting its power. The USSR didn't just go "here have some free machinery and we will train some of you in engineering", if the USSR did they wouldn't have meet that much resistance.

[l'Enfermé]

Instead of mechanical changes brought from outside, it is always better to step up class struggle inside minority ethnicities. Without this approach, the implementation can have very negative effects on these populations, even up to creating anti-imperialist sentiment against the socialist nation. Let us not forget what happened in Chechnya.
What about Chechnya? Chechnya was a part of the Soviet Union, and according to you Stalinists, the Soviet Union was socialist. If it was socialist, how could the "class struggle" be "stepped up"?

[hetz]

What about Chechnya? Chechnya was a part of the Soviet Union, and according to you Stalinists, the Soviet Union was socialist. If it was socialist, how could the "class struggle" be "stepped up"?

I think you surely know of Stalin's theory of the aggravation of class struggle under socialism.

[ind_com]

What about Chechnya? Chechnya was a part of the Soviet Union, and according to you Stalinists, the Soviet Union was socialist. If it was socialist, how could the "class struggle" be "stepped up"?

What stalinets854 said. This theory is generalized in Maoism, which explains the occasional chauvinist attitude towards minorities in the erstwhile socialist nations. Apart from that, there are certain shortcomings of traditional Leninism that made the revolution 'trickle-down' to the minorities, hence posing a threat to their internal class struggle.

[LiberationTheologist]

Well I vote for stealing their land, showing them how to live and assuring they keep killing animals as their main source of nutrition, and forcing them to produce technologically advanced gadgets (for 40-60 hours a week).

We will call this liberation of the land, liberation of the people and liberation of animals, and liberation of the working class.




















/sarcasm

[l'Enfermé]

You didn't answer anything. You say that the Soviet Union was socialist. If it was socialist, against whom is the class struggle being "stepped up"? There is no bourgeoisie in capitalism, there is no petty-bourgeoisie, there are no landlords, there is no clergy. There were 2 classes in Chechnya according to Stalinist ideology, the peasantry, and the proletariat, made up primarily of Slavic colonists in Grozny. According to Lenin, your social class is determined primarily by your relation to the means of production and your role in the social organization of labour. Are you saying that a capitalist class existed in Chechnya, say, during the 30s, as defined by Marx or Lenin? A capitalist class in the "socialist" USSR, 20 years after October?

Just what the fuck are you talking about?

[ind_com]

You didn't answer anything. You say that the Soviet Union was socialist. If it was socialist, against whom is the class struggle being "stepped up"? There is no bourgeoisie in capitalism, there is no petty-bourgeoisie, there are no landlords, there is no clergy. There were 2 classes in Chechnya according to Stalinist ideology, the peasantry, and the proletariat, made up primarily of Slavic colonists in Grozny. According to Lenin, your social class is determined primarily by your relation to the means of production and your role in the social organization of labour. Are you saying that a capitalist class existed in Chechnya, say, during the 30s, as defined by Marx or Lenin? A capitalist class in the "socialist" USSR, 20 years after October?

Just what the fuck are you talking about?

Probably not as defined by Marx or Lenin. But in Maoist terms there was very much a capitalist class in the whole of the Soviet Union.

[l'Enfermé]

Probably not as defined by Marx or Lenin. But in Maoist terms there was very much a capitalist class in the whole of the Soviet Union.
Can you stop pretending you're a Marxist, then? And stop ranting about "revisionists", since you know, you've just admitted that Maoists revised something so fundamental to Marxism as what constitutes a social class.

[blake 3:17]

They were standing for themselves - or for an ideology, a way of life, a set of rituals?



Everything that exists deserves to "cease to exist". Now, is the entire way of life that was gone something we should lament? Something we should strive to keep? Even if the costs are narrower, shorter, more brutal lives? Are "ways of life" valuable in and of themselves?

If so, what about other "ways of life" such as factory grunt labour in the 19th century, cotton picking in Southern United States, pyramid building in ancient Egypt, sacrificing people to keep the Sun circling around the Earth among the ancient Maya, or for whatever reason the Phoenicians had to burn their kids to their gods? Slavery, serfdom, war, ramsacking, misoginy, homophobia, death penalties, genital mutilation, etc.?



Do they have the right to live as they see fit? Or does the life they live impose a given worldview on them, that makes them unable to actually chose what lives they want to live?

Luís Henrique


And how do our lives not impose given worldviews upon us?

There's talk here about certain positive aspects of modernization -- largely in the form of medicine and freedom from certain kinds of oppression -- but the ultimate costs may be heavier than any thought.

[blake 3:17]

Well I vote for stealing their land, showing them how to live and assuring they keep killing animals as their main source of nutrition, and forcing them to produce technologically advanced gadgets (for 40-60 hours a week).

We will call this liberation of the land, liberation of the people and liberation of animals, and liberation of the working class.




















/sarcasm

My thoughts exactly.

The architect of Canada's Right, Tom Flanagan, has been very insistent for years and years (though his tactics have changed) that Canada's native peoples should not be given any national or collective rights because they didn't have hierarchical and statist-militarist structures. Stupid nomads that don't destroy the earth or sea! WTF! Get some private property already!

[ind_com]

Can you stop pretending you're a Marxist, then? And stop ranting about "revisionists", since you know, you've just admitted that Maoists revised something so fundamental to Marxism as what constitutes a social class.

This is not something I just admitted. Maoists are always very clear about their departure from traditional Marxism in various aspects. It is not revisionism, because Marxism is not a religion defined by Marx's words. Marxism is a science, and any changes in it that aid the struggle towards communism, become a part of it. But after these developments take place, those who cling to older forms of Marxism without progressing in any revolution for decades, are dogmato-revisionists.

[Luís Henrique]

Probably not as defined by Marx or Lenin. But in Maoist terms there was very much a capitalist class in the whole of the Soviet Union.

If so, how were Stalin and his apparatchiks not a part of such "capitalist class"?

But this has veered way off topic.

Luís Henrique

[ind_com]

If so, how were Stalin and his apparatchiks not a part of such "capitalist class"?

But this has veered way off topic.

Luís Henrique

Many leading Bolsheviks were. Stalin himself took bureaucratic and revisionist stands on several questions, but he mostly tried to preserve the revolution and socialism. Stalin's mistaken attitude towards the minorities and revolutions abroad, stemmed from Leninism itself.

[Luís Henrique]

And how do our lives not impose given worldviews upon us?

They certainly do.


There's talk here about certain positive aspects of modernization -- largely in the form of medicine and freedom from certain kinds of oppression -- but the ultimate costs may be heavier than any thought.

Here we are, back to discussing off topic.

As posited before, integrating primitive societies into capitalism implies reducing them to proletarians (or peasants, or lumpen, etc). And usually to the lower layers of those classes. We oppose that, evidently.

But this thread should be about the integration of primitive societies into a "socialist world", which most posters here seem unable to deal with, always going back into discussing primitive societies and capitalism - or Stalinism, which no es lo mismo pero es igual.

Luís Henrique

[LiberationTheologist]

They certainly do.



Here we are, back to discussing off topic.

As posited before, integrating primitive societies into capitalism implies reducing them to proletarians (or peasants, or lumpen, etc). And usually to the lower layers of those classes. We oppose that, evidently.

But this thread should be about the integration of primitive societies into a "socialist world", which most posters here seem unable to deal with, always going back into discussing primitive societies and capitalism - or Stalinism, which no es lo mismo pero es igual.

Luís Henrique

Let me state in other words what my thoughts on this subject are and it is a very important question there is no doubt about that. We are dealing with

1. the national question

2. the rights of the minority

You point out that capitalists steal land, and reduce people to worker cogs in the capitalist machine.

What I am saying is that if socialists do nothing but steal land and make the people nothing but cogs in a socialist (it's still capital) machine then it is a worthless destructive system that I want no part of and will oppose.

So what I suggest is that we let native minority populations who own little to no means of production and almost no means of mass production have control over their land and how they want to live no matter what they choose. The nation state is not going anywhere.

In the event that in reality any socialist program has the goal of dominating and controlling societies which do not even own means of mass production and making them all little carbon copies of their masters be they capitalist or socialist then that should be opposed.

Those are solid ethical/moral principles and I am sticking to them.

[hetz]

Are you saying that a capitalist class existed in Chechnya, say, during the 30s, as defined by Marx or Lenin? A capitalist class in the "socialist" USSR, 20 years after October?
Didn't the USSR "officially" became socialist only in 1935, when Stalin proclaimed that socialism had been built "in the main" ?
I don't know much about Chechnya, but I'm sure that there were many petty bourgeois elements left there, just like in every other part of the USSR. There were clerics and ex- clerics, various reactionaries, pro-kulak elements, chieftains, corrupt bureaucrats etc.

[l'Enfermé]

This is not something I just admitted. Maoists are always very clear about their departure from traditional Marxism in various aspects. It is not revisionism, because Marxism is not a religion defined by Marx's words. Marxism is a science, and any changes in it that aid the struggle towards communism, become a part of it. But after these developments take place, those who cling to older forms of Marxism without progressing in any revolution for decades, are dogmato-revisionists.
So you cling on to Maoist dogma almost 65 years after Mao's victory in the Chinese Civil War(apparently a "socialist revolution", though it's obviously hard for sensible Marxists to comprehend how a peasant and petty-bourgeoisie insurrection is a socialist revolution - the proletariat had nothing to do with it) and revise the most fundamental Marxist notions left and right, and we're the "dogmato-revisionists"?

Are you just stupid or are you a troll trying to discredit Maoists? If it's the latter, I don't know why you're bothering, you're the only Maoist on RevLeft I remember and nobody takes them very seriously as it is.

Yeah, sure, Marxism is a science. Astronomy is a science too. Astronomy won't be much of a science if astronomers start claiming that the moon is shaped like a giraffe and is made of jelly beans, though, and the way your kind discredits Marxism is pretty similar.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

So let's suppose that our global communist society opts for a policy of non-expansion at all. I don't know if it would, but let's admit it for the sake of argument.

What, on the other hand, is going to keep the primitive societies from expanding and/or getting more technologically advanced? Remember, humankind is roaming over the planet for some hundred millenia; agriculture is merely 10 thousand year old. Those guys are delayed, compared to us, mere what, 3 to 5% in time? Or do you think those who haven't gone through the process of class stratification and post-agricultural technological progress are for some reason immune to it, or unable?

And if they do expand, do progress in technology, and do stratify into classes, then how do we avoid contact with them? Should we avoid such contact?

In such a situation, contact would be inevitable. In fact, many groups would assimilate on their own terms well before they develop more advanced technology, because technological advancement itself depends on contact with outsiders and as autonomous beings, it is inevitable that over time people within the group will seek contact.


Maybe that's the effect, but i don't think it's the intention (which would imply malice). The problem here is a misguided sense of 'doing the right thing', based on all kinds of deluded conceptions about tribal society that are currently in vogue, e.g.: 'They live like that because they want to; it's their chosen way of life; it's their cultural identity; modernity is a discourse; who are you to say tribal life is backward? all forms of lifestyle are equally valid' etc...

Isn't it kind of paternalistic to assume that the tribes can't figure out for themselves when they might want to contact the outside world and adopt more modern technological innovations???


If the Sioux developed industrialization prior to colonization they would have had a chance of defending their territory. The Japanese ruling class realized this back in the Meiji restoration where they quickly industrialized once they realized there is no alternative to industrialization as it impossible to fight industrialized armies with non-industrialized armies.

Well, to be fair, the Sioux were a small ethnic group living a nomadic existence as plains hunters with limited access to markets, I don't think "industrialization" was ever an option for them.

[ind_com]

So you cling on to Maoist dogma almost 65 years after Mao's victory in the Chinese Civil War(apparently a "socialist revolution", though it's obviously hard for sensible Marxists to comprehend how a peasant and petty-bourgeoisie insurrection is a socialist revolution - the proletariat had nothing to do with it) and revise the most fundamental Marxist notions left and right, and we're the "dogmato-revisionists"?

Maoism changes with communist practice. It is far from a dogma.


Are you just stupid or are you a troll trying to discredit Maoists?

I wonder the same about you. Anyone with elementary knowledge about Maoism knows that the revolution completed through the Chinese Civil War was what Maoists call a new democratic revolution, not a socialist revolution. Also, your attitude of labeling revolutions not explicitly centered around the urban industrial proletariat as 'peasant and petty-bourgeoisie insurrections' is strikingly similar to what led to the undermining and repression of minorities in the USSR.


If it's the latter, I don't know why you're bothering, you're the only Maoist on RevLeft I remember and nobody takes them very seriously as it is.

Yeah, sure, Marxism is a science. Astronomy is a science too. Astronomy won't be much of a science if astronomers start claiming that the moon is shaped like a giraffe and is made of jelly beans, though, and the way your kind discredits Marxism is pretty similar.

Get those giraffes and jelly-beans out of your head and learn to accept that Marx's words are not absolute.

[Psy]

So what I suggest is that we let native minority populations who own little to no means of production and almost no means of mass production have control over their land and how they want to live no matter what they choose. The nation state is not going anywhere.

Yes isolation worked so well for feudal Japan:rolleyes:

The issue is that consciousness comes from the material conditions of the society, tribes will be reactionary compared to the communist world due to their poor material conditions. The solution to tribes being reactionary is for the communist world to change their material condition to eliminate their reactionary nature.

[LiberationTheologist]

Yes isolation worked so well for feudal Japan:rolleyes:

The issue is that consciousness comes from the material conditions of the society, tribes will be reactionary compared to the communist world due to their poor material conditions. The solution to tribes being reactionary is for the communist world to change their material condition to eliminate their reactionary nature.

Who is talking about fuedal Japan? What year is it by the way do you have any idea?

No the issue is that dominating people who are not doing you harm is unjust. Second consciousness does not come just from material conditions I don't give a damn what your Marx pamphlet or Marx bible says. You want to dominate those who do not dominate you and who pose no threat to you? Sick twisted dogma you have there.

I think you need a change of consciousness and making you rich may or may not change your consciousness in relation to people who hunt, fish and generally subsist from the land.

As for your "tribes being reactionary" nonsense I daresay most "tribes" live far more communist than you ever will.

[Psy]

Who is talking about fuedal Japan? What year is it by the way do you have any idea?

The point is eventually these tribes will develop feudalism as they develop agriculture as that is how it has played out around the world. Also that isolationism doesn't make a society progress on the contrary it makes it highly conservative.



No the issue is that dominating people who are not doing you harm is unjust. Second consciousness does not come just from material conditions I don't give a damn what your Marx pamphlet or Marx bible says. You want to dominate those who do not dominate you and who pose no threat to you? Sick twisted dogma you have there.

I don't want to dominate them, I want to remove their material crises by introducing them to the industrial communist world.



As for your "tribes being reactionary" nonsense I daresay most "tribes" live far more communist than you ever will.
Really? Where are these tribal factory councils and come to think of where are the tribal factories? You can't have communism without industry as you need the mechanization of labor to liberate workers from the toil of working the land by hand.

[LiberationTheologist]

The point is eventually these tribes will develop feudalism as they develop agriculture as that is how it has played out around the world. Also that isolationism doesn't make a society progress on the contrary it makes it highly conservative.


I don't want to dominate them, I want to remove their material crises by introducing them to the industrial communist world.


Really? Where are these tribal factory councils and come to think of where are the tribal factories? You can't have communism without industry as you need the mechanization of labor to liberate workers from the toil of working the land by hand.

Right so you want to steal their land (call it liberation), tell them how to live (liberation) and take away all their decision making ability (liberation). Will everyone weare the same uniform and speak the same language or just one of the 5 major ones? Dominating everyone on the planet including those who do not threaten you is a disgusting idea, count me out of of your populace domination plans they sound worse than capitalism. You have the nerve to say "introduce"

Edit- Maybe I should say it sounds just like capitalism, so I oppose this one world monoculture you hope to force on everyone. This thread has moved in the direction of some type of anarchism.

[Psy]

Right so you want to steal their land (call it liberation),

But how can they own land while the communist world did away with property rights?



tell them how to live (liberation) and take away all their decision making ability (liberation).

Well all the communist world would be telling them is to live in a communist world they would still be making decisions beyond joining in the global communist society. If we allow tribes to not partake in communist society then capitalists will demand to form their own society were they also don't have to be part of communist society.

[LiberationTheologist]

But how can they own land while the communist world did away with property rights?

Ya exactly they will be stripped of their ability to protect themselves from whatever group wants to colonize them. This is exactly what should be avoided.



Well all the communist world would be telling them is to live in a communist world they would still be making decisions beyond joining in the global communist society. If we allow tribes to not partake in communist society then capitalists will demand to form their own society were they also don't have to be part of communist society.A one world order that does away with human diversity is a something that is not desirable and must be opposed. There should not be a one size fits all government policy otherwise you get injustice on top of injustice. Anyone who thinks that those who control mass means of production should be treated equally in every aspect as people who subsist from hunting, fishing, gathering and who do not own means of mass production is clearly an unthinking fool who has a deranged dogmatic equality principle.

Using the equality principle in this case is foolish and unjust but you do point out a good case in which equality is a foolish thing to strive for. The desires, history and material conditions of people must be taken into account.

[Psy]

Ya exactly they will be stripped of their ability to protect themselves from whatever group wants to colonize them. This is exactly what should be avoided.

No the communist world would be used to negotiating land use through councils based on weighing local concerns to the needs of the larger global community, especially since relocation would no longer be a big deal under global communism where small communities could be moved and rebuilt to higher standards then they started with.

Thus planners would rightfully asking why we don't just move these tribes to a new town with running water, electricity, education, health care and stores stocked with the products of communist society. Rather then them hording valuable land for themselves that they can't even transform into useful products because they lack industrialization. Even if you wanted to make the land a nature preserve the tribes becomes a problem as it means you can't build roads to support research bases studying the area also we can't protect enraged species with hunter tribes hunting them.



A one world order that does away with human diversity is a something that is not desirable and must be opposed.

I am not against diversity, I'm just for world communism.



There should not be a one size fits all government policy otherwise you get injustice on top of injustice. Anyone who thinks that those who control mass means of production should be treated equally in every aspect as people who subsist from hunting, fishing, gathering and who do not own means of mass production is clearly an unthinking fool who has a deranged dogmatic equality principle.

But under communism the barriers are eliminated thus there is no excuse for tribes to not join the industrial world.



Using the equality principle in this case is foolish and unjust but you do point out a good case in which equality is a foolish thing to strive for. The desires, history and material conditions of people must be taken into account.
In global communism the material conditions of the tribes are their own making it would be the communist world trying to fix that by modernizing these tribes (building roads to the tribes along with electricity, clean water, health care, education and all the products of the modern communist world).

[blake 3:17]

@Psy -- I think you are endorsing an expansionist project that doesn't need to be.

I am not opposed to scientific knowledge or the appropriate use of technology, but I do oppose the idea that a reified modernity need be imposed on a universal scale.

"But under communism the barriers are eliminated thus there is no excuse for tribes to not join the industrial world."

Ouch! You're making an a priori argument that industrial modernity is what all need aspire to.

[Psy]

@Psy -- I think you are endorsing an expansionist project that doesn't need to be.

I am not opposed to scientific knowledge or the appropriate use of technology, but I do oppose the idea that a reified modernity need be imposed on a universal scale.

"But under communism the barriers are eliminated thus there is no excuse for tribes to not join the industrial world."

Ouch! You're making an a priori argument that industrial modernity is what all need aspire to.
Without industry they lack the output to overcome material needs and are doomed to live short lives filled with scarcity and brutal labor requirements.

Think of it, those born into these tribes who will never have the benefit of a modern education, health care, mobility, communications while those born into the communist society will be free to reach their full potential if they apply themselves as the industrial tools would be there for them. So while kid of a tribe can just look up at the moon and wonder, a kid in the communist learns what the moon is through modern education and can train to be a astronaut, or become a rocket engineer, even if just manufacturing the rockets that is still better then the tribal kid that can't even learn what the moon is as they live in a superstitious tribe that lacks the means to understand their world scientifically.

[LiberationTheologist]

Without industry they lack the output to overcome material needs and are doomed to live short lives filled with scarcity and brutal labor requirements.

Think of it, those born into these tribes who will never have the benefit of a modern education, health care, mobility, communications while those born into the communist society will be free to reach their full potential if they apply themselves as the industrial tools would be there for them. So while kid of a tribe can just look up at the moon and wonder, a kid in the communist learns what the moon is through modern education and can train to be a astronaut, or become a rocket engineer, even if just manufacturing the rockets that is still better then the tribal kid that can't even learn what the moon is as they live in a superstitious tribe that lacks the means to understand their world scientifically.

Yup work is freedom and everyone must be liberated by serving the machine, losing their culture, land and everything about them. You are the best and most honest propagandist for the continuation of capitalism that I have read on this board yet. Capitalism and communism can be equally vile when headed by ideologues of vile distorted ideologies.

[Psy]

Yup work is freedom and everyone must be liberated by serving the machine, losing their culture, land and everything about them. You are the best and most honest propagandist for the continuation of capitalism that I have read on this board yet. Capitalism and communism can be equally vile when headed by ideologues of vile distorted ideologies.
You are defining culture along bourgeoisie terms that the tribes culture is just what they consume.

I don't view culture along bourgeoisie lines thus I don't fetishise commodities (or in the case of tribes products), what they consume is irreverent to their identity as a group. Tribes using modern tools instead of their primitive tools won't change their culture as bulldozers will serve humans regardless of the culture of those that operates it.

[LiberationTheologist]

You are defining culture along bourgeoisie terms that the tribes culture is just what they consume.

I don't view culture along bourgeoisie lines thus I don't fetishise commodities (or in the case of tribes products), what they consume is irreverent to their identity as a group. Tribes using modern tools instead of their primitive tools won't change their culture as bulldozers will serve humans regardless of the culture of those that operates it.

Now you have attempted to paint a fiction of what you proposed before. We are not talking about giving tools to people, you proposed forced location or forced settling, theft of land, this would be total colonization of language and clothing and slavery to a huge capital machine.

You are on record as approving of forced collectivization of native peoples. I will leave you a link and a section from a blog to consider the reality of what you propose and how it would function in reality. I think this idea of forced collectivization, that is enslavement, for those who do not threaten you is as vile a notion as can exist from the technology supremacists and ethnocentrist "high culture" ideologues. This is white man's burden US genocidal thinking with a veneer of liberation that is attempted to be white washed over it. The excerpt -



Among all of Russia (http://www.offtheunbeatentrack.com/russia/)’s reindeer herders, only on the Yamal (and among a few Nenets groups just to the south and west) has alcoholism failed to make inroads and people continue to live year-round nomadic existences, their culture, language and spiritual beliefs preserved in their entirety. The reason for this may lie in the way in which the area was administered under the Soviet Union. While all other nomadic groups had their reindeer taken from them and were forced to settle and work on collective farms, the Yamal Nenets were allowed to continue migrating year-round along their traditional routes, merely handing over a certain number of reindeer to the government each year. While most groups had their way of life destroyed utterly, the Yamal Nenets continued to live as they always had but under changed conditions.http://www.offtheunbeatentrack.com/russia/yamal/

[LiberationTheologist]

You are defining culture along bourgeoisie terms that the tribes culture is just what they consume.

I don't view culture along bourgeoisie lines thus I don't fetishise commodities (or in the case of tribes products), what they consume is irreverent to their identity as a group. Tribes using modern tools instead of their primitive tools won't change their culture as bulldozers will serve humans regardless of the culture of those that operates it.

Irreverent or irrelevant? Either way this post is convoluted and baffling in its plain contradictory nature. I guess you would have to think that what food you eat and what clothes you wear are irrelevant to group identity in order to preach the one world economic, political and cultural order that you are backing. Hey I back vegetarianism but I don't think I'm going to demand collectivization to achieve that end. Does your unnecessary forced enslavement collectivization idea include vegetarianism?

[Psy]

You are on record as approving of forced collectivization of native peoples. I will leave you a link and a section from a blog to consider the reality of what you propose and how it would function in reality. I think this idea of forced collectivization, that is enslavement, for those who do not threaten you is as vile a notion as can exist from the technology supremacists and ethnocentrist "high culture" ideologues. This is white man's burden US genocidal thinking with a veneer of liberation that is attempted to be white washed over it. The excerpt -


http://www.offtheunbeatentrack.com/russia/yamal/

The USSR is not a good example of a global communist society.

I find the youth of these tribes being denied the benefits of communist society vile, that they would die of easily treatable diseases while the youth of the communist world expands the frontiers of humanity.

I also find the term technology supremacists vile as technology not only have proven itself to work but to demonstrability work, by any measure industrial production is superior to tribal production. We can produce more with less labor and we have more free time even with the exploitation from capitalists (imagine how much more free time we'd have under communism). Humanity can only progress through technology, turning back to tribalism will only regress the evolution of humanity.

[Psy]

Irreverent or irrelevant? Either way this post is convoluted and baffling in its plain contradictory nature. I guess you would have to think that what food you eat and what clothes you wear are irrelevant to group identity in order to preach the one world economic, political and cultural order that you are backing.
Well if we are to define the tribal culture beyond what the consume then how is introducing new tools and products destroying their culture? If women in the tribe can get water from a well (created by outside communist workers) instead of carrying it from a river how does this diminish their culture? If one gets sick and they can radio for a doctor to fly in to treat them how does this diminish their culture?

[blake 3:17]

Without industry they lack the output to overcome material needs and are doomed to live short lives filled with scarcity and brutal labor requirements.

Think of it, those born into these tribes who will never have the benefit of a modern education, health care, mobility, communications while those born into the communist society will be free to reach their full potential if they apply themselves as the industrial tools would be there for them. So while kid of a tribe can just look up at the moon and wonder, a kid in the communist learns what the moon is through modern education and can train to be a astronaut, or become a rocket engineer, even if just manufacturing the rockets that is still better then the tribal kid that can't even learn what the moon is as they live in a superstitious tribe that lacks the means to understand their world scientifically.


I think we just see the world differently. I am skeptical of Progress on a number of levels.

Is a "superstitious" view of the Moon so inferior to a purely scientific view? Isn't space travel actually a form of mythic adventure?

Again, we just see the world differently.

[Psy]

I think we just see the world differently. I am skeptical of Progress on a number of levels.

Is a "superstitious" view of the Moon so inferior to a purely scientific view? Isn't space travel actually a form of mythic adventure?

Again, we just see the world differently.
I view industrialization as a tool that ill effects comes from capitalism and would disappear under communism once its massive productive forces it used for the benefit of humanity rather then enriching a tiny ruling class.

Superstitious views have failed to provide the same results as actually science.

[hetz]

Is a "superstitious" view of the Moon so inferior to a purely scientific view?It's not scientific. Whether it's "inferior" or "superior" holds absolutely no relevance.
Is "popular psychology" inferior to scientific psychology? A scientist would not go into that, he'll just point out that it's not scientific, end of discussion.


Isn't space travel actually a form of mythic adventure?No it isn't, because it's very real. You can do it too if you have a million dollars.


Again, we just see the world differently.Can you find 2 people in NYC that see the world the same way? Probably not.
To understand or explain the "Weltanschaung" of this or that culture you should start with the material reality, the level of development and so on.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

the level of development and so on

Which is purely an objective concept, and not deeply rooted in eurocentric liberal ideology, amirite?

[hetz]

Which is purely an objective concept, and not deeply rooted in eurocentric liberal ideology, amirite? That would be more-less ( not "purely" though" ) right, yes.
And in accordance with historical Marxist thought and practice.