Dear reader,
there are two big human cultures. One is that
of the indigenous people, especially earlier often called "primitive"
or "wild". They lived and live ever since they can remember
basically the same way without huge changes and above all they live
in accordance with the part of the world that's around them. The
others call themselves civilised, spread throughout the whole planet
and destroy not only the planet. Their lifestyle is so demanding that
many of them are sick and probably destroy themselves that way, too.
Many are so desperate that in fact they kill themselves. Mind you,
not every death can be traced back to that unusual lifestyle.
In his book „Ishmael“ Daniel Quinn uses a
different pair of words for those two cultures. Even though he
describes one culture as destructive, he still wants to move away
from the generally loaded with prejudices words of civiliced and
primitive or even wild. Based on the saying „take it or leave it“,
he chose “Takers” for the civilised and “Leavers” for the
indigenous people. One can argue about whether or not it makes much
sense to use a new pair of words. Like so many other things that are
simply renamed because of the bad image. Daniel Quinn himself has
since gone back to writing about civilised and indigenous people. His
books, not just Ishmael, are quite well known. Maybe he moved away
from his pair again, because in the end it doesn't matter what you
call those two cultures.
I want to call your attention to one other aspect
regardless of that. Daniel Quinn stresses the point that there is no
one right way to live for humanity. Although the civilised spread out
and with that also spread the very thought of just that. Namely that
their lifestyle is the right way and desirable for all people. On the
other hand it's obvious that the lifestyle of the indigenous people
is by far calmer and less demanding for the immediate environment of
the people living that lifestyle. If the civilised are so destructive
with their lifestyle, wouldn't it be better to destroy this culture
and lifestyle. Particularly since the destruction of the Earth by man
will stop with that, too. (Whether with the climate change will stop,
too and the Earth will be more “stable” all together, is another
doubtful subject.) I assume that indigenous people would most
certainly rather fight to defend themselves, but not to actually
attack the civilised. They are, as history has shown, far more
powerful anyway. A dismantling of the civilisation to save the Earth
would more likely happen from within. By people, who are unhappy with
that lifestyle and want to put it to an end. But if civilisation is
most likely to be dismantled by civilised people, would those
fighters not in the end fight themselves? Maybe they'd be something
in between those two cultures. Half a culture?
Besides, what if civilisation with all its flaws is
just a intermediate stage for humanity to the next stage? Much like a
toddler clumsily learning how to walk, very uncertain at first,
before they actually walk and run like the grown-ups. How would we
know whether civilisation is more like a virus that should better be
destroyed to protect all the others or whether it's a clumsy
intermediate stage towards something far better?
In any case: more and more young native americans
show more interest in their own culture again and overall there is a
greater interest in self supplying, how to make fire and other
related subjects. I don't know how much those things will actually be
useful in the end. At least the knowledge about those kind of things
doesn't get lost with interested people like that. Does that really
help the Earth in some way? Could the civilised, who showed interest
in such things so far actually live like that when civilisation is
broken down? No idea. Maybe time will tell when it actually happens.
Until next blog,
sara
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