The Prime Directive

[Elok]

So, there's this community of native Americans called the Yanomamo (sometimes called Yanomami).  They live in the wilds of Venezuela and Brazil, and are technologically quite primitive--almost nothing beyond simple stone tools.  They live in smallish settlements scattered around the jungle, with no overarching government, and whenever things break down in inter-settlement relations (which isn't that uncommon), the resulting wars can be astonishingly brutal.  Up to half of all Yanomamo men ultimately die of violence, and raids on rival settlements typically involve rape, murder, infanticide, abduction, and the like.  Even in peacetime, the men are more or less expected to keep their women in line through regular beatings, punctuated by occasional burning with lit sticks.  Girls are married at puberty, and kept pregnant as much as possible.

The interesting thing to me, on learning all this, was that all people involved with the Yanomamo seem to be overwhelmingly concerned with preserving their culture and way of life.  If these living conditions were found outside of a picturesquely indigenous society, we would be horrified; even the Taliban rule over a more pleasant society.  Basically, their way of life produces no winners; every single Yanomamo who lives past childhood will face at least the threat of violence, and often much more than threats.  Is there something about a culture that warrants preserving it at the expense of everyone who practices it?

[Geo]

Is there something about a culture that warrants preserving it at the expense of everyone who practices it?

They seem ideally suited to survive a nuclear holocaust? Someone has to repopulate the world after that...

[Spacy]

I think it would be easy to see parts of all societies and cultures that are "wrong".  But, drawing the line between "wrong", "not good", "bad" and "unlikeable" is HARD.

Think about it:  Black, poor, urban culture (the culture that I teach high school to so I have lots of anecdotal evidence that this is true) has no regards to reading.  Reading has no value to them.  By extension - learning for learning's sake isn't valued.  (Remember, we are talking culture here, not individuals.)  Is this "evil"?  What about "wrong"?  If so, who is to say that White, Rural, Deification of Outlaw Skills culture isn't also "wrong" (oh, ya, Deification of Outlaw Skills is also called NASCAR). 

I am sure few people miss the Aztec practice of ripping slaves hearts out and sacrificing them to the gods.  But what if the practice was just giving a blood sacrifice using paper cuts on the pinky of willing practitioners?  How do you draw the lines? 

I have my own ideas, but I will just leave the questions hanging out there for now. 

[Buster's Uncle]

A pretty casual survey of the history of native relation in this hemisphere -and the other, for that matter- indicates that intervention has a pretty close to zero chance of ending well for the Yanomamo.

[Elok]

But their life *now* is horrible.  That's the thing.  Like most non-state societies, they live under a more or less constant threat of violence, to say nothing of hunger and disease.  I think it's important to distinguish the different components of our predecessors' behavior.  It's perfectly reasonable to condemn Cortez for looting the Aztecs' gold and enslaving them, while allowing that Aztec society was deeply and needlessly cruel.  If he'd put a forcible end to "flower wars," washed the blood off the pyramids, and then set up a profitable and more or less honest trade network with them, we'd revere him as a hero.  Now, that's implausible, but even something like a paternalistic and occasionally greedy "protectorate" would have vastly improved Mexica standards of living.

There is modern precedent.  When the government of New Guinea penetrated its highland interior in the sixties and put a stop to tribal warfare, the overwhelming majority of primitive highlanders were relieved.  It didn't mean they had to give up every aspect of their way of life, it only meant that higher authorities kept breakdowns in relationships from turning into cycles of massacres.  And some of their grandchildren today are slowly integrating into modern society.  I'm suspicious of the whole idea that "culture" means everybody does the same thing as their ancestors did eight hundred years ago, since we only ever apply that to the picturesquely low-tech.  I'm no less American for not living in a crude pine-log cabin trapping beavers for a living; does a Yanomamo stop being a Yanomamo because he's stopped demonstrating his warrior spirit on his wife's back?

[Buster's Uncle]

You're advocating attempts to regulate domestic violence.  Good luck with that.

[Elok]

Not necessarily.  There could be any number of ways to change this.  Legally mandating, and enforcing, the right of women and their children to leave a community where they feel abused would have devastating effects on the brutal status quo (and offering incentives to communities which refrain from burning women, etc.).  Now, at present Venezuela does not have the means to do such a thing, since their government is about to collapse.  But in principle it should be possible to rescue people from a squalid and miserable existence, by direct or indirect means.  The only thing stopping it is this notion, which I do not get, that a particular set of customs constitutes a being with rights which can [Sleezebag] living people's.

[Buster's Uncle]

I'd want to know infinitely more about these people before I even thought about stirring in their crap.

[Elok]

I think it's fair to make arguments about practicability and undesired side effects, etc.  I'm taking issue with the fundamental assumption that belonging to a tribal society makes cruel behavior sacrosanct.  We didn't excuse the pederasty scandal on the grounds that deference to priests was part of Catholic culture; would it be okay if the Pope were a shaman and the altar boys wore bark loincloths?  It seems to me that we're allowing post-colonialist guilt to override our view of these people as human beings.

[Buster's Uncle]

I think more than anything, it's an acknowledgement that, historically near 100% of the time, fooling with "primitive" cultures ends very badly for the primitives - as in, most or all of them die.

[Elok]

Except in this case, they don't have anything we want.  Modern economies have little use for agrarian slaves and most of their land is worthless.  Now, there's gold under some parts of it--and at present, they have extreme difficulty resisting encroachment by prospectors, because they have no understanding of our legal system, possess no real wealth and are politically disunited.  This could change, with modernization.  Keeping them as a relic of aboriginal lifestyles isn't doing them any favors.

[Buster's Uncle]

most or all of them die.

Personally, I realized a very long time ago that I wasn't competent to save the world - and I'd better get my own crap straightened out before I tried to stir in anyone else's...

[Buster's Uncle]

And, y'know, assuming for the sake of things that your characterization of the people and bad acts is accurate and fair with no major omissions of fact -not necessarily a safe assumption- I'm not disagreeing that the situation is deplorable and wrong and somewhat our business as fellow human beings with hearts - just strongly doubting that the problem is fixable by outsiders.

[Lorizael]

The value I see in culture is not localized in some particular set of rituals or customs but in the worldview and ideas that arise from it. Those are what we should preserve. But preservation by itself it also not valuable (to me). The continued existence of novel worldviews provides a benefit when we integrate it into all the other ways of thinking we've encountered and create an ever more interesting and useful synthesis. Thus, benefit (for both) comes from engagement. But if engagement leads to destruction, then nothing is gained.

If we can preserve a culture while simultaneously engaging with it, should we intervene to put a stop to awful cultural practices (which don't, as far as I'm concerned, have any value that demands preservation)? Well, life is terrible and we're all going to die. There's such a tremendous amount of suffering we don't have any capacity to prevent. Pumping resources into helping these people might be something worth doing, but it inevitably means there are others we will help less. What activity will help the most people per dollar? Man, I don't know. Maybe this.

This is why the monkeysphere exists as far as I'm concerned, at least until we really get psychohistory nailed down.

[Rusty Edge]

If they are essentially stone-age culture, any exposure to us is potentially as deadly to them as Europeans contacting the Mississippi Civilization. Whether you are trying to help them or eradicate them, the consequences are potentially the same.

There are lost cultures for which I do not grieve. These Yanomamis may be one of them. Then again, they seem to be self-reliant, while the socialists in Venezuela are struggling to feed themselves. Will both still be in Venezuela in a hundred or a thousand years?