A Death in the Rainforest

The English lived on a big island. The Japanese lived on a big island. Hell, the Hongkongers lived on a small island.

Racial theories are verboten because all people are equal unless they are fetuses and then they don’t count. I didn’t make the rules.

But I doubt if you left these New Guinea tribes alone for a thousand years they’d ever invent the steam engine.

Mr. Kung. I had several interruptions this morning while writing this brief summary. Regarding the comic book quote I had transcribed, I completely forgot to include my quip about how analogous it was with today’s yutes who so revere Marvel (and DC) comic book movies.

Honestly, I do think there are significant differences in races, for better and for worse. I also think cultural difference are even more formative, although one could certainly work in a feedback loop with the other.

But my interest in reading this book (so far) is to not pick fun at primitive New Guinea tribes but to note: A) How much we are reverting to the primitive and, B) the centrality and ability of the Commercialism Cult in being able to trample any value, ethic, or belief because of the voluminous and irresistible output of the free market.

As a man with white privilege, it would be down-talking of me to deny New Guinea tribes the benefit of what these markets can bring. Honestly, who wants to live in a jungle? (And as the author rightly notes — and I will transcribe this passage when I have a chance — New Guinea is not a “rainforest.” It is a savage jungle.)

That said, commercialism means the death of any other principle but consumption. Do you think the plethora of fat people is just because of the abundance of food? Of course you don’t. You’re too smart for that. Fat people is a sign of What Life is All About…aka “consumption.”

Pity the Amish who must try to maintain a sense of themselves in the face of a blizzard of commercial distractions. It’s logical that a primitive tribe would have its head turned by the promise of cool-stuff. (Just a simple hatchet was a wonder of wonders.) But I can’t help thinking if this isn’t like the serpent entering into the Garden of Eden — even if the garden was a harsh jungle and the serpent (a hatchet) had much utility.

I love the idea of The Protestant Work Ethic. It was not about denying modern inventions. But note the word, “Protestant.” There was a larger context. Consuming things for the sake of consuming was not the point. With welfare and so much “free stuff,” it’s arguable that the “work ethic” is hanging by a thread in many quarters. Even if not, predominant is “the consumption ethic” in its place. And that’s an ethic with no leveling agent other than the endless attempts to satisfy ever-more ravenous appetites.

Don’t get me wrong. I sure as hell would not want to live in the jungle of New Guinea. And yet the modern jungles have an equal power to degrade human beings into beastly things.

I could hear Mr. Kung thinking when I first posted that I was reading this book:

Brad, you foolish fellow. Why are you reading an anthropological book? Don’t you know that anthropologists write such things? And don’t you know anthropology is about as far left and politically correct as you can get in academia? This is going to eventually blow up in your face. You’ll be lucky to make it to the second chapter.

My money is on Mr. Kung’s thought-bubble. But early in chapter two (I did, at least, make it that far) the anthropologist author writes:

If I had been born into a place as described above, I would have built a boat by the time I was 5 years old, and sailed away into the unknown.  I'm not boasting... maybe I'm part Viking.

"...after sea level had lowered, people in the deep jungles (at least many of them) made their way to the shore."

I would think that regular trips to the shore would be made for salt and seafood, no matter what the sea level might be.  I can't take the author's thought expressed in that quoted statement seriously, unless he is trying to make a point that the islanders lack imagination and motivation.  

I’m guessing that once the first metal hand axe (not to mention comic books) were glimpsed by the natives that it was suddenly Paradise Lost.

But, really, there seems to be more at play here in regards to the loss of this tribe’s language than mere appeal of trinkets. The gist of what the author is saying is that the yutes (and others) made contact with people speaking the more cosmopolitan Tok Pisin and began to ape it as a hifalutin language. It was considered prestigious to do so.

This had a powerful impact on my intellect, seeing the analogy with people sending their kids off to college where then every value they previously held is chucked in the bin. Why? Were these newly-adopted ideas so self-evidently better? No. Of course not. The attraction is that by holding these ideas they mark one as an enlightened thinker and not a country bumpkin. After all, even primitives can have a sense of ego. The author writes:



This is completely consistent with the cult programming indoctrinated into kids starting now in Kindergarten but taken to new heights in college where ego and prestige among the young is always a tender and vulnerable spot. This is why they hold so fast to “climate change” or their idyllic views of “the homeless.” It’s all about setting themselves up as The Golden Children and to set themselves up above the bumpkins—you know, the ones who prefer Shakespeare, Mozart, and Thomas Jefferson.

You can understand the wisdom of the Amish practice of Rumspringa where yutes first go out into the world before making a commitment to the Amish way of life. It’s a self-conscious realization that there is a choice to be made, thus yutes are somewhere forearmed for being forewarned. They can at least know they are choosing between tradition and newfangled.

Living in a jungle environment, the casting away of culture and tradition would normally be catastrophic, for there is no outsider named Karl Marx who knows better how to identify and avoid the death adders, for instance. But if you plan to leave the jungle, you have no need for jungle wisdom.

So there the analogy between New Guinea yutes and American college yutes breaks down. Unless you consider that, indeed, American yutes intend to leave the hated “jungle” of the world tjat their mean, racist, capitalist elders formed and move on into the utopia of socialism, inclusion, equality, social justice, tolerance, etc. Maybe the analogy is still apt even though in one instance there is a change in location (from jungle to outside the jungle) and with American yutes the geography is the same but this jungle will be “transformed” according to their own superior lights.

You can also see a new Pidgin English developing (or trying to) as these vicious yutes attempt to create a whole new set of pronouns. They will, and must, break away from the language as well. And it’s not about anyone being offended, per se. It’s about jettisoning all of the bumpkin rules and methods of the fuddy-duddy fathers of the past. Building a house upon sand comes to mind.

I remain perplexed about that passage. Here’s the relevant text:



Since when does it take the sea to recede for a river to form? And couldn’t you just walk to the sea even if you didn’t have a river? If the coast so was attractive as a destination for migration, surely the lack of a river wouldn’t have stopped anyone. I mean, yes, it’s a big island but you’ll hit water in any direction if you keep walking.

Surely there is a more complex story. Maybe there was a Pacific Islander Johnny Seafoodseed who went around planting oysters beds and such and thus changed the attractiveness of the coasts.