Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Dec 12, 2019 9:21:48 GMT -8
 I hadn’t heard of that expression. Well. Uh-hmm (clears throat). It sort of is a moral trap. Michael Brendan Dougherty has an article titled The Price Our Government Has Paid for Lying about Afghanistan. The relevant part to New Guinea jungle villages is: You’ll note in my general demeanor and tone (maybe) that I do not come down too hard on those primitive savages in New Guinea for believing in a cargo cult, of some type of “road” they will eventually find that leads to their skin turning white and metal corrugated houses (one of their constant wishes). Can one call Bush or Obama any less naive as they try to bring the cargo to primitive people in Afghanistan and magically transform them? What makes for a modern society. Kevin Williamson, as usual, seems to know (or know that others don’t know) without actually letting on. (Word salad.) I could list several things that come to mind: A) Protection of private property. B) Protection of patents (yes, contained in A but worth mentioning on its own). C) Spirit of innovation and the ability to reap rewards from that innovation (also related to A and B but worth mentioning on its own), D) Political and economic institutions that are functional, generally non-corrupt, and stable. E) The will for the individual to work and to better himself. F) Restraints on government disincentives for not working and not bettering oneself. G) Education, both available and with knowledge itself treasured as a valuable commodity You can think of others. There’s a moral element as well. It should be no surprise that Muslim societies tend to be backward places and predominately Christian and Jewish cultures are vibrant. This is no accident. Believing in Jesus or Jehovah won’t produce a Model T or refrigerator but it helps to produce the basic material for not having the mindset of an Afghanistan or New Guinea tribesman. |
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kungfuzu
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 12, 2019 9:33:02 GMT -8
It takes even more than Williamson mentions. It take reaching a level of organized social development which promotes the spreading of knowledge and information, that promotes cooperation between large groups of people who do not necessarily have familial ties, which allows for a ordered and reasonably safe community, an economic level whereby products can be distributed over long distances with reasonable costs, which promotes general education beyond the elites.....I could go on, but those are just a few of the requirements, without which the things Williamson mentions are just magical thinking. Life is complicated.
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 12, 2019 9:44:23 GMT -8
I read this article and believe the title should be corrected to "The Price Americans Have Paid for our Elites Lying about Afghanistan."
People still get mad at me when I say Americans have no fucking idea of what is going on in the world and we should basically mind our own business. This fact was glaringly proven when idiot George W. approved the disbanding of the Iraqi Army after defeating Saddam Hussein and then appointed Paul Bremer, a man who had precisely zero experience in the Middle East, as dictator in Iraq. Our arrogant elites think they know better than everyone else.
I ran into such types while I lived overseas. They would fly into S.E. Asia or Japan from the USA and Europe and after a 7-10 day trip would tell me (who had lived in the area for many years) how to do business in Asia.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Dec 12, 2019 9:56:12 GMT -8
That’s a great insight about “familial ties.” What, after all, is the biggest attribute of a tribal culture than the prominence of family ties? That sounds like a commendable case of “family values.” But what it means is that severe narrow interest predominates. Win-win cooperation becomes less important because blood is always thicker than water. You have a society not based on productivity and using one’s talent to supply others (almost always complete strangers) with a product or service. Instead, too much energy and weight is given to petty social slights, and Sunni-Shia ancestral conflicts where a grudge is never forgotten.
By all means, enter this country legally (and be shown the door if you are not). But the strength of America, in particular, is that not all that much energy is lost on tribal squabbling. We see in black, gang-infested neighborhoods how a tribal mindset stifles everything.
Yes, people can and should value their family more than a stranger. That’s how you avoid the welfare state. You don’t ask it to be the surrogate mother, father, uncle, aunt, grandparent, etc. A strong family is not only good, it is necessary to a vibrant Western-style culture. But taken to the level of a tribe then you get nothing but trouble. Tribes may work well within the confines of a rainforest. But they are a limiting factor in producing anything larger-ranging than the tribe.
I think a tribal mentality is stifling. If a tribal affiliation is useful, it is better expressed as a sense of belonging to a nation. But at the end of the day, there is no one size fits all. One could say that the Japanese are sort of a tribal nation-state. America has been made of up very vigorous tribes of Italians, Irish, etc. But something allowed these hard connections (at least in America) to branch out into concerns higher than one’s tribe. There’s a great deal of “greater than the sum of its parts” in trying to understand what distinguishes Silicon Valley from Port Moresby. But there is a difference.
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Post by timothylane on Dec 12, 2019 10:14:34 GMT -8
Mike Resnick wrote a Teddy Roosevelt alternate history story called "Bully!" based on an actual offer by John Boyes (an African adventurer -- an elephant history who also was the first overall king of the Kikuyu tribe) to take over the Belgian Congo and put TR in charge. He had them actually doing it, and then TR got to find out how well trying to impose American values on primitive African tribesmen would work.
Thus, in a trial the jurors decided on the basis of tribal membership without regard for facts. Similarly, in their elections they only voted for members of their tribe. In the end, his effort to modernize the Congo is a total failure.
I also recall an allegorical story I came across when young. It involves a primitive agricultural village where everyone spends all their time working to get by. Their water source is a spring atop a hill, and one member gets the idea of creating a channel to bring the water to him. He offers the water to the other villagers in return for, in effect, a portion of the time they save not having to climb the hill. He also comes up with other ideas over time, thus making the villagers much better off (and profiting from doing so).
The story then asks what would happen if the villagers had just used force of numbers to take the water for themselves. Would he -- or anyone else -- be likely to try any other innovations?
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Dec 12, 2019 10:34:58 GMT -8
Anyone familiar with the modern political and social happenings in America and the West will no doubt be in dismay because of the primacy of various tribes over facts. There is much more to the world than facts and reason, but when those things are completely marginalized, there is no more to the world than harsh and irrational tribalism.
Theodore Dalrymple quips that because of the number of criminals he’s seen in his professional capacity that one could say that tatoos are the cause of crime. You will be hard-pressed to find a criminal without those garish things.
I have a similar list regarding what it takes to build a modern Western society:
1) A complete aversion to sleeping on dirt floors unless you are out camping.
2) Plumbing more complex than just crapping in the woods or throwing it out into the street.
3) A solid aversion to eating insects as a source of food unless you are Bear Grylls and taping a TV show.
4) Taking a bath or shower at least once a day (unless you’re out in the outdoors doing the Bear Grylls thing)
5) Reading books and learning something new
6) Basic civility, even in the presence of heathens and assholes
7) Picking up after yourself (broadly defined)
If anyone could turn the Belgian Congo into New Jersey, you figured it would be Progressive-minded TR. But the facts have already been played out. The British actually did turn several backward countries into modern civilizations. One can argue whether or not India and some other countries had better human timber to start with. Maybe they did. But there were trains to make run on time, postage to be delivered, armies to be established, bureaucracies to be organized, food to grow, and medicines to dispense. None of that is made to happen by armchair theorists. Give the British their due, whatever their faults.
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Post by timothylane on Dec 12, 2019 11:38:50 GMT -8
I'm not sure how well the British really did. India and China both had advanced (if flawed) cultures. In a way, so did their Middle Eastern acquisitions, and likewise the South African Boers. Canada, the US, New Zealand, and Australia were colonized by (mostly) the British, and this was partly true of South Africa (and there were British colonists helping out in other countries, such as Rhodesia). I wonder how much better the British colonies based on indigenous populations (as in most of Africa) have done compared to colonies of other European nations. Are Uganda and Zimbabwe any better than the Kinshasa Congo?
Admittedly, I've heard that Gambia and Botswana are better, but they don't have multitribal problems.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Dec 12, 2019 11:56:10 GMT -8
If you're saying there is some type of negative correlation between the success of British colonialism and the darkness of the skin. No comment.
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Post by timothylane on Dec 12, 2019 12:26:10 GMT -8
Not color of skin. It would also apply, e.g., to Guyana vs. Suriname, though the British brought a lot of people in from India (in other words, a population of Indians and Indians) and some from China to their Mesoamerican colonies. Lots of blacks for plantation labor, too. It's all a matter of primitive vs. advanced culture (more or less modern, as opposed to post-modern culture which is a dubious asset).
The Tamils and other south Indian Dravidians are as dark-skinned as the Bantu, but were much more advanced. For that matter, the Bantu were more advanced than the Bushmen and Hottentots (Khoi and San) of southern Africa, who I believe aren't as dark-skinned. |
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kungfuzu
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 12, 2019 12:34:19 GMT -8
I have always maintained that he British were the best colonialist. The French may have been almost as good, but their sample size is much smaller than Great Britain's and too much of it was in Africa.
When the Brits left their colonies, they always left behind,
1. A well established legal system i.e. the rule of law including relatively honest police
2. A well established education system 3. A good communications system including roads, ports, telegraph etc. 4. A well established governmental system 5. A well established economic system
I have lived in a couple of ex -British colonies and visited others. I have also visited a number of ex-Dutch and ex-Spanish colonies and can attest to the fact that the ex-British colonies are in better shape than the others. Can anyone give me an example of an ex-Spanish colony which is run well today?
The British also left their colonies without devastating wars. The situation in Kenya with the Mao-maos was sometimes violent but was not a war in that sense. It was very small compared to the Indonesians throwing out the Dutch and Bolivar and his offspring throwing out the Spaniards across Latin America or even the French in Algeria.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Dec 12, 2019 12:44:21 GMT -8
Having watched some WWII movies and documentaries lately, as well as starting the O’Reilly book, “Killing the SS,” it made me consider my choice of words when talking about what makes a “civilization.” The Germans were anything but civilized in the earth 20th century. Your use of the words, “advanced culture,” is probably the phrase I was searching for to articulate that although a culture might be highly organized and technologically proficient, it wasn’t necessarily “civilized.”
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Post by artraveler on Dec 12, 2019 12:51:42 GMT -8
I have always maintained that he British were the best colonialist If we must have a master the British are by far the best, but why have a master? I must agree with KFZ I also have been in ex British colonies and by and large they are more stable, better organized economically and maintain many of the cultural aspects of England. I think every colony has a cricket team, now if that's not a complement to British rule I can not think of anything that would be. The only exception is the one colony that fought a war for independence. |
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Dec 12, 2019 13:01:05 GMT -8
What if an alien race (and the author makes this analogy, but doesn’t much run with it) were to swoop down from the sky and shake hands with us? I think the analogy doesn’t work in regards to Europeans-meet-jungler-dwellers because, unless they were hostile aliens, most people would be getting in line to see the 16K big screen TVs and such that no doubt the aliens could produce. Most of us are indeed waiting for the device we’ve seen on Star Trek called the Replicator. Would there be a widespread culture shock upon the arrival of aliens? All of the libtards and pseudo-scientist book writers who forecast shock because of terrestrial change (something is always in crisis in their minds) were wrong. People not only accept technological change readily, they’ve come to demand it. That is likely the major reason views on government have changed. People really do believe that the same processes that give us technological marvels can give us governmental ones, if only we will “evolve” it all. And that’s why every past principle must be jettisoned. Old means outdated and unworkable, if not outright racist, sexist, etc. Government 1.0 can’t possible be as good as Government 3.0. We can thus fully expect today’s “hope and change” generation to “change” themselves into a new kind of poverty or darkness because it is all built on sand. In his wandering article, Williamson does note what is apparently the modern American phenomenon of high-paying jobs being too good for many yutes. (Pick a subject, Kevin. Stay with it.) Maybe the “dark” age is one where people live more or less passive lives while robots do all the hard work. After all, that is the story of our economic advancement, a formula no more complicated than increasing worker productivity via machine. And the ultimate productive worker may be one who has to do nothing at all but adopt whatever beliefs the current Cult of Government requires while they are handed out free-stuff…perhaps doing minimal things like polishing the robots to give it all a sheen of legitimacy. We at least know enough that if aliens came to earth with advanced technology, we would know that no magic was involved. We might not understand the manufacturing methods or physical principals involved, but we would know such things were knowable. But the New Guinea natives had truly magical and irrational beliefs about the advances brought by outsiders. And when you have that, you are vulnerable to being gamed by others. This is one reason (and a very good one) that Americans have no need for blue-bloods or kings. As soon as you go down that road, you let in the basic irrational belief that some people are just better by right. That is definitely not the American way. But it is the tribal way. It is the superstitious way. |
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Post by timothylane on Dec 12, 2019 13:01:55 GMT -8
KFZ's analysis is something like what I wanted. The US has also done well as a colonial power, and in fact was preparing to free the Philippines before the postwar decolonization began. (It was delayed a few years by Imperial Japan.) I will note that the Japanese seem to have done well in Taiwan, and the Dutch built good naval facilities on Java as well as refining Venezuelan oil on Curacao.
In addition, the Germans were good at transportation infrastructure, though I don't know how well they did otherwise. They certainly faced serious revolts in German East Africa and German Southwest Africa. In the latter case their response was genocidal, especially against the Hereros. (Hermann Goering's father was a governor there, but it was earlier than the revolt. It would be so appropriate if he had been responsible.)
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 12, 2019 13:03:28 GMT -8
I use the term "technologically advanced culture" in such cases. While there is usually some positive correlation with "advanced technology" and "civilized", it is not always the case. I suppose one could get into the definitions of what constitutes "civilized" and "advanced", but I think we can all understand the basic premise.
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 12, 2019 13:07:19 GMT -8
We even have cricket teams now in Plano. They appear to be made up of Indians who have moved here over the last ten, or so, years.
A couple of years back, I noticed a strip of land being worked on in a public park and wondered what it meant. They were laying out the bowling area for cricket.
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Brad Nelson
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Post by Brad Nelson on Dec 12, 2019 13:09:10 GMT -8
My impression (and I know a number of Filipinos) that, despite some rough spots (that they are too polite to talk about), they view America and Americans as fast friends. They don’t even look askance at our friendship with Japan, likely seeing it as a way to tame and control the Japanese.
Although Mr. Kung (and others) are surely correct that an American can live in Japan and even have deep friendships there that one will always be apart. I don’t get that regarding the Filipinos I know. Granted, the groundwork is from inside America where they have chosen to come. But you can sense something different from just being polite and careful — or being formal to the point of being off-putting.
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 12, 2019 13:20:56 GMT -8
Japanese colonization is an interesting case. The Koreans, who were colonized by Japan from 1910 to 1945, still dislike Japan. The Taiwanese I know, who are not descendants of Chiang Kai Shek and the KMT main-landers, like and admire Japan. They appear to have no animosity for Japan at all. In fact, one Taiwanese friend says that the Japanese were their teachers.
As far as Indonesia, when I first started doing business there in 1980, I ran into Indonesians who spoke Dutch to each other. Of course they were the upper classes, but even if they hadn't been, it would not have been too surprising. After all, Indonesia consists of over 10,000 islands and hundreds of different languages. They need a Lingua Franca to communicate with each other. Today that is Bahasa Indonesia, which is basically Malay and originates in Sumatra. As I say, Indonesia is not a country, it is an idea or aspiration.
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Post by timothylane on Dec 12, 2019 13:24:34 GMT -8
Lynn Hightower wrote a series of SF mysteries involving an alien intervention on Earth that was designed to resemble in many ways Britain in India. Nice stories. (She lived in Lexington, KY, so we had her as a guest occasionally for FOSFA meetings.)
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Post by kungfuzu on Dec 12, 2019 13:30:53 GMT -8
In my opinion, an American cannot become Chinese or Japanese, whereas a Chinese or Japanese can become an American. I get along pretty well in Asia and know a lot about various countries. The locals appreciate it when someone takes the time to learn about them. It shows sincerity.
I have been called "Half-Chinese" or "Half-Japanese" many times as a compliment. I have sometimes even been called more Chinese than American. Some are sure that I was Chinese in a former life. One Malaysian Chinese recently said outright that I was Chinese, and he was only partially kidding. Still, I know I am an outsider in Asian countries, and that suits me fine.
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