US man killed by endangered tribe in india

bompington

The noble savage myth never goes away, does it? Just mutates its form to suit our prevailing culture.

tangled_metal

Nobility in our species? Savage I get but nobility? Don't see it somehow.

robert88

One might ask if the descendants of those whose communities were invaded and destroyed regret the loss of their inheritance?

Or do they prefer the modern way of life gifted them?

What about space travel and the mission to discover other life forms, how do we handle that? ALternatively how will space aliens handle us?

Maybe missile tracking stations are the way forward?

rolf_f

Robert88 wrote:

What about space travel and the mission to discover other life forms, how do we handle that? ALternatively how will space aliens handle us?

Don't worry about it. We won't find them. We have less chance than a UK slug does of emigrating to Australia without human intervention.

capt_slog

Rolf F wrote:

Shirley Basso wrote:

Like they did by murdering the guy?

How do you know it was murder? Who knows what the laws of this tribe are. They might have a low arsehole tolerance.

They put up with people who are short?

rick_chasey

Tangled Metal wrote:

Nobility in our species? Savage I get but nobility? Don't see it somehow.

Keep up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage

rick_chasey

If you want to steer away from all the colonial 'savage' chat, would also be wise to avoid using the word 'tribe' as that's equally laced with all the usual colonial connotations.

If you want the PC approach, and I appreciate this is pandering to a rather small minority, you could use the term 'pre-state community'.

rick_chasey

There is also a colonial legacy on this island where a British Naval Officer Maurice Vidal Portman “documented” the locals, but mainly for us own sexual ends, and then took things much further.

Since then the locals are clearly not a fan of foreign intervention.

rolf_f

Rick Chasey wrote:

If you want to steer away from all the colonial 'savage' chat, would also be wise to avoid using the word 'tribe' as that's equally laced with all the usual colonial connotations.

If you want the PC approach, and I appreciate this is pandering to a rather small minority, you could use the term 'pre-state community'.

You could but then we'd still need notification of when "pre-state community" ceases to be a politically correct term.

craigus89

Rick Chasey wrote:

If you want to steer away from all the colonial 'savage' chat, would also be wise to avoid using the word 'tribe' as that's equally laced with all the usual colonial connotations.

If you want the PC approach, and I appreciate this is pandering to a rather small minority, you could use the term 'pre-state community'.

I like how we are all being so careful not to insult a group of people who killed a guy, but if someone says they disagree with someone who identifies as the opposite sex who is going to be around their kids they get all the insults under the sun thrown at them.

What a world we have made.

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

If you want to steer away from all the colonial 'savage' chat, would also be wise to avoid using the word 'tribe' as that's equally laced with all the usual colonial connotations.

If you want the PC approach, and I appreciate this is pandering to a rather small minority, you could use the term 'pre-state community'.

Possibly that sensitivity is mainly within academic discussion. The word is used frequently to describe political groupings or groups of sports or music fans where there is no colonial context.

rjsterry

Craigus89 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

If you want to steer away from all the colonial 'savage' chat, would also be wise to avoid using the word 'tribe' as that's equally laced with all the usual colonial connotations.

If you want the PC approach, and I appreciate this is pandering to a rather small minority, you could use the term 'pre-state community'.

I like how we are all being so careful not to insult a group of people who killed a guy, but if someone says they disagree with someone who identifies as the opposite sex who is going to be around their kids they get all the insults under the sun thrown at them.

What a world we have made.

Here, have a crowbar.

tangled_metal

Rick Chasey wrote:

Tangled Metal wrote:

Nobility in our species? Savage I get but nobility? Don't see it somehow.

Keep up https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage

You misunderstand. I don't see anything noble about our species whether isolated societies or modern world, but I do see evidence of savage tendencies in all cultures I've had any experience of.

rick_chasey

rjsterry wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

If you want to steer away from all the colonial 'savage' chat, would also be wise to avoid using the word 'tribe' as that's equally laced with all the usual colonial connotations.

If you want the PC approach, and I appreciate this is pandering to a rather small minority, you could use the term 'pre-state community'.

Possibly that sensitivity is mainly within academic discussion. The word is used frequently to describe political groupings or groups of sports or music fans where there is no colonial context.

Same connotations.

If I were to describe Ed Balls as a very capable treasury minister but extremely tribal, that 'but' would make sense as it's quite negative.

rick_chasey

Craigus89 wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

If you want to steer away from all the colonial 'savage' chat, would also be wise to avoid using the word 'tribe' as that's equally laced with all the usual colonial connotations.

If you want the PC approach, and I appreciate this is pandering to a rather small minority, you could use the term 'pre-state community'.

I like how we are all being so careful not to insult a group of people who killed a guy, but if someone says they disagree with someone who identifies as the opposite sex who is going to be around their kids they get all the insults under the sun thrown at them.

What a world we have made.

It was identifying them, which that language helps frame, as 'savages' that allowed a European to turn up and think it entirely legit to 'document' them for his own sexual gain and reprimand them for any number of behaviours with quite extreme violence.

Bluntly, if you think it is about offence, you entirely miss the point.

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

rjsterry wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

If you want to steer away from all the colonial 'savage' chat, would also be wise to avoid using the word 'tribe' as that's equally laced with all the usual colonial connotations.

If you want the PC approach, and I appreciate this is pandering to a rather small minority, you could use the term 'pre-state community'.

Possibly that sensitivity is mainly within academic discussion. The word is used frequently to describe political groupings or groups of sports or music fans where there is no colonial context.

Same connotations.

If I were to describe Ed Balls as a very capable treasury minister but extremely tribal, that 'but' would make sense as it's quite negative.

Context, though.

The word 'nice' can have positive and negative connotations.

rick_chasey

Using tribes in an anthropological context, and referring to things as a little exotic, 'secret languages' and all that?

Seems pretty similar to me.

rick_chasey

anyway, the historical context (in this case, abuse from a British navy officer), is worthwhile considering in this.

orraloon

Have the radio on, the Jeremy Vine phone in stuff on BBC R2, which had this as a topic today. Couple of self proclaimed missionary types called in, the arrogance on show was remarkable. Putting out the old 'call from God' schtick. You're wrong, I'm right, coz I say so. To55ers.

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

Using tribes in an anthropological context, and referring to things as a little exotic, 'secret languages' and all that?

Seems pretty similar to me.

Of course it's a bit similar - it's using the same word. The point is it has no negative connotations in Dent's book. We're all a member of one tribe or another unless we live as a hermit in total isolation. I'd agree that people sometimes use the word to imply some form of inferiority but as with that other discussion, I don't think the solution is to abandon that word to the idiots.

rolf_f

Rick Chasey wrote:

Using tribes in an anthropological context, and referring to things as a little exotic, 'secret languages' and all that?

Seems pretty similar to me.

A great way to avoid responsibility - focus on the words and not how people use them. Eventually you just run out of words and have to make up slightly silly phrases to say the same thing (albeit without, temporarily, the negative connotations).

robert88

orraloon wrote:

Have the radio on, the Jeremy Vine phone in stuff on BBC R2, which had this as a topic today. Couple of self proclaimed missionary types called in, the arrogance on show was remarkable. Putting out the old 'call from God' schtick. You're wrong, I'm right, coz I say so. To55ers.

I hope they got crucified.

rick_chasey

Rolf F wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Using tribes in an anthropological context, and referring to things as a little exotic, 'secret languages' and all that?

Seems pretty similar to me.

A great way to avoid responsibility - focus on the words and not how people use them. Eventually you just run out of words and have to make up slightly silly phrases to say the same thing (albeit without, temporarily, the negative connotations).

Look, the short of it is, there is fairly good grounding to suggest that the language people use frames how they think of things, and thus allows or disallows certain behaviours.

So once upon a time Europe didn't see the rest of the world as something to be conquered and dominated, and at one point they did. At that point, an entire language was based around the idea that the Europeans would 'civilise' the rest of the 'uncivilised' world, and that ultimately was the rhetorical and intellectual justification for an awful lot of violent colonialism.

The way people have arrived at that conclusion is by doing a lot of literary analysis, and seeing how that correlates to what occurred. I had some work published which did exactly that; an account of a British administrative colonialist and his take on the extremely violent Belgian occupation of the Congo, which i deconstructed to establish how those atrocities were justified, in order to re-build the way of thinking that allowed for those things to happen.

I could bore you with the details, but this is fairly well recognised, and has been very much been accepted as the case in circles who study this for the last 30 years or so.

It's not about avoiding responsibility.

bompington

Rick Chasey wrote:

It was identifying them, which that language helps frame, as 'savages' that allowed a European to turn up and think it entirely legit to 'document' them for his own sexual gain and reprimand them for any number of behaviours with quite extreme violence.

Bluntly, if you think it is about offence, you entirely miss the point.

You could also argue that being an abusive 4rsehole was what allowed him to do this, but I'm glad we have academic experts to disabuse us of this silly notion.

rick_chasey

bompington wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

It was identifying them, which that language helps frame, as 'savages' that allowed a European to turn up and think it entirely legit to 'document' them for his own sexual gain and reprimand them for any number of behaviours with quite extreme violence.

Bluntly, if you think it is about offence, you entirely miss the point.

You could also argue that being an abusive 4rsehole was what allowed him to do this, but I'm glad we have academic experts to disabuse us of this silly notion.

It's more the intellectual space that allows people to do that.

I think if we discuss more recent instances of atrocities, referring to groups of people as 'rats' or anything like that is definitely considered to be something that helps tips people towards being capable of those types of things. If May suddenly started calling immigrants 'savages', she would quickly be accused of being dangerous, right?

This guy was allowed to do what he did because it was just considered part of colonialism, because these locals were inferior. No-one called him up on it, because it was just considered usual behaviour. The textual analysis helps us understand what the intellectual framework was to allow for that kind of behaviour.

Of course he was abusive - no-one is suggesting otherwise.

rick_chasey

Soldiers regularly discuss how they use language to 'de-humanise' the enemy in order to allow them to do their job effectively.

This is the same kind of thing, but just working backwards.

Look, use all the language you want, but that's the thinking that underpins that kind of 'PC' chat.

rjsterry

Rick Chasey wrote:

Rolf F wrote:

Rick Chasey wrote:

Using tribes in an anthropological context, and referring to things as a little exotic, 'secret languages' and all that?

Seems pretty similar to me.

A great way to avoid responsibility - focus on the words and not how people use them. Eventually you just run out of words and have to make up slightly silly phrases to say the same thing (albeit without, temporarily, the negative connotations).

Look, the short of it is, there is fairly good grounding to suggest that the language people use frames how they think of things, and thus allows or disallows certain behaviours.

So once upon a time Europe didn't see the rest of the world as something to be conquered and dominated, and at one point they did. At that point, an entire language was based around the idea that the Europeans would 'civilise' the rest of the 'uncivilised' world, and that ultimately was the rhetorical and intellectual justification for an awful lot of violent colonialism.

The way people have arrived at that conclusion is by doing a lot of literary analysis, and seeing how that correlates to what occurred. I had some work published which did exactly that; an account of a British administrative colonialist and his take on the extremely violent Belgian occupation of the Congo, which i deconstructed to establish how those atrocities were justified, in order to re-build the way of thinking that allowed for those things to happen.

I could bore you with the details, but this is fairly well recognised, and has been very much been accepted as the case in circles who study this for the last 30 years or so.

It's not about avoiding responsibility.

That is a pretty shaky claim. Empires around the world have been seeking to expand and dominate their neighbours since there have been empires, and labelling those neighbours as lessers to justify it for as long. The Romans referred to those outside their empire as barbarians, as did the Greek city states, the Egyptians, the Chinese. Herodotus divided the world into those who speak Greek and those who do not. This is not a a phenomenon that started in Renaissance Europe.

rick_chasey

OK mate. Think that if you want but that just isn't the case. Plenty of reading I can point you towards if you are interested - I suspect not.

Plenty of people have dedicated their entire career to that, so I'm sure they'd love to hear that it's a shaky claim.

When Europe originally explored the world with boats etc, they did not immediately see it as somewhere to conquer, nor those inhabitants as inferior.

Lots of contemporary literature to back that up.

The switch happens towards the end of the 18th century, and you can see the language change.

shirley_basso

Depends how long ago you start looking. 100s, 1000s or 100,000s of years ago?

rick_chasey

^^ the specific language around race and how that plays into a colonialism is fairly unique to the 19th Century, and goes a long way to explain the quantity of violence.