This kind of thing blows my mind - tribes

[Asso]

I agree with jT here. Life is very rough on people living a primitive life like that, as for example Jared Diamond has written about. And as Thomas Hobbes said about pre-civilization man:

"...and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

Hobbes was also the most unapologetic of imperialists. He was of the generation of anglos that did, and still, believe it's the White Man's moral imperative to lift the heathens out of darkness and into the light (literally and religiously through 'whatever means necessary' conversion). I say "White Man" in reference to Kipling's poem, White Man's Burden.

Not my favorite philosophy, obviously.

But this fact remains:Life is very rough on people living a primitive life like that. KTR is right.

[Alelou]

It's quite a different thing to avoid contact with your fellow humans than with a completely different species on a completely different planet. No group of homo sapiens on this planet evolved in isolation from the rest of us. They've traced our migrations all over the planet. There is no original state of purity.

This is a tough one, really, because it's true, there is a great potential for harm along the way.

[Elessar]

The Prime Directive is just something someone made up for a TV-show. Philosophically, it's suspect. As the Extistentialists said, "responsibility is the ability to respond." Saying, "I will follow the Prime Directive" doesn't change the a fact that you could have done something and you didn't and that was your choice. How about that episode where a prewarp civilization is about to die because of some planetary catastrophe and Worf's brother saves them? THAT WAS THE RIGHT THING TO DO. Of course it was frowned upon by Picard, who was trying to enforce the Prime Directive.

I'm all for the free flow of goods and ideas between cultures, AND for philanthropy. And let the chips fall where they may.

Right but we're not talking about one discrete act of salvation. We're talking about transforming a culture in order to transfer a systematically different way of living. I guarantee that the compendium of activities and requirements necessary for them living what we would consider to be an even modestly sanitary and healthy life would necessitate destroying at least a handful of their basic customs and beliefs, no matter how primitive or archaic or esoteric they may seem to us; As a value system, their lifestyle is no less valid than ours. I guess that conclusion is part of my whole 'relativism' opinion structure though. That gets me into trouble sometimes.

It's quite a different thing to avoid contact with your fellow humans than with a completely different species on a completely different planet. No group of homo sapiens on this planet evolved in isolation from the rest of us. They've traced our migrations all over the planet. There is no original state of purity.

This is a tough one, really, because it's true, there is a great potential for harm along the way.

I just don't consider it potential, is why I feel strongly about it. I consider it a certainty. I'm not an anthropologist so I can't speak with authority, but I predict that if you could check an encyclopedia of every documented instance of an isolated tribe coming into contact with society at large, you would find what most people would judge to be a net negative outcome for the tribe. And I mean from the perspective of what they value. I guess if you went to the village elders and said, "If you use this stuff on your hands and scrub it under water (soap) before you conduct any medical procedure, you will eliminate 40% of deaths due to infection, but the downside is, you'll have to stop using the XXYY chant which requires you cake your hands with goal maneur and then grass and then mud before any procedure. Do you agree to sacrifice this tradition for more lives?" and if they said yes, I'd be more ok with it. Because then at least you're acknowledging that 'life' and 'long life' isn't an absolute value. You're acknowledging that maybe they value the tradition more. That's what I want to see. The acknowledgement of that.

[Alelou]

I guess I'm not that much of a moral relativist. Just because it's customary to honor-kill women who've been raped in some Muslim communities doesn't mean I would respect that aspect of their culture, anymore than I respect rubbing manure into wounds if that's what the medicine man does or letting people starve to death for all the reasons we find for that to happen. This is something humans will have to wrestle with more and more as the planet gets smaller. I suppose a big enough crisis may someday send us all back into our own little corners, but I hope not.

[justTripn]

My husband claims that if you contact the uncontacted tribes, they wouldl all die of germs. I find that hard to believe, but if it were true it would certainly throw a monkey wrench in my "contact them" plan.

As for the Hmong people, yes, there were a lot of tragic aspects like what you are saying about loss of tradition, when they try to integrate. The Hmong (the ones we know of here in the U.S.) were U.S. allies fighting the Communists in the secret war in Laos. So first of all, it is tragic that they were our allies in a war and yet no one in the U.S. recognized that or has ever heard of them.

They were the only class of refugees (that I ever heard of) NOT eager to come to the U.S. Most refugees (Vietnamese, for example) were dying to come to the U.S. Litterally, (remember the boat people?)

Anyway, the Hmong were well aware that coming to the U.S. meant their kids would be more American than Hmong and that was a big deal for them. They had lots of traditions that could get you arrested in this country, from multiple wives to having to sacrifice animals to the spirits for weddings and funerals. And they used to farm opium. No doubt, the first generation in the U.S. would have a miserable time and it would be their children who would reap the benefits.

I heard a really sad story. (It was sad for me, but I heard it from the perspective of the Americans trying to help a refugee family.) They found that the refugee family dragged all the mattresses into one room and the family slept together. This shocked the church group sponsoring the refugees who would scold them and try to separate them back into separate rooms. Very sad, because the Americans were unaware that their "everyone in a separate room" thing was a cultural not a moral issue. Humans throughout most of history have slept all in one room and young children even in this country often sleep with parents.

Ann

[Asso]

Anyway, a thing is sure.
You can avoid world.
World won't avoid you.

[justTripn]

Exactly. Some degree of integration is inevitable in the long run, so how best to address the inevitable problems?

[Asso]

Equilibrium, wisdom, attention, cure, care...
Oh my God!

[CX]

My husband claims that if you contact the uncontacted tribes, they wouldl all die of germs. I find that hard to believe, but if it were true it would certainly throw a monkey wrench in my "contact them" plan.

Killed off a lot of the North American natives after Columbus and others came to the Americas. Small pox was especially bad, and wiped out entire tribes from what I understand.

[Elessar]

My husband claims that if you contact the uncontacted tribes, they wouldl all die of germs. I find that hard to believe, but if it were true it would certainly throw a monkey wrench in my "contact them" plan.

Killed off a lot of the North American natives after Columbus and others came to the Americas. Small pox was especially bad, and wiped out entire tribes from what I understand.

Yeah, there's actually huge debate about what % of the Native American population the first landings caused to be wiped out. Some say little as 10%, others say 97%. Evidence of further expeditions showing previously documented native settlements in the area of Chesapeake Bay and that area showed them to be completely abandoned, and huge mass graves of bodies. Plus one of the first winters for the Jamestown settlement was so bad that they dug up old graves of natives to sleep in and found the bodies and some actually ate some remains and got sick and died. Sure, that's gonna happen no matter what, but a lot of em died of pox - suggesting all those natives died of it too.

But, I'm not 100% sure that the situation of natives who are hitherto uncontacted is the same as the issue of the native americans. Native Americans had no antibodies at all for european diseases like smallpox, but I'm not so sure that the same would be true of isolated natives. I think they're just culturally isolated, they're not ecosystematically isolated (not sure if that's a word). For example I'm saying that even if some tribe is 'isolated' 100 miles north of La Paz, Bolivia - if they exist in the same contiguous rainforest as La Paz residents inhabit on the outskirts of the city, then they aren't going to be germ-isolated from them. They live in a habitat with the same living conditions as other humans even if they haven't met other humans.

The native americans/columbus situation was an issue of the two people (for the most part) never having shared the same continent. That's actually not true, more and more evidence suggesting there were vikings and even west africans in the Americas back to 700 BC, but I can't really explain why that didn't spread the diseases.

[Linda]

Since we know what kills when populations meet and exchange germs and other nasty stuff, we can control that now. Contact with Native Americans centuries ago - some of the deaths were inadvertent because they didn't know germ theroy and other modern medical stuff. Other deaths through disease were deliberate and extremely reprehensible acts of genocide. I would hope we have better ethics now. And we know enough to minimize culture contact shock.

Look, a living culture is a culture in constant change. And for all tribes on earth, lets face it - CONTACT IS INEVITABLE. So lets do it right. Don't leave it to some exploitative individuals, because they will come, no matter how we try to keep them out. Lets do it with respect and compassion for the local culture, making a record of how it was as it starts to change. Do it through a responsible international organization whose actions are publicly scrutinized.

Let the people preserve the traditions they want to keep and make their own choice of what they want to change. Would you let your baby die in your arms if you thought someone had the ability to save your baby? Don't force any treatment on the people. If they refuse you permission to give their baby a shot or other live saving measure - don't force it! But give them the choice, damn it.

Sorry, I get passionate about this when I look at the faces of my own Native American grandchildren.

[JadziaKathryn]

Most of the Native American deaths were contracted from other Native Americans because when the tribes interacted with each other they spread diseases way ahead of the Europeans. (On the other hand, they introduced syphilis to Europeans who spread it to each other, getting at least a little inadvertent revenge.) This makes one wonder about the diseases for these uncontacted tribes, but I'm not knowledgeable enough on communicable diseases to form a theory.

I absolutely agree with you, Linda, that change is always occurring. Cultures just don't stay static. Certainly this flyover will have an effect on that group.

If you consider this, a lot of it sounds very parental. I'm not trying to make a judgment call here, just an observation. Even if people go in planning not to force them into change, it could go wrong. One of the ways this could go wrong is this idea of "protection." How far do you take protection? How do we try to keep these people from harm without stifling them? It's a very parental attitude, and even the most well-meaning people could end up in just that position: a caretaker and a parent. Now obviously a parent must have a child, and that takes away some of the self-determination of the people in question. It could stifle them. It could turn much worse, mutating into something sinister where the people are never able to be equal, never able to be adults, if you will, because they are being "protected." And I'm not saying that if contact is made they wouldn't need protection, because intercession might be necessary to save them from the down side of modernity. But then, is that even possible? We can't save the slums of Mumbai (formerly Bombay) from the downside of modernity.

But I'm falling asleep, so hopefully this chaotic thought process of mine has adequately made it into words.

[Linda]

I think contact is inevitable and of course in any relationship things can go wrong. Let's just try to do the best we can with the resources and knowledge we now have and not leave it to happen accidently with people whose intentions are not good.

[Asso]

... That's actually not true, more and more evidence suggesting there were vikings and even west africans in the Americas back to 700 BC, but I can't really explain why that didn't spread the diseases.

Not necessarily. Maybe that happened.

[Linda]

I agree with Asso, we don't know what happened with the Viking contact or West African contact, info is quite scanty I believe? And that certainly involved many less people than the European settlements centuries later. I saw a documentary a while back which postulated that there was other early European contact. I forgot what that was based on - DNA studies? Don't remember, but also probably not large groups of people coming over.

JK, what is the source(s) of your info. My info is from how people feel about what happened to them, the residual resentment, the mistrust that still exists between cultures. Perhaps the deliberate disease transmission was only isolated cases, but that is what sticks in people's minds. And it seems logical that European diseases would be spread among the native populations because of the movement within their populations of natives who had European contact. Who spread it inadvertently is not my point. That people did not know much about disease transmission is my point. We know much more today and so can minimize the effect and treat the diseases.