Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!jarthur!uci-ics!ucla-cs!smcnet!byoder
From: byoder@smcnet.UUCP (Brian Yoder)
Newsgroups: alt.activism
Subject: Re: Akwesasne Notes -- Basic Call to Consciousness 1977
Summary: More Indian Stuff
Message-ID: <521@smcnet.UUCP>
Date: 19 Jan 90 04:30:53 GMT
References: <3096@umn-d-ub.D.UMN.EDU> <1257@milton.acs.washington.edu> <1963@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca>
Organization: Santa Monica College Telecom, Santa Monica, CA.
Lines: 66

In article <1963@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca>, utility@quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Ronald BODKIN) writes:
> In article <4602@druwy.ATT.COM> jaf@druwy.ATT.COM (John A. Frieman) writes:
> >When greed was exhibited by Native person it was discouraged.  There is the
> >story of a man who was a skilled hunter.  One day as he was butchering a
> >deer he a killed two old people came to receive there share, as was
> >customary.  The hunter kept his eyes down on the deer and refused to
> >acknowledge them.  From that day he was known as "He Who Cuts Meat With His
> >Head Down."  Even after the hunter reformed his ways the name stuck for
> >many years.  

I seem to remember an old european fable about King Midas being too
greedy and getting in trouble for it. To claim that excessive greed 
is a property of people with white skin is a racist sentiment, don't
you think?  Perhaps IF it was true that there was no greed (whatever that
means) before the europeans came, it may have been because natives had
so little to be greedy of (few machine, nice places to live, etc.) comapred
to more modern societies. 

> 	I cannot concur that "greed" is a disease, rather I think this
> attribute has produced all the world's progress.  

Quite true, why should a Thomas Edison spend all his time, effort, and
talent inventing things if they are of no particular benefit to him?
Or would you claim that the world is better of without the things that
people like Edison have created?

> And no, I don't
> believe in "spirits" of the air or the land or whatever, I'm not a
> mystic, I don't believe people should live like animals, and I frankly
> find the world view your article espoused (although you didn't
> write it) totally repulsive.  

Actually, in some ways indian cultures were capitalistic.  Trade between
families prospered, and there was a strong correspondence between what
an individual produced and his lot in life (even if it might have been
shared with a small band of family and neighbors).  Interpreting their
way of life as COMPLETELY socialistic (as many do these days) is perhaps
a distortion of the truth.  It was more likely the case that individuals
living alone would have had a very hard time of it under those primitive
conditions and chose to organize in that way voluntarily (of course this
is a gross generalization, but we are talking in generalities here already).

> No one can deny that in the history
> of Western Civilization there have been some evil things done and
> some mistakes made, but on the whole I'd pick it over the primitive
> socialism that is advocated, and I have only bothered to comment on
> this article since no one has had the presence of mind to do so. 
 
I wonder how many people here on the net would personally choose to go 
live under these utopian circumstances?  I'd say none, since that option
is pretty much open to anyone.  It wouldn't cost much!  Maybe that's
the situation to the homelessness problem.  Just send them into the
wilderness to live the utopian lives of savages, living off the land
and happily avoiding the complications of modern life.  I bet they'd
like that! ;-)

I would have responded earlier, but I have been swamped with work. Sorry.
I can't get 'em all ;-)


Brian 
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| Brian Yoder                 | answers *byoder();                            |
| uunet!ucla-cs!smcnet!byoder | He takes no arguments and returns the answers |
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