The 'Noble Savage': Unmasking The Myth

PoliticalChic

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"I am as free as Nature first made man,
Ere the base laws of servitude began,
When wild in woods the noble savage ran."
John Dryden, The Conquest of Granada

The 'Noble Savage', myth....astounding how many can be fooled ALL of the time.



1. The "noble savage," an ambiguous phrase that has been employed for many purposes, among them...

a. The question of whether civilization is a good or a bad thing...

b. Are men born good, and, if so, what corrupts them....or are they naturally depraved, requiring laws and religion to civilize them...

c. The concept serves well as a cudgel for use in comparison to any society we wish to reproach...the poor American Indians, the iconic 'noble savages,' whose homes and lives were devastated by Europeans....

d. Eco-fascists use it to compare how the 'noble savage' preserved nature, in comparison to the imagined ravages of modern man.

e. Useful in the imagined treatises of academics, climbing the ladders of their careers.

f. The impetus for the French Revolution, and every other totalitarian revolution since.



Very few actually consider whether or not the "noble savage" actually existed in fact.




Let's do so.


2. Margaret Mead is more than significant in advancing a view of the 'noble savage.' She, as much as John Dewey, is a child of the Progressive Era, and found an opportunity to hold up the concept as an example of what we 'could be.'


a. Mead believed that the best aspects of mankind are "natural and inborn." Margaret Mead and Ignatian Education A Comparison Ernest R. Sandonato - Academia.edu


3. In 1928, Mead published "Coming of Age in Samoa," where she found her 'noble savage.' Pure and innocent, crime such as murder, and rape, were unknown. Sexual promiscuity, rampant, but without any sense of guilt or shame- and sexual relations were the principal pastime of the young, with marriage put off to allow more years for this activity.


a. The book became an instant classic, and, catapulted onto university reading lists for decades.

b. It became the intellectual underpinning of the sexual revolution of the 60s, claiming to be scientifically objective.

Margaret Mead, icon of the Progressive elites, imparting a lasting direction to the accepted view of mankind, and to much of the guidance in society today.




4. Here's the kicker: her book was one gigantic fraud! Mead was wrong on every point. As is true of so many 'scientists,' she had gone to Samoa with here conclusions already in place "and she was not the sort of woman to let facts stand in her way."
"Wild in Woods: The Myth of the Noble Eco-Savage," by Robert Whelan, p. 14.

a. Mead ignored all evidence, historical and contemporary, which contradicted her thesis....records show that murder and rape were common in Samoa...one of the highest rates of rape in the world...."
Ibid.

b. Far from promiscuous, ...Samoan females lived in a culture which enforce a rigid code of virginity amongst unmarried adolescent girls....in pre-Christian times violation of the code had been punishable by death.
"Margaret Mead and Samoa: The Making and Unmaking of an Anthropological Myth," by Derek Freeman




Yet.....tumble out of Liberal universities....(is that redundant?)...and you consider the 'noble savage' a fact.
 
Interesting. I think I have to agree with you that she was full of it, and that rape, murder and other crimes do naturally occur in less "civilized" societies quite often. When it comes down to it and you have to fight for survival, people can be quite brutal towards one another. I think history has proven that time and time again, regardless of what this particular lib might say about it.
 
Laws and religion are not what civilize good people. The laws are there to attempt to deter the BAD people.
 
Hmmmmmmmmm........................... There are noble savages. There are savage savages. And there are noble civilized men, as well as savage civilized men.

The primary differance is that the savage kills one at a time, the civilized man, often by the thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. And the footprint on the land of the civilized man is so much greater. The savage never changed the very composition of the atmosphere, nor poisoned a major river.
 
The term that was never quite mentioned here is "cultural relativism". Cultural relativism is really just an applied product of moral relativism, which is predicated upon the notion that morality is entirely normative within a society rather than the product of reason. This is fallacious since it relies on the circular argument that something is so because people say it is so and since they say it is so, it is so.

In terms of cultures, this moral relativism has become little but an excuse for the worst sorts of hypocrisy possible, as multiculturalist fundamentalists have foisted upon western culture one of the greatest hoaxes imaginable -- that all cultures or religions are intrinsically valid and worthy of respect. We have lost the ability to think critically as we have been overcome by this onslaught of politically correct pablum that demands we elevate the status of primitive cultures to the point we cannot even criticize them no matter their degree of barbarity.

That is the fallout from the themes Mead helped promote, and it will destroy us if we abandon the notion that all those enlightenment values actually mean something. .
 
Hmmmmmmmmm........................... There are noble savages. There are savage savages. And there are noble civilized men, as well as savage civilized men.

The primary differance is that the savage kills one at a time, the civilized man, often by the thousands, or even hundreds of thousands. And the footprint on the land of the civilized man is so much greater. The savage never changed the very composition of the atmosphere, nor poisoned a major river.




" There are noble savages."


This is another of those "take my word for it" posts?

Sorry....your track record doesn't suggest that as an informed course of action.
 
Laws and religion are not what civilize good people. The laws are there to attempt to deter the BAD people.



"The laws are there to attempt to deter the BAD people."

That, of course, is exactly what Madison was getting at in Federalist #51,...

1.The Constitution commemorates our revolution, and, as Madison states in the ‘Federalist,’ is the greatest of all reflections on human nature…human beings are not angels.”

a. Humans are not perfectible, but are capable of self government. The republican form of government presupposes this idea of humans. Our government is not a controlling government, but must itself be controlled: by the Constitution, by checks and balances.



2. Of course, you don't realize it, but you've just subscribed to the most cogent argument against communist, socialist, Liberal, Progressive governance.
 
Kay cuz I'm a commie socialist, typically derp derp

Nother troll thread from the mother of the ugly trolls
 
The term that was never quite mentioned here is "cultural relativism". Cultural relativism is really just an applied product of moral relativism, which is predicated upon the notion that morality is entirely normative within a society rather than the product of reason. This is fallacious since it relies on the circular argument that something is so because people say it is so and since they say it is so, it is so.

In terms of cultures, this moral relativism has become little but an excuse for the worst sorts of hypocrisy possible, as multiculturalist fundamentalists have foisted upon western culture one of the greatest hoaxes imaginable -- that all cultures or religions are intrinsically valid and worthy of respect. We have lost the ability to think critically as we have been overcome by this onslaught of politically correct pablum that demands we elevate the status of primitive cultures to the point we cannot even criticize them no matter their degree of barbarity.

That is the fallout from the themes Mead helped promote, and it will destroy us if we abandon the notion that all those enlightenment values actually mean something. .



"... moral relativism has become little but an excuse for the worst sorts of hypocrisy possible,..."

Couldn't agree more.

What I'd like to show, the point you make, is the network of Leftists who push this agenda.


1. The roots of postmodernism can be traced to the anthropologist Franz Boas, who, in an effort to study exotic cultures without prejudice, found it useful to take the position that no culture is superior to any other. Thus was born the idea of cultural relativity.
For Liberal, the 'never make judgments' doctrine was in full effect.

The idea spread like wildfire through the universities, catapulted by the radical impetus of the sixties. ready and willing to reject "the universality of Western norms and principles."
Bawer, "The Victim's Revolution"



2. "Cultural determinism urges that man is, in the words of Margaret Mead’s friend Ruth Benedict, “unbelievably plastic.”
Article Margaret Mead And Samoa By Derek Freeman Commentary Magazine


3. The view that human nature is plastic and changeable by government is fundamental to Leftist beliefs, from Lenin to Hillary Clinton.
Leon Trotsky wrote in his Literature and Revolution [2] :

"The human species, the sluggish Homo sapiens, will once again enter the stage of radical reconstruction and become in his own hands the object of the most complex methods of artificial selection and psychophysical training... Man will make it his goal...to create a higher sociobiological type, a superman, if you will"
New Soviet man - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
 
Kay cuz I'm a commie socialist, typically derp derp

Nother troll thread from the mother of the ugly trolls




"Kay cuz I'm a commie socialist, typically derp derp."

No....simply because you are neither educated, nor particularly bright.

What's amusing is that you totally misunderstood what I posted about your view.

An intellect rivaled only by garden tools.
 
5. How many college grads grew up believing the "Progressive truths" of folks like Margaret Mead, and, long after they've been exposed.....still believe them???



a. "After depicting Margaret Mead’s Samoa, [Derek] Freeman, who spent time in Western Samoa as a graduate student in the 1940′s and again years later, proceeds to erase her negative instance from the anthropological ledger. The contrast between Mead’s and Freeman’s findings is startling, and nowhere more so than on the issue of the “truth” about Samoan sexual relations. Reports Freeman: “Female virginity . . . was very much the leitmotif of the sexual mores of the pagan Samoans . . . virtually every family cherished the virginity of its daughters.” Regarding civil disposition:

Far from possessing a social order that “is kind to all and does not make sufficient demands upon any,” as Mead would have it, [Samoa] has a culture in which it is traditional to have recourse to punishment, and frequently very severe punishment, in the interests of obedience and respect for authority.....

In two hundred pages Freeman grabs, tears, and shreds Margaret Mead’s research to pieces. To be sure, he is not the first to dispute her findings. Many Samoans, in fact, have called Miss Mead a liar." Article Margaret Mead And Samoa By Derek Freeman Commentary Magazine



b. Certainly people hate to give up views, even when proven wrong, when these seem to support conclusions that we merely wish were true. No where is that more evident than in the social sciences. Mead refused to make any alteration to her later editions: we should be all be on guard against the perils of complacent, muddled thinking and false but comfortable conclusions.
"Thinking about Social Thinking," Anthony Flew, p. 17.




c. The same sort of Liberal agenda can be seen in academia, still advancing "the gentle Tasaday" in the 80s.
Ibid.


The Tasaday "attracted widespread media attention in 1971, when Western scientists reported their discovery, "stone age" technology and complete isolation from Philippine society. They again attracted attention in the 1980s when it was reported that the discovery had been an elaborate hoax,...."
Tasaday people - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia




Tearing down the wall of Liberal propaganda, one brick at a time.
 
6. The sad story of the American Indian has been written and rewritten throughout history. When a stone age culture faces a more advanced one, there can be only one conclusion.
And so it was.


The revelation here is about the nature of the American Indians, aka the 'noble savages.' Under the influence of government schooling, and the Disney 'noble savage' meme, what many folks believe is patently false.


a.First, It is both disingenuous and childish to claim that there was a genocide perpetrated by the Europeans, as is would be to claim that the Black Plague, which more than decimated the inhabitants of Europe was genocide.


Just as microbes that they were unaccustomed to killed the Indians, the Treponema pallidum, the cause of syphilis, killed the settlers...they hadn't met this disease in Europe.


b. And the Disney version of Indians, a peaceful, accommodating welcomers of the settlers is puerile and nearly totally incorrect.

Much of the time, the response of the Indians was barbaric and savage.
 
The American Indians are not only anointed with the 'Noble Savage' title, but it comes equipped with victimization.

7. The view that the Indians objected to Europeans taking 'their land' is a misunderstanding of the concept of land ownership. Indians were largely nomadic, and where they lived and hunted was 'their land'....for the moment.

They laughed at the whites paying them for land.


a. "We could say that all conflicts between European settlers in America and American Indians were about land. The Indians had it; the Europeans wanted it. In many cases, Europeans simply took what they wanted. In most of British North America, though, settlers actually purchased land from natives. You might think that buying land rather than taking it would prevent conflict. But because Europeans and American Indians had very different ideas about what it meant to buy and to “own” land, these deals actually could cause as much conflict as they prevented.

The traditional view of European-Indian land deals is that Europeans tricked the Indians, who failed to understand the consequences of their actions. In fact, though, Indians often proved savvy negotiators, and most European settlers understood far less about Indian ideas of land ownership than the Indians understood about theirs." Who owns the land - North Carolina Digital History




b.The idea that the settlers stole the land and dispossessed the 'owners' is simply the anti-white, anti-European, anti-American Leftist propaganda.

"The implications for the Indian question are straightforward. Namely: In the extremely unlikely event that any particular Indian can show that he personally is the rightful heir of a particular Indian who was wrongfully dispossessed of a particular piece of property, the current occupants should hand him the keys to his birthright and vacate the premises. Otherwise the current occupants have the morally strongest claim to their property, and the status quo should continue.
Anything more is just the doctrine of collective guilt masquerading as a defense of property rights."
Do Indians Rightfully Own America Bryan Caplan EconLog Library of Economics and Liberty



c. "One popular history of Manhattan notes that the Canarsie Indians "dwelt on Long Island, merely trading on Manhattan, and their trickery [in selling what they didn't possess to the Dutch] made it necessary for the white man to buy part of the island over again from the tribes living near Washington Heights. Still more crafty were the Raritans of [Staten Island], for the records show that Staten Island was sold by these Indians no less than six times."
The Straight Dope How much would the 24 paid for Manhattan be worth in today s money


Seems our Noble Savages might be "Ignoble Shysters" instead.
 
8. A couple of caveats here.....there were tribes who farmed, and for those Indians a strong argument can be made for ownership of that land.


Nor is there any doubt that there were cases of theft of Indian properties...and certainly theft in the opposite direction, as well.

.

But if we're going to sanctify the Indians with the title 'noble savage,' we have to presumes interests and natures very different from the greedy and devious Europeans.


Into that equation need be the fact that Indians who were farmers were very much like the white settlers. Farming was labor-intensive, and often that labor was of the same source that is central to the critique of early Americans.



The following in never mentioned when the 'noble savage' meme is advanced:

" Black slavery in America usually evokes images of the antebellum South, but few realize that members of the Five Civilized Tribes--the Cherokees, Choctaws, Chickasaws, Creeks, and Seminoles--in Indian Territory, today's Oklahoma, also had slaves. Like their counterparts in the South, Indian slaveholders feared slave revolts. Those fears came true in 1842 when slaves in the Cherokee Nation made a daring dash for freedom.

By 1860, the Cherokees had 4,600 slaves; the Choctaws, 2,344; the Creeks, 1,532; the Chickasaws, 975; and the Seminoles, 500. Some Indian slave owners were as harsh and cruel as any white slave master. Indians were often hired to catch runaway slaves; in fact, slave-catching was a lucrative way of life for some Indians, especially the Chickasaws."
SLAVE REVOLT OF 1842

Uh oh......


So...nomadic Indians didn't really get chased off land, and Indian farmers and plantation owners were no different from whites....

....where are those 'Noble Savages' we keep being told about?
 
9. I said earlier that two kinds of civilizations clashed.....but it wasn't as though all of the Indians got together to advance a plan to eradicate the whites....

...and the same is true of the whites....the clash came about inadvertently.


A primary cause of the friction from the Indian perspective, as settlers moved West, they were often bringing livestock with them. The livestock that migrating families had driven before them had diminished the forage available to the buffalo herds on which the Indians based their way of life.

Further, just as European settlers had inadvertently introduced diseases and parasites, the livestock brought some that took additional toll on the buffalo.

And, in order to survive, the migrants had eliminated much of the game, such as elk, that the Indians used as an alternative meat supply.
"The Buffalo Soldiers: A Narrative of the Black Cavalry in the West," Revised Edition,byWilliam H. Leckieand Shirley A. Leckie, p. 19

and

"The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado,"by Elliott West, p.261-262

and

"The Way to the West: Essays on the Central Plains (Calvin P. Horn Lectures in Western History and Culture),"byElliott West, ppg 52-83



The point is that the Europeans didn't purposely create these debilitations for the Indians. These were not punishments or plans to inflict on the Indians.

It is the way of history, of exploration, of life.



One should not attribute evil intentions where there was none such.


And, more often, the response of the Indians, those 'Noble Savages,' was more 'savage' than 'noble.'
 

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