10. Liberals, and they make up the majority of environmentalists, live in a world of fantasy. Let's put the "Noble Savage" in with Santa and his elves....in children's story books.
"... environmentalists "who are involved in dealings with Aboriginal people in conservation matters will become quickly disillusioned. One has only to camp in the bush with Aboriginal people in many areas and see children cutting down any and everything in sight to appreciate this".
"Aborigines and conservationism: the Daintree-Bloomfield road", Australian Journal of Social Issues, volume 24, 1989, page 220.
"... the Aranda of the Central Australian desert responded to the times of plenty that followed heavy rains: Animals were slaughtered ruthlessly, and only the best and fattest parts of the killed game were eaten; every tree was stripped bare of its fruits, and all that were unripe and tasteless were tossed away ... " Strehlow, Aranda Traditions, Melbourne, 1947, pages 49-50
"....American Indians displayed a similar lack of sensitivity to the "complex web of life". The Sioux, as Daniel Guthrie has noted, "showed no qualms about driving a herd of buffalo over a cliff or about starting a range fire to drive the buffalo". And when buffalo were plentiful, often only the choicest parts were eaten, with the rest of the kill being left to rot --Dances with Wolves notwithstanding. " "Primitive man's relationship to nature",Bioscience, volume 21, 1971, page 722.
" In the Pacific Islands, the archaeological record shows that an enormous number of birds became extinct before European contact, but after settlement by the ancestors of contemporary indigenous populations. In many parts of the Pacific more species of land birds became extinct than survive today as a consequence of pre-European contact forest-clearing, hunting, and predation by the mammals which the islanders brought with them. " D.W. Steadman, "Extinction of birds in Eastern Polynesia: a review of the record, and comparisons with other Pacific Island groups",Journal of Archaeological Science, volume 16, 1989.
So....if the concept of the 'noble savage' is bogus....then the doctrinal basis for the French Revolution, and the later Russian and other communist revolutions is equally incorrect.....
People are as they always have been....and will always be.
Human nature is neither malleable, nor perfectible.
There is no basis for totalitarian regimes- and this includes Liberal/Progressive, other than to end liberty and freedom.
Bye, bye, Jean Jacques Rousseau....