PoliticalChic
Diamond Member
"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.
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.