GENIUS FORUMS

Trevor Salyzyn wrote: Anyway, many "ancient Native American traditions" are shams. They are recent.

And thus we get the stupid "traditional" term shaman, right, Trevor?

Boy, you're on a roll.

Carl, defending the First Nations is just as inane as defending Western civilization. I find both to be filled with the most mediocre, disgusting types of humans.

It's the romantic notion that Native culture is somehow worth anyone's effort defending that hides all the base, disgusting, egotism. Native culture is reborn anew every generation. There is no permanance; what was destroyed by the invading Europeans was the last remnants of a declining civilization. We moved in when North America was in the middle of its own Dark Age. The alcoholism of the First Nations is just as ancient a tradition as their sage-brush mysticism. It's a culture of mindless superstition and deceitful myths.

I honestly believe that the Natives should not have been protected: the Europeans should have simply wiped out all that would not join the collective. It would be that much less stupidity in the world.

I honestly believe the Europeans should have stopped at the doorstep and not destroyed or severely crippled numerous ancient civilizations. A lack of technological advancement is no reason to condemn millions of people to death. They were no more or less enlightened than their European conquerers and this wonderful brutish country I live in plus numerous impoverished crime-ridden countries in South America are the legacy of European imperialism in the Americas. Lets not forget the many other remnants of that period in Western history including India, China, Africa, the Middle East...basically anyone on the planet who wasn't European.

Explain one instance of something happening without a cause? A person doing something without a cause doesn't count, there body is the cause of what they cause.

Carl G wrote:

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:For one thing, a culture without a written history does not exactly have any ancient traditions;

Ha, another good one. Moronic to the max.

Everyone knows only written histories imply antiquity!

People have been living a lot longer then they've been writing. Not to mention destroyed or lost writings etc. Maybe the culture that didn't write things down got further before thay manged to destroy them selves. I mean just think of all the time they'd save, plus people would shorten and simply everything so as the convey the best message with the most ease, since you'd have to repeat it rather then just refer to past works. Keeps things modern too. My socials text book in grade ten was from the 80s.

for another, umm... didn't Europeans following "ancient European traditions" have to consciously restrain themselves just to simply not wipe the entire moronic civilization off the face of the planet?

Yep, a psychotic culture almost wipes out a less technically-based one, but has a moment of conscience at nearly the end of their murdering bloodbath. Obviously it is the nobler and more spiritual one!

Just think if they'd killed all the idiots back then... Can't help but sigh.

Carl G wrote:

Matt Gregory wrote:Everything happens for a reason.

Ha ha, good one, totally idiotic. "Everything is caused," what a stupid idea.

I see what Matt is getting at. 'Everything happens for a reason' is indeed the motto of the most mediocre people, as they usually take it to mean, everything happens to me for a reason that benefits me in the long run, making me more and more spiritual & secure. New age narcissism wouldn't be what it is without all of it's magical coincidences, events that happen to people for reasons often having to do with the grace of some goddess, exotic deity, spiritual guardian, or cosmic consciousness that pervades the universe and loves us all.

And so the fools say to themselves: everything is going to be all right! All these bad things happen to us for a reason that will make us happy one day. Like most people, deep down inside, we are essentially good. We should worker harder at not being so judgmental, we should learn to have more tolerance for other people's views. It's good to have faith in people. It's important to believe in yourself. A life without hope isn't worth living.

Cory,

So, we could say mediocre people are correct, though for the wrong reason.

Because the saying has at least two meanings is no reason to chastise it. It is intrinsically not an idiotic saying. That was my point.

Carl G wrote:Cory,

So, we could say mediocre people are correct, though for the wrong reason.

What they mean by what they are saying is incorrect, but the words they are saying can be interpreted as being correct in meaning.

Because the saying has at least two meanings is no reason to chastise it. It is intrinsically not an idiotic saying. That was my point.

It's a very common motto, very comforting to the masses, I hear it uttered relatively often - therefore, as long as we point out how the motto is being used (what mediocre people mean by it), then I think it qualifies as an idiotic saying.

Nevertheless, the saying is entirely correct in itself, therefore is not idiotic.

Chochem, you focused on the wrong part of what I wrote. I was not actually defending mass murder, so I'm not going to here.

I honestly believe that the Natives should not have been protected: the Europeans should have simply wiped out all that would not join the collective.

I was regretting that the Europeans went kind on Native culture. Natives should have been made European, and there should have been no end to that. The belief that the Natives had something worth protecting is romantic. Cultures come and go. There is nothing so inherently special about the First Nations that they should be given any special treatment in the modern day (but, regrettibly, they are considered a tiny sovereign nation within Canada -- a fact that they use to leech large sums of money off of the Canadian government without any transparent purpose, to sell untaxed cigarettes and liquor, to complain that they don't have quite enough sovereign land, and to circumvent provincial gambling laws).

The mass murder part is something known as hyperbole.

Careful, Trevor, your unreason is showing.

I honestly believe that the Natives should not have been protected: the Europeans should have simply wiped out all that would not join the collective.

Unbelievable. The Europeans were savages, thieves, cheaters, imperialists. Why would anyone want to join them?

I think the natives should've wiped out the Europeans that came to this continent.

Carl: ugh. Aboriginals are as greedy and base as Westerners. I find it as hard to empathize with the so-called First Nations as I do with everyone else. Stop side-tracking this into a failure of my reason: when people say "it's an ancient Native American tradition" as though saying such justifies a stupid and superstitious action, I gag. It's as bad as Bloody Mary, the number 13, walking under a ladder, breaking a mirror...


Shah: The Aboriginals failed to wipe out the Europeans. They were defeated. Their current preferential treatment is despicable. Showing favouritism toward a minority of the population based on the fact that their ancestors were slaughtered by my ancestors is a crude practise (when, actually, my ancestors -- like the ancestors of most Canadians -- arrived in Canada long after this happened). In time, I only hope that this favouritism leads them to improve their quality of life enough that they can catch up, technologically and socially, to Western culture. Otherwise, they are essentially economic and political terrorists; Canadians are lucky that suicide bombing isn't part of Native American culture.

Unfortunate that just bombings are part of western culture. And while natives may have been greedy (hard to do when your taking no more then you need, and using all of it) but at least they had sustainability.

Romantic bullocks. Modern Western civilization is more sustainable than the Dark Ages ever were, especially since we became so profoundly aware of the environment on a logical, rational, and scientific level in the last 50 or so years.

The primitive Natives that we conquered were no more advanced than any old, decrepit feudal empire. If the concept of a knight in shining armour seems noble, only then can I conceive your romantic notions as founded on anything -- except, I would hasten to argue that knights in shining armour (Crusaders, for instance) were filthy. The Arabs, who had a fondness for bathing occasionally, can attest to that.

The primitive Natives that we conquered were no more advanced than any old, decrepit feudal empire.

No less advanced, either. And at east betrayal was not their MO.

Romantic bullocks. Modern Western civilization is more sustainable than the Dark Ages ever were, especially since we became so profoundly aware of the environment on a logical, rational, and scientific level in the last 50 or so years.

What you got against romance? Yes were more aware of how were traveling a path to destruction with our over mining of the earth, and our synthesis of harmful chemicals that are disrupting natural patterns.

Trevor Salyzyn wrote:Carl: ugh. Aboriginals are as greedy and base as Westerners.

The current ones are, yes, most of them; they have been both broken and westernized. What do you know about indigenous North Americans at the time of the European invasion?

I find it as hard to empathize with the so-called First Nations as I do with everyone else.

Okay, me, too. Most people, wherever one finds them (today, for sure), are herdly and ignorant.

Stop side-tracking this into a failure of my reason: when people say "it's an ancient Native American tradition" as though saying such justifies a stupid and superstitious action, I gag. It's as bad as Bloody Mary, the number 13, walking under a ladder, breaking a mirror...

Your bile should be aimed at the sayers of the stupid phrase.

I happen to agree, just because something is an ancient tradition (if it is actually one at all) doesn't make it wise or sacred or anything else. However, speaking of such, I don't think it is wise to cast aspersions, as you are doing, upon all Native American traditions or people. There happens to be a core of Native spirituality that is linked to the same root of wisdom as Taoism and Buddhism, and for that matter, esoteric Christianity and Islam, as well.

You would come across as more a man of reason if you took time to separate all these points, instead of going off emotionally and venting your prejudices.

Well, you should notice that initially I was pointing exclusively toward people who say that phrase, because they are justifying things that are not exactly recent. Po-mo, New Age bullshit is not "ancient Native American traditions".

I also explained very clearly at the beginning that I, like many others in my environment, do have considerable bias toward Native Americans. I am well aware of my prejudices, and warned of it very early. There is an undercurrent of racism/nationalism in Canada toward Native groups, and I am not magically excluded from these feelings.

That they are given millions of dollars yearly by the federal government, as well as permission to be considered a sovereign nation and free from many forms of taxation and laws; and yet consistently want more land and more rights (when they already have more land and rights than any other similarly-sized group in Canada), and are over-represented in jails -- well, this preferential treatment grates on a lot of people. They are given more than any other group in Canada for no other reason than ancestral claims, and spend nearly all that they are given to foster greater division between "us and them", rather than to build up a stable and respectable nation.

Many in their situation would pull themselves up by their bootstraps, and I'm certain many individuals do. But the vocal Native groups are disrespectful, predictable, and tedious. Turning them into a sovereign nation feels like a complete mistake: they are like Canada's untalented, bitter, and frigid wife -- refusing to get a job or support the household in any way. Living in middle-class Canada, it is very hard not to feel some disdain for them.

It's not a justification for racism: it is their nation, not their race, that I believe inferior. So it's "nationalism". And, I know that as such, it is somewhat irrational. But it is also based on a clash of normative values (which is always irrational by necessity). The First Nations have different values than I do; since I believe my values are the best ones to hold (or else I would not hold them), this creates the same clash that I have with the average Westerner. They behave incorrectly, and should be corrected as far as I am able and willing to correct them.