this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2024
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Flippanarchy

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Flippant Anarchism. A lighter take on social criticism with the aim of agitation.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago)

Imagine being able to successfully convince yourself that the existence of defences, and conflict, between neighbouring indigenous nations, is equivalent, to the point of nullifying, sailing around the globe genociding and enslaving its population as you go, for profit.

White supremacy is a hell of a drug.

[–] RememberTheApollo_ 42 points 12 hours ago (3 children)

There’s no way humans didn’t have human problems. This seems like an extension of the “good ol’ days” that views the past with rose tinted glasses. There absolutely would have been theft, murder, laziness, have-nots…whatever. People are people.

Ninja edit: found this.

https://scholarworks.alaska.edu/bitstream/handle/11122/9753/8729.02.conn.1991.punishment-precolonial-indigenous.ch.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y

Banishment, execution, murder, and theft among other things were absolutely a thing.

[–] Hamartia 0 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 54 minutes ago) (1 children)

Were there not many different tribes? It stands to reason that there could well have been a range of different lifestyles too. Including that described above.

My point being that other recorded experiences with native americans do not invalidate this rosy reminiscence.

It is in no way a workable solution to the modern maladies of this fractious over-crowded planet but it does help to have a range of idealised utopias to draw from in our discussions of how to proceed.

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[–] WelcomeBear 18 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

I would go so far as to say this is some classic “noble savage” bullshit that only serves to dehumanize people.

[–] PugJesus 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, in a big way. The European colonists committing genocide on the Native Americans does not have to have the Native Americans as inhuman angels to be a massive atrocity and grievous wrong, and trying to take the position that the Native American societies were is nothing more than a xenophilic form of cultural conservatism and chauvinism.

Native American peoples were people, like any other, with human problems common to any society, unlike what this quote implies. They do not have a 'magic' history for outsiders to aspire to become 'as good as', they do not have the secrets to the elimination of the dastardly social ills of 'civilization'. They're people. They're people who deserved better than the atrocious treatment that they got, but the 'Noble Savage' stereotype is no more humanizing or acceptable than the 'Ecological Indian' stereotype.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

I really appreciate this perspective (it's something I hadn’t considered before) Standing up for equal rights doesn’t mean we need to glorify or unconditionally defend a group, no matter who they are. For example, opposing police racism doesn’t require me to justify the actions of every Black criminal or attribute every single crime solely to systemic factors. (Though, of course, they often play a significant role.)

People are people. We all have the best and worst human traits somewhere inside of us, and we deserve human rights not despite of that, but because of that.

[–] WaxedWookie -4 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Good thing we've sacrificed that relative utopia to solve all those problems, eh?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

Not even remotely close to a utopia, especially when compared to modern day, but I'm sure that doesn't matter to you.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 16 hours ago (18 children)

The number of people that want to quote native Americans and talk about how native Americans were screwed over by the white man and how terrible it is all the things that have been done to them divided by the people in that group who are willing to give up their property and their lives and move back to their ancestral homes is the same as any number divided by 0.

And I'm saying this as a Lakota man.

You don't want to actually do anything about the problem with native americans.

You just want to feel Superior to other people.

But don't get off of your high horse because I'm sure the fall will kill you.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago)

First off it is incredible people are using the downvote button as an "I disagree" button even here. Vile fucking people.

Most efficient way to solve the issue of reparations to descendants of slaves and indians is poverty alleviation programs and land reform, they are disproportionately affected by these things. No more rich men owning forests, even if they do it through "conservation" nonprofits. No more wealth hoarding by white americans who inherited expensive housing from the era of redlining.

Also minority groups need special political representation in a democracy otherwise it is just wolves voting to have the sheep for dinner.

This is what they fight tooth and nail because they know who would win from evening the scales.

White political power is based on hoarding property, money, gerrymandering and preventing campaign finance reform.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 16 hours ago (9 children)

Are you sure about that? Because I'm pretty much for decolonisation

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[–] [email protected] 58 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

Kinda weird that everyone had a horse. Considering there where no horses in the Americas before colonialism.

[–] OneOrTheOtherDontAskMe 18 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

There were. They just happened to have died out. So, ancient native Americans, potentially horse-knowledgeable, and then they died out 10000 or so years ago.

Which is an even weirder and more fun fact, an addendum fact.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 hours ago

There were no horses in America, there were evolutionary ancestors of horses that would not be able to fulfill any horse role.

Just like zebras are not horses and wolves not dogs. They would obviously not be owned by Native Americans nor would the Native Americans have a remarkable body of knowledge about them (like they developed with actual horses).

Horses were bred to be big and strong enough in Central Asia.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago

We also learned about horses in America from the book of Mormon. They were also around approximately 2 - 3,000 years ago before all the good light skinned believers died out. Along with their horses...

Weird less fun non fact addendum to the weird fun addendum fact.

[–] a4ng3l 5 points 18 hours ago (1 children)
[–] AEsheron 5 points 14 hours ago

As the other comment pointed out, horses used to be found in the America's, but had since gone extinct before Europeans reintroduced them.

[–] Blue_Morpho 74 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

https://www.canada.ca/en/department-national-defence/services/military-history/history-heritage/popular-books/aboriginal-people-canadian-military/warfare-pre-columbian-north-america.html

"As early as the year 1000, for example, Huron, Neutral, Petun and Iroquois villages were increasingly fortified by a timber palisade that could be nearly 10 metres in height, sometimes villages built a second or even third ring to protect them against attacks by enemy nations."

[–] [email protected] 58 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I was going to say. First Nations did not have some amazing peaceful utopia. They killed each other for resources too.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Almost as if they were human, doing human things

[–] Klear 1 points 2 hours ago

Damn humans. They ruined humanity!

[–] samus12345 30 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

This feels very "noble savage."

[–] [email protected] 5 points 16 hours ago (1 children)

You think so?
I read it as a native american highlighting good points of an already functioning model of civilisation before white men brought them, figuratively and literally, all the misery and disease of their own

[–] samus12345 9 points 15 hours ago

It was a knee-jerk reaction. I looked up the quote, and it was made by John Fire Lame Deer. The reason it sounds "noble savage" to me is because, as you say, it's highlighting only the good points of his peoples' history. They fought and killed one another just like all people have. On the other hand, it's not his responsibility to describe every good and bad thing in said history and there's no doubt they had a way of life that was working that the colonialists destroyed. I guess one very cold comfort is that the colonialists have continued their destructive way of life to the point that they will be destroyed as well.

[–] Feathercrown 27 points 19 hours ago

This perpetuates an inaccurate stereotype, and separately, it makes no sense. Downvoted.

[–] shalafi 30 points 21 hours ago (13 children)

A man's worth was measured by how good he was at killing the other tribe's men. So there's that.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 18 hours ago

Native Americans weren't/aren't some monolithic people. Back then they no doubt had a lot of different ideas on measuring a man's worth.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

lmao this is pure bullshit, like boomer on facebook, HRC lib bullshit

[–] [email protected] 4 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Way too many motherfuckers want other to Google for them and are a bit too eager to cry "fake" or "noble savage".

I'm not arguing that life was perfect and that native Americans had perfectly working anarchism, I'm just quoting one such person. Get over yourselves.

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