pre-modernism

[Angelita Manzano]

This discussion seems to be based on a caricature of
pre-modern & non-Western cultures as stable, pristine,
internally homogeneous, independent units disconnected
from each other. (There's a really good book called
Exotics at Home by Micaela di Leonardo on this topic.)
-Angie 
--- ravi <gadfly at exitleft.org> wrote:
> 
> 
> thiago, thanks for your detailed response. here is
> an interesting bit 
> from bodley which addresses some of the points you
> raise:
> 
> reproduced from victims of progress pp16-18:
> 
> --------------------------------
> 
> It now seems appropriate to ask the obvious
> question: How do autonomous 
> tribal people themselves feel about becoming
> participants in the progess 
> of industrial civilization? Because of the power at
> their disposal, 
> industrial peoples have become so aggressively
> ethnocentric that they 
> have difficulty even imagining that another life
> style - particularly 
> one based on fundamentally different premises -
> could possibly have 
> value and personal satisfaction for the people
> following it. Happily 
> arrogant in their own supposed cutural superiority,
> many industrial 
> peoples assume that those in other cultures perhaps
> realize their 
> obsolescence and inferiority and eagerly desire
> progress toward the 
> better life. This belief persists in the face of
> abundant evidence that 
> independent tribal peoples are not anxious to scrap
> their cultures and 
> would rather pursue their own form of the good life
> undisturbed. Peoples 
> who have already chosen their major cultural
> patterns and who have spent 
> generations tailoring them to local conditions are
> probably not even 
> concerned that another culture might be superior to
> theirs. Indeed, it 
> can perhaps be assumed that people in any
> autonomous, self-reliant 
> culture would prefer to be left alone. Left to their
> own devices, tribal 
> peoples are unlikely to volunteer for civilization
> or acculturation. 
> Instead:
> 
> 	Acculturation has always been a matter of
> conquest...
> 	refugees from the foundering groups may adopt the
> standards
> 	of the more potent society in order to survive as
> individuals.
> 	But these are conscripts of civilization, not
> volunteers.
> 						Diamond, 1960
> 
> <...>
> 
> Those who glibly demand choice for tribal peoples do
> not seem to realize 
> the problems of directly instituting such a choice,
> and at the same time 
> they refuse to acknowledge the numerous indicators
> that tribal peoples 
> have already chosen their own cultures instead of
> the progress of 
> civilization. In fact, the question of choice itself
> is probably 
> ethnocentric and irrelevant to the peoples
> concerned. Do we choose 
> civilization? is not a question that tribal peoples
> would ask, because 
> they in effect have already answered it. They might
> consider the concept 
> of choosing a way of life to be as irrelevant in
> their own cultural 
> context as asking a person if he or she would choose
> to be a tree.
> 
> It is also difficult to ask whether tribal peoples
> desire civilization 
> or economic development because affirmative
> responses will undoubtedly 
> be from individuals already alienated from their own
> cultures by culture 
> modification programs, and their views may not be
> representative of 
> their still autonomous tribal kin.
> 
> Other problems are inherent in the concept of free
> and informed choice. 
> Even when free to choose, tribal peoples would not
> generally be in a 
> position to know what they were choosing and would
> certainly not be 
> given a clear picture of possible outcomes of their
> choice, because the 
> present members of industrial cultures do not know
> what their own 
> futures will be. Even if tribal peoples could be
> given a full and 
> unbiased picture of what they were choosing,
> obtaining that information 
> could destroy their freedom to choose, because
> participation in such an 
> "educational" program might destroy their
> self-reliance and effectively 
> deny them their right to choose their own tribal
> culture.
> 
> <...>
> 
> At this point we will again ask the question posed
> earlier regarding 
> whether tribal people freely choose progress. This
> question has actually 
> been answered many times by independent tribal
> peoples who, in 
> confrontations with industrial civilization, have
> (1) ignored it, (2) 
> avoided it, or (3) responded with defiant arrogance.
> Any one of these 
> responses could be interpreted as a rejection of
> further involvement 
> with progress.
> 
> Many of the Australian Aborigines reportedly chose
> the first response in 
> their early contacts with members of Western
> civilization. <...> Among 
> contemporary tribal peoples who still retain their
> cultural autonomy, 
> rejection of outside interference is a general
> phenomenon that cannot be 
> ignored. The Pygmies of the Congo represent a
> classic case of determined 
> resistance to the incursions of civilization.
> 
> <...>
> 
> Direct avoidance of progress represents what is a
> widespread, 
> long-established pattern of cultural survival whose
> implications should 
> not be ignored by those who promote culture change.
> 
> Throughout South America and many other parts of the
> world, many 
> nonhostile tribal peoples have made their attitudes
> toward progress 
> clear by choosing to follow the Pygmies' game of
> hide-and-seek and 
> actively avoiding all contact with outsiders. In the
> Philippines, a term 
> meaning "those who run away" has been applied to
> tribal peoples who have 
> chosen to flee in order to preserve their cultures
> from government 
> influence (Keesing & Keesing, 1934).
> 
> Many little-known tribal peoples scattered in
> isolated areas around the 
> world have, in fact, managed to retain their
> cultural integrity and 
> autonomy until recently by quietly retreating
> farther and farther into 
> more isolated refuge areas. As the exploitative
> frontier has gradually 
> engulfed these stubborn tribes, the outside world
> periodically has been 
> surprised by the discovery of small pockets of
> unknown "Stone Age" 
> peoples who have clung tenaciously to their cultures
> up to the last 
> possible moment. <...> In South America throughout
> this century, many 
> different groups, including the Xeta, the
> Kreen-a-kore in Brazil, 
> various Panoan speakers such as the Amarakaeri and
> Amahuaka in headwater 
> areas of the Peruvian Amazon, and the Akuriyo of
> Surinam, have been 
> found using stone tools and deliberately avoiding
> contact with outsiders.
> 
> <...>
> 
> After [a] brief encounter the Akuriyo remained out
> of sight for nearly 
> thirty years until American missionaries began to
> find traces of their 
> camps. The missionaries were determined to make
> contact with them in 
> order to win them for Christianity, but it was three
> years before they 
> finally succeeded with the assistance of ten
> missionized 
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