h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It's splitting hairs but I wouldn't say Scottish landowners wanted to "compete" with English ones, more that they greedily saw the profit margins.

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Meh. It only exists so the Welsh can talk about the English behind their backs

>>It's splitting hairs but I wouldn't say Scottish landowners wanted to "compete" with English ones, more that they greedily saw the profit margins.

Well it sort of is. Landowning was what they did to provide investment capital. It didn't yield enough so they fell behind. Being a Marxist, I wouldn't call it 'greed' as such.


>>Meh. It only exists so the Welsh can talk about the English behind their backs

My Grandma used to catch them out sometimes.

>>
I contend that this kind of thing is nearly always the case. For example - Australian Aborigines...yes they've lost their language and culture. But it hasn't been actively 'Taken Away' - it's been a side effect of the theft of their means of livelihood and subsequent dislocation.

Notwithstanding, there have also been cases where a language and culture have been actively suppressed where it is associated with a power block in competition with the coloniser.
<<

Ed, I agree to an extent with what you have said about the role of economics in the loss of culture, but it's just plain wrong to say that colonisers don't take intentional action to destroy the cultures they are taking over. And power is not the only reason.

If you take the children of a group of indigenous people and remove them to a state school and/or give them away to white families, *that* is suppression of language (and culture) if those children are punished for speaking their language, or cannot speak it because there is no-one to speak it to (which is what happened in Australia). This wasn't an economic imperative, it was a cultural one (the Brits thought they knew what was best).

This is such a universal tactic of European colonisers (in the US, Australia and NZ) I'm surprised I have to even mention it.

I'm less familiar with Australian law, but NZ brought in legislation specifically to break Maori culture. At the time assimilation was the ideal and it was generally assumed that the Maori race (sic) would die out.

>>I'm surprised I have to even mention it.

Of course not. Are you being patronising, or do you think I'm thick?

The Maori are a good example of a strong culture that had to be broken.

As for removing Australians to schools (see also Canada)...while I freely grant that the effect was to trash the culture and thereby achieve the colonial end of material gain, I sincerely doubt that this was its conscious motive. Perhaps its purpose was 'semi-altruistic'? Taking the little blackfellas away from their surroundings and teaching them to be good semi-Christians? While, of course, alleviating the terrible problem of decent folk having to see them hanging around with their intolerable ways. Plus, of course, removing a tribe's workforce and breeding population.

As usual, we're agreeing violently on the awfulness of it all. All I'm suggesting is that there is seldom a nefarious plot to subjugate people culturally. The subjugation is generally more brutal and unsubtle and the cultural aspects just fall into place. I think it's important to keep that common-or-garden brutality in the forefront of the mind.

>>>>I'm surprised I have to even mention it.

Of course not. Are you being patronising, or do you think I'm thick?
<<

I thought you were being ignorant (in the non-perjorative sense).

I understand what you are arguing Ed, but you're the one that's brought up the idea of nefarious not me. I'm saying that there were people in positions of power in both NZ and Oz who intentionally and consciously suppressed language (and culture). You can dress that up as altruistic (as some did here), but that doesn't change the fact that the suppression was both intentional and conscious. Which was my original point. You said language was never 'taken away'. It was, deliberately.


>>while I freely grant that the effect was to trash the culture and thereby achieve the colonial end of material gain, I sincerely doubt that this was its conscious motive.
<<

I don't know what you mean by conscious there. Do you think they didn't know what they were doing? That's incredibly naive. Also, yes material gain, but you are refusing to recognise that there were people who just plain thought that natives were inferior and should die out, and saw their role in that.

Yes, I guess I'll concede on the last point. These things were done by the various agents of colonialism. It's pretty irrelevant what the mindsets of the individuals concerned were Collectively, the church etc were Agents of the State.

To some extent we're having a bit of an angels-on-pinheads debate here, maybe. The material and cultural colonisation was all of a piece, inextricably intertwined.

My only caveat is that, ultimately, it all comes down to the material. doesn't need saying colonists don't invade colonies simply because they don't like the natives' funny ways. So when we talk about culture's being trashed by taking children away - we don't stop there. We look at the uranium ore fields they were dispossessed from.




(How patronising to think I wouldn't have read Pilger etc etc. )

>While, of course, alleviating the terrible problem of decent folk having to see them hanging around with their intolerable ways.<

Well it didn't work very well judging by what I saw in Australia. Vast numbers hanging around in Alice Springs smashed out of the heads on alcohol and drugs of various kinds.

Even in nice Adelaide I saw gangs go into supermarkets and helps themselves. The shop people just let them do it..presumably the authorities had decided that was the best way to keep a lid on things.

(And I'm sure taking kids away was a conscious decision. I had it personally as a descion to get me into nice middle classness. It was entirely conscious decision of my parents. Okay fairly irrelevent personal point. But it smashes you if you have already formed a strong culture)

What did Pilger say? Can't say I've read any for years.

>>
My only caveat is that, ultimately, it all comes down to the material. doesn't need saying colonists don't invade colonies simply because they don't like the natives' funny ways. So when we talk about culture's being trashed by taking children away - we don't stop there. We look at the uranium ore fields they were dispossessed from.
<<

Yes, but I'm not the one putting up the false dichotomy. I've already agreed that the State had a materialist imperative for colonisation in the first place (although I don't accept that that was the main reason, or the only important one. The need to explore and the need to prove one's superiority can't be overlooked). I'm just saying that in addition to the material imperatives behind cultural and linguistic loss, there are moralistic ones too.

Besides, what was the church up to?

>>although I don't accept that that was the main reason, or the only important one

Sorry, I meant "although I don't accept that that was the only main reason, or the only important one"

Running a lot of the schools.

Are you ignorant?

And of course we see it also in the classic, naked South American context:

1) Were missionaries part of the effort to grab booty?

or

2) was booty a convenient perk from missions to save souls?

Don't know what you mean by 'the classic naked South American context' but nice phrase.

As someone who has been there, I'd say its about manipulating minds and then you can control everything.

Well, maybe. But didn't the conquistadors conquer less with minds and more with guns and steel? And even more with germs?

Yes initially..but the only long term way of maintaining control was mind control. Isn't that the main method of colonisation?

Get rid of the indigenous thinking. Natives are restless tonight otherwise.

Where I went French Guiana was a bit of an anomoly though. Fascinating place. In the forest native indians given protection from interference from outsiders...and not subject to French law like the rest of the colony. On the river banks, bush negro settlements..deecendents from escaped slaves..still with a fair bit of their original African beliefs. They considered the interior of the forest to be a dangerous place..as they had in Africa..captured from river dwellers..and living off fish.

In town, white French colonials, Vietnamese and descedents of Chinese indentured labour.

France has always had a different attitude to colonies from the British. French Guiana is considered a department of France.

In town it almost felt like France but in a hot place. Stuff like French Golden delicious apples imported. Cheaper than the tropical fruits in the market..also croissants everywhere for sale

Sooo...what they've done is carved out the material conditions so that the natives want to come (semi-)voluntarily and join in the action, right? Because it's the only economic game in town. This is slightly different to saying that the colonists have imposed a culture.

I'll shut up about this (kea thinks it's boring ). The only reason why I think it might be important is because of the different solutions the two perspectives suggest. Liberal - 'valuing other cultures' etc. etc. Or bottom-up self-determination.

The black people in town are the descendants of slaves. When I was there a lot of them were still actual servants in the white people's houses. There's lots of white French there..not sure what they are doing except playing colonials. Some work at Korou the EU place for launching rockets. Also French foreign legion come to train in the forest.

The bush negroes though seem happy to carry on living in the forest by the river..though a lot go far into the interior to work in the mines. They are such lovely people.

But its a seriously weird place.

I think the strong imposition of 'Frenchness' and French law is a big factor in controlling the place.

>>>And of course we see it also in the classic, naked South American context:

1) Were missionaries part of the effort to grab booty?

or

2) was booty a convenient perk from missions to save souls?
<<<<

No idea. But I do know that in NZ there was considerable effort put in by the churches to save souls where no booty was available. Hence your argument (it's all about the material) fails, and my argument (it's about the material *and* the moral) wins.

You do seem to be missing that point. We're in danger of uber dullness now.

>>kea thinks it's boring

Nah, it's the fact that you and I are repeating an old argument we've had many times before. Unless we can find new ways of looking at the issue I think we are doomed to the eternal grey. Or blandness

>>You do seem to be missing that point. We're in danger of uber dullness now.


Well, fair enough. It did, I recall, start with you wittering dully about Gaelic, about which you by your own admission, know nothing.

It reminded me slightly of the time I used the word 'Teuchter', you questioned whether it was a term of abuse, I said not and you dug out a link to show me otherwise. Hell...how was I to know?

Maybe it would have been less dull of us to ask Researcher Teuchter for an abbreviation.



But enough of these über-dull Culture Wars. Nobody gas to win.

End with a song:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tc4MTN3ORWo

gas -> has.

Jaysus, but we need an editing thingy.