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I was pretty shocked, in my teens, to learn how my ancestors had treated the Australian aborigines.
My cynical and ugly interpretation is of provable human behaviour in recent history.
I am simply extrapolating on the basis of known history. People can be wonderful on an individual basis. Social groups can be wonderful towards other people within the group. But show me an invading ethnic group which would risk its survival by treating the natives as equals.
Originally posted by Astyanax
reply to post by Kailassa
Yes, humans have always ill-treated and exploited one another, to an extent that often beggars belief among the gently reared.
Rivers of Gold, Sea of Poppies...
Yet knowing all this, I still say it is foolish and dangerous to give way to righteous anger, to judge and condemn.
My cynical and ugly interpretation is of provable human behaviour in recent history.
Indeed, my only quibble would be the qualification 'recent'. It has always been thus.
Your extrapolation may not be at fault, but it is an extrapolation, without sufficient evidence to qualify it as a hypothesis, let alone a theory. You are, in all probability, right – but your conclusion isn't scientific. To lose sight of this is to distort science and misapply it to political ends, for in the end it is a political claim you are making.
As for the moral issue, any judgement we can make would be anachronistic and, more generally, inapplicable. How can you impose the moral standards of today on people who lived tens of thousands of years ago? You have no idea what their lives were like, what exigencies they had to endure, how they thought, what their moral imperatives were like if indeed they even had any. You're judging them by your own standards, and you're judging them for things they may not even have done.
Finally, you speak of the behaviour of ethnic groups, as distinct from the behaviour of individuals. As individuals, humans sometimes act as moral beings; in groups, we rarely do. The real point is that, as a species, we act just the same as any other species. We compete with other species that consume the same resources we do, and if we can, we will wipe them out. All species do this, from bacteria to ants to Nile perch to cute harmless lollopitty rabbits – as you, an Australian, well know. And when the competitor species have been eliminated and the victorious one becomes a victim of its own success – when the Malthusian imperative begins to grip – conspecifics compete with each other, and this, as Darwin pointed out, is the fiercest competition of all.
We are animals, and no different from other animals. If the Neanderthals had been capable of it, the boot would have been on the other foot, believe me.
None of this diminishes the tragedy of man's inhumanity to man, or his destructive exploitation of the rest of Earth's biosphere. Nor does it free us of any part of our duty, as self-aware, moral beings, to make the world a better place if we can. But it is a tragedy, not a crime. To get confused about this is to – yes – pollute yourself with unneccesary bitterness and anger.
I think that is unworthy of you, and if I can get you to understand why I think so, I shall have done some good here on ATS.
Originally posted by Astyanax
Increasingly, it is beginning to look as if the differences between modern humans and some extinct varieties of human may not really be enough to justify calling them different species.
According to this article by a Neanderthal expert, who is also the director of the Gibraltar Museum, Nenderthals, Denisovans (a new variety of extinct human recently discovered from remains in Siberia) and other ancient humans may not have been sufficiently different from us, taxonomically or genetically, to justify calling them different species. They could all interbreed and, it seems, have viable offspring with one another, as well as with modern humans.
This sounds like great news to me. But then, I'm a proud mongrel and a promoter of mongrelism. Others may not be so pleased. Either way, it's worth discussing.
Obviously homo sapiens out smarted the Neanderthal thats why we are the dominant species.