August 9, 2004
From the desk of Jane Galt:Gone with the wind
Should I be sad to hear that Canada's indigenous peoples are losing their traditional survival skills? The progressive, forward looking part of me says NO! There's something more than a little distasteful about comfortably middle class Americans who want people in other places to keep living lives that are nasty, brutish, and short, just so we can go stare at them when we're on holiday--or merely bask in the knowlege that someone, somewhere, is managing to survive on ice water and peatmoss. An Irish friend has some rather explosive words for Americans who want to turn Ireland into one big living museum so they can go there every five years and enjoy the unspoiled scenery. Let them try cooking over an open fire, with a hole in the thatched roof for a chimney, if they think it's so *$%! cute.
On the other hand, there is something sad about losing the old arctic life. Scratching a living out of the frozen north, while living in a house made out of snow -- that's pretty damn impressive. It's bittersweet, to this libertarian, to think that in another generation we'll have no one left who knows how.
Posted by Jane Galt at August 9, 2004 5:09 PM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksSimilar arguments were made a few years ago when surveys showed that the number of living languages was rapidly decreasing. Of course it was regrettable on some aethestic level to think that so much human variety was being lost. But at the same time, those local languages and dialects were acting as significant barriers to people's individual economic betterment, and those publicly lamenting the losses definitely had the whiff of the armchair authentithicist.
Northern survival has a value to Canada and the United States, and we and Canada should pay for retention of those skills. The training should be open to all, and the pay should make the work desirable to all. We no longer expect European women to screw all day for a pack of cigarettes like they did in 45, or Indians to trade Manhattan for $24 of trinkets. Someone who takes a snowmobile out a hundred miles needs the skills to survive a breakdown. And he needs to be paid for the risks.
" We no longer expect European women to screw all day for a pack of cigarettes like they did in 45."
We shouldn't?
You said it, Tom. Freakin' Euro gold diggers.
Interestingly enough American and Scandinavian artic explorers copied the lifestyles of the Eskimos and thrived in the artic wastelands.
The British, who thought the Eskimos were ignorant, retained their British lifestyle and died in droves.
If you want to learn how Eskimos lived and their survival skills, read the books written by the American and Scandinavian artic explorers.
We can always make it up - or figure it out - again, if we have to.
Languages, specialized survival skills: someone had to invent them.
It might be hard, but it's sure not impossible. After all, how many times have we done that sort of thing already?
Surely the current practitioners of these arcane skills can, at least, dictate a how-to book or 2?
If you want to learn how Eskimos lived and their survival skills, read the books written by the American and Scandinavian artic explorers.
"It's bittersweet, to this libertarian, to think that in another generation we'll have no one left who knows how."/i>
Some of us know how, and have even done so for a very short period of time. But although it does give one a great sense of accomplishment, it isn't something that's appealing as day-to-day existence.
James
[Nods]
And that brings up a point made by Jane Jacobs in "The Economy of Cities" and "Cities and the Wealth of Nations" as well as by many of the others here. Those sort of skills don't really vanish - They are merely added to as civilization continues to develop. I've no doubt that there are hobbyists and historians who still carry such skills while those of pragmatic value tend to survive in one form or another by the people who need them (In this case Some hunters, military, rescue workers, etc.)
So I doubt we need to lament the loss of such skills *too* strongly. ^_~
...and of course the Eskimo practice of wife sharing still survives in some communities.
I dunno about survival skills, but I will say that it saddens me whenever a human language is lost. On the other hand, the point about integration and economic well-being is well-taken (living in LA, all I have to do is look around at the only-Spanish-speaking populace to see that).
But boy, would it have been tragic if, e.g. Gaelic or Hebrew had been allowed to vanish from the earth, as nearly happened in both cases.
One has to ask how igloo-making skills will protect from a northern invasion by a modern army.
The problem is that hunter-gatherers almost never move from the old ways to, say, successful careers in computer programming. Instead, they wind up sitting around the house watching day time television, abusing the children, and turning seriously alcoholic.
The old ways were better for their souls.
A Northern invasion of Canada would be the funniest war ever. Think of the problems Napoleon had invading russia. Now remove all roads and reppalce them with muskeg (swamps). Multiply the distances involved by 2-10x, and get rid of all navagible water-ways, ability to forage for food, cover from satilite dietection (the tree line) and have supply lines that can be knocked out by random ice sheets and ice bergs.
I bet it would have failed before we even noticed it started.
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