--- Fiona Moore nydersdyner@yahoo.co.uk wrote: >
Yes, but as an anthropologist I'd like to point out that people tend to be informed by the values of the society in which they were raised. I'd like to recommend "The Handmaids Tale," which makes a good case for the rather sinister similarities between the hardcore left and the hardcore right.
I am intrigued by this. I've read the Handmaids Tale a few times now and I don't see it myself. I'm not disagreeing with you but I'd be interested in how you come to this reading.
isn't long before we're comfortably assured that primitive means dangerous.
Doesn't it ? What was it Hobbes said about life in
a
state of nature ?
No, it doesn't. The !Kung Bushmen of South Africa are not particularly dangerous unless you're an antelope, and one can say pretty similar things about the Inuit, the Semai Senoi of Malaysia, and a lot of others. Hobbes was a philosopher, not an anthropologist.
Neither am I as is painfully obvious ! Let me reprhase what I said. Primitive (I use the word very loosely) societies can be dangerous. Life is often cheaper than in technological situations. It is not an illegitimate manouvre for a writer of science fiction to utilise such societies in his or her work as long as the device is not over exploited. (I concede that this last was not observed by the writers of B7.)
Taking females as plunder is (I think) fairly well documented in tribal warfare.
Actually, recent studies have suggested that it's been overreported; initially by colonial explorers looking for an excuse to take over the land from the locals (under the guise of protecting the poor innocent women), and later on by certain anthropologists with overly macho ideas about hunter-gatherers. It does tend to feature a lot in a certain sort of early European war saga, but again the current thinking is that this has less to do with reality and more to do with the ego of the writer :-).
I don't doubt it's been over reported, nor that it has been used for propaganda purposes. I would be surprised if it never happened though. It almost certainly happened in Antiquity.
fertility of the primitives is declining so a
female
would be a valued commodity.
Actually, that depends too. Witness female abandonment in parts of China; in a generation or two, their fertility will be seriously impaired by the excess of males, but this doesn't stop families abandoning surplus daughters in favour of sons.
I'd be very surprised if daughters don't suddenly shoot up in value when scarcity becomes acute. Given the lack of female primitives on Cephlon (!) it could of course be argued that a simillar policy had been applied there in the past.
She instantly throws herself at the feet of our sturdy white giants and hails them as the saviours of her people, singling out Avon as 'Lord'. Vila and Gan presumably come from Another Place.
Again there are precedents for this sort of thing
in
primitive societies on our own planet.
Only two documented ones (Montezuma and the Hawaiians), and even there there is room for dispute; in the Hawaiian case, certainly, it's heavily debated whether the locals meant what Cook thought they meant. There's a lot more precedent in Fifties pulp adventure films than in actual history :-).
I wouldn't expect it to be usual in human encounters and I think it is significant that in the one and a half documented examples the situation is one where two radically different cultures meet. I think that it is a tendency of the human mind to find supernatural explanations for things it does not understand. All I am arguing is that Meegat's reaction is neither implausible or unprecedented.
Again, primitive societies do have primitive
belief
systems.
Which actually tend to be extremely complex, and not at all like the rather facile and fatuous one presented in Deliverance.
I agree that the belief system seen in Deliverance does not have the complexity or the richness of a real set of mythological beliefs. On the other hand I suspect most religious or mythological belief systems would sound facile if they had to be put across in five minutes. The point I wanted to make was that it was not unreasonable for Meegat's civilisation to interpret the remnants of their science in religious terms. As I've said, cargo cults are well documented.
But Avon and co. don't invade Cephlon.
To pick up on Neil's Haggard metaphors, neither do Quatermain et al.-- they wander into Rhodesia (sic) in search of gold. Similarly, the colonialist endeavour had a lot less to do with invasions, and more to do with looking for resources of various sorts. In Canada, for instance, the French and English didn't come charging in, gun down the natives and take their land-- they sent in a few people to get involved in the fur trade, then a few more, then a few more. That doesn't make Deliverance any less colonialist.
It's an inexact parallel to put it mildly. Avon and co. don't exactly engage in a sustained campaign of commercial penetration. They go there to rescue two strangers and come back to rescue Jenna. At no point are they looking for resources.
If you enjoyed this episode, may I also
recommend
Triumph of the Will and Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom. They
should
be right up your street.
Not, really my cup of tea thanks !
Actually I enjoyed both, but probably not for the reasons Neil is suggesting...
Relieved to hear it :-)
Stephen.
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