Exactly what has been said about eco-tourists: they have priorities
very different from the majority of indigenous peoples. And by what
egotistic act of arrogance do they feel indigenous priorities must
once again step back when the European steps forward? Divine right of
mental kings?
> Some things will have to be lost of we wish to work towards a less
> polluted world and a more environmentally aware population.
Another rehash in new words of the old idea that white man knows best,
and those not on the steamroller get flattened.
> Who know, perhaps in 2050, we may even have a
> meatless society when it will become unacceptable to torture and kill
> animals.
This seems not to express much knowledge of nature. Do you propose
fines or incarceration for members of the animal kingdom that feed
upon each other?
> Many things go on under the guise of "culture". Consider the killing of
> the endangered black panther of the Everglades ...
Not from Florida, I take it? The Florida panther is not a "black panther."
It looks much like a cougar. It will die as a species regardless of
what heroic measures scientists attempt, including gene therapy. It may
interest the Bambi-bred that species, as well as individuals, have
a life cycle, and species die daily as they have for millenia (at least)
without human intervention.
> ... does that mean that that one carries on nevertheless with
> ancient rituals that ignore the present? Shouldn't culture evolve?
It does, but as Malcolm Muggeridge put it, the grand question of human
history has been "Who, whom?" - who gets to use force to impose their
views on whom else. And tellingly, the eco-tourists are very likely to
be members of a national group that has caused all the problems in the
first place, in untold billions of acts, and now want to restrict as
a solution the acts of others who were not acting in any irresponsible
way. In this case, Europeans decreased the habitat of the panther,
shrinking its range (and that of the Seminoles, to boot) possibly
restricting the gene pool causing inbreeding, and far from
making restitution make a big pitch to the Indians to give up what
pittance of culture they retain instead. You blew it, why should we
be called on to sacrifice more than anyone else?
Maybe eco-tourism would be more of a "blast" for natives if we
could charge admission and fleece 'em the way European society
does its own gawkers.
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Peshewegunzh
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