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- Newsgroups: talk.environment
- Path: sparky!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!wupost!darwin.sura.net!gatech!ncar!vexcel!dean
- From: dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska)
- Subject: Re: Native People's leadership (!!)
- Message-ID: <1992Jul28.225408.3575@vexcel.com>
- Organization: VEXCEL Corporation, Boulder, CO
- References: <STEINLY.92Jul27185132@topaz.ucsc.edu> <1992Jul28.183126.4370@vexcel.com> <STEINLY.92Jul28125208@topaz.ucsc.edu>
- Date: Tue, 28 Jul 1992 22:54:08 GMT
- Lines: 41
-
- In article <STEINLY.92Jul28125208@topaz.ucsc.edu> steinly@topaz.ucsc.edu (Steinn Sigurdsson) writes:
- >In article <1992Jul28.183126.4370@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com (dean alaska) writes:
- > From your perspective. There still is a small minority in western
- > culture (and I think its growing) who are willing to accept a
- > significant decrease in material standard of living to get out of
- > the "rat-race" and all its stresses and pressures. While starvation
- > will never be a trivial problem, I am not aware that it was significant
- > in native American societies, and we still have some in our society.
- >
- >Dingo, I'm sure you followed this on sci.env - maybe you saw the
- >Malthus quote on native American conditions that John posted - but
- >I assure you that starvation was significant in native American
- >culture, and that current US conditions are not of the same order,
- >bad as they may be. The "counter-culture" movement can only work
- >(IMHO of course) _because_ it is marginal to society, I'd assert
- >that they're effectively parasitic on the industrial society they
- >want to reject.
-
- There are many threads on sci.env that I don't have time to read.
- I would assert that these counter cultures serve as a pressure valve
- for many people who do not prefer the rat race. They may also be
- a "negative feedback loop" when our culture gets overloaded. That
- some counter culture people still live partly in our culture does
- not make them parasitic. That some people falsely claim to
- represent a counter culture does not mean that those who do are
- parasitic.
- >
- > The emphasis on success, wealth, achievement, etc. that exists in most
- > western (and plenty of other) cultures is not true of all cultures.
- > Out technology gives us a clear physical, but not moral,
- > hegemony over other cultures.
- >
- >* Steinn Sigurdsson Lick Observatory *
- >* steinly@helios.ucsc.edu "standard disclaimer" *
- >* Some people think they're really clever *
- >* Smash your head against the wall Specials, 1979 *
-
-
- --
-
- dingo in boulder (dean@vexcel.com)
-