From: gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.environment
Subject: The Ecocentric Criterion (again)
Distribution: world
Date: Thu, 17 Dec 92 03:39:41 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <1992Dec15.222425.17854@vexcel.com> dean@vexcel.com writes:

 >I've read Sahlins thesis of the affluent society, and while
 >it makes some excellent original points, I feel the thesis
 >is too often taken too far. In particular, it relies on a
 >relative definition of affluence, where people become inured
 >to hardships to the point where they're no longer considered
 >hardships - which is subjectively true, but says more about
 >the flexibility of the human psyche than the happiness and
 >health of people  (defined by some "objective" measure, in
 >so far as that is possible).

Sure, "taken too far" is as subjective. We had a recent thread on
sci.anthropology which touched on the subjectivity of indigenous
peoples in relation to the apparent objectivity of "science". I
certainly have no problem with subjective truths, except where the
Western "scientists" strut around pretending that their subjective
truths are somehow more objective and universal than others'.

You might also attend to the somewhat annoying fact that people who
have "become inured to hardship to the point where they're no longer
considered hardships" tend to regard the so sophisticated Westerners
as wimpy little shits. I mean, what do they want all those comforts,
human "rights", hysterical political ideologies and excessive energy
consumption for, like infants swaddled up in a humidicrib with tubes
coming out everywhere just to survive. What, can't they handle the wind
in their hair, or the sun on their face, or that flake of obsidian used
for circumcision by that old father-in-law?

Well, every time I come back in from the bush all the white city
people look to me very worried, anaemic and sick indeed, after weeks
of robust, energetic black faces smiling and enjoying life around me.
I still to this day wonder what such dreadful problems are that the
whites feel they have to contend with that nobody else has any worry
about at all, or is it just the old "White Man's Burden", perhaps?

Do you people actually suffer so to watch others suffer? Maybe the old
blackfella should do some more suffering just to stick it up you a bit
more. Give you something to *really* suffer over, yes? Bloody stupid
bullshit it all is . . .

BTW, the objective measures already available pertain to family size,
and mortality and morbidity rates correlated against such factors as
loss of land, disenfranchisement, dislocation and marginalisation,
bureaucratic interference, proportional rates of incarceration, and
so on. If you are concerned about the health and population dynamics
of indigenous peoples and find yourself averse to "propaganda", you
might like to read the following by noted medical practitioners, as
examples;

        Kamien M.  1978
        The Dark People of Bourke: A study in planned social change
        Canberra: AIAS

        Beck E.J.  1985
        The Enigma of Aboriginal Health: Interaction between
        biological, social and economic factors in Alice Springs
        town-camps
        Canberra: AIAS

also

        Collmann J.  1988
        Fringe-dwellers and Welfare: The Aboriginal response to
        bureaucracy
        St Lucia: U. Queensland Press

Enjoy.

--
Gil Hardwick                          Internet:  gil@tillage.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                  Fidonet:  3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                         Voice:  (+61 9) 399 2401
   * * Sustainable Community Development & Environmental Education * *