Why don't we kill those guys?

[Blind groper]

You can take the savage out of the jungle, but you can't take the jungle out of the savage, or so goes the old saying

There are heaps of example where a baby is adopted from a group you might call savage, raised in a 'civilised' situation, and turns out to be just another suburban yuppie. The 'savagery' you like to label is just a learned behaviour.

[Warren Dew]

Your views on the world policemen job would be refuted by at least 90% of all the peoples of the world.

I rarely agree with Ian, but I too remember a lot of whinging from European nations - in particular France and the UK - about how they needed "American leadership" to go in and drop bombs on Libya.

Or maybe the 90% you're talking about doesn't include Europe? In that case, I might agree.

[Blind groper]

I include most of Europe. I exclude the governments of Europe who are as hypocritical and corrupt as politicians everywhere.

[Svartalf]

Stephen Pinker also mentions the Yanomamo. They represent the high level of violence that characterises primitive man.

Tero
I suggest you view the youtube. I think you will find it slots into your views, but will give you a broader understanding.

It's not a matter of being primitive, it's a matter that, living in a lush and abundant environment where the necessities of life are available with pretty little work, the men are mostly useless, so they boost their importance by setting themselves up as protectors, which needs a certain level of intergroup violence.
and if they are not protecting, they are raiding out for women and long pig.

[Blind groper]

Svartalf

That is certainly not the explanation given by Stephen Pinker, and I seriously doubt it would stand up to serious scrutiny.

[Svartalf]

Mmmh... funny, it's one I heard recently, precisely about the yanommami... as that tribe lives at least in part on the territory of French Guyana, our anthropologists have given them special attention... more than we have, say, Jivaro or Tupinamba.
Then again, I don't know where I can find the references for the book or scientific paper... Where I heard that from, they may be opinionated, but they usually have decent scientific credit.

[Blind groper]

Svartalf

There are many peoples whose way of life gives them lots of leisure time. And the degree of violent behaviour varies enormously. The Kalahari bushmen, for example, spend a lot of time in leisure activities, including dancing and story telling, but are extremely peaceful.

Pinker gives other reasons. Such as lack of laws regarding outsiders, and lack of policing. Tribalism is very damaging. If it is believed that people outside your tribe do not warrant consideration, then it becomes OK to kill them. What stands out factually is the steady movement towards more ethical behaviour to those not of your home group. Even in Europe, a few hundred years back, killings of people of other nationalities was not considered terribly wrong. Development of trade is also something reducing violent crime. As you get to know other peoples, it becomes harder to regard them as disposable aliens.

You can see a major difference in attitude regarding violence to strangers from place to place. I have some experience in Papua New Guinea, where tribalism is still rife. In the cities, like Port Moresby, violent crime is shockingly common. In places where the rule of law has predominated for a long time, like most of Europe, violent crime is much lower. In most of Africa, the law of the tribe still is far too important. Fellow tribesmen are human and are looked after. Outsiders are non human and can be dealt with violently.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I include most of Europe. I exclude the governments of Europe who are as hypocritical and corrupt as politicians everywhere.

It's funny to watch you carve out your exclusions and exceptions in order to preserve your preconceived notions.

[Svartalf]

You'll forgive me if I put more faith in Ethnologists who go there and know the people and talk to them in psychologists who build hypotheses from abstracts, but essentially in a vacuum as the can't be used to predict much, and aren't very conducive to experimental verification, and 'A furore experimentalibus psychologistis libera nos domine'... we know the kind of unethical and nightmarish things those people call 'experiments'.

[Blind groper]

I have not seen a survey to prove one way or another. I have just my own personal experience to go by, and the numerous people from other countries I have talked to. Admittedly, my experience is mostly with more educated people from France, Germany etc.

I run a bed and breakfast operation ( I am officially retired - ex industrial chemist/microbiologist), and we get a lot of Europeans as guests. I spend a lot of time over the NZ summer talking to those people, including political topics. I do not believe a single one of our guests have ever expressed a belief that America should be some kind of world police. I have put the question to a few, but only a few, and the result has been, so far, 100% against.

This is not definitive, of course, but I strongly suspect that if you were to go, say to France (assuming you speak French) and pick at random, 100 people to ask, the result would be big time negative.

[Hermit]

...we get a lot of Europeans as guests. I spend a lot of time over the NZ summer talking to those people, including political topics. I do not believe a single one of our guests have ever expressed a belief that America should be some kind of world police.

Do you think your guests differ markedly from guests hailing from the USA?

[Blind groper]

Actually, I am always impressed by the global viewpoint of my guests from the USA. I have not had an American guest yet who was not a really nice person. My reading suggests that a lot of "stay-at-home" Americans are very insular in their outlook, but that certainly is not true of those who come to NZ. I like my American guests.

[Warren Dew]

Actually, I am always impressed by the global viewpoint of my guests from the USA. I have not had an American guest yet who was not a really nice person. My reading suggests that a lot of "stay-at-home" Americans are very insular in their outlook, but that certainly is not true of those who come to NZ. I like my American guests.

So, both Europeans and Americans who travel to New Zealand tend to have a more global perspective than their compatriots who stay home in either place. Why am I not surprised?

[Ian]

Your views on the world policemen job would be refuted by at least 90% of all the peoples of the world. It is quite simple. The world does not want the USA to act as world policeman. We can sort out our own problems, with a lot less harm than when the US butts in.

Great. So... why don't you do it?

No doubt you won't buy this, but much of the world DOES want the US to act as a policeman. It's not something that's explicitly said, but it's something that's said very clearly with many defense budgets around the world. Other countries can get away with skimping on military power because there's a natural tendency to look towards the US whenever it's actually needed, and after getting away with spending less other countries also draw less criticism for being interventionist. For example, NATO requires a minimal 2% of GDP be committed to the military, but most of European NATO now falls well under this level. That's great for Europe, but in the three cases I mentioned earlier (Yugoslavia, Libya and Liberia) the US was pulled into conflicts in which it had no personal interest, but in which there were closer European powers (not to mention other nations) who were either incapable of action or unwilling to bother acting unless there was US involvment. So, the ever-busy American military got involved even when it didn't care to. (Note that I'm only using examples from recent years. US national strategy and decisionmaking are very different animals from what they were prior to the end of the Cold War. Discussions about US involvements prior to around 1989 deserve an entirely different thread.)

This irritates the US as much as it does others, btw. How much heat has the US received for sitting on the sidelines while Syrian people get killed by their government? Quite a bit. Why aren't people breathing down Turkey's neck about it? When the US does nothing whatsoever we still get called hypocritical, and then we're called aggressive or imperialist or whatever else when we do act, even when it's at the behest of (or due to the negligence of) others. So people whine about those meddlesome Americans, always butting into other people's business. I'd like it if other countries butted in a little more often, so we could do it less. Maybe we could avoid those occassions when we blunder our way into genuine mistakes and disasters, such as Iraq 2003. But they don't do it as often, because we're here and they know they can get away with it.

Do you think I was happy to sit off the coast of Liberia on my ship for a couple months? No, I wasn't. But nobody else was able to go. I was in the wardroom hearing the operations/intelligence briefings every day, and I recall that there wasn't a British (or any other) large amphibious ship which was physically capable of deploying there on short notice. Even the west African peacekeepers wouldn't go in until after US Marines established a foothold. And this was a relatively minor inconvenience as far as military power projection goes.

Therefore, when it comes to US foreign policy, I generally don't give a ripe shit about the opinions of most people in the world.

[laklak]

Well. I'm one well-traveled American who would dearly, truly love to pull every single U.S. troop back home, close all U.S. overseas bases, immediately stop every cent of foreign aid, kick the U.N. out of New York, pull the 11 carrier battle groups back to the 200 mile limit and let the rest of the world get on with the business of killing each other. I don't give a rat's rectum about the Iranians, the Afghans, the Libyans, the Palestinians, the Israelis or anyone else. I mean, fuck, how much money would we have saved if we'd just let Saddam take Kuwait in '91 and then bought the oil from him? One thing you can count on, whatever homicidal sociopath claws his way to the top of some mid-eastern shithole will surely suck as much American cock as necessary to make sure we buy his oil, or cocoa beans, or coffee or whatever else he's got.