RoR: Forum

Post 20

Sunday, August 10 - 9:57am

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Ed, I did not have those facts back in 1992 when I was a delegate to the White House Conference on Libraries and Information Services. It was (and perhaps is) commonly accepted that scalping was not a native custom. My point was that, of course, it was, or else the idea would have been alien and repugnant, but, furhtermore, even if not, even if it was new and interesting, there remains that: young men go to war for reasons inherent to them and it has nothing to do with good cultures versus bad cultures.

Last week, at a hotel in Traverse City, I met three young housekeepers from Russia, here on work-study for the summer. One girl was distinctly Asian. Should I have demanded from her some kind of apology for the Mongol Hoarde? I mean, really, this all takes some deep thought and commitment to principles of individualism.

That was my point then... and now ...

As for the cultural side of it, the Mound Builders of Georgia were a trading center, apparently comprised of a mix of peoples refugees from the Spanish in Mexico pushing on people who fled to push on people who pushed on others still. In any case, there was this vibrant cultural side, a center for trade, with all the trappings of "civilization" except writing.

Also, for the record, it seems that smallpox (measles, etc.) took its toll as soon as the Spanish landed. By the time the English made in-roads, the damage was done. I grant, though that New England had not experienced these plagues until the English came there, it being somewhat distant from the Spanish areas.

Consequently, it seems from the record that the Georgia Mound Builders already were long gone and the site abandoned when the English explored the area, again, likely as a result of plagues, but that is not certain.

Finally, the so-called "Seminoles" are likewise an admixed culture of natives who fled to the far wilds as a result of white advances. Therefore, it is perhaps helpful to see this all in comparison and contrast with, say, Britain. The Ice Age people were pushed out by the Britons, who were encroached upon by Romans, who abandoned the areas to the to Saxons and Angles, who were conquered by the Normans. The Normans slaughtered helpless hundreds, if not thousands, hunting them down, tying them up, slitting their throats, and piling the corpses on carts. Yet, Anglo-Norman Law is considered an important milestone in the development of rights-based society. As always with the people of Earth, you get a mixed bag.

Post 21

Sunday, August 10 - 11:32am

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Phil,

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I wonder how one should behave toward invaders who spread plagues killing 9 out of 10, the figure most often cited. Should it be, "Oh, we're so sorry to inconvenience you with all the unsightly corpses... Here, take our land ... Or would we be looking for weapons to stop these deadly people before we died as well?
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You're assuming the natives could know the source of the plagues. Hindsight is 20/20. We can know the source now. But that information wasn't available to anybody alive back then -- not to anybody -- even to the colonists (who believed that these plagues were acts of God, Who was supposedly "playing favorites").

You're projecting a level of knowledge onto the natives that even the more modern and civilized folk didn't have access to.

Ed

Hey let's not forget the indigenous tribes gave the European settlers and subsequently the population of Europe syphilis. Like Ed says, no one back then understood microbiology, so no one understood the source of disease and how it spread. The spreading of disease between roaming human populations and intermingling of groups has happened for all of human existence, and occurred before European settlers came to the Americas throughout Europe, Asia and Africa that led to a horrific death-toll of those populations as well.

Post 22

Sunday, August 10 - 11:39am

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Jordan,

Does [Trail of Tears] count as general looting, or is that too far after the colonies for this thread?

Trail of Tears doesn't count as general looting but, rather, as an exit strategy for tribal folk who wouldn't live under the laws -- nor especially with the germs -- of European settlers. When Alexis de Tocqueville asked that sole Chacta (who spoke English) why the Chactas were leaving -- he replied, "To be free." That's either to be free of Western law, or to be free of Western germs, or both.

Ed

Post 23

Sunday, August 10 - 12:09pm

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It is dangerous to make broad generalizations about the level of civilization of indigenous societies. By far the most populous societies in America were those of the maize farmers with their de facto real estate. There were over 100 languages spoken by different societies in the future US. Most societies were destroyed before anyone bothered to ask if they had a concept of land ownership, private or collective.

While war was always present, it was always present in Europe as well. Western hegemony depended more on technology than on the idea of private property. Look at how much land was originally conquered by the Spanish. Don't tell me that this was due to their great respect for private enterprise.

One can generalize about the Americas about as well as one could generalize about Eurasia before the iron age. There were hundreds of societies varying from the early stone age to the Chalcolithic. That is, from before pottery all the way up to the level of the Egyptian pyramid builders. The debate is usually driven more by apologetics than facts.
(Edited by Ted Keer on 8/10, 2:18pm)

Post 24

Sunday, August 10 - 12:32pm

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Ted,

It is dangerous to make broad generalizations about the level of civilization of indigenous societies.

But that is what the subject of this thread requires -- a coming down on one side, or the other, of the issue.

Ed

Post 25

Sunday, August 10 - 2:12pm

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But that is what the subject of this thread requires -- a coming down on one side, or the other, of the issue.

Right, and the most advanced civilizations in the Americas that the Spanish confronted were the Aztecs, who's culture included carving out the hearts of still living, breathing human beings for religious ceremonies. Civilizations like that deserved extinction.

Post 26

Sunday, August 10 - 2:15pm

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No, threads themselves demand nothing. Objectivity demands respect for the facts. One cannot justify war and appropriation based on facile generalizations. Civilization is a spectrum. Tribal savage versus civilized society is a false dichotomy. Individual societies are more or less civilized, and only individual people have natural rights. The non-initiation of force is not something one ignores because the victim has no established court or gun of his own with which to defend himself.

The most warlike tribes of the plains rode horses which they learned to ride from the Spanish. The East Coast was settled mainly in areas emptied of inhabitants by disease. In the west, America made and then unilaterally abrogated treaties. The moral situation over five centuries in two continents between hundreds of societies is not subject to either/or analysis, except, perhaps, if one accepts the premise that might makes right.

If the West was a superior recognizer of rights, not just in theory, but also in practice, then why did not natives have the same right as settlers to file land claims? Indians were treated collectively by American law just as much as or moreso than by their own traditions, and to worse effect.

The essential factor is that only individuals and not tribes have rights. In most of the US's dealings with natives this was glossed over. There is such a thing as a statute of limitations. Wrongs that occurred before anyone now alive was born cannot be refought ad infinitum in the courts. But historical analysis, to be of any value, must look at the individual facts. Look up the "empty quarter. Look up the treatment of the Cherokee. Look up Tecumseh. Look up the actions of Custer. Sometimes the natives invited disaster. Most of the time the West simply pursued an ad hoc policy of divide and conquer, bait and switch, treaty and abrogation. The natives were often naive. This does not mean that the westerners were innocent or in the right.

The propriety and superiority of a system of individual rights and private property does not depend upon a demonization of or mischaracterization of the indigenous peoples. The moral judgment of a race without reference always to the indivual merits of the case is racism. While it is true that in some cases the rights of natives were abrogated as a consequence of their own actions, this is not always true. Although the matter is now academic, one should be no less fearful of inaccurate generalizations.

(Edited by Ted Keer on 8/10, 5:02pm)

Post 27

Sunday, August 10 - 4:48pm

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Ted,

Excellent & appropriate post (26).

I would suspect that some earlier arguments might also be used today as justification for acquiring some territories in the African continent. I would not disagree per se with Ed's Rand quotation:

"Regarding American Indians owning land, I'm a Lockean (or, more precisely, Randian) homesteader -- you get to own things via two steps:

(1) the production of new value
(2) by mixing your mental and manual labor with some matter (i.e., with something material -- including land)

If you "live off the land" like a nomad does (moving around so as not to over-exploit it), then you don't own it -- because you are not producing a new value but, instead, are only reaping what Nature, herself, has sowed. "

However, I would disagree with using those points to rationalize the systematic removal of people from land they have lived and 'worked' for centuries. I say worked because whatever abundance of nature may be available, it must still be caught or collected - the game won't just jump into the cooking pot.

The hunter-gather culture requires either some sense of conservation, or larger land areas coupled with a more nomadic culture (a form of conservation, in a way). Robert J. Sawyer presents some interesting scenarios in his (SF) book "Hominids" of a modern hunter-gatherer culture.

jt

Post 28

Sunday, August 10 - 5:13pm

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Interesting how "scalping" has acquired such separate and strange status.

My understanding is that most people who were scalped were either dead already or shortly thereafter, from side effects or other injuries. So, is it worse to be dead, or scalped and dead, or scalped and surviving? (There are such things as wigs, after all.)

I seem to recall that in various European conflicts, ears were taken as proof of killing an enemy, which was also the purpose of taking a scalp, as opposed to taking an entire head or hauling around a corpse. Much of the scalp taking in N. America, of course, was a spillover of the French and Indian wars, in which Indians of various tribes signed up with either one or the other side.

War is hell.

Post 29

Sunday, August 10 - 5:15pm

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However, I would disagree with using those points to rationalize the systematic removal of people from land they have lived and 'worked' for centuries.

I don't think Ed said that. But rather that the indigenous tribes (not fond of the term Native American, I am a native to America but I don't share a bloodline with those tribes) were culturally, as far as property rights concerned, inferior to the European settler's ideas of property ownership. Ideas more consistent with a Lockean view of property rights.

There were obviously egregiously immoral acts conducted by both sides, but as a comparison of the two cultures, the Europeans were far more civilized than an indigenous population that didn't accomplish more more than basic agriculture and nomadic hunter/gatherer lifestyles. With some exceptions such as the Mexican indigenous populations like the Aztecs, who built large cities and temples devoted to, carving people up while they were still alive. So excuse me and Ed for not having too much of a fondness for that culture. I'm glad it's gone, and the culture deserved extinction.
(Edited by John Armaos on 8/10, 5:31pm)

Post 30

Sunday, August 10 - 5:54pm

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Thanks, Ted, for your clarifications on several fronts.

From your map in post 23, it seems clear that the entirety of the Eastern Seaboard used agriculture, which puts those natives firmly in the camp of land owners. The wiki I cited on the Iroquois indicates that they farmed intensively and used long term storage of the results. This is consistent with Thanksgiving tale that we all heard as kids.

That same wiki indicates that perhaps the Iroquois did have some understanding that it was the European-brought diseases that were killing them like flies.

As to social sophistication, re "rights," I'm not so sure, but I do note that the great constitution of the Iroquois Nations employed all kinds of mechanisms to create a balance of powers. My recollection from Kim Stanley Robinson's alternate history novel, "The Years of Rice and Salt," is that in his detailed description of the Iroquois, they were a highly tolerant culture, in which only the women had the vote, while only men could be elected to office, just one of the many mechanisms aimed a preventing a collapse of government into a predatory gang. Of course, this was a novel, but one written by an author noted for his focus on accurate detail, as in the "Mars" trilogy that Michael cites and which got the Hugo Award for best sf novel.

If I had more time, I could probably track down some more authoritative discussion of the Iroqoius legal/political system at the William James Sidis site. http://sidis.net/TSChap4.htm

Here we go - Sidis states explicitly "Only men were eligible as sachems, but only women could vote in the election."

Note that women could remove a sachem by referendum (Ed, how did you think that this constituted slavery?) and could stop a war by their vote. I don't think that this had much to do with some elevated notion of women's superior moral wisdom, but rather with the same general effort to build in every form of check and balance that seemed practical.

Sidis: "For arbitration between members of different nations of the Five, Hiawatha's plan called for a special court, to sit in an isolated village to be used only by people having court business, the judge to be a girl. This particular form of Federal Supreme Court was abandoned about fifty years later, when the judge eloped with a young defendant; after which, special arbitration committees were provided."

Sounds pretty sophisticated to me. Women among the Iroqouis could also unilaterally divorce their husbands. Sidis goes on to point out that the structure of the federation itself forced them to consider the issue of the proper limitation of governmental power.

All in all, rather than a bunch of primitive hunter and gatherer savages, without any regard for individual rights, the Iroqouis come accross as a rather sophisicated and innovative culture that was engaged in an ongoing process of rapid evolution towards something approaching a modern western democracy, with explicit limitations on state power.

Post 31

Sunday, August 10 - 6:13pm

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I don't put much faith in wikipedia entries. It's way too easy for anyone ill informed on the subject to edit an entry.

That same wiki indicates that perhaps the Iroquois did have some understanding that it was the European-brought diseases that were killing them like flies.

I'm sure after a couple centuries someone came to the realization there was a correlation between Europeans arriving, and disease ravaging the indigenous tribes. But no one had any knowledge of microbiology until probably the 18th century, well after first contact by European settlers. So a causal link wasn't explained at that time, and with a heavy belief in mysticism by both the indigenous tribes and the European settlers, it was usually explained in this religious manner. We're talking about people not even knowing contact with another person could make you sick.

Post 32

Sunday, August 10 - 6:59pm

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John,

urQ "I'm sure after a couple centuries someone came to the realization there was a correlation between Europeans arriving, and disease ravaging the indigenous tribes. But no one had any knowledge of microbiology until probably the 18th century, well after first contact by European settlers. So a causal link wasn't explained at that time, and with a heavy belief in mysticism by both the indigenous tribes and the European settlers, it was usually explained in this religious manner. We're talking about people not even knowing contact with another person could make you sick. "

Just a point. One does not necessarily have to know or understand the concept of microbiology to make a simple association. The arrival of European settlers, followed closely by disease(s) of a magnitude in severity hitherto unknown by the tribes is likely more than enough for them to at least associate the diseases with the arrival of the settlers.

jt

Post 33

Sunday, August 10 - 7:43pm

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I'm disappointed in this thread. I know that Ed is an individualist and understands and supports Objectivism, yet try as I might, I can't see this thread as anything but racist, or collectivist or just plain wrong-headed. And, again, I KNOW those aren't positions that Ed would ever intend to support.

------- Edit notice ---------
I still think that calling all native American cultures savage is wrong and that this thread has lots of problems. But I've had second thoughts about my sentence above, and if I were doing it again, I wouldn't use the word "racist" nor "collectivist" - they don't really fit here.
��-This edit made 8/11/2008, Steve Wolfer
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I sanctioned Ted's post for pointing out some obvious facts:

Only individuals have natural rights, not groups or races or tribes.
Cultures should be graded on how civilized they are on a spectrum, not as either civilized or not.
Rights and wrongs occurred on both sides in the conflict between settlers, governments, native Americans, and tribes.
Statute of limitations exist, and for a good reason.
One 'side' being more civilized than the other isn't justification for wiping out the other side.

Again and again there is talk of "two cultures" - but there were many different cultures over a long period of time and the acts that need judging and the practices that need judging have to be taken individually. Sometimes an act can be seen as a product of a barbaric, savage culture, other times it is harder to lay at the feet of the culture (like the colonial governor of South Carolina paying a bounty for Indians captured for sale into the slave trade).

Ed, replying to Ted, you said in post #24, "...that is what the subject of this thread requires -- a coming down on one side, or the other, of the issue." The title of the thread is "Native Americans: "right-less" tribal savages, or civilized societies?" That can't be answered since "Native Americans" is a category with a very wide range of cultures - not just one, and because natural rights are possessed by human beings no matter what culture they are born into.

What is the purpose of this thread?

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 8/10, 7:45pm)

(Edited by Steve Wolfer on 8/11, 9:58am)

Post 34

Sunday, August 10 - 7:51pm

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Right, as I already stated, I'm sure someone before the 18th century established such a correlation. But no one knew what the cause was, and both sides attributed the cause from a viewpoint of mysticism. God did it, or whatever divine influence did it. But no one knew before then physical contact greatly increased the risk of getting this disease. Which also decimated European populations. But you can't hold people morally responsible for spreading a disease they did not understand how they got or how it was transmitted. For all of human existence, pestilence was always wiping out entire swaths of a population due to intermingling of different human groups with their respective diseases spreading to another group without previously being exposed to that disease. People didn't even use soap to wash their hands. This intermingling just happened a lot more in Europe, Asia and Africa and the Americas were relatively isolated from the intermingling of human groups until the Europeans arrived. If not Europeans, then what if Asians were the first to colonize the Americas in the 16th century and brought with them their own diseases? Why would they have not spread disease to the indigenous tribes in the Americas? Point is, it was bound to happen at some point from some group of travelers. Human history is rife with wandering groups of humans, the spreading of disease was a normal corollary to that activity.

Post 35

Sunday, August 10 - 7:59pm

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Steve, I think you are being unfair.

I'm disappointed in this thread. I know that Ed is an individualist and understands and supports Objectivism, yet try as I might, I can't see this thread as anything but racist, or collectivist or just plain wrong-headed.

Judging a population's culture is not racist. If so, would I be racist for condemning various Islamic cultural practices of honor killings or Islamic theocracies sentencing underage girls to death for being a rape victim, or Islamists beheading someone for being an infidel or sentencing them to death for converting to Christianity? No one is saying these indigenous tribes had some genetic predisposition to their culture, only that they held largely savage values when compared to Europe at that time.

I reject the notion that you seem to imply that there is a moral equivalence between cultures.

Again and again there is talk of "two cultures" - but there were many different cultures over a long period of time and the acts that need judging and the practices that need judging have to be taken individually.

Ed is making a generalization of two cultures, European and indigenous tribes of the Americas. While within those cultures there many variations, many differences, and many conflicting viewpoints, I believe there are enough similar attributes to make a generalization to each and then make a comparison. Aanalyzing a culture is not racist

Post 36

Sunday, August 10 - 8:43pm

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Steve,

I am in agreement with John's post 35. You ask in post 33 what the purpose of this thread is/was (i.e., what value it's aimed at). You asked something very similar in post 1 and I answered you (in post 2). I don't know what else to say about it, Steve (beyond referring you back to post 2).

You bring up 5 points that Ted brought to light:

1) Only individuals have natural rights, not groups or races or tribes.
2) Cultures should be graded on how civilized they are on a spectrum, not as either civilized or not.
3) Rights and wrongs occurred on both sides in the conflict between settlers, governments, native Americans, and tribes.
4) Statute of limitations exist, and for a good reason.
5) One 'side' being more civilized than the other isn't justification for wiping out the other side.

To (1) I agree.

To (2) it seems like you are asking that the issue be made out to be more gray (less black and white). I can see value in that. But please adopt my perspective for a moment (to detect value). When Rand was asked about Israel and Palestine she said when 2 cultures compete then it is proper to side with the more civilized one.

The upshot is that even if you grade on a spectrum (as per your request), life requires from us to grade this kind of a thing on a curve (where one side is more moral than the other). The alternative is moral relativism.

To (3) I'd refer you to my comments regarding (2) above.

To (4) I agree.

To (5) I'd like to be able to ask YOU to see the issue as being more gray than that (less black and white). (5) is a statement that would be much more relevant in certain contexts, like in the Nazi gas chambers, or the mutually-assured destruction contemplated during the Cold War, than it ever could be in this context.

We could say, for example, that Nazis might be considered more civilized than gypies -- or "gypsie-life" -- but that doesn't justify wiping out gypsies. Or we could say that US capitalists are more civilized than Soviet communists -- but that that doesn't justify wiping out communists.

But it's harder to apply this same reasoning to colonial America -- which is different. And if this difference is not found (upon analyses like this thread) to be a difference in kind, then it would still most definitely be a difference in degree.

Ed

Post 37

Sunday, August 10 - 9:14pm

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I just feel I need to reiterate, again no ethnic group or race has a particular genetic predisposition to a certain culture. There is no capitalism gene, or property rights recognition gene, or democracy gene etc.

When Rand said man is born tabula rasa, she meant that man is not innately born with the knowledge of civilized life, he must acquire that knowledge by learning. And a reasonable explanation to why the European culture far exceeded the indigenous American tribes' cultures was because Europe had the benefit of being tied to other large land masses to which resulted in a constant exchange of ideas and cultures between various groups. Something that the populations on the isolated Americas didn't benefit from. If you completely swapped the DNA codes in the 16th century between indigenous Americans and Europeans, the culture from the European continent would still be superior because of this rapid exchange of knowledge between cultures. It's like Kurzweil's law of accelerating returns, once you get a little knowledge, it paves the way for a lot more knowledge and the acquiring of this knowledge that translates to technological innovation always follows an exponential growth curve.

When I say a certain culture deserves extinction, I mean the practices, the various barbarous acts, the savagery and primitive technology, deserved to end to make way for a culture that was vastly superior to that. The Aztecs for example were making temples a couple thousand years after the Parthenon was built, and the Aztecs were the most technologically advanced indigenous American civilization that had ritual human sacrifice, something that Europe hadn't had for millenia. Europe had a much larger head start on the exponential growth curve that seems to follow the evolution of human knowledge. I don't mean to say innocent people deserved to die, they never do, only a primitive culture deserves to die. In fact many of these indigenous tribes helped the European settlers fight other indigenous tribes that were their common enemies, tribes like the Mashantucket-Pequots that routinely looted and pillaged other local weaker CT tribes. Today the Mashantucket-Pequot reservation has a casino, and a museum devoted to the history of that tribe with no mention of that tribe's bloody history of beating up on their neighboring tribes, including the Mohegans whom ironically have a casino and rake in more revenues than the Mashantuckets. But of course the Mashantuckets always make it a point to bring up John Mason, the English army major that lead the military campaign against them that almost wiped out that tribe while ignoring all the horrible things the Mashantucket-Pequot tribe did. It would be like Germany having a museum about the Dresden bombings and the brutal post WW2 Soviet occupation of East Germany while completing omitting the fact Germany started the war.

(Edited by John Armaos on 8/10, 9:27pm)

Post 38

Sunday, August 10 - 9:44pm

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John,

Maybe my language wasn't clear enough and maybe it was unfair. If that is the case, I apologize. I still hold the same conceptual position, and I'll try to do a better job of explaining it.

You said, "Judging a population's culture isn't racist" and I agree. But my point was that was that there is such a wide variation in cultures being lumped together under the heading of "native American" that only race is left as a common denominator. I certainly don't believe that you or Ed are racists. But, by accident, race is all that is left because of the enormous span of cultural practices, wide geographical distribution and considerable historical spans of the populations.

If one gives a culture a name that identifies a set of common beliefs, and then proceeds to judge them as barbaric or civilized, I have no problems. In your example, you named the culture your were judging (Islam), and you named the practices advocated in that culture (honor killings, beheading of infidels, etc.) and then you damned them. I agree with that completely - and would side with you in calling for more - not less - judging of a culture by the standards of what supports the flourishing of human life. I am not a fan of cultural relativism.

You say that I'm implying a moral equivalence between cultures. I not sure I know what you mean by that. See if you agree with my positions in this area:

I do know that their were acts that were equally morally repugnant that can be seen occurring in this culture and in that.
I'm not saying that the existence of such examples would justify saying the two cultures are morally equivalent.
I don't like using an individual act to paint a picture of wrongness for an entire culture unless it is an act the culture explicitly sanctions.
I disagree with claims that because one culture can be judged as morally deficient, that their historical opposing culture is therefore a set of good guys.

You say that "Ed is making a generalization of two cultures" and I say that there are too many variations in cultural properties of the populations in question on the parameters being examined to support the kinds of statements being made.

If this thread was about ranking different cultures and then generalizing about the key difference seen between the most civilized of the native American cultures and the common European cultural practices it would be one thing, but what we are seeing are morally laden accusations of disease infliction, slavery, scalping, etc. And out of a bunch of loose accusations a claim that individuals in less civilized cultures have no natural rights.

Post 39

Sunday, August 10 - 10:29pm

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Ed,

You said, "When Rand was asked about Israel and Palestine she said when 2 cultures compete then it is proper to side with the more civilized one."

I would agree with that statement IF it said "usually" - because a conflict can be between two cultures that are both so barbaric that one cannot be on the same side with either one (which is not the case with Israel and Palestine). And there are instances where there is a conflict that is isolated in nature and where you would have to side with the less civilized culture in that incident even though you sided with the more civilized culture in general, because of the nature of the incident - not the cultural differences.

I have no problem with making moral judgments. But I want to be very careful when we step away from individual ideas and away from single acts of an individual because it becomes easy to make errors of morally condemning a package in ways that are wrong. I'm looking to separate out the gray into black and white. I'm not a supporter of moral relativism because I believe that morality is objective and can be applied to ideas, to individual actions, and to entire cultures. In the case of judging an entire culture, it is often a gray to start with, and you have to name the key black and the white elements, and to locate them as key to that culture, as such, to support your judgment of the culture as a whole.

You referred me back to your post #2, where you said, "...Phil Osborn was arguing that Native Americans by-and-large lived civilized in rights-respecting societies, rather than in more savage or nomadic ones, or ones where folks were de facto slaves to their tribal chief... I take specific issue with his generous interpretation of the natives (and the insinuation that the settlers by-and-large stole the land from the "land-owning" natives)."

I agree that people are revising history to present an inaccurate picture of the conflict between settlers and native Americans as always a case aggression by settlers and by painting an unwarranted idealistic portrait of native Americans. I would also agree with someone if they said that there were many acts of aggression by settlers against native Americans. I am not claiming that the existence of bad acts on both sides means the cultures are morally equivalent.

On point #5, this is the tough one. Governments (tribal or colonial, or whatever) are jurisdictional - that is they apply their rules to a geographical territory. They express and are a product of their culture. Their population exists as individuals and therefore have individual rights. This all makes for a very complex situation when two cultures come into conflict over land (same geographical territory but contested by different political bodies). It is easy when one culture is clearly savage and barbaric. It isn't so easy when a culture is peaceful but their land is wanted by a much more civilized culture. I don't have the answer to this question. My heart is torn between a loyalty to the more civilized culture and the plight of the individuals at the front line of the conflict. I know that the real heart of a right or wrong exists at an individual level. Someone gets killed, someone did the killing, and looking at the culture is sometimes a confusion.