first contact

One would hardly think it, but seems indeed still a few ‘uncontacted’ communities in the world, with a previously unknown tribe in the Amazon jungle having been spotted from the air recently.

The first reaction I think is, cool, good for them, let’s leave them alone – but is that really justified? Given the history of exploitation of indigenous peoples, the taking of their land and destruction of their way of life, then it would seem to be. But, I think there is also an element of the myth of the ‘noble savage’ involved, that somehow this simple, primitive life is worthy, and should be preserved. But for whose sake is it really then being preserved? For the people involved, who must live it out in its harsh reality, or for us who like the idea of some preserved speciments of the life we long lefy behind. They may be spared the hedonism of the modern world, but it’s a valid question as to whether the inevitable Hobbesianisms of primitive life don’t outweigh that…the transience of modern desires versus a transience of existence when life is poor, nasty, brutish and short.

Of course maybe their society is above average as undeveloped communities go, maybe it isn’t racked by the famine and conflict that our pre-history most certainly was – a sparser population with more natural resources may indeed facilitate a more bucolic lifestyle. But for sure they will lack modern medicines, modern technology, and modern education. Looked at as individuals, who must suffer any injury without anaesthetic, who must perhaps stand helplessly by as a child dies of some preventable disease, things are a lot less clear. Even beyond sheer physical well being, who of us would rather live a permanently closed life, knowing nothing of the wonders of the wider world, barred from ever accessing the means and technology to broaden our minds, to read, write, and even surf the internet. Or even if we would rather, who would be righteous and selfconfident enough to impose that life on someone else, not some abstract person but someone we know and care about, like a child. Surely our philosophy is that for better or worse everyone has a right to live life to the fullest, even with it’s inherent downsides.

And of course, as mentioned before, the track record on ‘first contacts’ is not something we can be proud of. But it is also probably true to say that this is more due to the people doing the first contact, rather than it being necessarily detrimental. Surely some form of gradual contact, slowly opening the outside world to these people, and importantly, their future generations, could be successfully done? And since eventually some contact is inevitable, better it’s on the right terms, than from some random loggers or miners who stumble across them?

Apart from our  rosy notions of primitive man, I think there is also at work the moral disjunct between sins of action, and sins of omission. Moral judgement is always harshest on actions we specifically choose to take, rather than those we simply fail to. To push someone into the path of a car is viewed as more morally reprehensible than to fail to push them out of it. In both cases the result is the same, the person might die because of our choices, but in one we are murderers, in the other just callous. I must explore this further some time, but I guess at root there are an infinite number of actions we can fail to take, so morality could not function if we could be blamed for them all, and so intuitively we view such omissions as less blameworthy. But at the society level, where we debate what is best to do, then intuitions must be tempered with rationality, and in this case leaving them alone is just as much an action as contacting them, and therefore should be weighed in terms of advantages and disadvantages, and importantly from the perspective of their physical and mental well being, not just from that of our emotional one.