you don't hear this debate.

nobody asks the question any more: what were these societies like, before contact?

maybe the question is closed, but it hasn't lost it's historical value. sadly, few people seem to care about the answers to these questions...

what kind of technologies did they have to make their labour easier, or not have to make their labour harder? was the society hierarchical? was the distribution of resources fair, or were there tyrants that took more? what social norms existed in the society? were gender norms enforced, and how so? did the society accept the freedom of queer people to be queer, or did it enforce arbitrary rules around sexuality? did the society accept non-conformity and the freedom to be different, or did it enforce a conformity of thought under threat of expulsion or death?

were they some abstraction of noble savages, or would a modern mind look at the society and see the same underlying problems of salem witch trials and scarlet letters and think it is more akin to a quasi-fascism?

and, if so, should this society be destroyed?

we tend to just imagine that life is always greener, don't we? we don't really analyze this question: how free were the indigenous peoples, before contact? truly? all of them? is this a culture that should be resuscitated? or should it be taken off life support? and, how free would they be today, should they reassert sovereignty?

truly?

all of them.

jagmeet singh must cut his beard.

* note that the question of whether the traditional indigenous cultures were tyrannical is separate from the question of whether the colonial powers were also tyrannical, which is not ambiguous.