The ecologically noble savage revisited

Environmental Ethics

Volumn 18, Issue 1, 1996, Pages 71-88

  Buege, Douglas J ^a,b,c,d  

^a University of Minnesota ^*  (United States)

^b UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA   (United States)

^c UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI   (United States)

^d UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN STEVENS POINT   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0002530376     PISSN: 01634275     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.5840/enviroethics199618144     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. William Vollmann, The Rifles (New York: Viking, 1994), p. 189.
2. Robert F. Berkhofer, Jr., The White Man's Indian: Images of the American Indian from Columbus to the Present (New York: Vintage Books, 1979).
3. This term is taken from an article written by Kent Redford, "The Ecologically Noble Savage," Cultural Survival Quarterly 15 (1991): 46-48.
4. I employ the term insider in the same way as Uma Narayan does in her "Working Together across Differences: Some Considerations of Emotions and Political Practice," Hypatia 3, no. 2 (1988): 31-47. This work seeks to open up a dialogue concerning the role that environmental ethicists reserve for particular peoples. My message is not to be taken as an endpoint - it should be viewed as the beginning of a conversation that I believe is important for environmental ethics. I fear that my paper is likely to reproduce some aspects of colonialism and racism; yet, it is my hope that the reader can dare to find something valuable and liberatory in my work and introduce their own voices into the dialogue.
5. See Marilyn Frye, "Oppression," The Politics of Reality (Freedom, Calif.: Crossing Press 1983).
6. Good examples of such romanticizing can be found in some ecofeminist works. For example, see Riane Eisler, "The Gaia Tradition and the Partnership Future: An Ecofeminist Manifesto," in Irene Diamond and Gloria Feman Orenstein, eds., Reweaving the World: The Emergence of Ecofeminism (San Francisco, Sierra Club Books, 1990). Eisler claims that there "were societies that had what we call today an ecological consciousness: the awareness that the Earth must be treated with reverence and respect" (p. 23).
7. It must be said that the idea of "native person as ecologically noble" is not prevalent in writings by environmental philosophers. Nevertheless, the ideology does present itself in some works such as the ecofeminist writings cited above. Perhaps the ideology is more commonly found in literature in which metaphors are employed more freely. Popular environmental groups and grass-roots political organizations make use of the stereotype quite often.
8. See Robert J. Gordon, The Bushman Myth: The Making of a Namibian Underclass (Boulder Colo.: Westview Press, 1992).
9. See J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings, Part Three: The Return of the King (London: Allen and Unwin, 1954), pp. 128-34, for the account of the "Wild Men."
10. Ibid., p. 128.
11. Such "animalizing" of natives also serves to distance those peoples from us, giving evidence of our supposed superiority over them. Animalization has played important roles in such racist actions as slavery and removal.
12. Sura P. Rath, "Romanticizing the Tribe: Stereotypes in Literary Portraits of Tribal Cultures," Diogenes 48 (Winter 1989): 61-77.
13. Johannes Fabian, Time and the Other: How Anthropology Makes Its Object (New York: Columbia University Press, 1983).
14. Vine Deloria, Jr., We Talk, You Listen (New York: Macmillan Company, 1970), p. 179.
15. George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980).
16. Redford, "The Ecologically Noble Savage," p. 147.
17. See Douglas Buege, "Epistemic Responsibility to the Natural: Toward a Feminist Epistemology for Environmental Ethics," APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy 91 (Spring 1992): 73-78; and "Confessions of an Eco-Colonialist: Responsible Knowing and Environmentalism in Canada's Eastern Arctic," in Wild Ideas, ed. David Rothenberg (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995). Lorraine Code's epistemological stance is best presented in her Epistemic Responsibility (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1987).
18. See Douglas Buege, "Epistemic Responsibility to the Natural: Toward a Feminist Epistemology for Environmental Ethics," APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy 91 (Spring 1992): 73-78; and "Confessions of an Eco-Colonialist: Responsible Knowing and Environmentalism in Canada's Eastern Arctic," in Wild Ideas, ed. David Rothenberg (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995). Lorraine Code's epistemological stance is best presented in her Epistemic Responsibility (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1987).
19. See Douglas Buege, "Epistemic Responsibility to the Natural: Toward a Feminist Epistemology for Environmental Ethics," APA Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy 91 (Spring 1992): 73-78; and "Confessions of an Eco-Colonialist: Responsible Knowing and Environmentalism in Canada's Eastern Arctic," in Wild Ideas, ed. David Rothenberg (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995). Lorraine Code's epistemological stance is best presented in her Epistemic Responsibility (Hanover, N.H.: University Press of New England, 1987).
20. See Uma Narayan, "Working Together across Differences."
21. For examples, see: Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development (London: Zed Books, 1989); and Edward Goldsmith interview with Mudiyanse Tenakoon, "Traditional Agriculture in Sri Lanka," The Ecologist 12, no. 5 (1982): 209-16.
22. For examples, see: Vandana Shiva, Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development (London: Zed Books, 1989); and Edward Goldsmith interview with Mudiyanse Tenakoon, "Traditional Agriculture in Sri Lanka," The Ecologist 12, no. 5 (1982): 209-16.
23. See Elizabeth Spelman, Inessential Woman: Problems of Exclusion in Feminist Thought (Boston: Beacon Press, 1988).
24. Even if a people fails to attain a high degree of knowledge of their immediate surroundings, there may still be legal and/or ethical reasons for honoring their land claims without invoking ecological nobility. For example, the Narmada dam project in India has led the government to relocate many local peasants whose lands will be inundated. The government relocates these peasants in unfamiliar regions; yet, for legal and ethical reasons, they should have jurisdictions over the new locations.
25. I agree with Ward Churchill, "I am Indigenist," Struggle for the Land: Indigenous Resistance to Genocide, Ecocide and Expropriation in Contemporary North American (Monroe, Maine: Common Courage Press, 1993), who argues that thirty percent of the United States, which has been wrongly taken from Native Americans, should be returned to these people.
26. Concerning the social-construction of anthropology and the people with which anthropologists are concerned, the following are essential texts: Fabian, Time and the Other; Robert Bieder, Science Encounters the Indian, 1820-1880: The Early Years of American Ethnology (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986); James Clifford and George Marcus, eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); George Marcus and Michael Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988); Adam Kuper, The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion (New York, Routledge, 1988); Marianna Torgovnick, Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); and Greg Sarris, Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic Approach to American Indian Texts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
27. Concerning the social-construction of anthropology and the people with which anthropologists are concerned, the following are essential texts: Fabian, Time and the Other; Robert Bieder, Science Encounters the Indian, 1820-1880: The Early Years of American Ethnology (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986); James Clifford and George Marcus, eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); George Marcus and Michael Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988); Adam Kuper, The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion (New York, Routledge, 1988); Marianna Torgovnick, Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); and Greg Sarris, Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic Approach to American Indian Texts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
28. Concerning the social-construction of anthropology and the people with which anthropologists are concerned, the following are essential texts: Fabian, Time and the Other; Robert Bieder, Science Encounters the Indian, 1820-1880: The Early Years of American Ethnology (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986); James Clifford and George Marcus, eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); George Marcus and Michael Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988); Adam Kuper, The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion (New York, Routledge, 1988); Marianna Torgovnick, Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); and Greg Sarris, Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic Approach to American Indian Texts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
29. Concerning the social-construction of anthropology and the people with which anthropologists are concerned, the following are essential texts: Fabian, Time and the Other; Robert Bieder, Science Encounters the Indian, 1820-1880: The Early Years of American Ethnology (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986); James Clifford and George Marcus, eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); George Marcus and Michael Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988); Adam Kuper, The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion (New York, Routledge, 1988); Marianna Torgovnick, Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); and Greg Sarris, Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic Approach to American Indian Texts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
30. Concerning the social-construction of anthropology and the people with which anthropologists are concerned, the following are essential texts: Fabian, Time and the Other; Robert Bieder, Science Encounters the Indian, 1820-1880: The Early Years of American Ethnology (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986); James Clifford and George Marcus, eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); George Marcus and Michael Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988); Adam Kuper, The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion (New York, Routledge, 1988); Marianna Torgovnick, Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); and Greg Sarris, Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic Approach to American Indian Texts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
31. Concerning the social-construction of anthropology and the people with which anthropologists are concerned, the following are essential texts: Fabian, Time and the Other; Robert Bieder, Science Encounters the Indian, 1820-1880: The Early Years of American Ethnology (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986); James Clifford and George Marcus, eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); George Marcus and Michael Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988); Adam Kuper, The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion (New York, Routledge, 1988); Marianna Torgovnick, Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); and Greg Sarris, Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic Approach to American Indian Texts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
32. Concerning the social-construction of anthropology and the people with which anthropologists are concerned, the following are essential texts: Fabian, Time and the Other; Robert Bieder, Science Encounters the Indian, 1820-1880: The Early Years of American Ethnology (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986); James Clifford and George Marcus, eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); George Marcus and Michael Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988); Adam Kuper, The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion (New York, Routledge, 1988); Marianna Torgovnick, Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); and Greg Sarris, Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic Approach to American Indian Texts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
33. Concerning the social-construction of anthropology and the people with which anthropologists are concerned, the following are essential texts: Fabian, Time and the Other; Robert Bieder, Science Encounters the Indian, 1820-1880: The Early Years of American Ethnology (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986); James Clifford and George Marcus, eds., Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986); George Marcus and Michael Fischer, Anthropology as Cultural Critique: An Experimental Moment in the Human Sciences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986); James Clifford, The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988); Adam Kuper, The Invention of Primitive Society: Transformations of an Illusion (New York, Routledge, 1988); Marianna Torgovnick, Gone Primitive: Savage Intellects, Modern Lives (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990); and Greg Sarris, Keeping Slug Woman Alive: A Holistic Approach to American Indian Texts (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993).
34. This project may be much more difficult than I suggest here. One of my research interests is assessing whether or not we (Euro-Americans) actually have the potential for understanding another culture's environmental values and whether or not it is ethical to depict other cultural groups' beliefs. The texts cited in the previous note suggest that there are serious ethical and epistemological problems with examining and presenting other peoples' knowledges and beliefs. Attempts at depicting native peoples' relationships to their environments may be found in the following environmental ethics texts: J. Baird Callicott, "Traditional American Indian and Western European Attitudes toward Nature: An Overview," and "American Indian Land Wisdom? Sorting Out the Issues," in In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University Press of New York, 1989); Ramachandra Guha, The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); and David Abram, "The Ecology of Magic," Orion (Summer 1991), 29-43.
35. This project may be much more difficult than I suggest here. One of my research interests is assessing whether or not we (Euro-Americans) actually have the potential for understanding another culture's environmental values and whether or not it is ethical to depict other cultural groups' beliefs. The texts cited in the previous note suggest that there are serious ethical and epistemological problems with examining and presenting other peoples' knowledges and beliefs. Attempts at depicting native peoples' relationships to their environments may be found in the following environmental ethics texts: J. Baird Callicott, "Traditional American Indian and Western European Attitudes toward Nature: An Overview," and "American Indian Land Wisdom? Sorting Out the Issues," in In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University Press of New York, 1989); Ramachandra Guha, The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); and David Abram, "The Ecology of Magic," Orion (Summer 1991), 29-43.
36. This project may be much more difficult than I suggest here. One of my research interests is assessing whether or not we (Euro-Americans) actually have the potential for understanding another culture's environmental values and whether or not it is ethical to depict other cultural groups' beliefs. The texts cited in the previous note suggest that there are serious ethical and epistemological problems with examining and presenting other peoples' knowledges and beliefs. Attempts at depicting native peoples' relationships to their environments may be found in the following environmental ethics texts: J. Baird Callicott, "Traditional American Indian and Western European Attitudes toward Nature: An Overview," and "American Indian Land Wisdom? Sorting Out the Issues," in In Defense of the Land Ethic: Essays in Environmental Philosophy (Albany, NY: State University Press of New York, 1989); Ramachandra Guha, The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989); and David Abram, "The Ecology of Magic," Orion (Summer 1991), 29-43.
37. See Vine Deloria, Jr.'s essay, "Stereotyping," in We Talk, You Listen, for a discussion of the perpetuation of stereotypes of Native Americans.
38. Calvin Martin, Keepers of the Game: Indian-Animal Relationships and the Fur Trade (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), p. 166.
39. It is important to recognize that ecological knowledge, i.e., knowledge of the relationships between the plants, animals and physical characteristics of the environment, does not entail that the holders of such knowledge are ecologically noble.
40. Max Oelschlaeger pointed out, reading an earlier version of this work, that basic conceptions of "land" will be different in different societies.
41. John Bodley, Victims of Progress (Menlo Park, Calif.: Cummings Publishing, 1982), writes: "Overall, the available data seem to indicate that the dietary changes accompanying involvement in the market economy have tended to lower rather than raise the nutritional levels of the affected tribal peoples. Specifically, the vitamin, mineral, and protein components of their diets are often drastically reduced and replaced by enormous increases in starch and carbohydrates, often in the form of white flour and refined sugar" (p. 156). Indeed, Bodley's book gives greater detail than I can cover in this short paper.
42. Clifford, The Predicament of Culture, pp. 7-8 (emphasis added).
43. Ibid., p. 6.
44. See Rick Whaley and Walter Bresette, Walleye Warriors: An Effective Alliance against Racism and for the Earth (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1994).
45. It must be noted that some native peoples have employed the stereotypes of ecological nobility to further arguments for their autonomous control of their lands.
46. See Martin, Keepers of the Game, pp. 166-72; Callicott, In Defense of the Land Ethic, p. 206.
47. See Martin, Keepers of the Game, pp. 166-72; Callicott, In Defense of the Land Ethic, p. 206.
48. See Martin, Keepers of the Game, p. 183; Callicott, In Defense of the Land Ethic, p. 203. Callicott is primarily interested in determining whether or not American Indians had a "land wisdom."
49. See Martin, Keepers of the Game, p. 183; Callicott, In Defense of the Land Ethic, p. 203. Callicott is primarily interested in determining whether or not American Indians had a "land wisdom."
50. An exceptional article which I need to point out is Vine Deloria, Jr.'s "Ethnoscience and Indian Realities," Winds of Change (Summer 1992): 12-18. Deloria presents an American Indian epistemology that surpasses Western science for gathering and retaining ecological knowledge.
51. Yet, I must mention that the contention of many authors that we must save the knowledge of the peoples of the world before they go "extinct" is as immoral a proposition as I've heard. The knowledge may offer economic gain for many in the developed nations and may help us fight disease and augment our diets, but taking this knowledge from native peoples without recompense is certainly theft of the highest order. We must assure the continued existence of these knowledgeable people!