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BTW, as an addendum, I wrote this as a pure response to the parent comment, without RTFA, and the original HN title of the submission was that of the article itself (The Right to Kill) didn't disclose that this was specifically an article WRT murder as a crime of passion, since framing an idea as a Right is more abstract, whether the victims are children or not. Moral relativism aside, the more civilized approach to produce an effect of nearly the same outcome as murder, is exile. This is an option that was explored and proven successful by ancient and medieval societies across the globe. When something unforgivable and unforgettable happens, those responsible may be banished instead of executed, and in a civilization of unlimited resources, dungeon-like conditions need not be a term of excommunication. But, within the context of a scenario like this, where the sterility of contact with the outside world is, in fact, a prerquisite to the concept at hand, the approach to handle the preservation of alien customs apart from society at large demands elaborate effort. Beyond adopting the effort to carry out what amounts to a charade, one still needs to seek a rational basis for the effort. Why bother? Why should one tread lightly when maybe the life of a child is at stake? The handy answer is because we can. We can have it both ways. The primitive culture can be preserved, if a channel of willful exile is opened, as an alternative to murder. And having it both ways affords the option of live and let live, which is better. Perspective may say that this condones something akin to honor killing, as mitigated circumstances, sometimes you have to cut your losses and look at what you still have left. It would require a carefully designed protocol, to handle the exfiltration of exiled tribal citizens that primitive clans rejected for perceived crimes, but it could be done. Is it worth the effort? I think a quantitative analyst would question how much it costs, and the answer is that it's probably quite affordable. |
It seems to me that generally we agree. But I want to clarify one bit: I don't advocate a monocultural/monolingual life. English is my L2, I also have an L3, and more a coming. My main argument was that if something required preservation efforts, it's by definition moribund. In deciding whether or not to try to revive a thing that needs preservation (including the environment, cultures, languages, traditions, etc.), I think that we should take a pragmatic approach: preserving the ecosystem is useful to us, so do it. Preserving a language with a 100 or so speakers with other means than making recordings, analysing it etc., e.g. trying to teach it to kids or adults, is basically impractical, and generally useless. Same with a culture that is detrimental to life in every way. If we think it's interesting, we can document it. But we should help the actual people out of primitive life.
The "emptiness of modern life" is nothing more than a poetical, romantic little sorrow in comparison to being killed for being a twin, or for being born to the wrong mother, or for being slightly disabled. I'm more than 100% sure that a starving kid in Africa or most of these tribespeople would take the "emptines of modern life" over whatever they have without giving it a second thought.