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by throwaway894345 1726 days ago
Hey Aaron, I think you're taking undue offense. There's nothing particularly "colonialist" about anything I've posted, and indeed "colonialism" isn't limited to indigenous peoples, which is kind of my point. I'm wondering what utility, if any, can there be in dividing the world into "indigenous" and "other". If anti-colonialism is the ax you'd like to grind, then why not divide the world into "colonized" and "other"? Why use "indigenous" as a proxy?
2 comments
aaron-santos 1726 days ago
Why use utility an a measure to begin with? I think we're going to have to agree to disagree simply because of the number of assumptions being brought into this discussion.
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throwaway894345 1725 days ago
Well, I’m not sure why we use “utility”—that seems like a profound question. But that’s the criterion we’ve used to choose our concepts practically forever, so why make the exception for this one concept?
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aaron-santos 1725 days ago
I have to hand it to you. It's clear that you're adept at creating confusion around ideas by "just asking questions", and creating cohesion around fuzzy concepts by stating opinions as facts. I've participated in too many of these "debates" to know where this is headed. If you genuinely want educate yourself on these topics, there are resources to do so. I encourage you to seek these out.
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throwaway894345 1725 days ago
When you argue like this, it betrays your inability to defend your position or even admit as much. And anyway, this isn't a high school debate with winners and losers, it's about understanding and advancing. The defensiveness is unnecessary.
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zokier 1726 days ago
indigenous and colonized are more or less synonyms, its not really a proxy of anything. Why specific word is used instead of another to refer to something is a question more suited for linguists. But if I had to make a guess, I'd venture to say that people prefer to use a term to describe themselves that doesn't center around the negatives.
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throwaway894345 1726 days ago
I don’t think that’s true. I don’t think the Welsh or Irish are on anyone’s list of indigenous peoples, for example. Maybe “colonized” has some specific academic meaning that I’m misapplying to the Welsh, Irish, etc.
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