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Comment by turkishrevenge | Hacker News Reader

No, you're talking in vague abstractions without referencing specific period of brutality in humanity's history. Platitudes prevent you from making an actual judgment about a given event.

> "It's quite possible for the Native Americans to have been savages, and the Europeans to have been savages (with better weapons), and for one group of awful people to have murdered another group of awful people."

Conquistadors, went to the Americas and slaughtered millions. Regardless of your assertion that both could be "savages", one group initiated and subsequently conducted systematic violence against another group over several decades. You're honestly saying you can't judge that as "bad"? What if you were among one of those indigenous groups that were killed? I know I would not appreciate it...

But of course we can't make concrete judgments about that.

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Holy crap, I can't believe this. Let me say this for the record:

The slaughter of Native Americans by the Conquistadors was a terrible thing. Awful. Tragic. An abomination.

Also, and completely not taking anything away from the awful abominableness of that terrible tragedy, the Native Americans had lots of other problems with their culture, and were in many ways, quite savage.

The Conquistadors had really good food, and the technological know-how to cross the oceans, which are both quite good and important things.

Being a murderer doesn't mean your ships aren't great. Having great ships doesn't make you less of a murderer.

My point is that you can't just say "they did this awful thing, therefor everything about their culture was horrible".

My point is also that you can't just say "they had this awful thing done to them, therefor everything about their culture was better."

We can judge the act as bad without thinking that it somehow pollutes everything that is good about the culture that did the heinous thing.

We can also judge the act as bad without thinking that being the victim of a heinous act somehow erases everything that is bad in the victim.

The real world is complicated, and all-or-nothing thinking is irrationally and unforgivably lazy.

Fine, I understand where you're coming from. Consider though that by very fact the conquistadors received funding from the crown, must in some way, shape, or form, have reflected prevailing attitudes at the time in Spain and within the Catholic church. After all, one of the goals of the expeditions was to "Christianize" the godless heathens, as well as "find" material wealth. So in this sense, yes, some of the attitudes at the time, e.g. the spread of Christendom by any (usually violent) means necessary, are ugly and bad.

> "The real world is complicated, and all-or-nothing thinking is irrationally and unforgivably lazy."

Yes, some idea require a certain nuanced approach to fully comprehend, others however, do not. This is not one of them. I guess you can throw up you up your hand and cry "I can't decide, these waters are too ethically difficult to navigate, argh!" and forever cop out. It's easier.

The problem is that you are actually understanding that conflict less, by painting 16th century Spain as how you'd like it to have been. For example, the Spanish crown formally accepted the natives, since the return of Columbus, as citizens of the crown subject to the same protections a native spaniard had back then. Very liberal for the century. It's just that the landlords (caciques) were much more seduced by the idea of free labour, and there was no government oversight on the vast, new-found lands. Similarly, the Company of Jesus were a religious order which instructed the natives, built schools, advocated for the end of all slavery, and protected natives from exploitation at hands of ruthless Europeans. Hardly crusaders or templars. But sure, if blind prejudice derived by generalization makes you feel superior...

Thank you for the historical context. I did not know that.

That is not what he is saying though. He is arguing for a more rational and more balanced view than that advocated by the original article, which was quite "all-or-nothing". This does not mean that genocide is not bad, it certainly is. But because they committed genocide does not mean they did not have other good qualities and achievements as well.

"My point is that you can't just say "they did this awful thing, therefor everything about their culture was horrible"."

Nobody was even saying that. You seem to fabricate an enormous straw man.

Grep for "Being killed does not make the Natives good but the Europeans bad."

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