Another year, another whale war. Victory for Sea shepherd

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I've been ignoring most of what she says for years. Same on your account. Turns out, since I didn't actually respond to her drivel, but rather Aarons post, I don't have to. And I won't be refferencing anything she says. And she can take it as a concession to her if she wants to, I couldn't care less.

The funny thing is that I regard you in a more or less similar fashion. I simply don't care about your opinion because I regard it as coming from an utterly worthless philosophical background that deserves no respect at all.

[Simon_Jester]

As for the other point: Fima, there is a large degree of variation among whale species and it has by no means been proved that all whales of all families are even as smart as elephants, let alone primates. And the ultimate point is that indigenous people should have the right to decide for themselves whether or not they want to continue.

At least, so long as they are doing it with spears and not with depth charges and factory ships?

That is a part of your argument after all, at least implicitly: that indigenous whale-hunting isn't something the world should intervene about, but industrial whaling is. An Indian tribe's right to kill a single digit number of whales per year falls under what's left of their sovereignty, but Japan's decision to kill a thousand whales and twenty thousand dolphins a year does not.

[I'm not disagreeing with this, I just want to check and make sure you think it, because it seems like you do]

[The Duchess of Zeon]

A finishing shot with a rifle after the whale has been speared to keep it from suffering is not violating that, but yes, as long as it's slaughtered completely traditionally, which they are. We're frankly so anal about it that the Makah weren't allowed to fish with nets, just long-lines, until they found a net of woven nettle fibres in an archaeological dig, proving they had them before Euro contact.

[Simon_Jester]

Now, if we can argue convincingly that whales were just as intelligent, or credibly likely to be, as humans, there is still a problem with this. By analogy, does tribal sovereignty allow a tribal community to engage in headhunting?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Now, if we can argue convincingly that whales were just as intelligent, or credibly likely to be, as humans, there is still a problem with this. By analogy, does tribal sovereignty allow a tribal community to engage in headhunting?

No, though for the most part headhunting was a practice associated with intertribal warfare. If whales are intelligent, one can frame hunting them in the context of intertribal warfare over fisheries rights, as it is a normal human behaviour to exclude other sapient groups from hunting grounds we claim to help manage them and keep stocks high even if it isn't necessary for us to acquire enough resources. Calling it warfare is less dishonest than it seems, because in traditional whaling it is really, really easy for the whales to kill a lot of humans. If the whales are smart enough to totally ban hunting of them, in short, it should clearly be possible to negotiate a treaty between the indigenous people and the local whale pod and get both sides to self-enforce it.

[Covenant]

Can I get a clarification on what are considered traditional whaling or hunting practices? People in Norway were probably hunting whales at some point with spears in boats, I can only assume. Does this have some reasonably intellectual basis for cutting off at the pre-Industrial Revolution technology, or only for people who got colonized? I'm just confused about the situation and not sure I can be intellectually honest while reconciling respect for peoples who got fucked by history with the fact that they want to go stab whales to death because of tradition. If these are intelligent animals with sensitive social dynamics and a tenuous capacity to replace their numbers given our stressed seas, why do we want to condone any killings, ritualized or not? I don't think killing one whale every two years is terrible, but I certainly wouldn't want to share in the meal.

At what point would these practices stop as a necessity of becoming a... I don't even know what the term would be? A non-traditional person? You're always indigenous, but when do your cultural hunting traditions start becoming okay to discuss in the realm of animal ethics? If you're a people with advanced technology and part of the global community, does sailing out there in a wooden raft with an obsidian spear make it kosher? Is it entirely a matter of the technology used? Why does it need to be a combination of technology and genetic privilege? Or is the right assigned to a sovereign group and not a people?

I'm not just being an asshole here, I'm trying to form an opinion, so I'm hoping I can get some grasp of what's really being asked. Assuming that every aspect of an indigenous people's rights movement were supported except for the right to go do things that we would normally have an international ban on, doesn't that treat them as a sovereign international body and not as like someone's toy civilization? It always feels wrong to put people into a bottle or a time capsule and play entirely hands off with certain traditions just because they're traditional. Would we at least stop them from doing the kinds of crazy-ass genetic mutilation that they do to girls in the middle east, if these had been peoples who did such a thing?

edit (changed is to are)

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, here is the thing. There isn't an international ban on whaling. There is an international regulatory commission, which established a moratorium on whaling except for scientific purposes and by indigenous peoples. So first of all, we're not treating them as a toy civilization instead of sovereign by giving them this right, because it's technically a right that all nations still have. If you can get an international treaty passed that permanently bans all forms of whaling for eternity because whales are too smart, and you let the indigenous governing structures sign it as equals with the world's nations, that would be one thing. But as it is the official charter of the IWC provides for the resumption of whaling eventually and the moratorium, which wasn't in the charter, was only passed due to the support of nations that were promised that whaling would resume in the future. This makes a legal condemnation of indigenous whaling totally unacceptable, I hope you agree, because right now in this paragraph I'm only addressing the legal issues, not the ethical ones. I think there is grounds for disagreement on the ethical issues, but I hope we can agree that the legal position of indigenous peoples that have a legal right to whale in their treaties with the sovereign state administering their land, then have a further and fairly explicitly protection to whale under the existing IWC regime.

Now, on to the more complicated ethics issues. Indigenous peoples have very few rights in the world, and most of those rights, despite being written into treaty, are ignored by governments. Look at how Harper is trying to crush indigenous people in Canada right now; it is a violent trampling of all rights that these people fought for. In some sense there's two points here -- one, if the whaling is, shall we say, "fair". This may be a nebulous concept, but so is ethics itself. The idea behind "fairness" in the hunt is that indigenous people have a ritualized tradition of acknowledging the world as a balance, and of acknowledging the fact that the animal they're hunting is a living thing.

In essence, the difference between modern factory whaling and traditional whaling is that traditional whaling requires you to kill the whale and to skin it and rend it and process it personally, as a communal activity which directly exposes people to blood, guts, and death struggles. It is something that is processed in a communal setting of respect because of this. Indigenous whaling is different because it is based in cultural structures which were built up to recognize that they were taking the life of a living thing. Commercial whaling is like factory farming, a fundamentally repulsive process which dehumanises the kill and makes it into a machinery driven slaughter. That is why the technology makes it different.

Therefore, for this limited number of strong whaling cultures, whaling becomes a cultural custom which preserves their unique identity against the rest of the world which has taken their land and taken their rights and their sense of self and their pride. It is something that they need to survive as a people until they have the strength to start a cultural progress toward the evolving of their traditions. Their culture is still in survival mode, even if their bodies no longer may be, in short. Just like for genital mutilation, then, the ultimate best strategy is letting indigenous ethicists decide when it is no longer appropriate to engage in whaling, in a conversation with the indigenous people, and for us to keep our ethical structures, our beliefs, our concepts of right and wrong, out of the conversation in their culture. When it came down to it, the way you stop FGM is by letting local women go talk to other local women and tell them it needs to stop. Broader society has some role perhaps in germinating the conversation in the first place, but it must begin and end with the indigenous people to be truly effective. In the same way, the conversation about women's rights and women's place in society, dress, etc, is something best reserved in Egypt for Egyptian feminists, and India for Indian feminists. There is a global discourse, but local decisions need to be taken on a local level. Empowering and collaborating to bring about a universal consciousness of shared rights is one thing, but when it comes down to it, outside imposition doesn't work and will never work, and is ethically wrong because it continues a tradition of reducing indigenous peoples to savages.

That is a tempting thing for a lot of educated western atheists. I won't condemn because I've been guilty of it myself. But as I came to appreciate the Makah and the Salish peoples of my home state, I also came to realize how wrong that was, and it is wrong to the point that I support their whaling, and will do so until they themselves decide to stop it, without the input of an international commission or a federal court, or activists coming between them and their prey.

[Thanas]

It's their culture, their custom, and they lost enough. And now you want to take it from them. Well, you're either trolling or you're a sick fuck filled with a truly miserable amount of white privilege.

Are you trolling or insane? Check one of those. Because that is the only response you are going to get from me if you are seriously arguing anybody who wants to stop whaling using even more cruel methods than the Japanese use is a "sick fuck filled with a truly miserable amount of white privilege".

It gets even more hilarious if you want to argue about whaling being the last thing left from their culture, hooray by that argument you could also argue for allowing some african tribes to exterminate pygmies.

In essence, the difference between modern factory whaling and traditional whaling is that traditional whaling requires you to kill the whale and to skin it and rend it and process it personally, as a communal activity which directly exposes people to blood, guts, and death struggles. It is something that is processed in a communal setting of respect because of this.

Wait a second here. You are arguing that forcing a whale to undergo several minutes, if not even up to half an hour, of excruciating agony is more humane and respectful than just killing it with dynamite or electricity? It would be one thing if the people are starving but they are not. I see no justification in letting people to go out and stab an intelligent animal to death because it gives them something to celebrate.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, go ahead and call me insane, then. I prefer not to perpetuate the legacies you're demonstrating with your reaction any longer, even if that makes me crazy.

[Simon_Jester]

What this comes down to is: do small local groups whose cultures we find backwards have any right to keep up with their 'backward' practices, given that we disapprove and have the power to stop them? If you are universalist enough the answer is "no." But the belief that we can impose a universal 'good' culture on everyone in the world has been disastrous before.

It's their culture, their custom, and they lost enough. And now you want to take it from them. Well, you're either trolling or you're a sick fuck filled with a truly miserable amount of white privilege.

Are you trolling or insane? Check one of those. Because that is the only response you are going to get from me if you are seriously arguing anybody who wants to stop whaling using even more cruel methods than the Japanese use is a "sick fuck filled with a truly miserable amount of white privilege".

We don't normally treat animal cruelty as an issue that overrides sovereignty. Vegetarians argue that killing animals to eat by any means is inherently wrong- but if most of the world's developed nations started legally requiring vegetarianism, would you automatically support them in pressuring your country to abandon consumption of beef, pork, fish, and so on? Or would you defend that as a choice Germans (or perhaps the EU in general) are still allowed to make for yourselves?

Put it another way: is there to be one legal regime on animal rights, or many?

If there is to be a single world standard, then we have to accept that the standard is not set purely by rich nations and comfortable people setting the standard "because it is right." Poor people have a right to an opinion and a vote, and they may not vote the same way you do. We might find whaling made legal, and disastrous overwhaling exterminating the world population of whales in a few years, if we really put the matter up to a vote and created a single world-government style solution. Perhaps a treaty agreement which 'suspends' whaling indefinitely because of how fragile whale populations are is a better solution... but that requires many regimes to agree and compromise.

If there are to be many regimes that have to compromise, then you have to honor your side of the compromise. Killing a whale with spears may be illegal under your laws, but you simply don't have standing to force someone else on the other side of the world stop doing it. You can try to persuade them, but you can't call it illegal unless you convince them to agree to a change in the treaty regime.

Should we take advantage of the power imbalance between, say, the US government and an Indian tribe to make the Indian tribe stop whaling? I don't think so. Given the huge power imbalance here, I think there's something to Marina's argument.

It is very easy for you or me to decide that the Inuit are a bunch of savages and should be banned from doing things we find disagreeable. It is very easy for Western governments to enforce any system of rules they please on the Inuit, to carry out that decision. During the 19th and 20th centuries, Western culture did exactly that, and damn near destroyed those cultures entirely.

Today, we mostly agree that what happened to the First Nations and the Aborigines (and the Herero, while we're at it) was wrong. But it did happen. It left many peoples and nations in a nearly-destroyed state. We should be careful about repeating the logic that led us to commit past crimes, just because this time it's for a good cause and we're sure our intentions are honorable.

It gets even more hilarious if you want to argue about whaling being the last thing left from their culture, hooray by that argument you could also argue for allowing some african tribes to exterminate pygmies.

No, you could not.

The pygmies definitely have a culture of their own, and as much right to preserve that culture as any of the cultures that are trying to kill them. You can argue "preserving my culture will mean letting me hunt elephants," you cannot possibly argue "preserving my culture will mean letting me destroy my neighbor's culture."

Therefore, by that argument you could not argue for allowing the extermination of pygmies.

On top of that, the pygmies are definitely intelligent people, the whales questionably so- it has not been established whether they deserve the same level of consideration we'd extend to pygmies.

[Aaron MkII]

I'm not OK with Native Americans hunting whales unless they are starving to death and whale meat is their only recourse, which they aren't and it isn't. So no. I don't give 2 shits about their traditions.

I don't actually mind if they hunt them, provided that its sustainable and it's not...does sapient apply to whales? That said, I'm not in favour of letting them suffer, whatever humane options exist should be used.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Well, that's why a finishing shot with a very heavy calibre to the head once the whale is harpooned is generally encouraged in indigenous whaling practices despite not being traditional, and is widely accepted because the indigenous peoples themselves don't want to cause excessive suffering.

[Aaron MkII]

I had heard talk of .50cal rifles being used but it was all 2nd/third hand.

[Flagg]

I'm not OK with Native Americans hunting whales unless they are starving to death and whale meat is their only recourse, which they aren't and it isn't. So no. I don't give 2 shits about their traditions.

I don't actually mind if they hunt them, provided that its sustainable and it's not...does sapient apply to whales? That said, I'm not in favour of letting them suffer, whatever humane options exist should be used.

But see, what's the point? I mean if it's just "this is what we used to do", well tough shit.

[Flagg]

I had heard talk of .50cal rifles being used but it was all 2nd/third hand.

They do, after they harpoon them.

[Guardsman Bass]

I'm not OK with Native Americans hunting whales unless they are starving to death and whale meat is their only recourse, which they aren't and it isn't. So no. I don't give 2 shits about their traditions.

I don't actually mind if they hunt them, provided that its sustainable and it's not...does sapient apply to whales? That said, I'm not in favour of letting them suffer, whatever humane options exist should be used.

Some of the whale species are highly intelligent, although it's an evolving field. Dolphins, Orcas, sperm whales, humpback whales, and fin whales are possibly quite intelligent (Orcas and Dolphins have passed the "mirror test" for self-awareness). I think hunting those kinds of whales is deeply unethical, like defending hunting of chimpanzees, bonobos, the Great Apes, or other humans. The others . . .

That said, I'm skeptical that whale hunting is just that one thing keeping the indigenous populations of the Pacific Northwest from fully falling prey to the dire forces of cultural assimilation. There are plenty of indigenous populations in North America that are able to maintain their cultural integrity without the need to periodically hunt large, possibly intelligent mammals.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

It is an important and lawful component thereof. Nobody here is arguing that it is a single component. But it is part of a system of excuses based on ethics and rights to crush the power of natives to do everything from hunt, to practice their native religion, to even pursue criminal charges against spousal batterers in mixed ethnicity relationships.

[Simon_Jester]

I don't actually mind if they hunt them, provided that its sustainable and it's not...does sapient apply to whales? That said, I'm not in favour of letting them suffer, whatever humane options exist should be used.

But see, what's the point? I mean if it's just "this is what we used to do", well tough shit.

Yes, tough shit. They need to be taught how to live in modern society, right?

Granted, you're probably not planning to take the native children and ship them off to boarding schools to learn how to be imitation white people. But you sound an awful lot like a more foulmouthed version of the people who did, which makes me suspicious of your argument.

But yeah, whatever, fuck them, we know we're right and they're wrong. So we get to make the rules.

I wish I still thought life was that simple. I really do...

[Aaron MkII]

Some of the whale species are highly intelligent, although it's an evolving field. Dolphins, Orcas, sperm whales, humpback whales, and fin whales are possibly quite intelligent (Orcas and Dolphins have passed the "mirror test" for self-awareness). I think hunting those kinds of whales is deeply unethical, like defending hunting of chimpanzees, bonobos, the Great Apes, or other humans. The others . . .

Any idea where Bowhead's rank in intelligence? I agree BTW.

That said, I'm skeptical that whale hunting is just that one thing keeping the indigenous populations of the Pacific Northwest from fully falling prey to the dire forces of cultural assimilation. There are plenty of indigenous populations in North America that are able to maintain their cultural integrity without the need to periodically hunt large, possibly intelligent mammals.

The Inuit and Haida may be the best off culturally by virtue of remoteness. But I do agree, we've either destroyed or warped their cultures so much that I personally find it irrelevant but I'm also white. I view the issue more as subsistence hunting, as long as its sustainable and humane, then I have no issue.

That said, if it turns out that there really is no humane way to hunt a whale, then stop.

[Flagg]

I don't actually mind if they hunt them, provided that its sustainable and it's not...does sapient apply to whales? That said, I'm not in favour of letting them suffer, whatever humane options exist should be used.

But see, what's the point? I mean if it's just "this is what we used to do", well tough shit.

Yes, tough shit. They need to be taught how to live in modern society, right?

Granted, you're probably not planning to take the native children and ship them off to boarding schools to learn how to be imitation white people. But you sound an awful lot like a more foulmouthed version of the people who did, which makes me suspicious of your argument.

But yeah, whatever, fuck them, we know we're right and they're wrong. So we get to make the rules.

I wish I still thought life was that simple. I really do...

No, it's "tought shit you can't fucking hunt whales". This isn't to say they aren't still at a massive disadvantage, as some reservations are much less than ideal places to live (by design, thank you forefathers) and the Bureu of Indian Affairs is a fucking joke. But that doesn't mean it's OK for you to go hunt whales. Sometimes it's just that easy.

Edit: And If I recall this correctly, it's not like they go out in wooden canoes like their anscestors with bone harpoons. They use motorboats and modern whaling equipment.

[Simon_Jester]

That's pretty much what I said:

"Fuck you, we're right and you're wrong, so we'll make rules to stop you."

It's so appealingly simple. It's pretty much what reduced the native peoples to their current state of being surrounded and humiliated by a legal order where they have to fight endless battles just to be able to do basic things like farm or bury their dead in peace.

But this time, of course, it's OK, because we really are right and they really are wrong. And this time we're really really sure of that. So it's not like last time.

[Guardsman Bass]

It really could just be a belief that hunting possible sentients is wrong, you know. The "envirofundies" blocking the whale hunt in court that the Duchess pointed out earlier probably support indigenous rights in other areas, including the right to try non-indigenous people for crimes committed on indigenous reservation land (albeit under federal law, which she conceded earlier). I fully support restoring indigenous control over tribal lands, including the above, with some reservations - the Gosiutes here in Utah seriously considered storing nuclear waste on their land a few years back, which could have led to potential environmental issues with the rest of us in the state.

Edit: And If I recall this correctly, it's not like they go out in wooden canoes like their anscestors with bone harpoons. They use motorboats and modern whaling equipment.

The idea is that they're preserving the essence of the ritual and practice. It's sort of like how Christians worship in churches with modern construction, not secret naves carved into stone.

[Flagg]

That's pretty much what I said:

"Fuck you, we're right and you're wrong, so we'll make rules to stop you."

It's so appealingly simple. It's pretty much what reduced the native peoples to their current state of being surrounded and humiliated by a legal order where they have to fight endless battles just to be able to do basic things like farm or bury their dead in peace.

But this time, of course, it's OK, because we really are right and they really are wrong. And this time we're really really sure of that. So it's not like last time.

1) They weren't allowed to whale for decades and their culture survived as much as any smashed culture could, so I don't even see a need for it beyond "tradition" which is always a very poor argument.
2) I hold them to the same standard I hold everyone to, which isn't very high. "Don't kill sapient or endangered animals for stupid religious or traditional practices" applies equally to everyone in my book. Same goes for Christian Scientists allowing their kids to die.

[Flagg]

Edit: And If I recall this correctly, it's not like they go out in wooden canoes like their anscestors with bone harpoons. They use motorboats and modern whaling equipment.

The idea is that they're preserving the essence of the ritual and practice. It's sort of like how Christians worship in churches with modern construction, not secret naves carved into stone.

Oh I get the idea behind it. It's just why is the killing of the animal the important part but the whole making it hard for them to kill the animal part isn't? Or maybe they are just out to make a point? Which I get, but it's definately not helping their cause.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

No red herrings or strawmen, please. The Makah were not using modern powerboats.