Quote Originally Posted by LDAHL View Post
But if a way of life is incapable of defending itself against cultural corruption or brute force from competing systems (European colonizer, Aztec or Turk), can it really be a superior alternative?
It depends on how you define superior. I get it, from the simple fact "who won", you have to concede military superiority to the winner.

But consider: the fact that more people buy plastic $1 american cheese and it's a bigger industry than $25 french camembert doesn't make the american cheese superior, and if the american cheese won out economically to the point where all the makers of camembert were put out of business, where no one remembered how to make gourmet cheese, that would not be a win for humanity. Majority rule is not the only criteria for a good life. IMHO, we would be culturally poorer for the loss, and in the same way, I think we're culturally poorer for the loss of indigenous social and environmental knowledge and options held by original tribes.