Intelligence and Moral Sense

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

The other day, in my second-hand-tv watching (Husband is watching something, and I’m nearby, working or chatting with friends via computer) I got caught by a documentary on Octopi and how smart they are.

For the record, and so people understand… Well, I was going to type that Octopus is a delicacy in Portugal, but that’s not actually true. Portugal is — or was when I was growing up — a staple. You would get it if there was no decent fish. And mostly we ate fish — which thank you I heartily dislike — except Sundays when we might have chicken.

So– anyway, I was watching that documentary, and there was stuff about how smart they are, and we saw this little pink octopus tap out words and enjoy pets and stuff, and I was feeling pretty guilty about all of its brethren and sisteren I ate over the decades.

And then Dan segued into a documentary about octopi in the wild….

Well, look, they’re very smart, yes. And the adults will eat the new hatchlings. Even their new hatchlings.

Suddenly I was feeling much better. Sure, I’d eaten beings that might be sentient, but heck, they ate each other too.

Which brings us to: Yeah, so do humans. Which wouldn’t give me the warm fuzzies about something eating us, but still…

The point is they might be really smart, but that doesn’t make them moral creatures. Just like we’re not naturally moral creatures, no matter how smart.

In fact most of the world doesn’t share our morality. And by that I don’t mean “Don’t sleep with your sister” or “don’t enslave other human beings” or “don’t eat other human beings.” I mean, sure vast portions of the Earth still infringe the first two, openly or not, and the third still happens, though not in most floridly visible areas and not in ways Westerners see. I’m talking about more basic stuff, like don’t kill, don’t steal to the point it can’t be said you have any concept of private property. Most of the Earth doesn’t consider anyone not of their immediate group human. Not really.

Which brings to: Intelligence isn’t moral. And it isn’t admirable in and of itself.

This is important because we’ve lost track of that. When we talk of our best and brightest, we mean it in an IQ and knowledge sense, and we assume this will make them moral. When we talk of “Such and such civilization was so creative and look at everything they invented, we ignore the piles of skulls and rotting carcasses of their enemies. And their enemies often being honestly someone who pissed off their king.

When we make IQ the equivalent of all goodness, we forget the millennia that humans spent doing art installations with freshly killed young men and horses.

I don’t actually care if they had the swiftest chariots and the most wonderful palaces. We are better than they were because we are at least civilized enough not to kill people for decorative purposes.

This stuff needs to be said.

Over the last several decades we’ve been soaked in the idea of noble savage and the left’s insanity with their nostalgie de la boue. We’ve been told natural is better; untutored is better; doing what comes naturally is the only way; live as if you were a simple savage and you’ll be a saint.

All this is poppycock. Morality and the ability to learn in a civilized society require learning and teaching, and curbing your natural instincts. No matter how yummy my babies were, I never chomped on them. No matter how tired I am, we don’t actually live in our own filth. (Or the cat’s filth, for that matter. Though Havey distributes it liberally.)

Noble savages are a myth. Savages are just…. savages. And savagery — barbarism — means that the humans caught in it suffer. All of them. Barbarism shortens lives, and not just because your neighbor needed dinner and you looked tasty.

There is a lot to be said for this artificial lifestyle of ours: food relatively easily obtainable, lights at the push of a button. Showers at not much expense. Homes that are heated or cooled.

It is artificial, sure. And it requires the use of tons of artificial stuff, which is why the cultists of nature are sure it must be destroying something and killing something. Because…. it’s not natural.

And thank heavens it’s not natural. Enough of fetishizing natural.

Keep doing that long enough and you’re picking the bugs off your neighbors carcass before you roast him. And I don’t care what your IQ is, that’s no way to live.

Even if you have a shiny chariot.

I don’t suppose I’ll eat octopus again, or at least it’s not likely. I never liked it much, anyway. (I used to refer to octopus rice as spoiling rice with octopus, when mom made it.)

But if I have to I won’t feel guilty. They might be smart, but they eat each other. So I will not feel guilty for eating them.

Now when Octopus develop a language and a sense murder is wrong…. Then I’ll worry about it.

And while I don’t intend to start eating murderers, I’m also not going to brood and cry over the past civilizations and cultures that vanished. I don’t care what they invented. if they killed each other for sport, and ate each other? They were savages.

Raw intelligence means nothing. Applied intelligence that creates a society in which most individuals are relatively free and prosperous.

That means something.

And that is worth preserving.

Now go do it.

217 thoughts on “Intelligence and Moral Sense”

  1. In some ways, raw intelligence without a sense of ethics or morality is worse that ignorance. Because that intelligence will go to places that are terrible to contemplate for the mere mortals that are around such a being.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Hence, the Mad Scientist or Evil Genius character, driven to solve technical problems without considering how those solutions affect people and society.
      ———————————
      “Only the government could be stupid enough to establish scientific research programs — and then exclude the scientists when making the most important decisions.”

      Liked by 1 person

        2. It’s a balancing act. You can’t listen to the naysayers all the time, but you can’t listen to the starry-eyed dreamers all the time, either.

          It’s a tightrope we all walk-Heaven to the right, Hell to the left, and the Angel of Death chasing close behind.

          Like

          1. Which is why Chesterton’s Fence may be a more universal law than gravity.

            Until you understand why the fence is there, leave it alone.

            Liked by 1 person

          2. Beg pardon: It’s Hell to the left and the right, if you fall off the rope in either direction. You don’t get to Heaven unless you make it all the way to the end of the tightrope without falling off – and you won’t get that far without help.

            Liked by 1 person

    2. And intelligence is oft want to fall in love with its own pet theories, and defend them to often insane ends. Letting go of those precious gems of thought is quite like killing off a bit of yourself. They don’t go quietly.

      Small wonder, I think, that the intelligent and the mad go so often hand in hand.

      Liked by 1 person

    3. Intelligence without ethics or morality gets you a Kinsey, a Mengele, or a Schwab. I’d rather be ruled by a thousand Forrest Gumps than a million “technocrats.”

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I wouldn’t mind technocratic leadership…if it was something that was remotely competent at leadership.

        Since it isn’t, I prefer the other methods of figuring out who is in charge.

        Like

        1. A technocratic leadership, to be competent, would have to be mostly hands-off. Which is fundamentally at odds with what technocracy is all about.

          Liked by 1 person

  3. Brandon Sanderson’s “The Way of Kings” series has a character who’s both blessed and cursed with variable intelligence. His intelligence changes from day to day when he wakes up in the morning.

    However, his sociopathy also rises along with his intelligence. On the days when he has superhuman intelligence, he also doesn’t have even the slightest trace of empathy. And conversely, when he’s having a particularly dull day, he’s also extremely empathic.

    So when he’s stupid, he’s a friend to all. When he’s super intelligent, he’d make a Bond villain look charitable in comparison.

    Also note that it’s not a comment on intelligent people in general since another of Sanderson’s series literally has a scholar character ascend as a benevolent deity.

    Like

      1. St. Teresa of Avila famously said that a priest who was both holy and stupid was the worst spiritual director anyone could have.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Erm… Stupid in the sense of being really unintelligent, yes. Holy fools, OTOH, are well known for coming up with insights.

          Kinda depends on the type of stupid, I would guess.

          OTOH, there is nothing more frustrating than trying to confess to someone, or get spiritual advice from, someone who truly has no idea what you are talking about or needing advice about. I expect that was the problem she was talking about.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Naive can be a danger. Particularly for a priest who is a monastic and had a sheltered life.

            Like

    2. In Piers Anthony’s, “A Spell for Chameleon,” Chameleon is a girl who’s intelligence varies over the course of a cycle from very bright to outright dumb, while her looks cycle in the opposite direction. So she alternates between beautiful and dumb and homely and brilliant.

      Like

  4. Our current educational system produces a lot of high achieving students who think their success in school entitles them to all sorts of special privileges in the outside world.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. …and have been told all their lives that reciting the correct left-wing slogans makes them smarter and better than everybody else, until they accept it as an article of faith.

      It’s an easy sell — most people want to believe they’re smarter and better than everybody else. Makes them highly resistant to being told they’re not, that they’ve been duped into supporting irrational stupidity .
      ———————————
      The government rewards failure and punishes success. What did they expect to get?

      Liked by 1 person

      1. These kids get told (implicitly and explicitly) all through their educational careers that they are the smartest and best, so it’s not surprising that they come to assume that they are entitled to lifetime acclaim and high salaries and special privileges. It is very rare for “educators” to try to install a sense of humility and understanding of/respect for people whose skills and accomplishments are largely outside academia.

        Like

        1. And, to make things worse, our ruling class finds it very useful to have an army of credentialed minions who think they are entitled to their own place in the apparat.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Anti-plastics testimony by activist with no clear idea of plastics use in her own life.

            It seems obvious that she literally was unprepared for this obvious form of pushback. Nobody in her organization thought to prepare her in this way, either. She just does that weird “smile and act superior” junior Karen thing, in lieu of argument.

            Like

              1. And not just that the plastic ones are far superior for those of us with high diopter prescriptions. Before I got my left cataract done the eye was +6.5 diopters with 3-4 diopters of correction for astigmatism. They were so thick traditional coke bottles called them chonky. They were HEAVY and because of needing to be manufactured out of pre stressed safety glass the edging process to get them into frames often ended with them shattering like Prince Rupert’s drops. The High refractive index plastic (1.7 vs 1.1 or so for flint glass) is a godsend

                Liked by 1 person

                1. Ah! So diamond, with a refractive index of 2.4, would make the best lenses.

                  I hadn’t thought of that. I’m working on a story in which the main characters want to introduce advanced technology to make the world a better place, but without wrecking our existing society and economy in the process. Diamond glasses would be a better product, but not too disruptive.
                  ———————————
                  “What’s your secret for living to a hundred?”
                  100-year-old man: “Don’t die.”

                  Liked by 1 person

                  1. And the answer to that is “maybe”. there is another feature of glass/optical materials which is that the refractive index is really a mean of the refraction of light. The actual refraction is a function and some materials have the “feature” that lower frequency colors (red/orange) will refract less than high fre

                    Like

                    1. GRRR (WPD Erat) high frequency light leading to Chromatic aberration. Some of the early plastics had this in spades. Flint glass is less bad although it is still there. Have NO idea with diamond, but given all the beautiful colored sparkles diamond makes I’m betting its bad. At least its not birefringent like flourite…

                      Like

                    2. …resulting in chromatic aberration, or ‘rainbow distortion’. Which is the whole point of cutting facets into diamonds, to maximize the rainbow effects.

                      Every refractive medium has the same issue — see prisms, or actual rainbows. I don’t think diamond is any more prone to it.
                      ———————————
                      It’s dark here. You are likely to be eaten by a Grue.

                      Like

                2. Mom’s glasses were like that for years. Never knew that she was essentially blind until she put on her glasses. Thanks to plastics and modern eye surgeries (some < 5 years) she now can see without glasses. To her a miracle. Can’t read without them. But she can do everything else. Note, mom is 4 months shy of 89.

                  Like

        2. Hit them with someone actually superior, and their “educators” will line up behind their efforts to tear that fellow student down.

          Educators are not the cream of the crop.

          Like

  5. I still think that working on communication with Octopi and dolphins will help if we ever make contact with truly alien life. That said, their short lifespan limits the development of culture among octopi. If they get to the point where they live 40ish years and start to pass on knowledge to their spawn it might get interesting.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. Cephalopods may pass their learning on genetically. It has been posited and may have been studied and confirmed. I remember reading about this, but cannot recall where. Yes, a short life span limits them, but increments add up.

      Like

  6. My kids like a book called Inky’s Amazing Escape, about an octopus who got out of his tank at the aquarium and squeezed down a four-inch diameter drainpipe to get to the ocean. It follows the octopus from birth to how he ended up at the aquarium, and the part about his birth always struck me. The book describes how baby octopi are shot out into the ocean by their mother on a stream of water, and she doesn’t raise them at all. Being a book for kids, it puts a positive spin on this — “Baby octopi are born ready to explore” — but every time I read it, I think how utterly alone an octopus is its whole life. If they truly were sapient, then by human standards they would be complete sociopathic monsters: utterly self-centered, seeing the good and bad of actions entirely as it revolves around their own benefit. And they would be unable to see anything wrong with that: it would just be in their nature, as beings that grow up with no social contact.

    There’s a reason why so many depictions of hostile aliens give them tentacles. Because we know, on some level, that octopi are monsters.

    I say, eat all the octopi you want. (If you like the taste: I enjoy the taste but don’t like the rubbery texture.)

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Went to a relative’s wedding a few years ago. (Urk – over 20, as I think back.)

      One of the gifts to the couple was catering their reception dinner, by their friends who were chefs at Napa county restaurants.

      One of the dishes was baby octopus and something. And the rubbery texture was addressed by running a bushel or so of octopi through a washing machine. No word on hot/cold or what soap is good for food.

      Like

        1. I love octopus (or squid) risotto. I was taught that the rule is “30 seconds or 30 minutes.” Either you cook them just long enough to cook (fast fried or blanched, in other words), or you simmer like you do for the risotto.

          Liked by 2 people

  7. LOL :lol:

    A few years ago, I was watching a documentary on Human Sacrifices.

    Among other things, the documentary talked about the Aztec practicing Human Sacrifices.

    Then there was a woman claiming that the Aztecs Were Not Savages and created a great civilization.

    Sure, the Aztecs were “civilized” but they still murdered people to feed their gods.

    Of course, plenty of civilizations did “Great Things” but also practiced Great Evils.

    That’s what humans can be like. :sad:

    Liked by 2 people

    1. The Carthaginians were great fans of human sacrifice, as well. It’s the ignored reason why the Romans hated Carthage (IIRC, the Roman religious practices allowed for human sacrifice, but it was very rare), as the Romans generally despised the practice.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Also, someone on another forum once asked for examples of real world cultures that would be examples of cultures that worshipped the four chaos gods from Warhammer. I put forward the Aztecs as the best example of worshippers of Khorne.

        No one disagreed with me, or offered counter-suggestions.

        Like

      2. The Carthaginians apparently sacrificed their own children and as Sarah has said some idiots seen to believe that the Romans made it up.

        Sarah reported that one idiot seemed to believe that the Romans were Christians which is part of the reason that the Romans made it up. :twisted:

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Never mind that the Punic Wars occurred before Jesus was even born.

          There are a lot of ignorant “smart” people out there. That is deliberate on the part of the maleducation system which practices “Ignorance is Strength”

          Liked by 2 people

          1. Add into that the “Learned” Idiots who believe that all Pagans were Peaceful Nice People and the Evil Christians painted the Pagans As Bad People.

            Oh, there have been some idiots who tried to “white-washed” the Aztecs but generally few modern experts believe the “white-washed” attempts.

            Liked by 1 person

            1. If there ever were any Peaceful Nice People back in those days, they got conquered and enslaved by the Not-So-Peaceful folks around them long before there were any Christians to oppress them.
              ———————————
              It takes two to make peace. It only takes one to make war.

              Like

          2. Once observed online that the largest witch hunts on record were in the Roman Republic.

            Someone else said it must have been the Christians because the Roman Emperor would have no problem with someone else’s magic.

            Like

        2. Well… sort of. I suspect they sacrificed other people’s children as much as possible, and the elite only sacrificed in dire straits. “The poor will be happy to have fewer mouths to feed.”

          No historical basis for that comment, just a general observation on how humanity tends to operate.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Well, the LGBTQ+ cabal in concert with the ZPG folks have pretty much sacrificed their own children, and want to sacrifice yours too. I should never have sent my kids to public school; a decision I’ll regret to the end of my days.

            Liked by 2 people

          2. We have records telling that the rich would often buy the children of the poor to sacrifice.

            Backing this up is that we have stelae commemorating sacrifices where the one offering bragged that the child was of his body — thus indicating that those that did not mention that may have bought the baby.

            Like

            2. If the person bragging about “child of my own body” was male, the child might be a bastard and thus not as important as a child from his wife (or wives).

              But yes, to claim that likely mean that other people purchased children from the poor.

              Like

            3. I forget which ancient source records that in the Third Punic War, when Carthage itself was finally faced with destruction, the Carthaginian upper class sacrificed a huge number of their own children – figuring that the gods were mad at them for all those years when they bought slave children to sacrifice instead.

              ‘Gods’ like that don’t care. As Uncle Screwtape points out, their game is to make you sacrifice your soul and get nothing in return. Burning babies alive, whether your own or someone else’s, is one of the very last steps on the porch of Hell.

              Liked by 2 people

    2. The left seems to think the Aztecs were awesome because…uh…pyramids? I guess to them, cool architecture is worth carving out hearts by the thousands.

      Not saying there’s no good in studying them, there is, and it’s a fascinating culture. But don’t fetishize them as some kind of square-jawed noble do-no-wrong heroes standing strong against Cortez (or were those the Mayans? I always get them mixed).

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Cortez was the Aztecs. Pizarro was the Incas. I don’t think there was anyone specific for the Maya, but IIRC the Mayans didn’t have a strong empire at the time.

        Like

      2. IIRC the Mayans were not a powerful culture when Cortez landed in Mexico so it was the Aztecs that Cortez fought.

        Now the Incas were down in Peru and Cortez never got down there. :wink:

        Like

      3. No, Cortez fought the Aztecs and Pizarro the Incas, though I’m a bit hazy on what happened to the Mayans.

        Like

        1. Most Mayan cities died out before the Spanish arrived, there were a few cities remaining but none of the large ones were still populated. A few Conquistadors went down through the Yucatan in several sweeps but the last city fell in the early 1620’s. But since it is such heavy jungle the Spanish mostly ignored the area.

          Like

        2. The Mayans existed as a civilization at the time of Cortez but were strong in South-Eastern Mexico (Yucatán Peninsula area).

          But the Aztecs ruled the area of Mexico where Cortez landed.

          After the Spanish conquered the Aztecs, other Spanish took on the Mayans and other tribes in Mexico.

          Like

          1. That’s what I thought (to both you and orphangeorge) but it’d been a while since I’ve read up on the history of that time and place.

            Like

    3. The Aztecs sacrificed relatively young people in order to be granted success and prosperity. Our society sacrifices the very very young in exchange for success and prosperity. The more things change….

      Liked by 1 person

  8. Christmas Eve always included octopus, cod fish cakes, rice pudding and other Portuguese dishes. Stillm does, on a much smaller scale. And I’ver always loved Pop’s octopus. Ain’t Christmas without it.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. “All this is poppycock. Morality and the ability to learn in a civilized society require learning and teaching, and curbing your natural instincts.”

    I would add that one cannot intellect oneself into proper morality. Learned that back in my wild athiest days, searching for a way to morality that wasn’t colored with religion at all, in any way.

    Enculturate? Sure. That’s actually the proper way to to do it, Mommies and Daddies teaching the little spuds right from wrong. Showing them how its done in the wild, with real people and real consequences.

    And teaching morality is NOT EASY. We lucky few just think it is, as we were raised right and in the right environment for it. Charity is bloody hard work when you live close to the bone. Thievery is just slow murder when that horse is the difference between a harvest that feeds your family and you turning to thievery yourself just to live.

    We, as a culture and as human beings, worked damned hard to get to the point where we are today. Civilization is a fragile, precious, and amazingly important thing.

    Without it, the world is bloody and brutal in a way not many reading this blog may understand. Words cannot adequately describe it. The distrust. The apathy. The casual violence. The fear. The desperation. Feral kids. The utter victimhood of women and girls. The cult of might makes right.

    And the sad thing about the latter is that in that situation it, there is no right without the might. You might think there is a power disparity in America, but it ain’t so compared to power disparity where one side has nothing, not even power over their own lives.

    We are better off than the daughters and sons of empires. Our birthright is worth more than all the riches of entire continents of the past. Peace quite literally unimaginable to our ancestors… and fellows in less developed places in the world. Like Europe and China.

    Less developed? You betcha. They’re less civilized. Forget all the nonsense about civilization being cities and people packed together cheek by jowl. That’s not the definition I am using.

    Civilization is culture as much as technology, if not more so. Civilized men learn and are taught to value things like freedom, responsibility, honesty, and work ethic that are the foundation of nigh all the good things we have in this country. They are taught to value their families, respect their wives, and teach their children to be smart and wise as well as strong.

    And civilization is such a rare jewel that it is always coveted by ignorant barbarians that seek to possess it, all unknowing that in doing so they will destroy the very thing they seek to hold. That’s what’s happening now, with our own uncivilized fools in office.

    All that is to say, teach your children well. How you face the challenges of today shows them how to do it themselves when the barbarians are at the gate, and they are the ones holding the walls.

    Liked by 2 people

    2. “Every society rests on a barbarian base. The people who don’t understand civilization, and wouldn’t like it if they did. The hitchhikers. The people who create nothing, and who don’t appreciate what others have created for them, and who think that civilization is something that just exists and that all they need to do is enjoy what they can understand of it — luxuries, a high living standard, and easy work for high pay. Responsibilities? Phooey! What do they have a government for?” — H. Beam Piper, ‘Space Viking’

      Like

    3. “Civilization is not an inevitable good or a natural state; it is enabling good over evil, imposing justice over nature, and it must always be defended.”

      Professor Charles Gibbons aka Ajax, “Wearing the Cape”

      Like

      1. As you like, I’ve no objection. Most of what I say in this vein has already been said by wiser, more intelligent souls. I just repeat things in my own words, simpler usually, and less elegant.

        The only words I really worry about are the stories that make it to sale. Those I demand filthy lucre for! These are, and always will be, free.

        Liked by 1 person

  10. I’ve said some of the things in this column many times before. However, Sarah, you do it so much more politely. :D

    I had octopus. It was kind of chewy…

    Like

  11. The “noble savage” trope drives me nuts. Yeah, savages can be noble, but not every Native American was frigging Iron Eyes Cody weeping when he looked at a polluted river. When you grow up in Virginia studying Virginia history, you learn about stuff like the 1622 Indian massacre that wiped out a third of the English settlers in the colony. (And yeah, the settlers did provoke it to an extent. But only to an extent. Not to the extent of 347 deaths including women and children.) Have we not heard enough stories about how vicious the internecine Plains Indians wars out west were? The only mercy they had was sending the women into slavery rather than scalping them.

    And it’s happening again in our cities. We’re constantly being told that cops are out there hunting down black youths to kill them…but almost all the video proof we’re seeing are thugs (mostly but not exclusively black, hello there MS-13) rampaging, shoplifting, rioting, assaulting, shooting, and in general behaving probably worse than those Plains Indians or the Powhatan Confederacy. And I think even the “normies” are starting to wonder why more of those feral urban thugs, color notwithstanding, aren’t locked up or ending up in the forever box.

    Like

    1. Iron Eyes Cody was a civilized modern American. That’s why the pollution meant anything to him. Environmentalism is purely a recent development of Western Civilization and the Industrial Revolution.

      The natural state of Man (and Woman) is that of an animal — an unreasoning, violent creature driven entirely by primitive emotions and impulses, constantly seeking immediate self-gratification. In order to overcome that bestial nature, all Men (and Women) have to be taught to think rationally, and carefully inculcated with the values and principles of civilization, a process of education which must be started in infancy and maintained consistently until (at least) early adulthood. If such teaching is not applied, or is not effective, though they may walk upright and ape the words created by civilized folk, they will remain feral brutes and threats to all around them.

      Over the course of some three hundred thousand years, we have raised ourselves up from that savage condition. We have invented the concepts of right, and wrong, and the notion that life is better when the biggest, meanest asshole can’t just beat everybody else up and take all the food and wimmins. We decided that living in cooperative societies is far better than violent anarchy. We formulated rules and laws to make such societies work, and refined those laws to make societies work better.

      Now we are faced with modern savages that reject everything we have achieved and seek a return to that brutal existence. Well, they are welcome to go find it somewhere else, not to drag our civilization down with them.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Iron Eyes Cody was an American actor of Sicilian parentage. Not Native American, at all. Looking back, he was one of the first “Pretendians,” but at least he had the excuse of being an actor.

        Liked by 2 people

      2. Irrelevant to your point, but, oddly enough, Iron Eyes Cody wasn’t actually an Indian. He was an Italian. Eventually, I think one of the tribes enrolled him.

        Like

      3. I’ve read descriptions of the buffalo=jump sites like Head Smashed In up in Alberta and several others. The amount of meat and other things wasted was boggling, as was the stench. Even the carrion eaters departed after a while. The French and others said you could smell the stench for tens of miles. So much for the “ecological Indian” and all that.

        Like

        1. But that’s impossible. I’ve been reliable assured, by the best teachers the public school system has to offer, that the First Nations wasted nothing and used absolutely every part of the animal.

          (/s, in case it wasn’t obvious)

          Like

            1. Not so much the tripe, but Black Pudding and Haggis are fine.

              Not something I make at home, but I’ll happily eat those two.

              Like

            1. It comes from the later period, when buffalo were getting scarcer in some areas, so better use was made of what could be gotten. When buffalo were all over the place (sometimes literally) people took what they wanted, or could get to easily, and left the rest to rot in place. That, and the 1960s desperation to combine the American Indian Movement with civil rights with the environmental movement. That led to what one of my profs sarcastically called “the legend of the Blessed Saint Indian.” He helped some Indian friends of his write a family history, including the not-so-blessed bits, so he should know. [G-g-g-grandfather may have eaten the heart of an enemy. He sort of implied in his old age that there was some truth to the legend.]

              Like

  12. I have long thought that someone should write Colonel Dubios’s textbook on History and Moral Philosophy. I have occasionally, though not seriously, entertained the prospect of doing so myself. (Though my tome on the mathematics of morality would likely need to come first.)

    Sarah, I am now mortally convinced that this should be your job, should you choose to accept it. Also that these essays combined with Mr. Heinlein’s essay on patriotism, with editing, could comprise 90% of the content.

    Like

    1. Perhaps that should be a collaborative work. As Heinlein noted in his Annapolis address, morality doesn’t apply to a single person in isolation. What I think as moral behavior, that which tends toward survival of the group, may not necessarily be so; and needs someone besides myself to point that out.

      Like

  13. PS

    In case I never get the Round Tuit, “The Mathematics of Morality” is founded on the premise that morality consists in not gratitutiously creating or devaluing either thermodynamic or information entropy.

    Liked by 1 person

  16. High IQ and common sense do not go together at all. I’ve been in Mensa for over forty years now, and in that club, you can find Special Interest Groups for every crackpot idea you ever heard of. As for the Noble Natives—during the Sepoy Mutiny, a lot of rebel sepoys got up to stuff that would have got them court-martialed and shot in any modern military except MAYBE Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan.

    Liked by 1 person

  17. Aaargh! So much to say. Even your short posts are so full of things to comment on, that I drive myself crazy trying to hold back.

    First, well-put imaginos1892! Yes the term evil genius was invented for good reason. It took me decades to understand why the First Commandment is the most important one. Humility is the beginning of wisdom.

    Next, yes Rousseau and Marx were both truly evil, and their evil legacy has destroyed millions. Someone please put a stake through that phrase “noble savage.” Someone once wrote an essay on “The Heartless Lovers of Mankind” documenting what horrible human beings both of them were.

    The only reason Cortez and his 100 some soldiers were able to overthrow the Aztec empire was because all the tribes that the Aztecs’ had conquered, enslaved, and continued to use for ritual murder, were tired of the Aztecs’ absurd ruthlessness, and would grasp at anything to get rid of them. You didn’t think 100 Spaniards overthrew the Aztec empire, did you? Well, if you’re a recent public school graduate, probably. Just like you believe slavery was only practiced in America and only blacks were ever enslaved. It’s not what you don’t know, but what you know that just ain’t so, as the old saying goes.

    Hopefully I’ll get the chance to speak with a lot of Hoyt’s Huns in a week. That’s the reason I’m hoboing across country.

    Stopping now. I have to finish packing.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. Especially since there were a lot of people who thought the skull racks were just calumnies made up by the Spanish, or exaggerated in size and number.

        And then the archeologists started digging up skull racks. Ugh.

        Liked by 1 person

  18. Had octopus once as tako sushi. Not horrible, but sushi never became my thing.

    As to ” natural”? I have one quote that humans aren’t that far removed from:

    Red in tooth and claw.

    Liked by 1 person

  19. I saw some of that documentary. The octopus was very cute… during the carefully edited parts they chose to show on the screen, to tell the story about the animal that the weird and obviously broken human chose to fixate on.

    cough[communists!]cough

    I’ll maybe consider not eating octopus if they start shooting back some day. Self preservation, right?

    Pigs are smart too. I’m not giving up bacon over it.

    Liked by 1 person

        1. There is a reason why farrowing pens are built the way they are. Stupid piglets don’t use the division between them and mom. Stupid piglets get eaten by mom, some after she has smashed and killed them by sleeping on them. No farrowing, and some of the very smart ones might survive to be weaned.

          Like

          1. There’s a reason that they literally hunt feral hogs in Texas with night vision scopes and almost-military levels of hardware. We’re talking helicopters, automatic rifles, even light machine guns like M60s and M249s, fully automatic, mounted on the backs of pickup trucks like Somali warlords. Those feral pigs are fecund, destructive, and dangerous, and even killing them thousands every year, they can barely stay ahead of them. And like somebody else said, pigs are actually pretty smart and crafty.

            Like

            1. Can we encourage the anti-hunting bunny-huggers to go pet feral hogs? Maybe hand feed them?

              (Grin)

              Like

        2. Happened up in the Midwest just before I moved there. Farmer thought he’d gotten all the piglets out of the farrowing pen. He missed one. It squealed, the sow reacted, there weren’t many bits left to identify.

          Like

  21. In Boston, at a Chinese restaurant, I had three kinds of octopus as a single dish. Very fresh, not rubbery at all. The baby octopus was kinda sad, though, so I closed my eyes to eat the ones that bothered me.

    No, I was not going to waste food. And they were delicious.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. When I lived in Silly Valley, you could get squid at some of the Chinese places, or with suitable amounts of garlic, Calamari at Italian places. Only had octopus a few times, and that was at the late, not entirely lamented Asian buffet in Flyover Falls. Curiously, the cooks did it well there. They were hanging on by a thread before Covidiocy, and that snipped it.

      (I had stopped eating there previously, since I found that wheat noodles were showing up in the hot&sour soup, and I prefer food that doesn’t turn my guts inside out. ‘Sides, by then the more interesting dishes I could eat had disappeared.)

      Like

  22. For those interested in reading about them, “The Soul of an Octopus” by Sy Montgomery is an absolutely wonderful book which I would recommend to anyone interested in these amazing creatures. I was enchanted with the cast of characters, both human and cephalopodian.

    Like

  23. “There is a lot to be said for this artificial lifestyle of ours: food relatively easily obtainable, lights at the push of a button. Showers at not much expense. Homes that are heated or cooled.”

    Artificial – “made by skill”
    Natural – “inborn”

    It irritates me that artificial has become synonymous with “fake” and ‘”damaging”.
    Artifice is as natural to humans as building dams is to beavers.

    There is nothing “unnatural” about what we make and build. Because we are human, and that is our trait: Making things. With skill.

    Liked by 1 person

      1. May be partly justified in the area of food, where “processed” often means (among other things) “with added sugar” and therefore less healthy. (Though “artificial” means “I took this chicken, these carrots, and this broccoli, and created a delicious stir-fry”, so …) But people start thinking of natural food as better (which it is, if you’re comparing it to the stuff that gets lots of sugar added) and then extrapolate (as humans do) past the point where it makes sense.

        Like

        1. Usually, it’s just that “processed” foods last longer– and thus make it cheaper for someone to have the same quality, thus the “natural” ones cost more.

          And if it costs more it must be better…..

          Like

  24. On that note, we did a scout leadership training. Part of it was going over the Scout Law, and why “Trustworthy” is and must be the first point. But not the scoutmaster telling them. They had to explain it themselves first.

    Liked by 1 person

  25. What’s really amazing is how many different animals love being petted by humans. Completely outside of domesticated animals included.

    Liked by 1 person

        2. “Don’t pet the Fluffy Cows.”

          “Hope you can run across the field in 9 seconds. The bull can do it in 10 …”

          “That ‘bleep’ from that calf/fawn might be the last you hear. Mom isn’t that far away (and she will be pissed).”

          “No that COY/yearling is not a toy to cuddle and pet.” (COY – Cub of the Year)

          “Deer/Elk are more dangerous than the Bears. Honest.” -> Olympic, Rainer, Rocky Mtn, Tetons, Yellowstone, etc., National Park staff (others too but too many to list).

          “No pets, means: No Pets. That includes Dogs, Parrots, Parakeets, and Cats. The bears, wolves, coyotes, and fox, love all of them. Raptors and owls love the latter 3.” – True story. Someone took their parrot into the Olympic rain forest where it was attacked, killed and eaten, by an owl. Then was stupid enough to complain to rangers. Even Service Animals, while allowed, (well service mini-horses or very large dogs are probably safe from everything except wolf pack or bears) are not safe (the wildlife do not know the difference).

          Like

          1. “A Moose once bit my sister.”

            “I’ve heard the joke. A moose killed my cousin. No joke. Don’t mess with the moose.”

            Elephants, rhinos and cape buffalo are some of the most dangerous game animals.

            Like

            1. “Elephants, rhinos and cape buffalo are some of the most dangerous game animals.”

              Although an interesting thing from Capstick is that the most bodies are piled up by crocs for carnivores and hippos for herbivores. Both of them are water dwellers, and everyone has to come for a drink.

              Like

            2. Most lower 48 states don’t have moose around to know how dangerous moose are, and that is not counting moose VS car. Moose aren’t quite as likely to get up and walk away, like Bison are (seriously bison are HUGE), after totaling your vehicle. But harass a moose and find out.

              Never been to Africa. Don’t plan to. OTOH with the safari ranches in the lower 48 not surprised if there haven’t been escapees adjusting to north America.

              Like

              1. A guy I knew in Colorado was once riding his mare in High Country when a bull moose apparently decided that his horse was available for mating.

                While the guy was armed with a rifle, the moose decided to look elsewhere.

                Like

                1. The irony is that per Rocky Mtn NP rangers moose are not native to Colorado. Moose were not transplanted in by any group (including government); groups that will admit to transferring them in. Moose just started showing up in the ecosystem. The obvious answer is that moose migrated down from where they are native, in Wyoming. (Or moose were always there but not seen. But it is awfully hard to hide moose, let alone moose sign, from everyone.) But the ground between typical habitats in Wyoming and Colorado moose habitats is not typical moose habitat. (Of coarse that was the word 25 or so years ago.) It is/was considered a mystery.

                  Like

                  1. Apparently, there was an effort in the late 1970’s to introduce Moose into Colorado and it was successful.

                    Oh, I heard the guy’s story in the late 90’s.

                    Like

                    1. We were last in RMNP Fall 2021. Didn’t see any moose. Lots and lots of elk (made taking my service dog out for before bedtime potty breaks, um, interesting. There were a couple of bull elk not far from the hotel grassy area.

                      We saw moose on our late summer/fall ’97 trip into RMNP from the west side while towing the trailer. Do not remember why we stopped, no dog then. Could have been because either 8 year old or I needed to use the RV for a potty break. But we kept hearing these clicking sounds. Found it. Couple of bull moose going at it. Never saw the lady moose (or plural) they were fighting over. That is when we heard the stories. Not surprised the moose were really introduced, as it makes more sense, and not a natural movement speculated because that doesn’t make any sense. But not the story we heard.

                      Like

                  3. “But it is awfully hard to hide moose”

                    I don’t know about that. I’ve seen them step into the forest and disappear behind a sapling.

                    Like

                    1. I’ve seen them step into the forest and disappear behind a sapling.
                      ………………

                      Point.

                      We were leaving Banff, doing our last drive on the Row River Parkway (what is open to vehicles before June 15 at any rate). Part of the road splits around an “island”. As we are going by see a brown animal “Elk” … double take “That isn’t an elk, that is a moose!” Licking the pine tree cambium. Nice bull. We got pictures. Was not expecting one there. It was a ways out of the aspen, willows, and water.

                      Also. Jasper, Waterton, Yellowstone, and Tetons, managed to hide the moose from us this last trip. It really is be at the right spot at the right time. The parts visible from the roads of any of these parts is a small, small, portion of the land.

                      Like

            3. Oh, yeah, forgot to mention hippos. They’re bad news.

              There are moose in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, not sure about the Lower. Grandpa and my uncle used to go moose and/or elk hunting some winters. Canada is full of moose; some places have more moose than people. Larry Correia calls his Evil Mountain Lair in Utah ‘Yard Moose Mountain’ because while preparing the site he sometimes saw moose in the yard.

              He also relates how he didn’t just have to build a house on an empty lot, he had to spend two years building the empty lot first. Grading, driveway, utilities and so on. The moose were just one more thing.

              I saw a ‘Funny Signs’ video on Yoo Toob, one of the signs showed a smashed car with a curious moose sniffing at it. MythBusters built a crash dummy moose and smashed cars into it, doing catastrophic damage to the cars. The moose dummy mostly survived.

              Like

              1. A Greyhound driver told me once about an idiot who went driving his ragtop MG too late in the season, on route 43 in northern Alberta. A moose wandered into the road, and there was ice. The MG failed to stop and ran under the moose. The collision sheared off the car top, the windshield, all the windows, and the driver’s head. The moose walked away.

                As he told the story (but he may have been embellishing), they couldn’t close the case until spring, when the snow melted and they were able to find the spot where the man’s severed and flattened head had landed in the bush.

                I had a near encounter with a road moose myself once, but I wasn’t speeding and the moose saw me coming. I slowed down, and he got out of the road with impressive grace and agility. I fully believe the first half of the bus driver’s story: most European sports cars would make it under that bull’s belly – almost.

                Like

              2. The moose dummy mostly survived.
                …………….

                Even if the moose, in a car VS moose, breaks a leg, they often are still alive. Long term survival isn’t probably in the moose’s future. But they could be able to limp away.

                Bison VS vehicle? Bison might be bruised, if that is how you choose to view the bison getting up, shaking itself, then walking away.

                Like

          2. Never, ever go to bear country with one dog.

            Two can keep a bear bidy busy and annoy it away.

            One will likely pick the fight, then run home to you saying “Boss! Save my ass from this monster!”

            Like

            1. Based on some videos I’ve seen going into bear country requires a regular domestic cat. Not sure if the bear is really afraid or the bear is going “What the HELL?” MMV ;-)

              One will likely pick the fight, then run home to you saying “Boss! Save my ass from this monster!”
              ………………..

              Funny that is exactly what rangers say. Only sometimes they’ll change it up, translating the barking as they come running to you as: “Mommy! Daddy! Help!”

              Like

            2. OTOH, I remember a Faulkner story about hunting bear. It explains that you need one stupid and worthless brainless dog to track the bear and annoy it – stupid enough to get close in and annoy the bear, giving you a chance to shoot, and so worthless you won’t miss the dog if the bear gets it before you get the shot lined up. I think the dog that leads the bear back to you, yipping all the way would be perfect for this.

              Like

            1. “People of Mars, surrender! Your puny weapons are no match for-”
              “Hey, Bud. This is Earth.”
              “Earth? Earth-with-nuclear-weapons Earth?”
              “Uh huh.”
              “Hello, Friend!”

              And yet… oy.

              Like

  26. I’m reading two books about the Vikings. One is a cultural history, the other a straight narrative account of their development and spread. Both of the authors squirm when talking about things such as, oh. that the Vikings were the biggest slave traders in Europe until the 1100s or so (after they converted to Christianity more or less. Ish. Mostly). One author sort of apologized for the Vikings. The other just twitched, then really twitched when he got to the burial customs and human sacrifice.

    Why? I want to tell them, “Look, guys the past is a different country. The Vikings were US, with varying rights within that group based on a lot of things, and everyone else was THEM. US comes before THEM, right? Welcome to 99% of history and all of prehistory. Get over it.” I mean, an anthropologist really should know better. So the Vikings were not nice and heroic role models all the time. Deal with it! Sheesh. kitty eye roll here

    Liked by 2 people

    1. “The Vikings were US, with varying rights within that group based on a lot of things, and everyone else was THEM. US comes before THEM, right? Welcome to 99% of history and all of prehistory. Get over it.”

      And a good portion of our current problems stem from forgetting that 99%. There are people who are not US, and who will continue being not US no matter how tolerant we are. They want US to become THEM…. or go away.

      I vote US over THEM.

      Liked by 1 person

    2. Which is one reason why the Romans were so unusual. They showed up and said, “Hey, if you want to stop being THEM and become US instead, we’ll allow you to do so!” Roman citizenship for everyone (who worked for it; it wasn’t as easy as it is for us) was a thing, and it was a big deal.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. Absolutely! It was truly weird. And it was so big a deal that people sold themselves into slavery for the CHANCE (not the PROMISE) of Roman citizenship. Which actually doesn’t show that Roman slavery wasn’t as bad as elsewhere — in many respects, it could be WORSE. But the chance at actually becoming Roman, becoming one of US, was that big a deal.

        Like

    3. “I mean, an anthropologist really should know better.”

      sigh I wholeheartedly agree. They really, really should.

      Unfortunately, outside of a very few (much maligned, attacked, and marginalized few), much of (if not all of) cultural anthropology is nigh indistinguishable from leftist/full-on-Communists.

      Where I was taught to examine a culture in the setting they were found, without trying to force them into a modern perspective, others were not. It is quite common to find ethnologies written with a very definite slant to them.

      Shilling for grant money is a large part of it. I don’t know of any on the right of the political spectrum that put financial resources into ethnographic research right now.

      Proper historical archaeology is akin to translation. One studies the artifacts and records, not just of the specific culture in question, but those surrounding that culture. The ones they traded with, warred with, preyed upon and were preyed upon.

      Then, after absorbing all the facts, one must communicate this to the world the anthropologist comes from (and more importantly, is paying their paycheck). That’s the translation bit: translating culture.

      Just as in linguistic translation, things don’t pass one-to-one. Context matters. Otherwise you get hilariously wrong “facts” like Meade’s Samoans and their idyllic free love society. Or the hothouse mythology that ancient, pre-literate hunter-gatherer cultures were matriarchal and worshiped some sort of mother goddess (they found the figurines in midden pits- my best guess is they were children’s toys. You don’t throw holy items away like that unless you are an adversarial competing culture).

      You’ll find many similar sentiments in students of ancient Latin and Roman cultures. The sacrifices, the brutality, the casual violence and the delight in public executions and so on are often glossed over.

      I notice the same thing happening in sycophants of more current cultures. Post Fuedal Japan did a lot of dirty, awful stuff to China and Korea. That era has its own fanboys and girls, too.

      There’s a balance that must be struck by the serious ethnologist. Open minded enough to study the culture on its own terms and see it for what it is in context. But not so open minded one’s own brain falls out.

      Sons and daughters of Western culture are scions of the fortunes that only freedom allows. It can be all to easy to forget that, for those who delve too deeply into another culture without remembering who they themselves are.

      Like

  27. One of the best lures for trout is to use a baby trout pattern. They eat their own babies. So I have no problems eating them. I’m sure octupi find their own tiny offspring delicious as well.

    Smart doesn’t mean good, which is an incredibly important lesson that we’re learning currently here in America. The death of the “expert class” can’t happen fast enough for me.

    Liked by 1 person

  28. I’m really glad we don’t live in a culture where you have to kill one of your peers to graduate or become an adult. 50% deliberate child mortality would be a rough row to hoe; even if it did weed out a lot of the weak, stupid, or unlucky. I’ve seen too many of my brother’s and my classmates get themselves killed in stupid ways over the years without wanting to increase their numbers.

    Like

  29. It was only when I had a child to raise that I realized what persistent years-long effort it takes to produce an adult who habitually says “Please” and “Thank you.” If you meet such, know that some parental figure has said, ” What do we say?” or the like thousands of times, day in, day out, for years.

    This is true for nearly every good habit that makes it possible for people to live together peacefully, cooperate with one another, and be productive.

    Civilization is hard work. Even savages can’t afford to be footloose and spontaneous. They’re typically smothered in taboos and rituals. They just don’t have very good ones. They find a combination that keeps the tribe alive at subsistence level and stick to that. They don’t have much margin for error. Maybe we don’t have to drink from the skulls of our enemies to be strong, but if we guess wrong once we all probably die before Spring comes again.

    With all its faults, modern western civ stumbled on a cultural pattern that enabled unprecedented material prosperity and room for individuals to breathe. One of the big destructive lies – there are so many! – is that this was natural and that things would be even better if we did away with the remaining “artificial” constraints on human behavior. This is called sawing off the branch you’re sitting on, and we’ve cut through pretty far by now.

    For a “free society” to function at the macro-level, there has to be unremitting disciplinary formation of human appetite and impulse at the micro-, granular level. Free people aren’t born, they’re made.

    Like

  30. And in the spirit of this very short season, a shoutout to those of the XY persuasion who may have offspring or dependents.

    Enjoy your hay and augmented alfalfa and such – for today is Fodder’s Day.

    Like

    1. Bay doors open and locked.
      Targeting locked.
      Release point in 3… 2…. 1…
      Drop!Drop!Drop!
      Carp away!

      (Finny wet descending whistle…)

      Liked by 1 person

  31. “It is artificial, sure. And it requires the use of tons of artificial stuff, which is why the cultists of nature are sure it must be destroying something and killing something. Because…. it’s not natural.”

    What, pray tell, do these cultists consider “natural”? The palaces and wood and paper homes of Japan? They’re sustainable, after all. So are the stone and wood houses scattered throughout Europe. There’s at least one wooden church in I believe Sweden that is made entirely out of wood, including the nails.

    Is this what they mean by “natural”? Likely not. These buildings are all artificial, in their own way. So are the monuments of Ancient Greece and Rome. None of these things grew “naturally” – they had to be cut, quarried, and put together. Using applied human intelligence and tools. Sure, they had no air conditioning, electricity, or plastic. Why do I sincerely suspect the usual suspects would – if living in those time periods – scream that those domiciles were not natural?

    Liked by 1 person

  34. Here in the islands they make what is called Tako poki, its pretty tasty.
    Octopus, basicly boiled, beaten tender, then sliced into little pieces and mixed with all sorts of tasty stuff like hot peper flakes, soy sauce a little bit of seaweed, green onions and sesame seeds, put it on hot rice and voila you have a feast!

    Like

  35. Absolutely! It was truly weird. And it was so big a deal that people sold themselves into slavery for the CHANCE (not the PROMISE) of Roman citizenship. Which actually doesn’t show that Roman slavery wasn’t as bad as elsewhere — in many respects, it could be WORSE. But the chance at actually becoming Roman, becoming one of US, was that big a deal.

    Like

Comments are closed.