I accidentally turned out The Gods Must Be Crazy ("God Is Crazy"), an "old" movie that was a little older than me, and my thoughts flew back to the mysterious land I had always longed for, but This time, the protagonist is no longer the surging river of Okavango, but the Bushmen living in seclusion in the hinterland of the Kalahari desert. The picture quality and plot setting of the film can be laughed at. Only the old director Uzy's inquiries about modern civilization shocked me. Similar inquiries seem familiar in Mr. Miyazaki's "Princess Mononoke".
The contrast between the two ways of living is so sharp that it is dazzling, and the director's praise and criticism are beyond words. But, is our civilization really going in the wrong direction? What is going wrong?
In Uzy's lens, the naked Bushmen enjoy life freely and carefree, without selfish desires, and of course no disputes. They don’t have to be woken up by the 6 o’clock alarm clock every day, and they don’t have to worry about being the boss all day long. Fired, such a scene will inevitably remind people of the Garden of Eden and the "Golden Age". However, the reality is that perhaps the Bushmen are really happy, but at least materially speaking, they have never lived in heaven, and not even now. Think about it, who would take the initiative to choose Kalahari as a homeland? Does anyone want to try sleeping naked on the sand on a sub-zero winter night? Anyway, this is not what heaven looks like as I imagined it. But they have no choice, there is the last "reserve" of this ancient nation.
"THE Bushmen were members of a division of the human species that in all probability once occupied the whole, or nearly the whole, of the African continent. It would seem that they were either totally exterminated or partly exterminated and partly absorbed by more robust races pressing down from the north, except in a few secluded localities where they could manage to hold their own, and that as a distinct people they bad disappeared from nearly the whole of Northern and Central Africa before white men made their first appearance there. "
from The fate of this race can be clearly outlined in the research notes published by Bleek and Lloyd in 1911: The Bushman (Bushman, or later'San') was once the master of almost the entire African continent, but it was gradually developed due to slow evolution. It was replaced by the Hottentot and Bantu people with a higher level of civilization (this is a relatively elegant term that conceals the bloody process of conquest. Imagine how whites replaced the Indians in the New World), so when the whites colonized later When they discovered them, their living area had shrunk to the desert hinterland. Of course, it is precisely because of isolation that the last small group of Bushmans were lucky enough to survive and appear in front of that magical camera lens.
The following map from "National Geographic" clearly shows the shrinking process of Bushmen's territory.
http://www.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0102/images/feature6_mapFull.jpg
The Bushmen’s civilization has almost always been in a state of stagnation, and their language is so ancient that human scholars scratch their heads (look at that lovely Xixo actor, There is also a! Sign in his name. To make this sound, you have to roll up the tip of your tongue and tap your upper jaw before quickly retracting it. God, what kind of sound is this), and their ability to learn new things is quite poor. Colonists The transformation plans that have been adopted all ended in failure (of course, it may also be related to the method), and this is how the Bushmen in South Africa slowly became extinct. So it is not surprising that they still only make wooden tools.
However, despite the poor living conditions and low productivity, these do not prevent Bushman from enjoying the joy of life. They have an innate optimism, and this optimism is often seen in other "barbaric" societies, such as the South Bikwaras in South America (they are truly naked). On the contrary, we modern people who enjoy advanced material civilization are frowning all day long, suffering from livelihoods. It seems that the so-called happiness is more related to desire than the status quo. Isn’t there an old saying in China that “satisfaction is always happy”, those evolutionary backwards are quite the true essence of lazy philosophy-I was inspired by Heinrich back then. The influence of the lazy man’s philosophy has since been proud of laziness... But if we are all rushing for happiness, then it seems that it is indeed necessary to stop and learn from Xixo. If judged by happiness, Bushmen’s lives are indeed closer to heaven than ours. So who is going the wrong way?
I'm afraid it's too late to think about it. Obviously, such a civilization with backward productivity cannot protect itself, even if it can provide more happiness. Even if it used to be heaven, Satan would definitely come in - an ordinary glass bottle, accidentally descending on Xixo's tribe from a pilot, was enough to cause an unprecedented dispute. Although at the end of the film, Xixo threw the evil bottle to the clouds, but who can guarantee that such a fragile civilization can withstand Satan's next attack? In fact, the Garden of Eden has now fallen. The young Bushmen have begun to accept the things of the civilized world: bicycles, radios, and they have even learned to claim drug patent royalties through litigation! How long can Bushman culture, those unparalleled tracking masters, exist in this world? One kind of civilization that represents advanced productivity replaces the other that is backward. The pace of evolution never thinks about other complicated issues. Darwinism is so straightforward. Victory is only measured by survival. This is a one-way street. Unfortunately, we have no way to look back, we can only go on.
On the road to find happiness, we are getting farther and farther away from the Garden of Eden that we may once have. Perhaps, there is another paradise waiting at the end of this one-way street.
Cited from my blog:
http://naturalist.bokee.com/4989502.html
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