Hey Greg,
When I originally saw this article on CNN.com, I had a momentary reaction that was somewhat similar to yours. As I looked at the picture of these men pointing their bows and arrows towards the plane, I was caught up in a moment of sadness. How alien and frightening this must seem if they truly never have witnessed such advanced technology before.
But then I read your post and I started to ask myself some questions. First on that list was this:
why leave them alone? In other words, what is the point of leaving them alone? What are we trying to protect? What are the underlying assumptions that we are making when we have this reaction?
Interestingly enough, in the CNN article, the author briefly mentioned that several "uncontacted tribes" in Peru were being "pushed" by illegal logging towards another "uncontacted tribe" of 500 in Brazil. The reason I bring this up is simple. Globalization is upon us and the world is shrinking by the minute. On some level, I think it is extremely niave to think that we can somehow set up "zones" around the less the 100 "uncontacted tribes," thereby protecting them from exposure to the outside world. As the world population continues to rise, more and more resources are required to sustain that life, and the simple fact of the matter is, the need for those resources will ultimately drive "civilized society" to push into regions where these folks live. I'm not saying that I am either for or against this. I'm simply arguing that there is a certain inevitability about contact at some point in the future. So, the question becomes, who do I want contacting these groups? What is the message that I would want communicated to them? Who do I believe will do the best job in terms of respecting their dignity as a people?
But back to the original question of "why?". Why is it that the overwhelming reaction amongst the secular media is a felt need to protect these individuals from exposure to the outside world? My initial suspicion is that many people are mistakenly assuming that there is a sort of "innocence" to the tribe and that any exposure to the "outside" will somehow corrupt and ultimately consume/absorb the tribe. But why do we assume innocence and purity? These people are just like the rest of us in that they too suffer from original sin. They are depraved, fallen and ultimately in need of salvation. But even if you don't want to go to the theological perspective, I still ask: why assume innocence? You read revisionist history today and what you find is that white guilt has lead many liberal scholars to assume that the Native Americans were happy and peaceful prior to our existance. You discover sad attempts to justify a belief that African tribes were joyfully coexsiting with one another prior to the contact with Western Europe. This simply is not the case. Native Americans were regularly engaged in barbaric attacks upon one another and in the end, they were every bit as violent and as oppressive as the White colonists who ultimately overtook them proved themselves to be. Same goes for the Africans. If you study the history of the Atlantic Slave Trade (as I did for my Wilberforce screenplay), you discover that many, many slaves were delivered into the hands of the white traders by tribes that had conquered other tribes and were now selling off the spoils of their victory.
So again, why assume innocence, why assume purity? And if your answer is: "I don't assume innocence, I don't assume purity," than why protect them from contact with the outside world. If you are assuming that they already have individual/societal ills (much like the outside world does), what is it that you are trying to protect them from?
Perhaps we are trying to protect their culture and their way of life? But in many ways, I would argue that this is an impossibility. As I stated earlier, contact is an inevitability. It's just a matter of when. Moreover, contact has already been made. This tribe, which we will assume has never seen anything of the outside world before, has now seen a plane pass overhead and has felt, on some level, a need to protect itself from said airplane. But the question here is: what does that level of contact do to their worldview? As a Wheaton grad, I'm sure you recall the story of Jim Elliot. When the tribe he was trying to reach first saw the plane, they assumed it to be some form of god. Their worldview was relatively unsophisticated (by comparison to the outside world), and they adapted this new data into their framework. But the data was processed entirely inappropriately because the framework was faulty. This led to many internal problems within the tribe and huge impacts upon the tribe itself. In other words, their way of life and their culture already changed as a result of the early contact of seeing a plane. So there is no way to protect their culture and there is no way to protect their way of life. Initial contact already has been made and the effects are even now being felt throughout their society. So the new question becomes: do you want a role in helping them to understand and interpret what they have just seen, or do you want them trying to fit this new bit of data into a worldview that will ultimately be changed anyway because of the inevitable greater degree of contact that will be made at some point in the future?
Lastly, and here I am venturing out into more theological territory, I would suggest that humanity has been designed with a felt need to both "know and be known" In other words, we were not designed to live in isolation. Even in the garden, when things were "good" and morally perfect, God recognized Adam's need to have someone like him. Hence, Eve. The point here is if Adam felt this need to "know and be known" by someone like him (and Adam was living in the Garden) how much more likely is it that we have this same need in an even more pronounced way, given the alienating effects of the Fall itself?
But don't stop there because the felt need to "know and be known" as it relates to huamnity and its relationship with God remains a constant through Scripture. God walks with Adam and Eve whilst in the Garden, but never in the same way after the Fall. The Old Testament is a prolonged story of walking with and walking away from God. The New Testament is a Covenant that recognizes this need, but also recognizes our inability to satiate that need on our own terms. Hence, Christ does the work for us.
But look beyond that. Look to cultures worldwide. Do you realize how rare an aetheistic culture really is? Arguably, society down through the ages has born remarkable testimony to the Augustinian / Pascalian ideal of the "god-shaped hole" (a paraphrase - not a direct quote - for arguments made by both men). If that is true, that humanity has a "hole" that it is looking to fill with God, and if it is true that Christ is the way, the truth and the life, why would we allow men to ignorantly fill the hole with a worldview - or even a god - that will ultimately fail to deliver? Would this not be the height of Christian failure - to know the truth, but deny it to those that desperately need it?
These are just some thoughts, friend. And I would be curious to continue the dialog.
