New poll shows 7 in 10 leftists think Native American tribes lived in peace and harmony
Jack Elbaum
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Tuesday, the Skeptic Research Center released a report titled “Are ‘White People’ Morally Deviant?” It asked people about “the impact of European settlers,” the ability of racial minorities to succeed in America, and “whether it’s shameful to be white.”
Likely the most striking finding was that, among those who are “very liberal,” 71.2% agreed with the statement, “Prior to the arrival of the European settlers, Native American/ Indigenous tribes lived in peace and harmony.” This result was the highest among ideological groups and likely constitutes a type of orthodoxy in far-left circles.
This finding is interesting for two reasons. First, it is interesting that the most ascendant political tribe among young people, the “progressives” or the “very liberal,” holds a belief that is so at odds with the historical record.
Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker pointed out in 2007: “Contra leftist anthropologists who celebrate the noble savage, quantitative body counts — such as the proportion of prehistoric skeletons with ax marks and embedded arrowheads or the proportion of men in a contemporary foraging tribe who die at the hands of other men — suggest that pre-state societies were far more violent than our own.” Importantly, the relevant distinction between people today and Native American tribes is not racial but rather the structure of society (pre-state versus state). This is consistent with Thomas Hobbes’s observation that absent a structured society, “the life of man [is] solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”
The second reason this finding is interesting is because of what it says about leftists’ view of the United States. People of all political persuasions often profess certain beliefs when asked, not because they have a real opinion on it but because they can presume what is correct merely by considering the question’s implications with respect to their other political priorities. In this case, the fact that so many who are “very liberal” assumed this was the proper answer for them tells us that they look at the U.S. as a uniquely bad actor in world history, a nuisance in world affairs. The assumption is that absent the U.S., the world is a good, peaceful place and that the problems in the world can largely be attributed to unnecessary, power-grabbing actions by large powers like the U.S. Traces of this worldview can be found in conversations related to everything from foreign affairs to policing.
When one person professes this belief, we can call them wrong. When this belief becomes normal, it has dire implications.
And where did any of this come from? The Skeptic Research Center’s founder, Michael Shermer, has an idea. He wrote, “Since most people do not study archaeology or read books about the history of violence their attitudes & beliefs come from cultural/social beliefs so these generational differences reflect what people have learned in school, picked up from pop culture, etc.”
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This hypothesis certainly resonates with my personal experience in high school history, in which the teacher had a preoccupation with “debunking” the “lies” that conventional historians tell. The issue, of course, is that in trying to reframe the entirety of American history such that it becomes primarily oppositional, truth is often sacrificed in the process.
The future of America often starts in the classroom. It’s time to get back to teaching history rather than “counterhistory.”
Jack Elbaum is a summer 2023 Washington Examiner fellow.