I'm just reading this and am a bit confused. The dude might be racist or whatever... idk, but wouldn't a culture that never developed written language be fairly considered "underdeveloped" in modern times?
Just a weird thread that turned to name calling super fast, and I'm not sure where that concept is wrong. Unless you believe humanity would be better developed if it devolved backwards to a point that written language didn't exist?
I am just someone on the Internet, same as you. My expertise can be whatever I tell you, and is as important as whatever you want to claim as you expertise. Which is to say, it's not important at all. I could be lying and so could you. Doesn't mean we cant discuss things
But I'm pretty sure written language is a huge milestone in cultural development that most professionals would agree with. It is a huge advancement in almost all areas of civilization like the medicinal, cultural and technological fields. Hell, it literally changed our brains.
So the question is more, do you believe humanity was actually better before we made that giant leap? Because creating a written language fits perfectly into the definition of development.
My guess is that it'd be an extremely rare case that a culture was "better" before it came up with a written language. They just didn't have to capability of destruction that 8 billion people to.
You are judging indigenous cultures through a capitalist lens. It's just not going to look like any of the indigenous people were successful.
Native Americans had written languages. They had their own philosophies (men can not "own" land). On the other side of the coin they had wars and genocides but just as the genieva convention exists today they had agreements on how to conduct those things.
But it's so much easier saying the brown people are savages.