On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 03:24:22PM +0530, Deepa Mohan wrote: > On Wed, Oct 29, 2008 at 3:17 PM, Eugen Leitl <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > > > Are you familiar with the cargo cult? > > > > No, *I* am not...would rather ask you than google...what IS the cargo cult?
Asking Google is never wrong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult A cargo cult may appear in tribal societies in the wake of interaction with technologically advanced, non-native cultures. The cult is focused on obtaining the material wealth of the advanced culture through magical thinking, religious rituals and practices, believing that the wealth was intended for them by their deities and ancestors. Following contact with people from more technically advanced societies through exploration, colonization, missionary efforts, and international warfare, the cultures of New Guinea and other Micronesian and Melanesian countries in the southwest Pacific Ocean are locations where these religious movements were initially documented. Members, leaders, and prophets of cargo cults maintain that the manufactured goods ("cargo") of the non-native culture have been created by spiritual means, such as through their deities and ancestors, and are intended for the local indigenous people, but that, unfairly, the foreigners have gained control of these objects through attraction of these material goods to themselves by malice or mistake[citation needed]. Cargo cults thus focus on efforts to overcome what they perceive as the undue influence of the others attracting the goods, by conducting rituals imitating behavior they have observed among the holders of the desired wealth and presuming that their deities and ancestors will, at last, recognize their own people and send the cargo to them instead. Thus, a characteristic feature of cargo cults is the belief that spiritual agents will, at some future time, give much valuable cargo and desirable manufactured products to the cult members[citation needed]. In other instances, such as on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, cult members worship certain Americans, who brought the desired cargo to their island during World War II as part of the supplies used in the war effort, as the spiritual entity who will provide the cargo to them in the future. [1] ... It's being frequently used as 'cargo cult science' or 'cargo cult security'.
