The noble savage disscussion

The noble savage disscussion question:
A theme popular with Romantic artists was the idea of the "Noble Savage". The assumption was that people who lived in more "primitive" societies, being closer to the land, were somehow more "pure" or noble than people in Western cultures. Delacroix felt this way about Arabs (there are still Bedouins today living a nomadic lifestyle), and many American artists felt this way about Native Americans. The idea is so popular that Benjamin West even included a Native American in his Death of General Wolfe (even though the Indians fought on the side of the French, not the British). Do you think this sentiment exists still today? Can you give an example of it (in any form of art)? What, if anything, might be problematic with this view? Or do you think that this might be a positive way of thinking?

My reply:
I think this is a psychological viewpoint. Many artists delve deeply into the psychological (including filmmakers) and a purity of non-jaded persona is always considered closer to God or the pure essence of nature. Many of the paintings we have seen are related to that purity or pursuit of nature in one way or the other.
All of the books and movies that deal with the pre-history era (caveman or prehistoric American) make those that delve into the creative those that are set aside from the others as more intelligent and closer to the gods. In Stephen King's novel the stand, those that are by other standards defective (old, deaf, and retarded) are those closest to the "good side". Recently I viewed M. Night Shamalan’s movie "the Happening" and here those that did not interfere with nature were those saved or less susceptible to the neurotransmission.
Since our culture is based on the idea of fertility and closeness to the goddess of the earth, or Earth Mother, we seem drawn to those that do not appear as we do and live a simpler life that is obscure to us as we work harder and harder to have everything instantaneously and have are needs met.
More contemporary artists are always drawn to the human condition and lack of depth in our culture. When we honor wealth, fashion, or lifestyle there is always an artist to show us how transient these items are and the need to return to purity. On the other hand most of those in advertising are determined to feed us our trivial desires and raise them to a cult like worship. When we buy into these new icons we then are met with the desire to return to something simpler in time or circumstance.

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