We aren’t trying to be druids, or native americans, just trying to not poison ourselves, heal it when we do hurt ourselves, and not screw up the dirt. Turns out you aren’t even supposed to dig it up and turn it over ! Ocean water is best for everything in small amounts. Worms destroy forests.

It’s way harder than quantum chromodynamics.

Truth: Some do. On the other hand, some idolize them far beyond what they are.

First, no. The numbers you have are reversed. Most westerners do not live in the humbling places, and most westerners assume that foragers are primitive forms of humans. Also, those who “idolize them” and see them through Rousseauian glasses are not failing to look down on them by doing so.

I can count on the number of fingers found in a typical group of foragers the number of people I know who have a realistic, reasonably accurate idea of forager lifeway, what it involved, and what the variation is. Others are not intentionally looking down (or up) at foragers, but most think that they know enough to have opinions. Which they don’t and they shouldn’t. What most people think of foragers is fantasy, one way or another. The people who are being concieved of deserve to be thought of as they are or have been, just like anyone else.

http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/missionaries/

What I’ve read of missionary history suggests that while they were by definition not cultural relativists, and certainly not free from racism and cultural bigotry, they also had far more nice words for their host cultures than non-missionaries. Typically that would be along “noble savage” lines, less decadent etc. In many senses the opposite of morally inferior.

That’s historical missionaries. Today, it’s a rare missionary to “primitive” peoples who isn’t passionately concerned with the protection of their language, ways of life and traditions (as long as they don’t conflict with the missionary’s religion … in which they can be recorded and stored away like the Icelandic Eddas).

Truth: Some do. On the other hand, some idolize them far beyond what they are. Some have lived in the third world (and in the field, desert, and mountains here in the U.S.) and know a lot of what’s involved in survival as a hunter-gatherer (and how much harder it is if you don’t start with at least a knife).