Re: Amerindian resistance mode (was: amerindian an offensive
Paula Sanch (Paula.Sanch@emich.edu)
Wed, 07 Aug 1996 14:09:08 GMT
geroldf@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) wrote:
>In article <4u7fpp$h04@orphan.emich.edu>, Paula.Sanch@emich.edu (Paula Sanch) writes:
>|> geroldf@sdd.hp.com (Gerold Firl) wrote:
>|> The fact that he is adversarial on
>|> occasion is, IMO, unfortunate, but he's got plenty of company; it's
>|> *hard* to be adversarial if nobody's willing to fight with you.
>Yes - obnoxious noisemakers are best ignored.
Which is why most people eventually ignore you. I admit that I tried
very hard to understand you for several months. We even exchanged
private e-mail on the topic of adversariality, IIRC. After
considerable observation, I eventually came to see that you were
entrenched in your intransigence, and either unconsciously or
deliberately took stances which seemed calculated to provoke
opposition. I don't know a cure for that; only a change of heart (in
any of the senses of the phrase) works. I eventually stopped
following sci.anthro because I couldn't see much way for having a
rational discussion that you wouldn't eventually interject yourself
into, at which point it begins to experience entropy.
>The kind of population decrease needed to allow a return to traditional
>lifestyles would be a drastic one. It would take a major demographic
>disaster for such a thing to occur. The fact that industrial population
>growth rates are essentially flat will not produce such losses, and as
>you point out, there are plenty of people from less developed countries
>who are more than willing to make up the difference. There are just too
>many people in the US (and every other country, for that matter) for
>the traditional, low density lifestyle to be a viable option.
Ah, but Gerold, haven't you noticed that the *only* nations which are
not experiencing decreases in their population growth rates are the
most desperately backward nations? In time, they will begin to do the
same, unless they are deliberately excluded from
assistance/exploitation. Few NA peoples wish to exclude modern
technology from any area in which it does not affect their practices
of traditional culture (usually specifically tied to religious
beliefs, as is the case with the Navajo). Most NA tribes/nations want
most that their lands not be despoiled. I guess it depends on what
your vision of the Garden of Eden is, whether it is a place where
nature rules or where cultivated plants parade in orderly rows toward
the sunset.
>Of course they do. But until very recently, many indians were actually
>*ashamed* to be indian. They felt like they weren't as good as their
>conquerors. They still self-identified as indian, but those feelings
>were a difficult mixture of positive and negative feelings about what
>it meant to be an indian. The resurgance of indian pride over the last
>few decades has had to shed the legacy of shame and self-hatred; that
>cognitive dissonance can lead to irrationality.
*Where* *do* you get your information, please? I've *never* met
anyone who was ashamed to be NA, and the wanna-bes are all over
nowadays. It certainly used to be the case that there were people who
were *afraid* to be NA, as well as many who found it economically
unviable, if they were at all able to "pass" as white. My Uncle
Lindsay was never ashamed to be Cherokee. It got him on a Georgia
chain gang for a time, too! He was too dark, and not meek and
subservient enough. (This was in the 1930s.)
>Where do you stand?
For Truth, Justice and the (Native) American Way (just call me WW <big
grin>). Sorry, can't say I even *wanted* to resist!
>|> I know that it's unthinkable to you, but it's not hatred, but *love*
>|> that motivates them (us); a love and appreciation for who we are; the
>|> same kind of chauvinism which motivates you.
>Not quite. I can appreciate the great achievements of western culture
>at the same time that I deplore the massive damage and disruption to
>other cultures which the west has caused. I can love my family, my
>tribe, my nation, without hating anybody else. I can appreciate the
>great achievements of other cultures, and at the same time deplore the
>suffering which they have wrought. If you want to call that chauvinism,
>feel free, but I draw a distinction between that kind of chauvinism and
>the narrow, fanatical ethnocentrism of a bigot like eric brunner, for
>whom love of kind is the flip-side of hatred for everyone else.
>It's good to love and appreciate who you are, but it's healthier to
>also love and appreciate others for who they are.
Gerold, I took Latin in HS. I took *three* 500 level courses in
classical history in college (Hellenic, Roman & Hellenistic), and
*not* because I was a history major! I learned quite a bit of
(written) classical Greek entirely on my own. I *still* don't know
how to speak any of the 3 modern dialects of Tsalagi (Cherokee); I
just recently told an e-friend the embarrassing story of my first
attempts to pronounce Dalonega (GA; the place where gold was first
discovered in North America {by whites}, which cost my (and Steve's)
ancestors their green and lovely mountains.
I have friends from "every nation and tribe and tongue" I have ever
encountered. Among them are Israelis and Iraqis, "real" Indians and
Pakistanis, Chinese and Japanese, Irish and English. Making friends,
and appreciating them and the cultures which produced them has never
been a problem for me, or any other NA of whatever tribe whom I have
known. As a group (or groups), we tend on average to be *less*
xenophobic than most other ethnicities. I will not pose the obvious
question.
Paula.Sanch@emich.edu
-----------------------------
My object is to be perfectly frank, without hurting anyone's
feelings. My next impossible goal is . . . I dunno yet.
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