Dave, Marco and MF
Thanks to 3wd, for de-mystifying Indian culture. I have had a look
round local bookstores for more information but I guess there's not
that much interest in native American culture round here. (although
the People's Daily did have an interesting angle on it recently http://www.peopledaily.com.cn/english/200003/17/eng20000317O101.html)
So for now I'm restricted to the web and I found this on the Cheyenne
River Sioux Tribe's webpage:
"During the GOLDEN AGE of Siouan dominance and control of
the northern plains, our people developed a nomadic hunter/gather
existence which came into fruition with the coming of the horse.
The "HORSE CULTURE" of the roaming bands of Lakota people
has lent to the Lakota a certain "air" of mysticism that has captured
and fired the imaginations of thousands of non-Indian people across
the world.
Today in this modern era the nomadic Horse Culture which our people
lived by has come to be regarded as the stereotype of how all Indian people
should be portrayed. Indeed to non-Indian people the plains Indian is the
true representation of how all "real Indians" live.
Unfortunately through the commercial exploitation of our past by the movie
and television industry, including depictions in literature and art, the
stereotyping of Indian people continues to exist and is erroneously used
to perpetuate the "romantic ideal" of what all Indian people should be like
in real life encounters."
We also have to look at the original settlers themselves. Marco wrote that
they were "escaping" and we do tend to think of them as economic refugees
(as many of the later ones were), but my reading suggests that that wasn't
true of the first settlers.
In "The Way of the World" historian David Fromkin writes
"It should be pointed out that the Britain that gave birth to America was not
the Britain of the common majority. Many of those who sailed away to settle
in the New World were dissenters and non-conformist. There were seekers
of religious liberty; the Puritans of Massachusetts, the Quakers of Pennsylvania,
the Catholics of Maryland. There were the adventure-seekers and fortune-seekers.
There were also society's outcasts, including the convicts who settled Georgia.
There were those who rejected Britain and those whom Britain rejected. ... It set
a pattern in which the United States again and again took people, ideas, attitudes,
and much else from those in Britain who opposed the established order."
And then there are the ideas of freedom and equality. Pirsig
says that the Americans didn't get this from the history of Europe or Asia
or Africa and he says America has contributed to the history of the world. And
perhaps they did. But there also seems to be evidence that other cultures have
held this ideal as well.
Marco has already pointed out the Athenians who had democracy back in the fifth
century. Admittedly this didn't apply to women or slaves. But the idea was there
and it is a well-documented part of European culture.
And then there's Jesus Christ who preached equality and became arguably the
single most important influence on European culture EVER. Sometimes the
hardest things to see are the ones staring you in the face, but that one can hardly
be ignored! Sure the churches haven't been models of freedom over the years
but there have been plenty of good guys all the same and if you read the gospels,
the idea of equality is there. Jesus hung out with lepers and prostitutes, he
hated the officials. He said it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of
a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. Doesn't sound like
a guy who's real big on social hierarchy to me.
In Asia, China has been a meritocracy with freedom of opportunity in political
life for the past two millennia. Anyone, regardless of birth, who could pass the
government exams could become an imperial official. In practice it was difficult
for poorer students to support themselves during long years of study, but it did
happen and the principle we are looking for was there.
Serfdom in China was abolished way, way back in 1681. Peasants could no
longer be sold along with the land they farmed but were free to do as they pleased.
I'm not saying that the native Americans didn't have some affect on the first settlers,
perhaps they were the influence on American culture. But to argue that no-one else
ever thought of the ideas of freedom and equality before then seems debatable.
Marco wrote
>After 1492 Indian culture was corrupted by European culture and vice versa.
>The strange blending of Europeans, Indians, free space, opportunities
>preconditioned the crystal seed of modern idea of freedom.
I'm just not educated enough to know one way or the other, but I don't
think Pirsig's case is proven and Marco could be right.
MOQ.org - http://www.moq.org
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