Originally Posted by
ironchop
This thread is a demonstration of exactly why Noam Chomsky has A PhD in Linguistics....it's all in how you describe things depending on the message you're trying to push.
Nico and I usually agree on everything socially and politically except his perception of the tragic story of Native Americans versus my perception of the same people
Alot of folks, from my observation, have a much more critical approach to Natives versus White Europeans. I tend to think it's alot more complicated than just saying they got genocided over land. I think it should be looked at on a case by case basis and for us to consider context before allowing it all to be thrown under the genocide umbrella. The individuals are responsible and not the whole people who are forced to end up wearing the scarlet letter based on their ethnic similarity to the individual perpetrators.
Nicos right in that History is written by the victors and it absolutely had been infected with lies and deception in order to place one group firmly above the other ethically speaking in historical contexts for political purposes.
The problem today, is that the lying, omission, rewriting is now coming from the other side as well, in my opinion. I'm capable of being critical of myself and my perceptions so I've read the apologist's historical accounts as well as the historical accounts of guys like Howard Zinn. I think both contain kernels of Truth and knowledge but I know for certain that both are slanted and exaggerated for effect. This seems to be the case with several topics that involve white Europeans and anyone else that's not white or the whole North/South thing that people keep dwelling on.
My English/Norman paternal side arrived in about 1630. My maternal Irish side showed up about 1849. I know I'm supposed to believe they all just jumped off the boat and immediately started shootin ever damn 'Redskin' they seent because muh 'manifest destiny'.... But I don't. I don't believe that the simplistic version of events that is being taught today is anymore truthful than the simplistic version I learned in 1979. It's just completely slanted the other way. I don't care about what my forefathers and mother's did anyway because these are their sins to burn in hell for and not mine.
I think it's tragic that so much culture got destroyed over territory claims but I know for certain that native Americans weren't just peacefully sitting around trading kindly with all their neighbors when "white people" showed up with guns blazing and smallpox blankets to hand out as the story is often slanted.
I also knew better in 1979 when teachers told us that the Puritans were "just sitting around doing nothing when dem injuns attacked for no good reason and that Miles Standish was forced, I say forced to kill innocent injuns to make a point dat he is God's Will and stronger than them savages"
Those are both slanted accounts.
Heres my take:
I think that a group mixed with barbarians and peaceful people alike, crashed into another group mixed with barbarians and peaceful people alike and the side who had more advanced weapons won the war. I don't think one side was any worse than the other. It's humans being humans doing human stuff. I think the victors got land that was stolen from people who had stolen that very same land from the people before them that stole it from someone else before them, who had stolen it from the people before all of them. The proof is in the DNA.
For example..I read an article the other day that said "the Spanish conquistadors didn't bring Spanish women with them so they raped Taino women and created Mestizos in the process"....... wow. Cut and dried. Matter of fact, or so it would seem. So the message appears be that Conquistadors captured and raped Indian woman as opposed to abstinence or buying sex slaves to rape and that Mestizos are the product of Spanish rape and that no sex between a Taino and a Spaniard could have been consensual whatsoever or a prostitution transaction even though we know that in some societies, females were property and could be traded for sexual slavery or arranged marriage ("arranged marriage" is the PC term) ..... Sexual slavery and arranged marriage was considered normal to natives and Europeans alike. But wether the statement was partially true or not, the message is that Spaniards rape innocent Indian women. Period. No context. No proof. Anecdotes and generalizations are dangerous and misleading. If you are suspicuous of the written account of a total stranger today, then why not be just as suspicious of a written account of a random dead guy from six hundred years ago? It's not like lying was invented in 1776.... And just because I said I doubt it happened exactly as it's told doesn't mean I don't believe it happened. It means I have problems with the stories and the objectivity of the people who create them.
THIS is what linguists study.... Language and how it shapes thought and perception, semantics, etc.
They tried to trace where the "smallpox" blanket myth came from. ALOT of people believe that Americans routinely gave Indians blankets covered in smallpox in order to kill them and steal their land. This blatantly ignores the fact that it was only mentioned as a suggestion between one English nobleman writing to another in one letter and that you'd end up giving Europeans who contacted the same blankets the smallpox as well unless you found a now immune survivor from a previous infection to run the blanket store. The context of where the idea came from as well as the lack of any other evidence to back up the claim that there was a concerted effort to use bio warfare on natives process that it's a baseless claim but that seed was planted in the minds of kids who grew up into adults who now believe that it's historical fact. Perceptions shaped due to false information.
Another example:
Noam Chomsky has some good points in some of his book passages but it's all dependent on the perceptions of the reader as to wether or not they agree with him. So when you consider that the writer is a PhD linguist, it reminds you that the message has been carefully crafted by the writer who has a doctorate in carefully choosing one's word's in order to mold someones perception of the message in order to push an agenda.... which is the problems and solutions that he adresses (he floats between Anarchism and Socialism). I'm therefore wary of Chomskys anecdotal evidence and "scientific" evidence both because I realize he's basically a professional story teller and speech writer and therefore capable of twisting my perceptions if I'm not aware of the critical truths involved.
I say question everything you've been told no matter what direction it comes from. The Truth is somewhere in the middle.
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