>From: mamia.uucp!peshe@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (Peshewegunzh)
Peshe> Original-Sender: mamia.uucp!peshe@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (Peshewegunzh)
Peshe> Access to technology and learning gives no one divine right to
Peshe> dispose of the rights of others. That is a misuse of power. In
Peshe> any case, when most of the abuses occurred, the majority of
Peshe> Indians were living in conditions similar to those of the Europeans
Peshe> present, and any subsequent technological shortfall
Peshe> was the result of disarmament, confiscation and confinement.
This three-point policy is probably better summarized as 'fear and greed',
common bases for the western method of business --- whenever possible,
the competition is to be deprived of the same advantages. The treatment
of the first nations is not a unique event, then or now. In this, I
can agree with Peshewegunzh, except that I would add in the western
version of 'team spirit' which would have all european technology
first distributed to 'their side' and only reluctantly shared. From
what I have heard and read, this is quite different from the spirit of
both sharing and just plain giving which existed here before the
european invasion --- by their rules, the early conquerers must have
thought the native population easy targets --- even our dear Columbus
records his amazement of the ease with which he could talk one group
into procuring slaves for him from another (he'd plans to take both,
and like any Midway barker, he was not about to divulge his plans to
his 'mark').
Peshe> deprivation and living conditions were endured by Jews in Europe a
Peshe> century later under the Nazis. And if it wasn't for Hitler, we wouldn't
Peshe> have Volkswagens, right? Wrong. Good ends which would have occurred
Peshe> in any case impute no positive morality to bad means that are
Peshe> irrelevant to them.
Here I cannot agree. Perhaps we'd eventually have stumbled on the VW,
as it _is_ a pretty obvious idea to provide a reasonably safe and
durable automobile for a price nearly anyone can affort (and look at
the trouble _that_ altruism caused!), but an examination of world
history clearly shows significant improvement for ever increasing
numbers from all races despite the best efforts of the power mongers.
The late R.Buckminster Fuller felt these dinosaurs might be on a path
to their own extinction and may leave countless trampled forests in
their wake, but there is invariably a 'precession' effect, named for
the similar property of gyroscopes which produces other effects at
right angles to the original force. Large multinationals may have a
somewhat questionable ethical history, but we all benefit from the
e-mail infrastructure they found neccessary to build. Are they moral
or immoral, or is the question of judging them irrelevant? The WWII
war effort required air-superiority, and lo and behold, we can get
medicine and fuel to Resolute Bay or move a sick child from a remote
reserve to a Thunder Bay hospitals in hours. The same gusto also gave
us mustard gas (and then pesticides) and nuclear power. Are they
immoral or does it not matter? Is it something they must take up
with their creator?
Who is responsible for our sudden move to spend uncounted dollars to
install this? Who provided the impetus to solve the mushrooming
cost of transporting our wounded back from Europe by vast support of
medical research? One mad Austrian with an ideology so repugnant to us
and yet so 'logically' presented that our only recourse was for war?
(or maybe it _was_ a very opportune time for certain parties to grab
monopolies on metal reserves, as Fuller believed; the effects to us
now are the same)
It is my observation that no event can be all good or all bad, and
quite often the worst are also the best. If we can say nothing else
good about the western european invasion, it _did_ put an end to all
the by-comparison petty differences among the various first nations and
continues to bind an ever widening fellowship of First Peoples
world-wide (although I fear it will be a while before Celts and Jutes
are included :)
Peshe> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peshe> Peshewegunzh
Gary Murphy - Cognos Incorporated | "You think you're human.
P.O.Box 9707 Ottawa K1G 3N3 | But what if you've made a mistake,
(613) 738-1338 x5537 | As humans sometimes do,
garym%cognos.uucp@ccs.carleton.ca | And you is an Angel, instead?"
uucp: cognos!garym | -- Sun Ra