about the passivity of victims and the ability of oppressors to get
their complicity.
One problem with that is the numbers of groups who have
resisted, not being passive. The Warsaw Ghetto uprisings, the Cherokees
on the Trail of Tears, the various other groups who fought back
against Removal or genocide.
about firm spiritual values as a bulwark against this.
Well, it isn't. Look at the South American countries, where
religion is very strong. The people are very poor and are often
reticent to risk what little they have in fighting back. But what are
you really defining as "spirituality"? You wrote that something,
perhaps humanism was/is "in which a person does not have a base in
anything other than self-interest and materialism......pragmatic
selfhood." This doesn't make much sense to me. Do you mean humanism?
You seem to also equate pragmatism with materialism, here.
About fatalism and pantheism leading to the downfall of a culture.
The Muslims are very fatalistic, as are quite a few other
groups, and they're still thriving. Maybe you mean that pantheism has
this effect? The question is what you're really trying to say here.
What is this thing you seem to have against (this undefined)
"pragmatism"? You wrote:
"Since the internal values become pragmatic, they depend
entirely upon external changebale circumstance, and can thus be
manipulated to produce the desired psychology."
One can have very strong internal positive values without having
a religious basis for them. These can be just as unshakeable as those
based in some religion.
Do you make a distinction between spirituality and religion?
This is not explicit in what you wrote. One can have a grasp on what is
"solid, something absolute," as Professor Wiesel writes often of,
without it being based in some religion or religious teaching.
Although, Dr. Wiesel argues in favour of religion as the basis.
Are you making any sort of hidden comparison between Native
spirituality and European Christianity here, somehow? It almost sounds
like you're arguing for Christianity here, since you denigrate
pantheism, as well as "pragmatism" (denigrating, but not defining, it).
What sort of spirituality would you actually prefer to see in
use?
-babs