America’s Original Sin

The book, The Earth is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West by Peter Cozzens tells the tale of the genocide of the Native Americans. At the beginning of the expansion, it was said that the Natives were savages who killed children and raped women. This led to the army declaring ‘total war‘, something the Nazis would later do to kill Jewish people, the disabled et al, which meant that the US army were justified and raping women and imprisoning them as sex slaves, the very actions the duplicitous accused the Natives of in order to justify their war. 

Whilst reading the tale one has to admit that, reading about General Custer, making children run barefoot on razor sharp ice then shooting them in the face, one does have the smug feeling of, you wait Custer, you’ll get yours, but one has to be careful not to create a black and white picture of the events. He biggest argument in defence of the genocide is that the Natives were not all ‘A proud and noble band/Who farmed the Phoenix Valley/In Arizona land’ to use the words from the Peter Lafarge song, The Ballad of Ira Hayes, recorded by the likes of Johnny Cash, and it is true that some of the tribes went to war with other tribes and even wiped out whole tribes in land disputes (note the irony of one tribe wiping out another only to, months later, have themselves wiped out by the Americans for land), yet there is a marked difference between inter-tribal wars and the wiping out of an entire indigenous people.  The claims that the Natives raped women and killed children is also true, but, most, not all, of the cases of these have been shown to be in retaliation of the same happening to their own people. Whilst we cannot condone this, it is important to put it into the context of it being, mostly, reactionary, and not initiated by the Natives.  

The question we must ask here, is why did the Americans act in this manner? The first answer is greed. Many of the Natives slaughtered were killed along wagon trails to get to newly discovered plots of gold. The American dream has always been to get rich and with wealth gain status. Whilst it cannot be said that this was a new invent from the Americans having lived in such conditions in Europe prior, the notion that everyone can do so and if the only opposition to the dream is a few vagabonds, then there is no obstacle.

The white Europeans had a very different concept of ownership to the Natives. There is a quotation passed down from many generations, so much so that the origins have been lost, which lays out the Native notion of ownership, namely we own nothing and belong to something greater than us:

‘When the blood in your veins returns to the sea,

and the earth in your bones returns to the ground,

perhaps then you will remember

 that this land does not belong to you,

it is you who belong to the land’  

whereas, to the Americans, seeing a people without farms and fixed roots, homesteads and churches, assumed that they were vagabonds and therefore had no rights as a civilised people as, to be blunt, how could they be civilised if they did not toil the land or drink whiskey?  All this led to the dehumanisation of a people, and once the ‘enemy’ have been made less than you, then if you exploit them it doesn’t matter. Thusly, treaties could be broken for, if the Native does not conform to your ‘civilised’ ways, then surely, they are responsible for the consequences? And if you are a General in an army who is bored, insecure, wanting to impress, then so what if you wipe out a village? After all, there is no difference to killing animals to killing vagrants. And if you are implementing Manifest Destiny, the belief that the colonising of the land was the Will of God, then not only are you civilising the world, but you are doing it with God’s blessing! Or, as Bob Dylan put it in his song about the history of America, With God on Our Side:

‘Oh, the history books tell it

They tell it so well

The cavalries charged

The Indians fell

The cavalries charged

The Indians died

Oh, the country was young

With God on its side’

In the modern world we constantly hear how slavery is America’s Original Sin. This is not the case. Slavery, as terrible as it is, was a by-product of the genocide of the Native and indeed African Americans helped with the genocide. The term Buffalo Soldier was given to the black soldiers by the Natives, whether out of respect or due to an aesthetic similarity to the buffalo is unknown but it just reinforces the point that the genocide of the Native is the Original Sin of America and all founding Americans are complicit in it.

We hear a lot about racial justice, racial justice referring to the treatment of African Americans at the hands of the police, the justice system, and much of society yet it is clear that this will not come about until the Original Sin is addressed. European Americans (note: I am using European Americans to denote white people as to say Black Americans is considered racist so instead of calling them all Americans who just happen to have different skin colours, one must point out that they are not ‘true’ i.e. white Americans, another problem why America struggles with racism is this absurd inability to call a spade a spade and say we are all Americans) will not have to march saying ‘You will not replace us’, nor carry guns for defence against their own country, nor will African Americans live in fear of the police if all band together to address the real Original Sin, the genocide of the Natives.

‘till next time (I fear)         

What About?

For many millennia the art of disagreement was sophisticated and elegant. Two people would stand opposite each other and shout at the top of their voices, simultaneously,

I have two points. 1) you are a poopy head and 2) I am always right in what I think

 Some might find this art lacking in class and sophistication but if we look carefully at it we can see that a) both make their points and feel heard and b) neither point was worth making therefore it is good that no one actually heard or listened.

In the last few years, this once noble art has been replaced by something too vulgar to even consider. Now the discourse has become, two people standing opposite each other, shouting simultaneously,

I have two points. 1) you are a poopy head (note: some things never change) and 2) yes, this person did something bad, but someone you like also did something, unrelated to what we are talking about, bad, so why aren’t you shouting at them?

In the last few years there has been a rise in the falling of standards of discourse (see what I did there? Rise and fall, very clever). With what is known as WHATABOUTISM dominating conversation, not only on social media, evidence if there was ever any doubt that we are not a social species in the way that Aristotle meant, but also in political discourse. Let us, for a moment consider a something I saw on social media the other day. Commenting on a news story about an actor not being cleared of being labelled by the courts ‘a woman beater’ (to avoid the being asinine I will not name Johnny Depp as the legally named woman beater), someone said that it was unfair as the women who the courts said he beat, (again I won’t use Amber Heard’s name, who also was charged with beating Johnny Depp), also beat him and yet she still finds the opportunities to cash in on the Hollywood film roles whereas he can’t. This, she said, was unfair and Depp should be able to have the same opportunities.

Let this sink in for a moment. Two people were found guilty by the Court of Law, yet one seems to be punished and the other not so the argument from the public is that, if she isn’t punished, he shouldn’t be punished either. Or, in other words, they are both guilty so instead of punishing both, neither should be punished.

This, unfortunately, is the level of ignorant, morally-bankrupt, discourse that takes place in society. Arguments such as, people can go to pubs and not follow social distancing so why can’t thousands of people go to sporting events? Is, as you can see, backwards. It is saying, other people can act badly, so why can’t I? It is the very argument that children use, which parents counter with, ‘if Jimmy jumps off a cliff, would you?’ aka, if they do bad, stupid things, would you also do bad stupid things? (Note: it seems the answer to that question for many is yes).

The psychological cause for this is threefold. 1) people think they are special, the exception (note: if everyone is the exception then no one is) and they alone can break the rules, 2) people are unable/unwilling to take personal responsibility, and 3) people are so thin skinned that they think a justifiable criticism of someone else doing something ‘bad’ is an attack on them personally.     

Unfortunately, this, ignorant, self-serving psychology is inherent in society, probably always has been just think how settlers/conquers decimated native populations, and now this veneer has been removed and people are seen for what they are, wannabe Moses standing on the mountain holding tablets (pun intended), cowering, saying, this is the law as I have laid down but don’t look at me or question me as I am too afraid.

Whataboutism is simply the inability to take responsibility for one’s self or one’s actions. The defence of simply indefensible actions (think the assault on the US capital by the British in 1812, (bet you thought I was referring to a more recent event? Tee hee)) by saying that they are not bad actions because somewhere in the world other people are doing bad actions is so dumb that a word has not been created yet to show the depth of stupidity and insecurity which one must possess to take criticisms of objectively bad events as slights on one’s own self.

Makes me long for the halcyon days when people would just shout at each other, even if it is the second dumbest form of discourse.

‘till next time

Can I Trust My Thoughts?

The other day, whilst out walking in the countryside, I nearly fell off the floor. As I walked, I was listening to an old Leonard Cohen interview from the time his book Book of Mercy came out. For those who don’t know, Book of Mercy is, essentially, what the book of Psalms was to King David in the Judaeo-Christen Bible. During the interview, Cohen was asked if he believed in God (or a question of that ilk) and Cohen replied that such thoughts were just that, thoughts and that when someone enters the state required when all one can do is write the book then it is not a question of thought, it is something beyond that.

I have long held the opinion that there is a difference between thinking something and knowing something. For example, often people who act as though they are special, think that they are special and often are not whereas those who are special act as they are, and it is self-evident that they are special. The difference being one is acting in a certain way and the other is a certain way.

When one studies Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, one of the motifs that one is taught is that emotions are like the waves, i.e. transient. Anger, hate, frustration, joy, peace etc. are all emotions that rise and fall, changing from one moment to the next. We could argue that it is possible to go beyond the emotion and find the route core of the emotion and inhabit a purer state of the emotion, not riding the sea of emotion. This, possibly, is what happens when one reaches enlightenment and finds peace, or when one becomes consumed by anger and turns to anger (one’s sense of self, or maybe, self, becomes consumed by anger) etc. But, if it is true for emotions, feelings, then is it not likely that it is the same for thoughts too?

From one day to the next our thoughts about ourselves change. One day we might think that we are good people, the next bad. One day we might feel we are thin, the next day fat. What these have in common is that they are influenced by external stimuli. Depending on our surroundings we may feel differently. Surrounded by Einstein, McCullers, Tesla, Hypatia et al, we may justifiably think we are stupid intellectually. Surrounded by three-year olds we may feel wise and knowledgeable, two examples of how our thoughts of who we are can be changed by external sources, creating wholly subjective constructs of our self.

Whilst we cannot look at these thoughts and say they are us, indeed the human mind in prone to doubt and in moments of weakness people can put thoughts in our heads which make us doubt truths we know (just think of terrorist recruitment or the myth that alcohol isn’t a boring waste of time or that cigarettes don’t kill and are cool) it is important to note that these thoughts are just that, in the words of the German philosopher Nietzsche,

‘Thoughts are the shadows of our feelings — always darker, emptier and simpler’

and that

‘When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago’

and so when we are tired we are more plagued by negative transient emotions and our core becomes one of doubt. Indeed, I think it is safe to say that many of the weaknesses exhibited by humans stems from self-doubt created by negative emotions stemming from a lack of knowledge of our true selves and negative external stimuli.

However, I cannot say that what Mr Cohen said about being beyond thought to find a truth is true for, all I know, the fact that he could articulate his state beyond thought in words suggests that he was still in, maybe a deeper, darker, state of thought. Ultimately, I think we can never know who we truly are as we are shaped by nature and nurture. Some things we experience are beyond thought, sure, when I see a pretty girl I feel happy or when I listen to Beethoven’s 9^th symphony I feel elated, not consciously, rather I am conscious of an unconscious state and maybe this ‘instinct’ is our true self, and any doubts one may have are just that, self-doubts.

These, as you can see, are dangerous thoughts for if we are our thoughts, as Rene Descartes eludes to, then to question our thoughts is to question our very consciousness and is to question our very ‘being’. I think that the best thing to take away from this is the truth that emotions are transient and our thoughts are intrinsically linked to our emotional states. Thusly, it seems, our meaning in life is to find a core of peace within one’s self (from self-knowledge, in part) and try to enjoy what goes on both without and within for this is life and life should be lived, after all, our time is not long.

‘till next time    

Mavericks and Perception

The other day, I was listening to a radio programme discussing maverick football players. A maverick was defined as someone who can do something exceptional, consistently, think Zidane or Cruyff or Messi or the Real Ronaldo (not to be mistaken for the fake Ronaldo who plays for Portugal).

It was agreed, on the show, that the definition of a maverick must include their type of personality, that they must be an extravert. One example given for this was the Swedish player Zlatan Ibrahimović. Whilst, ‘Zlatan’ (as he calls himself in the third person) is an exceptional football player it is clear that he is not in the same bracket as Messi, Pele et al which then makes one wonder, why is ‘Zlatan’ considered both a maverick and one of the best players of all time?

The later part of this was me being mischievous, as I have never heard anyone state that Ibrahimović is one of the best of all time. One player who is currently being spoken of in such terms is the Polish striker Robert Lewandowski who has scored 35 goals in the German top division (Bundesliga), putting him 5 behind the record set by one of the greatest goal scorers of all time, Gurd Muller. It has been agreed that if Lewandowski wasn’t injured he would easily pass the record set by one of the greatest of all time, Muller, of 40 goals in one season. The average goal scorers in the league, before Lewandowski were hitting 20-25 goals, that Lewandowski consistently scores 30+ most seasons (he has 197 goals in 215 senior appearances for Bayern Munich over seven years) should be something which knocks our socks of, a scoring record comparable over a duration of time only with (current players) the likes Lionel Messi (467 in 511 games for Barcelona over 17 years) and Cristiano Ronaldo (386 from 380 games over 12 years with Real Madrid and Juventus) to name two.

The question then, must be, how can someone with an inferior goal to game record, someone who has never, despite playing for some of the best clubs (richest) in the world, never reached the UEFA Champions League final, be considered a maverick whereas someone who, last season, won all six trophies available, is not? The answer is personality.

The personality of ‘Zlatan’ is very extrovert and when he makes comments such as:

“No way, Zlatan doesn’t do auditions.”

“I can’t help but laugh at how perfect I am.”

“What do you mean, ‘present?’ She got Zlatan.”

– On his ex-girlfriend’s engagement gift.

“I came like a king, I left like a legend.”

the media fawn over him and make comments such as, look what he said, he must be a great player! What a maverick! I have often wondered, if Ibrahimović spent less time self-promoting, would he be considered as much as he is? The answer, I can confidently say, is no. Why can I say no? Simply because people rarely talk about his qualities as a player, rather they get swept up in his self-promoting hype and talk about his public persona, a persona which has, it might be said, more characteristics of narcissism than genius.

We have seen that over history the greatest minds are often the least assuming. Tesla focused on his work, as he was constantly creating, whereas Edison, who was more proficient at marketing other people’s work as his own than creating his own work, yet we all know of Edison and few known of Tesla except when popular culture treats him derisively. Steve Jobs is synonymous with Apple  yet contributed nothing to Apple  except his self-promotional marketing skills and the worst parts of Apple (Jobs was an insecure control freak which is why Apple products can only be used with Apple products and you need special tools to open the casing to fix or improve upon the product).

As they say, nothing happens in a vacuum and these narcissists would be ignored if there wasn’t something in society which elevated them and gave them a platform to stand upon. The power of the narcissist lies in the insecurities of the audience (which is why narcissists actively despise confident people whom they cannot manipulate) and as the majority of the society is either narcissistic or insecure, the worst of human nature rises to the surface and the mediocre become geniuses and mavericks.

‘till next time