Tunnel Vision in Western Thought?

SAM said:
So the Iroquois lost because they did not expect the white men to be different from what they already knew and had seen and were content to leave alone?
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They lost in part because they did not respect the newcomers, or treat them as equals. They did not learn from them, pick up their various tricks and techniques, form marriage and other alliances with them, or organize themselves to establish and enforce political agreements as they would (and had, vs the Cherokee) involving Red people.

The Iroquois did not, for example, in a hundred and fifty years of contact, pick up the custom of domesticating meat animals. They did not learn to read and write. They did not learn anything about ironworking (the raw materials were lying around, ready to hand). They did not learn to build boats suitable for trade and transport across the Great Lakes. They did not learn to weave fabric. They despised White ways as beneath them, White people as useless except as a source for trade goods like steel knives and blankets, without ever respecting the strangers who could produce those blankets.

The new Whites, coming in about 1715, did. They respected the Reds, took them very seriously, learned a lot from them and adopted many of their well-established ways, married and formed other political alliances with them, lived among them child and adult, picked up their languages and politics, and in general established themselves as equals in life on their terms. This lack of tunnel vision proved to be a significant advantage, when push came to shove.
 
S.A.M. said:
Does looking for distinguishing features increase susceptibility to bigotry?
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Such myopia appears to play a strong role in your own bigotry, at least.

The entire premise of your argument here is over-emphasis of a purported distinction between Asians and Westerners, for one. And then there's your illustrious history of othering the Jews... doesn't sound very "Asian," to me.
 
Grim_Reaper said:
The bucket of Indian Crabs did not want to go anywhere or do anything cause they get there Welfare check on a regular basis.
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A welfare check is a social responsibility of any government .
The welfare check cuts crimes, chaos and injustice in society .
Nowadays nearly most of the countries have a way similar to the welfare check .
 
Fee Fi Fo Fum, I see no light at the east end of the western tunnel vision. :shrug:
 
geoff said:
iceaur is close. unfortunate as it is, the indians were the aggressors.
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No, they were not.
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After a century of mutual dealings, including aggressions from both sides, the blame for individual events can - sometimes - be a judgment call.

The eventual destruction of the Cherokee, the Five Nations, and the others, and the evils attending it, were far in the future at the time. The Iroquois were at the time we are discussing the major military and political organization in that region of North America - and the further misfired unification of the outlying Nations, under Tecumseh, a generation away. The various Red nations' various alliances and conflicts - with the British, with the French, with the Colonials, with each other, as defending victims and willing bringers of aggressive war in their turn - were still playing out. The outcome was uncertain - had Tecumseh not had a foolish, jealous brother, had the Cherokee joined forces with the Five Nations and the Creek Valley settlements and all made war on the slave plantations, had a dozen other circumstantial events turned otherwise, the outcome might have been quite different.

The Reds were not wholly wise, or wholly in the right, or innocent of the crimes of this "tunnel vision" mentality - they too were faced with a new world and a new people, and they too fell short of "holistic" appreciation of what this meant.
 
S.A.M. said:
How would you address the subject on its own terms? By dissociating it from all other forms of segregation, ethnic cleansing and colonialism?
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yes
it helps in concealing hypocrisy and historical precedents that might reveal a pattern of conduct.

trust us
we mean well
our hands are clean
whatnot
 
iceaura said:
The Reds were not wholly wise, or wholly in the right, or innocent of the crimes of this "tunnel vision" mentality - they too were faced with a new world and a new people, and they too fell short of "holistic" appreciation of what this meant.
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The fucking what now???

Now look: whatever the Iroquois did or didn't do, they didn't speak for every other Native American nation in North America. You can't just lump all these groups in together because a few Iroquois seemed like assholes to a handful of missionaries and settlers who didn't need to be there in the first place.
 
Dywyddyr said:
Initially their homelands were invaded. :rolleyes:
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invaded is a dramatic and loaded term.

from a native american perspective, could they have done things differently? of course they could have. you cannot look at no. america like you would a small divided up country like in europe. it was huge and uninhabited spaces were abundant (at the time). to think that other people were not going to get there and live there is not reasonable.
 
John99 said:
invaded is a dramatic and loaded term.
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Ooh deary me.
Their bloody country was invaded by people who did their best to exterminate the NATIVE population.
How fucking loaded and dramatic is that?

from a native american perspective, could they have done things differently? of course they could have.
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Such as?
Ask the INVADERS politely to leave?

it was huge and uninhabited spaces were abundant (at the time). to think that other people were not going to get there and live there is not reasonable.
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Well shit, there's few acres nobody's living on a few miles from me. I wonder if it's okay for foreigners to come over start living there.
Of course it's unreasonable: these people tuned up from nowhere and assumed they had every right to do it. :rolleyes:
 
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mike47 said:
A welfare check is a social responsibility of any government .
The welfare check cuts crimes, chaos and injustice in society .
Nowadays nearly most of the countries have a way similar to the welfare check .
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Yes they do and they likely have their own buckets full of crabs that dont want to do anything as the money is just handed over too.
 
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Dywyddyr said:
Ooh deary me.
Their bloody country was invdaed by people who did their best to exterminate the NATIVE population.
How fucking loaded and dramatic is that?


Such as?
Ask the INVADERS politely to leave?


Well shit, there's few acres nobody's living on a few miles from me. I wonder if it's okay for foreigners to come over start living there.
Of course it's unreasonable: these people tuned up from nowhere and assumed they had every right to do it. :rolleyes:
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And it was up too the Natives to repel the on coming army they did not they paid the price. Simple and easy I have several Native Brother and sister in-laws I have been around natives for many many years and I have no sympathy for their situation what so every.
 
what are you getting emotional about?

Well shit, there's few acres nobody's living on a few miles from me. I wonder if it's okay for foreigners to come over start living there.
Of course it's unreasonable: these people tuned up from nowhere and assumed they had every right to do it.
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north america is more than a few acres. i really dont know about the few empty acres by you. if people cam to live there i am assuming you would kill them.
 
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