tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post115123744960112670..comments2024-03-26T16:03:42.608-06:00Comments on Flares into Darkness: Wildernessambisinistralhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03836786826294202405noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151283604876333182006-06-25T19:00:00.000-06:002006-06-25T19:00:00.000-06:00The ole prez sure says a mouthful with "the soft b...The ole prez sure says a mouthful with "the soft bigotry of low expectations".buddy larsenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17760847873026506988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151275674025342402006-06-25T16:47:00.000-06:002006-06-25T16:47:00.000-06:00Of course, the failure of assimilation was not jus...Of course, the failure of assimilation was not just about noble savage sentimentalism, but also had much to do with Euro-American racial ideologies. But if we want to be really cyncial about the left - but it isn't that cynical actually - we might say that 19th and 20th C. racism was also a kind of multiculturalism before the word.truepeershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16401984575637492845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151275416236329262006-06-25T16:43:00.000-06:002006-06-25T16:43:00.000-06:00People today see westerners as only imperialists b...<I>People today see westerners as only imperialists but I have to wonder what would have happened to the native tribes here if Genghis Khan or the Ottamans had been the ones to first lay eyes on the New World.<BR/>I never feel comfortable with the easy judgment of people who only see our history in terms only of plunder or genocide, as if given the chance we would give it back.</I><BR/><BR/>-Yes, and I also have a logical problem with them: if the European-Americans were to have respected the indigenous culture, and played by its rules, then the outright defeat of a tribe in war would have entailed its survivors' full assimilation into the Euros.<BR/><BR/>Our sin is perhaps that we never found a way to keep two worlds apart, or joined but only in multiculti harmony, or to well assimilate the losers, since we wanted, at least some of the time, to keep them alive as "noble savages". We had already moved beyond the time-tested mode of total extinction or fully assimilating the survivors of losing tibes, only in turn to be criticized for destroying cultures (which included harsher rules of warfare).<BR/><BR/>The Euros might have stayed at home and eventually been conquered; they might have gone abroad and removed all traces of the native peoples; or they might have built a society with a lot of loose ends, unhappy survivors, and a nascent ideology of multiculturalism. So the only possible flaw I can see, is that the multiculti ideology emerged too late for the multiculti ideologues. It should have existed in a world that could not yet have well imagined it beyond a sentimental regard for aboriginals that led them to treat them neither for complete assimilation nor extinction. In other words, the settlers were half-assed multiculturalists before the word. What a sin!truepeershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16401984575637492845noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151274101767800162006-06-25T16:21:00.000-06:002006-06-25T16:21:00.000-06:00skook:No you don't. Sometime I will tell you about...skook:<BR/><BR/>No you don't. Sometime I will tell you about my father's mother, we called her Mammy. She had a crow with a forked tongue. She talked to that damn bird like it was a baby.terryehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16609746018265953069noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151266094150919922006-06-25T14:08:00.000-06:002006-06-25T14:08:00.000-06:00No weather reports, either. Ready at all times, or...No weather reports, either. Ready at all times, or die.buddy larsenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17760847873026506988noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151264735866705112006-06-25T13:45:00.000-06:002006-06-25T13:45:00.000-06:00Imagine the courage it took just to come here.Imagine the courage it took just to come here.terryehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16609746018265953069noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16821859.post-1151254411192885192006-06-25T10:53:00.000-06:002006-06-25T10:53:00.000-06:00Yep, the American identity is almost synonymous wi...Yep, the American identity is almost synonymous with the myth of the Wild West. Except it ain't a myth, and it happened just a lifetime or three ago. Revisionists have worked it hard--anti-Americans especially zero in on the least-flattering details--but the uber-story remains one of strong-spirited people staking their lives on their own gumption, and going after a dream that included trading backbreaking labor and intense danger for a chance to live free.buddy larsenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17760847873026506988noreply@blogger.com