Click here for Exit the Cuckoo's Nest's posting standards and aims.
“AMERICANS ARE THE NEW INDIANS”An Outliers Perspective On How We May Have Became Hostages To Our Own Philosophies
First and foremost, Holiday Greetings to all of you. This holiday season offers each of us an opportunity to take stock of where we find ourselves now and of where we may be headed. I trust the trails you walk are leading to exactly where you want to be.Secondly, if the following post taxes your credulity and imagination as much as it taxed my own then it will have fulfilled the painful journey it took to write it. As for taking stock, over the past year I have begun a writing career and have been working on music projects as a sideline. The two go hand in hand. I began KW Norton Borders to find answers in these difficult times. I have shared this experience with all of you as readers. For some more recent background on the topics of this essay please see:  KW Norton BordersI have worked hard through the long years of 2020 until now - nearly 2023 - to see this rise of totalitarianism through a kaleidoscope. This kaleidoscope isn’t rose colored glasses (although I get accused of that) but something different. Through this kaleidoscope I repeatedly try to see the potential benefits. They may be found but it is amidst an atmo… 4 days ago · 14 likes · 9 comments · KW NORTON As often happens in creative endeavors the place I began is quite a different territory from where I have ended up. Through research very different from that related to writing or music I have identified many unexpected and previously unrecognized ancestors of our family. I find the actual task of family history research to help fill in the blanks of what I don’t know about history. It is like detective work. It keeps history alive for me in ways I never imagined earlier.
Rather than being a nightmare from which we recoil, for me history is a vast interwoven net expanding outward in four directions. These stories provide me with a never ending source of wisdom. This kind of perpetually animated history is never dry and didactic. Instead it lives, breathes, is reimagined. Thousands of people, known and unknown, have been researched into existence in the family tree. Many of these participated in the formation of this nation known as the United States of America. They seem, at least in hindsight and on paper, to have been strong individuals. As may be expected I found many misbehaving outlaws and outliers along with the more well-behaved citizens. I don’t know about you but the imagining of a family piling onto a drafty old sailing ship from the dark tidewaters of 15th century England, France, the Netherlands, Norway, Iceland or Spain to sail across the Atlantic to an utterly unknown continent and future is a taxing exercise. I have a very big imagination but it falls short at imagining myself and family in this position. I have serious doubts we would survive the hardships. And even more serious doubts that these Europeans would not bring and in fact did bring Europe with them. For myself and my family there is an even more serious question. Family history demonstrates ancestors among the Native American inhabitants these colonists encountered. And no I am not referring to some “Elizabeth Pocahontas Warren” fantasy. Many Americans have family history like this. It is however not sufficiently recognized or appreciated that European settlers intermarried frequently with Native Americans. Several leaders of the American Revolution, including Presidents, had Indian ancestry. These families of American landed aristocrats seemed to ignore this truth as much as was possible. And furthermore I simply cite this as obvious history in passing here. While I believe our family history is interesting and meaningful I don’t believe our genetic heritage determines our fate. In other words whether or not Elizabeth Warren is genetically descended from Pocahontas is largely irrelevant. What is relevant for all of us in America is to ask what we in fact are today. Taking into account our family heritage is important but more in a cultural sense than genetic. Our genetics are not a prime determiner of our present actions. Our culture however is urgently important. For purposes of this essay it is the following question which concerns me. Who among these ancestors seems, with the perfect hindsight of history, to have had the best culture? For me sitting here on Christmas Eve 2022 it is an easy answer and not for everyone. Although I owe much to each of these cultures I believe I owe the urgently important things to a blend of both. Together We Stand, Divided We Fall.I believe that out of fear, angst and customs our European ancestors were short-sighted. Especially when it came to a logical analysis of their failures to manage diplomacy with the American Indians. They were again short-sighted when regarding relationships with Black Americans. They were so short sighted they left out their own mothers, wives, and daughters. In a stunning lack of respect for the very unalienable rights of the individual they failed themselves and their constituents.They fashioned a new government “for and by the people” while failing to guarantee women and people of color a life of personal agency and power. All government power was to be concentrated in the hands of a council of white men. Just as an exercise in imagining how it could have been managed so differently I recommend A Grandmother’s Council.¹ ² ³ ⁴ ⁵Not a Grandmother's Council composed of solely Grandmothers but in conjunction with others whose aims are in synch. If the men who formed this nation had been capable of overcoming their inherited biases derived from European Romanticism this could have been an entirely different story. If they could have overcome these biases which led to white male driven centralized power the American nation would have been far stronger and far less likely to fail as spectacularly as it has. While I see the things which could have been I also see a different possible future for America. Understanding our history allows us to be more prepared for positive change, faster on our feet, and responsive, flexible and strong enough to not only imagine a better world but commit to creating it. Self-Defeating Behavior and Self SabotageThrough misinterpretation of our history and failure to really understand it we fail to come to grips with the places where we went wrong. It makes us far less likely to even ask the right questions. It renders us helpless to grasp the fundamental necessary changes we must make to reach our goals. And when we fall prey to those who would have us castigate ourselves for how evil we have become, immersing ourselves in self sabotage, we become defeated before we can even begin. I have observed many proselytizers who present defeatist arguments which hold America and Americans responsible for the present ills of the world. It is one thing to be accurately critical of America to posit change and another to get mired in these criticisms. Being mired in criticizing our country without being able to see the good things is the height of self-defeating behavior. It is a blaming the victim mentality, a facile argument, and leaves me cold. In addition to being self-defeating it is too easy and intellectually dishonest. It is tantamount to our revolutionary ancestors being unable or unwilling to remove their cultural and personal blinders to avoid facing their own hypocrisy. Not only is it self defeating but it is simply impractical in the extreme and does not work. It took the new nation of the United States less than one hundred years after the formation to fall into civil war. Built by dividing and conquering, the new nation would essentially fail due to these built in systemic weaknesses. This government of a counsel of white males would fail and continue to fail. A nation built by weak men who fail to deal with their own hypocrisy and their own lack of moral backbone will continue to divide and conquer. A nation which rules by dividing and conquering will eventually destroy itself by the same tactics. There is not a nation in the world unaffected by the present totalitarian event. There is not a nation of this world which has not made terrible errors. These ills were certainly present in America, in Capitalism, in our culture and political systems. A realistic look at world history shows no nation states are free of these ills. America and Americans, are not exempt from this history - they are part of it. Likewise Capitalists, Communists and Socialists are equally involved. The ills from which we suffer are readily observed - with different manifestations in every culture and nation state across the world. The argument that one of these other countries or peoples could lead us out of this mess are complete dead ends. Whatever trends have led us to this impasse of worldwide totalitarianism - these trends had a source. During this present debacle of worldwide totalitarianism is an exceptional time to ask these questions. America and the world flounder. Intellectual arguments get folks stuck in their own arguments like flies in amber - including myself. From the outset I began asking myself questions and then set out to write my way into answers. I now have a stack so large it is difficult for me to find my way through it. It’s been a good thing for myself and for others even if sometimes it presents a surfeit of these good things. And of course there is that tangle of discarded arguments I left on the cutting room floor. My stack is a mix of discards and keepers, of scenes I will build on and of scenes I have now cut from the final mix. The act of seeking takes us on an adventure with many twists and turns, many dead ends, and many plateaus where we and others feel more comfortable for a time. These plateaus where we feel more comfortable can become a trap. Being comfortable is not necessarily a road to personal growth or cultural evolution. I have learned that being too comfortable is a warning. Along the way I developed a dislike for any ideas which seemed to be a part of the dark trap of European romanticism. Everywhere I turned I seemed to encounter these. Was I unconsciously attracting these ideas? Or was it a “coincidence”? The difference is important. There are no coincidences. Coincidences simply exist as part of our journey. They must be accepted and dealt with - like anything else in life. Facing DragonsOn the other hand - what if we ourselves continue to be waylaid on our journeys by the same monsters? Then it becomes far more likely that we have more personal dragon slaying to be accomplished before we can safely negotiate a way home. For me, the dragons I encountered represented a persistent relationship to European Romanticism. How did individuals persist in believing this romanticism could lead them anywhere but where we find ourselves? I came to see this retreat into romanticism as a fatal detour. I would need to slay this dragon in myself. I am an American descended from the very Europeans who brought this fatal philosophy. I am also descended from both the mix of Native American and European. The tension between these two polar opposites has always been in the interesting mix of cultures and philosophies I call family. The European Enlightenment, Mechanization and the Rise of TechnocracyThere are vast libraries written up on this European Romanticism which I won’t reinvent or discuss here. Everywhere we look among modern idea making and culture creation we can see this tension. In computer science, European Romanticism is well represented by Ada Lovelace.
Ada glimpsed the usefulness of algorithms. Where did she find these? Amidst the dark, slave-ridden, death dealing factories of the times. These were the textile mills and their technology - the looms where algorithms were applied in the weaving of cloth.
Ada Lovelace saw the usefulness of algorithms and proceeded to pursue her studies. There is much to be learned about Ada and her family but it will not fit in this essay. Ada and later developers of computerized technology were understandably entranced by the answers to be found in technology. Like those of the European Enlightenment, of the American experiment in Democracy, and of the computer age - all three suffered from a lack of cultural guidance. At the same time I encountered our erstwhile heroine Ada I became struck with the admirable but psychologically and culturally complex art of European romanticism. 
Painters like Sir Anthony Van Dyke, in his “Self Portrait With A Sunflower” help round out the impressive achievements of European Romanticism. It is difficult to avoid seeing the telegraphed cultural facets of a painting such as Anthony Van Dyke’s “The Brazen Serpent”.
Some of these images such as the serpent on a staff are still culturally significant in 2022. We are not all that different psychologically from our predecessors. There are ancient roots for this European style Romanticism:  We in America along with modern people across the world are particularly removed emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically from who and what we have actually become. We are dangerously cut off from the roots which give us life. The central problem here seems one of spiritual nature. How advanced can we possibly be if we are willing to support a culture ignorant of basic spiritual knowledge? Do these fundamental things really escape most modern people? Are we too blind to see that if we are willing to dominate, harm and kill other humans that these acts will eventually be used against ourselves? There are laws written about this but laws, like history, are found in the interpretation. If we should be so bold as to hold a revolution to form a country based on our US Constitution we may then want to hold ourselves responsible for the letter of the law as written to insure unalienable rights to all individuals. We are at a historical watershed moment. Anyone who remains in denial about what is happening and why we must act could do worse than listen to Catherine Austin Fitts: https://usawatchdog.com/its- And the secret societies which worked to take over the American government: https://substack.com/inbox/ We need to look to the right answers. To put our energies into harmony with others. To establish local power and work against central power. To dissolve the foolish, self-defeating, power mad dreams of the patriarchs. To establish a cooperative world where the dreams of man and women are shared, implemented and honored. Some things to think about as we experience this holiday season. Because of where we find ourselves this Christmas maybe it is time to take a new look at our history.   2 |
Source: KW Norton Borders
No comments:
Post a Comment