The mass destruction of our land is much more than a 'wrinkle to be ironed out' it will take a vastly different vision of our land, one that we would do well to adopt from native peoples. This will take stronger local economies and more local farming, far less greed and waste. I understand why we have abandoned the older practices of farming, I am a city boy and I can't choose this life (because I would have no chance of success - farming is hard) but I still recognise we have made a choice that is wrong. I hope we 'self correct' but I am not optimistic, not when we patronisingly insist we are superior to everyone else.
Columbus Circle monument could be next statue to go
by freemindfade 79 Replies latest social current
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Laika
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LoveUniHateExams
This will take stronger local economies and more local farming, far less greed and waste - this is starting to sound like "everyone will sit underneath his own vine and fig tree"
What if most people don't want to become local farmers but want to carry on having the current choice and convenience?
I can only assume that you have a rose-tinted view of how people used to live.
Old-style farming was incredibly hard even during good seasons. Crops would sometimes fail, sometimes be raided by other animals. That's why modern farming has caught on and proved popular, and why old-style farming has become much less popular.
Hunter-gathering is no picnic either. Imagine living in that culture as a hunter. It's a hard life on the best of days and for the healthiest, most skilful hunters. Animals fight extremely hard to survive, including drastically changing their behaviour. Now imagine being a hunter who suffers from myopia (short-sightedness). No eye glasses, no laser corrective surgery. What would you do? Some prey species are active during the day but many aren't. It'd be difficult hunting at dawn or dusk, you wouldn't be able to see properly. The quarry would likely escape from you. So then what? Maybe gather vegetables with the women? Remember there are only two life choices available: hunt or gather. Not good, is it? And I've only mentioned myopia, a fairly common eye defect. I haven't mentioned injury, drought, disease, etc.
Isn't it a lot easier just to nip to the supermarket?!
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glenster
Follow up to the bit I wrote about Jimmy Stewart
"Mission: Jimmy Stewart and the Fight for Europe" by Robert Matzen
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3825552/Jimmy-Stewart-suffered-extreme-PTSD-lost-130-men-fighter-pilot-WW-II-acted-anguish-filming-s-Wonderful-Life.htmlPS: I have the usual ideas about
- racism being junk science which has caused and causes needless harm
- slavery justifiably being illegal in all countries (if practiced illegally
in some places)
- I'm not a "Lost Cause"r or such about the south in the Civil War. -
never a jw
- " I hope we 'self correct' but I am not optimistic"
The scarcity of resources and environmental changes are the driving forces of self correction, but it may not go in the direction you hope. The well established rules of evolution will make that determination.
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Ruby456
self correction together with reflexivity are key imo. we really do need to reflect back on ourselves and this I would argue is the biggest hallmark of our society and this is what I see happening in the desire to take a closer look at these statues, their locations and what messages are being conveyed. Christopher Columbus felt that the new peoples he encountered would make excellent servants as they were so good at imitating and so obedient. He misunderstood their hospitality.
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problemaddict 2
I feel like this is a red herring. The confederate statues of their war heroes in places like Charlottesville, are not from the civil war era. They were largely made and erected in the south, during the Jim Crow era, to remind people of color whose land and country it really was.
the statue of Lee, is being placed in a museum. So its only being removed from a place of honor. He isn't being removed from the history books, and of course now in Jr High and early high school when the civil war is discussed and the merits of the players in that war are discussed, we have another item with which to debate and help our high schoolers see different sides of an issue.
Is there the potential for abuse? Yes. Do some people not even know or understand what might be a reasonable gripe versus an unreasonable one? Yeah. But most people are far more reasonable.
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Ruby456
wow I didn't know that problemaddict and it explains a lot of things
They were largely made and erected in the south, during the Jim Crow era, to remind people of color whose land and country it really was. problemaddict
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redvip2000
Old-style farming was incredibly hard even during good seasons. Crops would sometimes fail, sometimes be raided by other animals. That's why modern farming has caught on and proved popular, and why old-style farming has become much less popular.
Not only that, but folks really didn't have any variety. You think 200 years ago, the average person in the US was eating pineapples, mangoes, avocados, or even bananas? They ate the little they could grow in their area, tomatoes, potatoes, some greens, chicken, and beef if available. The average person today has access to really well-rounded nutrition, and can buy a variety of food that was unthinkable decades ago.
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Laika
Luhe, I already said that 'farming is hard' so I don't know why you felt it would be a good use of your time to explain that very thing to me. I am not taking a romantic view of the past, as if I think we need to move away from much of our current economic values for nothing other than a reactionary opposition to 'progress' - instead, I recognise that our world has limits, and many of the current 'choices and convenience' will not be an option to future generations because we are destroying much of our Earth in the pursuit of them for ourselves.
Whatshallicallmyself, the 'indigenous' view is certainly not irrelevant, regardless of population size and the scales of farming we need, we need to have a stronger relationship to land and place in order to preserve it for future generations - "During the last 40 years, nearly one-third of the world's arable land has been lost by erosion and continues to be lost at a rate of more than 10 million hectares per year." - There is no 'method of sustainability' in this, or 'different management techniques' that take into account larger populations - there is only destruction in the pursuit of our own conveniences.
Source for above: "Environmental and economic costs of soil erosion and conservation benefits" by Pimental - this is available for you to read on Google scholar if you're interested
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glenster
Advocates of removing statues of confederate generals force their point in
claiming that if some were put up to promote racism that the only explanation
white people gave for them was that confederate generals were good in promoting
racism. Assuming an agreement with the statue removers that racism is harmful
junk science it begs the question--what do they think we white non-racists
explained about those statues all these years--that the Civil War was fought
pointlessly against the south because the south was about racism which is good?
That Lincoln had a big war fought for no reason? Hitler was a racist foreign
leader we as Allies fought against but there's an historical USA point in having
statues of confederate generals since they were leaders in a war that took place
on American soil. The same reason they keep up both sides generals at Gettys-
burg and call on you to explain it applies to such statues and the Civil War
generally.Lost Causers try to rationalize it otherwise but we don't bend the explana-
tions around them. The statue removers haven't invented some exclusive new ex-
planations about that. Why remove statues that create an historically important
reason to explain that racism is junk science? Confederate general statues
present an opportunity to explain that as an important part of explaining the
Civil War.If it's debatable I would recommend consideration. If some people believe the
confederate generals statues represent approval of racism on the part of the
public I'd say take them down--I don't need to look at them. But if you ask me
I'd explain what I have in the other several paragraphs. You should know how to
explain why Lincoln's on Mt. Rushmore--not take statues down if you don't.