Hi LaWanna,
I love this and love you! Putting the years in perspective is true wisdom. Deep bows. I love that you brought up Little Bighorn (and the Battle of Greasy Grass) and it’s old name of Custer’s Last Stand too in terms of all of this. A fact I just learned before our trip was that an old friend from from the Trial Lawyer’s College (whom I’ve lost touch with) wrote a book about the battle as apparently his great grandfather actually was the one who took Custer out. I’m going to get his book and read it. I’ll be interested in your experience when you go. Many blessings LaWanna.
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Quick story that both now and at the time I found humorous.
I had driven past an “Indian Trading Post” at least a 100 times before I stopped in hoping to find a new drum. When I asked about a drum suitable for a proper drum circle he lamented that he was having to find overseas sources for his merchandise and said “The Indians just don’t make the crafts like they used too.” With a hearty laugh I replied, “That’s because we’ve become plumbers, nurses, doctors, hair dressers, professors, engineers, CPAs, truck drivers, farmers, executives, cashiers.” LOL
How rich is that? I can only hope the person took the experience as a teachable moment for himself and others. Love it. Thanks for sharing FermentedAgave.
Warmly,
Mark
Part 2 Comment - distilled into 2 areas: first, continuation of this thing about TRoosevelt; second, deterministic inevitability.
Corey, I’m pushing the Roosevelt point here because there’s something highly significant that still isn’t clarified. You speak of “ the painful irony that (Roosevelt) shared with the American Indians a fundamental appreciation for “sacred naturalism”. OK. Let’s play it out:
Roosevelt, to the Indians: “The land that your ancestors have called home for 5,000 years is beautiful and sacred.”
Indians: “Thank you. We think so, too.”
TR: “I love your land so much and think so highly of it that I’m going to take it from you, because my God wants me to, and I will kill any of you that get in my way. But I will make sure to appreciate the beauty of nature along with you, you sub-human scum.”
There is no Venn diagram overlap with TR and Indians; it’s two completely different things. Red apple, red fire-truck; two things. It’s like holding a portrait of Hitler against the face of a Jewish patriarch admiring the similar jawline. In addition to reflecting deep ignorance, it reflects deep disrespect, intended or not, and it needs to stop.
There’s another point that I think you are not getting about the contextual differences between TR and Indians. It reflects the epistemological oil/water relationship of Roosevelt/Indians. TR is the epitome of Modern, rugged individualism and God-given dominion over nature; and that, in all regards, is in utter and total conflict with American Indian relationship of mutuality with nature. That difference – it’s epistemological, a difference in kind.
In my post, I thought you could tell that I was not asking you about those specific historical catastrophes, but was just listing them as representative of world horrors. Thanks for your individual attention there, but not what I meant. (Or were you being facetious?) Also, I am not going to take or follow this into idiosyncratic Integral or SD theories (yeah, I know, even though it’s a kw site) because those specifics are not relevant to my points here.
But I do get what you mean.
You are saying that not only was it inevitable that TR impose extreme violent actions against Indians, (assessed anyway you want), but that it was spiritually inspired eg Manifest Destiny.
In addition to TR, this deeply concerning issue involves a basic philosophical foundation that kw lays out and you plug it in when you repeatedly say, “I continue to believe that same violent imperialistic epistemology was also very much an inevitable product of history” and you say “many or most of the events you listed do seem to be somewhat inevitable” and you say “As for those other historic events, they feel like they are fixed points, in a certain way” and you say “historic inevitability.”
**** Rearview-deterministic-inevitability is always accurate. And if that’s what you are looking for, pathogenic causations can everywhere be made to glisten; that is a very Modernistic thing to do. Every event of every moment of history can be framed, (or punctuated, in Bateson’s terms) in that manner, and any chosen horror will be justified by the historical conditions surrounding it, in which it arose. It means nothing because it applies to everything, and if that is your default position, the effect is to kill all dialogue. ****
Corey, it seems to me, following an Integrally informed perspective, as you are interpreting, the basic response to any harm would be “Given the immediate and historical circumstances, your harm is an inevitable product of history; sad, unfortunate, but inevitable.” This descriptive dynamic would presumably apply across the board, whether the harm is to a rape victim, war crime victims, 9/11 victims, financial fraud victims, Palestinians, Indian tribes, Jews.
Oh, and South Africa; they didn’t accept violent-imperialism-as-an-inevitable-product-of-history. The perspective of rearview inevitability would undercut the philosophy behind ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ commissions throughout the world. “Since it was inevitable, we can all just turn out the lights and go home; what’s the point, or the use, of talking about it since it was predetermined? It amounts to, ‘You want to talk about it, talk to God’.”
In this context that you construct, one of deterministic inevitability, the whole notion of Truth and Reconciliation falls apart. Your position is that it was all God’s will, after all. A very vengeful, hateful vindictive Christian God, but a God nevertheless – the Manifest Destiny kind of God that your position continues to vitalize. Note, this is not the same as saying that they thought it was God’s will – obviously a bunch (but far from all) did think that. Here, you are going beyond that; you are actually vetting it as a viable truth. You are agreeing that it was, in fact, God’s will, or spiritually inspired. Is that really your intent?
Personally, I consider Manifest Destiny an evil of epochal proportions which represented nothing more than a lo-ball capitulation to greed and deceit, even by standards of that day. Volumes have been written on alternatives to the genocidal narrative of Manifest Destiny.
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Hey @steven, thanks as always for the feedback. It’s clear to me that you care very deeply about these issues, and very knowledgeable about them. And I absolutely agree that I spoke ineloquently about this in the actual recorded discussion. It’s one of my major flaws that I try to be mindful of when doing these episodes — I communicate much more clearly through writing, than I do through speaking. So I thank you again for the pushback, as it helps me clarify my own views and positions, and hopefully do a better job communicating them. I am always 100% wiling to take critical feedback, so long as it is being delivered with kindness, respect, and good faith. So thanks for the opportunity to engage!
So, just to reiterate — I was not speaking to the very obvious developmental and cultural differences between Roosevelt and natives. I was speaking purely in terms of states of consciousness, and I very much believe that it’s possible that Roosevelt was experiencing very similar states that are common to many indigenous cultures. That state, of course, then gets interpreted VERY differently, according to their respective kosmic addresses.
So: Roosevelt’s opinion of nature? Most likely the product of a series of state experiences. And since we can ALL experience these states, regardless of our developmental achievements, then I think it is definitely possible that it was a similar state experience as was being commonly had by native peoples.
Roosevelt’s opinion of the natives themselves? This was a the product of a) Roosevelt’s development in his moral, ethical, emotional, and spiritual lines, among others, and b) Roosevelt’s surrounding ethos and prevailing worldviews and moral standards of the time. Roosevelt was an imperialist who was elected by imperialists during the era of imperialism, and that was the primary filter he was enacting reality through.
Spiritual states are different than developmental factors. They are even different than the spiritual line. Two different people can be at two very different places in the spiritual line, while having essentially identical state experiences. But of course, how they then interpret and enact those states will be very different.
(Which reminds me of a science fiction story I always wanted to write – one day, everyone on the planet has a spiritual satori experience. Every man, woman, and child on the planet tastes Spirit-in-1st-person, all at the same time. As a result, the world ends the very next day.)
So I agree that there is an epistemological difference here – and that difference is largely the result of development, both individual and social.
I think this kind of interpretive flexibility — and always being careful not to impose contemporary moral standards on previous eras — is tremendously important when we are enacting history. It’s what allows me, for example, to appreciate the incredible achievements of, say, the Aztec empire, while simultaneously being horrified by their rituals of human sacrifice. I can plainly call human sacrifice “evil”, and I am sure you agree. But we both probably also know that specific perception of evil is itself coming from a higher/deeper/greater moral development than was available to the actual Aztec people of the time. (And this, of course, was one of the common justifications for how the Conquistadors treated these people.)
But I don’t think that is what I am doing. What I am doing, is looking at the prevailing moral and ethical standards of whatever era I am focusing on, and trying to limit my judgment to those constraints. I expect my eight year old to act like an eight year old, not a 20 year old. I expect the Aztecs to act like Aztecs, and not like 17th century Europeans. I expect an imperialist like Teddy Roosevelt to act like an imperialist, and not like a 1960s San Francisco hippie.
So it’s not about “determinism”, but rather the inevitability of changing selection pressures up and down the spiral, in all four quadrants. Yes, there could have been – and likely were – individuals who criticized the horrors of the status quo of any given era. The point I am making is, those individuals and ideas had no chance of being selected for by the rest of culture and society, at least until a certain threshold of social development occurs. Once more people can resonate with those higher, deeper, kinder values, that’s when they begin to seep into the rest of the culture, and then transform the culture from the inside out. Until then, the vast majority of people are simply products of their time. The same way your own views and values are, in no insignificant way, an accident of birth (as are mine of course).
No, my position is that it was evolution’s will. That is a somewhat different argument, I think 
Thanks again for engaging Steven, and I hope my clarifications are helpful in some small way.
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Well, ditto, since you said it–love you too 
Your friend’s book should be interesting; wow, so close to the action. Maybe you’ll share at some point. Have a great rest of the day after the Afghanistan segment; I need to debrief! LaWanna
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"Remember last summer when a mass grave containing the remains of hundreds of children was found on the grounds of a former government boarding school for indigenous children in British Columbia, Canada?
In the seven months since this shocking news broke, not one body has been found, and not a single shovel-full of dirt has been excavated from the site in question. Contrary to the worldwide media coverage last summer, nothing, in fact, has been “discovered” on the grounds of the Kamloops Indian Residential School.
In a healthy society, this would be a scandal. A story that grabbed headlines for a week and inspired arson attacks that destroyed dozens of churches in Canada turns out to be based on flimsy, unexamined evidence at best, and an outright, pernicious lie at worst."
" And then came the arson. In June, dozens of churches across Canada, most of them Catholic and some of them more than a century old, were burned to the ground. No church was safe. As my colleague Chris Bedford reported at the time, “In Calgary, 10 churches of various denominations were vandalized in a single night. A few days later, a Vietnamese church was set on fire — just hours after it held its first full service in more than a year.” "
Overall more than two dozen churches in Canada have been targeted over the past few weeks — and people are cheering it on. Not just anonymous people, either: On June 30, Harsha Walia, the executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association, responded to a story of another church arson, saying ‘Burn it all down.’
Others rallied to her defense. Naomi Sayers, a lawyer and blue Twitter checkmark, said ‘I would help her burn it all down … and also, I would help anyone charged with arson if they actually did burn things.’
Here’s the fun thing about this - this sounds an awful lot like Trump.
This is EXACTLY what I was saying to you six months to a year ago @FermentedAgave, but you accused me of living in existential dread or something like that.
I said that if you think the burning will be restricted to only Liberal Communities, you are in for a big surprise - because once public figures start saying violence is ok against the “other side” - then violence will not be restricted to just one community.
This is what happens when “Red” is supported by a large part of the population against an opposing group within that population.
Now, before you accuse me of anything - also remember that the emotion I expressed then and will express now again with these church burnings - is sadness. I was sad because I saw things similar to this as almost a “cause - effect - effect - effect”. The President of the United States advocates violence against people outside of his ethnocentric group - those groups respond against those outside their ethnocentric group, and you have a little giggle about liberals burning down their own cities. Then the burning moves to churches and suddenly you believe there is a problem. The irony is, I can go on to quote your Savior Jesus about how all this is us-them is wrong. But you know those verses, I’m sure. You just choose to ignore them and instead beat the us-vs-them drums.
As I said before, this cycle will continue and expand and will not be restricted to any one demographic group. That is sad, but it is the direct result of looking towards other groups and people who live differently as enemies, then descending into violence and believing violence is ok as long as it is against the other groups.
I hope you’re wrong and also think it won’t play out this way. I’m optimistic but also fairly well prepared for a suburbanites, just as are the majority of my wonderfully kind, gracious and generous neighbors.
It will be an extremely soul searching decade for Progressives as their failed ideologies are flushed out of the system.
For what its worth, many churches now have armed security. Very low key ear buds and undershirt bulges.
See - you just don’t get it. You are still stuck in you vs them.
Armed security at churches - that’s hilarious. I’m sure that’s the plan Jesus would have come up with.
By the way, I’ve done tons of security work. Never been armed and never been harmed. A building isn’t worth my life and I’d never be paid enough to take another’s life over a physical possession.
But hey, maybe I should go to church and get my mind right, eh?
If you think progressives have soul searching to do - the soul searching Christians will have to do will blow your freaking socks off.
Does you being prepared and willing to defend yourself and those with you in anyway make you an US vs Them Paradigm thinker?
If we look at this from an Integral view, is it healthy or unhealthy to be gracious, generous, kind and at the same time be capable of physical defense?
I don’t think you are a pacifist and pride yourself on being able to defend yourself physically. Do you demand pacifism from all those around you? Or are to demanding all Christians to “be like Jesus”, as you would define for them?
Or is there a possible enfoldment of having a Glock in you belt while also being welcoming, kind, generous, and giving?
Can an individual or group actually enfold Teal, Green, Orange, Amber, Red?
No - we were talking about apples and Oranges. A physical building is not a person.
I very clearly make a very big distinction between vandalism and assault or murder.
And like I said - I’ve done a lot of security work and never been armed and never been harmed. Confronted, yes - many times. Confronted several times with violent behavior. But never anything I’d need to shoot someone over.
Do you honestly believe that Jesus Christ would kill someone for trying to burn down a church? I don’t think he would. Now, if you believe that it is Integral to do so - that suggests what I’ve been saying in that Christianity might not be an Integral Religion. So, three logical possibilities: 1 - Christ would blow away arsonists with an AR-15 and that is Integral. 2 - The act is not Integral and Christs would not do it. 3 - It is Integral but Christ is not.
I don’t care what you believe. That’s up to you, but I detect some degree of doublethink there.
When I said hilarious, it was sarcasm. That’s your people, though. As we say, your Kuliana. Your Karma. Do what you want. Kill in the name of The Lord to protect His Church. I’m several thousand miles away.
IT’S NOT THE BUILDING YOU IDIOT. It’s the hundreds of living breathing human beings within the community that are the Church. You’re a moron sometimes.
And just as you did not feel shooting someone as necessary, to my knowledge no one in a church security detail, in the US, as had to shoot someone. And don’t worry, they’re all off duty police so are as well trained as can be.
Are you a pacifist?
Or are you just demanding others be pacifists?
A Church is a building - “IDIOT” lol. Yes, burning a building is about burning a building.
If it was about murdering a human we would be having a completely different discussion.
I can tell by your rage that this hits the core of your whole problem and why you so aggressively go after Liberals to distract yourself.
I’m not Christian. I rejected that philosophy 30 years ago, lol. It’s up to you to try and make sense of your own topsy-turvy Religious Text.
I guess you didn’t read the part where I said do what you want? lol
I already told you my morality - I would not kill anyone to protect a vacant building. I would not place myself in that dilemma as Kyle Rittenhouse did in the first place. I see the inherent problem in walking around with a loaded machine gun in order to protect an empty building and I just wouldn’t do it.
A home where I am currently sleeping is an entirely different matter - because, obviously an occupied building turns the crime of vandalism into attempted murder.
No one mentioned burning the building. You’ve dehumanized the individuals in the community.
So after all your “Ray’s Christian Shadows” erruptions, we actually agree.
You’re a weird dude Mr Bennett.
The article YOU posted was about burning Churches - BUILDINGS. lol
Mr. Dementia can’t even remember the article he posted just a few hours ago, lol.
The article wasn’t about burning people - it was 100% empty buildings that were burned. Zero people burned.
And here I thought it was about an unaccountable interlinked media machine making horrific unfounded claims to stoke radical criminal activires against buildings.
No, it was not about the Right Wing media as far as I can see