[lbo-talk] 77% of Americans support the cretinous judge

[Maria Gilmore]

Excuse me, but Native Americans DID have a relationship with their land that
was and in some small pockets continues to be very different than that of
Europeans.  In their religious/philosophical worldview they viewed the land
they lived on as something to be respected and honored because they saw the
world as a predominately willing and nurturing provider of all their needs,
so long as you did not offend in some way, and showed your gratitude.  NOT
as a fierce enemy that needs to be conquered, fought against at every turn,
then thoughtlessly stripped of resources until none are left.   I don't
think this is really a "Noble Savage" statement I'm making here.  I didn't
say they were inherently "noble" or "good" for having this
worldview...Native peoples practiced war and slavery, and while some tribes
had a better balance of power between men and women, and were much more
egalitarian than European societies were at that time, other tribes were as
patriarchal and hierarchical as any greedhead conquistidor could be.  And
against more and more white guys with guns, you could say their beliefs
worked against them.  I use their example to say that the premise "reverence
for nature is fairly new for humanity" is not true.  "Nature fetish" not the
same thing.  That is an exclusively European concept, that grew out of
Judeo/Xtian societies in the modern period.

Now for my rant AGAINST "Nature fetishism":

No culture I have ever heard of has ever regarded the natural world as
benign, to this day.  As I contemplate making a run to the Sarasota main
library to pick up a book, I wonder how much fun it will be driving thru the
tropical storm that has been dumping non-stop rain here since last night and
will probably continue thru tomorrow.  Florida is better than having to deal
with snow and cold of central Illinois, as I HATE winter, but the incredible
summer heat and HUMIDITY down here has taken some getting used to.   My
allergies and asthma are worse here too.

I've been asthmatic since I was very small, and it was very bad when I was a
kid.  My experiences with this have taught me there is nothing benign about
the natural world.  When it's not indifferent to human survival, it's
murderous.  If not for the protection of modern science-based medicine, with
its' miraculously effective drugs that keep my illness near-totally under
control, I would have been dead YEARS ago.  Nature would have had my life
without a second thought.  Nature fetishism in our society most notably
rears its' ugly head these days in the alternative medicine movement.  Many
of these people seem to believe that "Mother Nature WUVS you!  She would
NEVER hurt you, unlike those mean old MDs!"  Bull-SHIT.

And BTW, being PC is not something I concern myself with.  And my comment
was in referral to the cultures as they existed in N America at the time of
the European arrival.  I guess for some people I needed to make that
clearer.

NOT talking about how Land O Lakes corn oil has "the goodness of maize", for
god's sake!

Maria

---- Original Message -----
From: "andie nachgeborenen" <andie_nachgeborenen at yahoo.com>
To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
Sent: Friday, September 05, 2003 12:30 PM
Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] 77% of Americans support the cretinous judge


> This Red Man Reveres Nature And Is One With The Land is very PC, but in
fact is both insultingly stereotypical and
> Occidentalist.