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Fear and Loathing
To me, one of the more puzzling features of the human psyche, or at least the American one at any rate, is the concept of "survivor's guilt." People who survive incredible disasters in which large numbers of other people (even complete strangers) did not are often overcome with tremendous feelings of guilt and remorse, guilt and remorse even when the disaster was quite patently not their fault because its origins were simply beyond their control.
As a nation we are told innumerable times by academia and the media that our country is built on theft, lies, deceit, treachery, oppression, and murder. In high school we're shown pictures of the aftermath of Wounded Knee, we read the declarations made about "manifest destiny", and hear about the stories of honorable treaties broken and torn. Everywhere we look we're taught and told we have no reason to be proud of who we are because we got here riding the backs of people who walked on the corpses of our victims.
The hardest part about it is these are not lies. This is not propaganda. Innocent people really were killed in the building of America. Hundreds of thousands of men and women were subject to oftentimes brutal oppression in the creation of this so-called "free" society. Treaties were broken at a whim, and entire peoples were rolled into obscure corners of the land all in the name of "progress". How dare we be proud of this gore-spattered, blood-soaked country of ours?
As with the parable of the blind men and the elephant, our guilt comes from having only part of the truth that makes up the whole. It arises partly from our own naiveté, and through the subtle and not-so-subtle machinations of elite nihilists and academics with an ill-disguised contempt of the "commoners". What started out as a much-needed injection of realism into the perception of our own history ended up getting manipulated into an almost paralyzing self-loathing, and twisted into a fear of the "bad old days" of patriotism and optimism that characterized the very fiber of this country.
We are told that we stole this country from the Indians. This is quite true. What we are not told is that there really weren't all that many Indians around to steal the country from. It's all too tempting to transliterate the colonial experiences of Eurasia, which was heavily populated and comparatively literate, with those of the Americas, which, especially in the north, was neither.
Most native North American cultures were not highly organized, and for the most part varied between hunting and gathering and horticulture as a method of subsistence. These lifeways simply did not result in the population densities experienced by highly organized agricultural societies such as those in, say, India. Furthermore, through a sort of bio-geographical coincidence, which was completely out of the control of the European explorers and colonists, much of the population that did exist had been mercilessly culled by the scythes of virulent diseases against which the natives had no immunity.
The land was, by and large, empty of settlements because of these factors. But, in spite of perceptions in our history books and popular culture, these native Americans quite patently did not go quietly into that great dark night. Especially during the colonial era, what tribes and nations there were quite merrily made war on settlers when they either thought or were convinced it would be in their best interest to do so. Neither side treated civilians with any distinction. Unspeakable brutalities were commonplace regardless of skin color. No quarter was asked, and none was given. The treaties signed toward the end of the conflicts were not made between two nations of equal power, but rather were an attempt by the Native American nations to shield themselves from an onslaught against which they knew from bloody experience they were unable to roll back themselves.
Does this excuse what happened, somehow make it right? No, it doesn't. But I didn't cause those things to happen, and neither did you. And, I'll wager, neither did your parents, your grandparents, nor (for most of you) your great grandparents or even great-great grandparents. I refuse to feel guilty about the conquest of America because there's nothing I can do to stop it. I was born at least a hundred and fifty years too late to do a damned thing about it. And so were you.
What I can do, and what you can do, and what all of us can do, is recognize that our history is no better, and, far more importantly, no worse, than the history of any other nation on the planet. England has Ireland, and France has Algeria. Canada has its Inuit, Japan its burakumin and India its untouchables. We are by no means unique in having minorities that experienced brutality and oppression.
America is unique in that the costliest war we ever fought was over the liberation of one of these minorities. A war, it should be pointed out, in which only Americans were killed. We may have herded them into camps and denied them their rights, but at no point, at no point, have we ever made an effort to consciously and systematically exterminate them. Great Americans of the twentieth century are defined not by their glory in battle, but rather by their struggles on behalf of these very minorities to overcome the discrimination of our forefathers. Like survivors coming to terms with their continued existence, some of us have decided to put the past behind us and instead fix the present to make the future meaningful.
Others, however, do not see it this way. Like some Old Testament prophet, they have decided that the sins of our forefathers must be visited on us a hundredfold. They have decided that because of the decisions made by a generation that has been dust for more than a century we must not be allowed to feel proud of who we are. They have decided that because of the policies of dead presidents it is somehow justified that more than three thousand living, breathing families were forced to bury pieces of meat in the ground.
I look back on my country's past and I am not ashamed. Neither am I proud. I look back instead and see a body of people who, no matter how misguided, genuinely thought they were doing the right thing. I see a body of people who sacrificed their sons when it turned out they weren't. I see a body of people who do not simply accept problems as they are, do not try to ignore them in the hopes they go away, do not pick a fight with someone else because they're not willing to do what it takes to solve them. More than anything else, I see a body of people who sincerely want the world to be a better, safer place for their children. Unique in all the world, I see a people who have both the power and the inclination to try and make sure it's safe for everyone else's.
We are human. We do, will, screw it up. But we try not to, we try damned hard not to, and when proven to be in the wrong are nearly always one of the first to ask "what can we do to make it right?" Sometimes we can't. Sometimes we screw it up so badly nothing can make it right, and for that I do feel guilty, and will try to do whatever I can to at least make sure it doesn't happen again. But I find it obscene that someone should suggest I must feel guilty simply because I exist.
Wow, wonderful essay - wow!
Posted by: Bogie on February 25, 2003 05:44 AMI agree with everything you said. Our forefathers fought and toiled so that their children and grandchildren - so that WE could enjoy the benefits. The only thing is, I have to defend my country ;) You said:
America is unique in that the costliest war we ever fought was over the liberation of one of these minorities. A war, it should be pointed out, in which only Americans were killed. We may have herded them into camps and denied them their rights, but at no point, at no point, have we ever made an effort to consciously and systematically exterminate them.
I assume you are talking about the Civil War. But America is not unique in that they did not try to commit genocide - Canada or its people have never "systematically extreminated" any race, culture, or minority group.
Apologies if I was unclear, didn't mean to imply that about canada. Was actually thinking more of a European bunch we all know and love, rimes with "herman"
Posted by: scott on February 25, 2003 03:02 PMYou did forget to address the fact that for all the suffering their ancestors went through, the populations of American minorities--- among them Blacks and Indians-- gained far more than they lost.
Gets my goat when I see an african american or native american standing there in their levi's jeans next to their Ford automobile parked in front of their local grocery store where they get their medicaid-covered prescription filled before spending their Lincolns and Franklins on their week's worth of groceries, beer, and toilet paper, snarking about how America Did Their People Dirty.
Yeah, America treated your people harshly. But you were no prize winners either. Listen, "Mufasa," Cassius Clay took a trip to Africa once--- the first words out of his mouth to the cameras when he got back was "Thank God my great grandaddy got on that boat." And you, Little Chief Running Commentary--- if it hadn't been for the arrival of Europeans in this country, you'd be living in a hut or a teepee, running around in poorly-cured animal skins, gnawing on bear jerky and wondering if you'd live through your fortieth summer, or even your next winter, without getting stomped by a buffalo.
I refuse to feel guilt committed for crimes committed before my great grandfather was even born, and I also refuse to feel any pity for people who sit in the very lap of prosperity and opportunity and do nothing but grouse about it.
Excellent article and mirrors much the way I feel. I am sorry much of what has happened did the way it did. But the best thing to do with it now is to learn lessons from it and act better.
My only quibble (and it's small), is the first thing I thought of when I reached the line about no "effort to consciously and systematically exterminate" people when it was so close to comments on the civil war was Andersonville. That is about as close to a concentration camp without being called one that I've seen.
Posted by: Chrees on February 25, 2003 08:13 PMI have tried to explain this to many people before, this is exactly how I feel.
If I had been there when this country was built, and I was in power, it may not have turned out the way it did. But I wasn't there and I wasn't in power. I was born in a time when all those things were already done. I can't change that, and furthermore, I will not be held responsible for the crimes of men who died long before I was born.
Posted by: James P on February 25, 2003 09:21 PMAs an immigrant who has chosen his citizenship, I am proud to be an American, and I am proud of our imperfect history.
No one else, facing our challenges, has done better.
Posted by: Tim M on February 26, 2003 12:45 AMChrees: Concentration camps do not automatically equate to a systematic extermination. I was actually referring to the Nazi's treatment of the Jews. Andersonville, while terrible, was simply not in the same league.
Posted by: scott on February 26, 2003 09:16 AMA black American author was standing on a bridge over a small river in Africa watching the hundreds of bodies floating by after the latest intertribal warfare and it hit him how glad he was that someone in the distant past put his ancestors in a cargo hold and took them to America. He was glad his people were enslaved and eventually to be free and he be born in a country where the bloated, hacked up bodies of the dead don't freely float down a river.
One side of my family has been here since the 1740s and probably did help "unsettle" some natives that happen to have been where they wanted to be. But I refuse to apologize or be guilty or shamed for what they did, what they thought to be right and just for their time. Who knows what evil we may be accused of a hundred years from now. What we do now is right for our time and that is all that matters.
Posted by: Bill OH on February 26, 2003 09:25 AMThis is a fine piece, but I am moved to comment on one specific: the relations between the aboriginal American Indian cultures and the European colonists who displaced them.
The Europeans had some technological advantages from the moment they arrived, but their principal edge, which functioned to marginalize the Amerinds relentlessly and could not be prevented from doing so, was the concept of private property in land. Amerinds did not recognize ownership in land; their communal agriculture and reliance on hunting were a large part of what limited their populations.
Colonists would lay claim to land, bring it under efficient cultivation, and proscribe trespassing on it. This both allowed rapid, sustained increase in European-derived populations, and put the Amerinds at a fatal economic disadvantage. It also created obvious tensions wherever colonist-settled areas drew close to Amerind centers of population.
The Amerind response was hostile, often belligerent. But once that cycle had begun, the fate of the Amerind tribes was sealed, for all the advantages lay with the Europeans and no power on Earth could persuade them to give up the idea of land ownership.
So, ultimately, the showdown between the European colonists and the Amerind natives was based on the clash between their incompatible concepts of property rights. Since rights and combat are mutually-defining, one side had to swallow the other, whether by conversion or by conquest.
Posted by: Francis W. Porretto on February 26, 2003 11:09 AMI actually had that in the original essay, but dropped it due to length. It actually devolves to cultures. A hunter-gatherer or horticultural culture simply does not value land in the way agricultural societies do. If you make your living by hunting, gathering, or traveling from place to place harvesting plants that just grow there, land is literally just dirt. Agriculturalism also allowed a much higher "carrying capacity", which meant more people could live on smaller plots, and it promoted very high fecundity, which meant each colonist familiy had literally three to five times as many children as did an Amerind.
The more conventionally agricultural empires of central and south america fought like hell against the spaniards for the entire time because they had very similar concepts of the value of land. They lost anyway, for different reasons.
The differing concepts of property did, however, have a profound impact on the
Posted by: scott on February 26, 2003 11:20 AMStupid computer...
have a profound impact on the outcome of the conflict.
Posted by: scott on February 26, 2003 11:34 AMYou wrote:
I look back on my country's past
and I am not ashamed. Neither am
I proud.
Why not be proud? In spite of all the
failures, they wrote a Constitution that was
quite different from all the other governments
that existed at the time. It was not perfect,
but it gave more rights to the people than any
other around.
I agree with everything you're saying - but!
Who asked you to feel guilty? You don't have to feel guilty to try to provide equity.
Do minorities share equal advantages as caucasians? I think the evidence is clear they do not.
In fact, I personally don't think it matters whether someone is disadvantaged due to systematic or isolated factors beyond their control. It is our obligation, and what's more, to our advantage, as a society to give people all of the opportunity to do well for themselves and for society as anyone else, given that we have the power to do so.
You won't hear me arguing for welfare (past subsistence level) for people who are beyond being helped into becoming productive. But Head Start, child care for low income single parents, programs to fight gang membership, and extensive scholarship programs for academically excellent low-income students are not just humane, they are vital to the health and prosperity of society as a whole.
So don't feel guilty. But that doesn't mean you should be against social programs.
Posted by: Bobby on October 16, 2009 07:03 PMAnd I'm not, but, due respect. Pay attention, especially to certain folks. I wrote this long before facebook even existed, but I'm amazed at how centered it is at others.
And thanks for reading through it, six years later. I want to write this well again, I just need to find the time.
Some day.
Posted by: Scott on October 16, 2009 09:45 PM