I agree with Tim and Mike that we did bash Columbus a bit, but I don't think that was a bad thing. For me, I feel like knowing more about him solidified my opinion that he was a little short on the marbles, so to speak.
At the same time, I think we can sort of parallel Columbus and Cortes to the folks in The Sparrow. Columbus didn't understand and still managed to start the destruction while Cortes did understand, which helped him destroy their civilization. Perhaps, had they understood more, the group in The Sparrow would still have made the same choices, in order to change the society they were in.
I found our discussion on understanding and sympathy to be pretty interesting. I'm still conflicted as to whether greater understanding does in fact lead to sympathy because I'm still hung up on the idea of people who study criminals and mass murderers having sympathy for those they study. I suppose it's possible but we don't want them to have sympathy really. Perhaps they understand how a person does something like that, not the why, because we did make that distinction. Understanding also takes time, so sympathy would be a developing thing.
Good point about the Freemasons, Mike. Not very well liked, were they? Until National Treasure brought them back into "cool" I suppose.
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Class 4/15
I don't know if I have ever heard a collected group of people bash Columbus quite as much as we did today. Normally Columbus is regarded as a hero being the man who discovered America and made possible the world as we know it today.
I thought it was very interesting how we established that Columbus was in some way unaware of the the world around him and yet most people believed his position was more favorable than Cortes. Yes Cortes was more in touch with reality than Columbus but we seemed to decide that because Cortes realized what he was doing he must have been unhappy. Of course PTJ brought to our attention that the book never said Cortes felt guilty but that the feeling of guilt is what we all believed he would have felt. Columbus saved himself from this by creating his own utopia and refusing to accept anything that would challenge that state.
It has just occurred to me that I believe I said the account of The Conquest of New Spain was written by Bartoleme de las Casas, correction that was written by Bernal Diaz.
After all of the set-up I can't wait to read Children of God, I certainly hope it lives up to all of the hype by PTJ.
I will leave you all with a glimpse of the Conquest of America with this clip from the film 1492.
I thought it was very interesting how we established that Columbus was in some way unaware of the the world around him and yet most people believed his position was more favorable than Cortes. Yes Cortes was more in touch with reality than Columbus but we seemed to decide that because Cortes realized what he was doing he must have been unhappy. Of course PTJ brought to our attention that the book never said Cortes felt guilty but that the feeling of guilt is what we all believed he would have felt. Columbus saved himself from this by creating his own utopia and refusing to accept anything that would challenge that state.
It has just occurred to me that I believe I said the account of The Conquest of New Spain was written by Bartoleme de las Casas, correction that was written by Bernal Diaz.
After all of the set-up I can't wait to read Children of God, I certainly hope it lives up to all of the hype by PTJ.
I will leave you all with a glimpse of the Conquest of America with this clip from the film 1492.
America Conquered
Good evening:
One of the things about today's class that stuck with me was our fairly strong consensus that Columbus was crazy. The comment about how we have Columbus Day and not Cortes Day got me to thinking about other holidays or times we commemorate, without really considering the full implications of celebrating that person. Lincoln is someone who is always celebrated as a genuinely good person, with few flaws (if any). But Lincoln also simply cut all civil liberties in the border states such as Maryland, removing habeus corpus, and having "Federally-supervised" voting booths - and then the whole "Emancipation Proclamation" was an afterthought to preserving the Union. That said, he is generally regarded as one of the best US presidents - and taken in the aggregate with the benefit of hindsight, I totally agree with that prognosis. I suppose I just find it odd that I do agree with that, because there is no sort of criteria for what mix of doing bad and good (in terms of long or short term) yields a famous figure worth commemorating. In the same manner, Cortes strikes me as perpetrating much more evil (even without knowing all of the specifics), and therefore it seems to me that no holiday commemorating him makes any sense.
So to take this post in an entirely different direction, what about that elusive set of people and groups who did mostly good and then either get no recognition whatsoever, or even only negative recognition? The group that comes to mind is the Freemasons, whose philosophy is the [unprecedented] basis for much of American government and political philosophy. These crazy ideas like spreading a vote out to each member (albeit only white land-owning men at first), and the ideas of freedom of speech and religion, all emanate directly from Masonic principles. Yet, not too long after the country was founded, the Anti-Masonic political party sprang into existence. I guess that today's class got me to thinking, overall, about how the constant fickleness of people affects even our "heroes" and how we remember them - people are weird.
Hoping that you aren't insulated in some sort of fake reality
-Mike
One of the things about today's class that stuck with me was our fairly strong consensus that Columbus was crazy. The comment about how we have Columbus Day and not Cortes Day got me to thinking about other holidays or times we commemorate, without really considering the full implications of celebrating that person. Lincoln is someone who is always celebrated as a genuinely good person, with few flaws (if any). But Lincoln also simply cut all civil liberties in the border states such as Maryland, removing habeus corpus, and having "Federally-supervised" voting booths - and then the whole "Emancipation Proclamation" was an afterthought to preserving the Union. That said, he is generally regarded as one of the best US presidents - and taken in the aggregate with the benefit of hindsight, I totally agree with that prognosis. I suppose I just find it odd that I do agree with that, because there is no sort of criteria for what mix of doing bad and good (in terms of long or short term) yields a famous figure worth commemorating. In the same manner, Cortes strikes me as perpetrating much more evil (even without knowing all of the specifics), and therefore it seems to me that no holiday commemorating him makes any sense.
So to take this post in an entirely different direction, what about that elusive set of people and groups who did mostly good and then either get no recognition whatsoever, or even only negative recognition? The group that comes to mind is the Freemasons, whose philosophy is the [unprecedented] basis for much of American government and political philosophy. These crazy ideas like spreading a vote out to each member (albeit only white land-owning men at first), and the ideas of freedom of speech and religion, all emanate directly from Masonic principles. Yet, not too long after the country was founded, the Anti-Masonic political party sprang into existence. I guess that today's class got me to thinking, overall, about how the constant fickleness of people affects even our "heroes" and how we remember them - people are weird.
Hoping that you aren't insulated in some sort of fake reality
-Mike
Monday, April 14, 2008
The Conquest of America
Bartlet for America!
Sorry, I just got back from watching Martin Sheen in Bender.
In reading this book I couldn't help but thinking about The Conquest of New Spain which I read last semester. Essentially the differences I saw was that the one by Bartoleme de las Casas was a more straightforward account of the events whereas this one was a commentary on the events.
Since we had the whole moment of shock last week about the Brad Pitt version of The Sparrow I thought it would be funny to think of a movie version of this. Then I remembered, there was a movie version, it starred Colin Farrell, it was called Brave New World (I think), it was horrible!
I always like to think about the movie we are watching for the week. Close Encounters of the Third Kind being quite in line with Columbus and company's encounter with the native populations of America. The lack of communication, the different customs, all of the concerns about making the proper sorts of contact. Not to mention that we're watching Contact next week.
As we commence the beginning of the end of our journey together I would have to say that this has opened my eyes to a whole different way of looking at the world around me.
Take care, see you later.
Sorry, I just got back from watching Martin Sheen in Bender.
In reading this book I couldn't help but thinking about The Conquest of New Spain which I read last semester. Essentially the differences I saw was that the one by Bartoleme de las Casas was a more straightforward account of the events whereas this one was a commentary on the events.
Since we had the whole moment of shock last week about the Brad Pitt version of The Sparrow I thought it would be funny to think of a movie version of this. Then I remembered, there was a movie version, it starred Colin Farrell, it was called Brave New World (I think), it was horrible!
I always like to think about the movie we are watching for the week. Close Encounters of the Third Kind being quite in line with Columbus and company's encounter with the native populations of America. The lack of communication, the different customs, all of the concerns about making the proper sorts of contact. Not to mention that we're watching Contact next week.
As we commence the beginning of the end of our journey together I would have to say that this has opened my eyes to a whole different way of looking at the world around me.
Take care, see you later.
The Conquest of America: Pre-Class Reaction
I say that one of the best lines (well at least most amusing) is something along the lines of: so the important thing was the parrots. Although it is said with humor I think it relates to an important point. As Jen pointed out, Columbus’s perception of the world makes one want to scream in frustration. But then again he was to an extent a product of his society, so he wasn’t the only one with a faulty personality. I found the concept that black people and parrots signify gold nearby to be a hilarious idea. To us that sounds completely ridiculous but it is funny to find out what “signs” and “facts” people relied on at the time. I too was surprised by this insight into Columbus’s motivation and perception. For one thing I forgot that people at the time still believed in things like sirens and monsters. And it is fascinating to find out just hypocritical, biased and to an extent naïve Columbus was. As Mike pointed out, the author provides several sources as evidence, so I find the picture he painted of Columbus very believable. To me cultures are valuable, so Columbus’s careless and disrespectful treatment of the native cultures is something that frustrates me. As Jen pointed out he just went around renaming things and disregarding what the natives said, unless it was convenient for him to listen to them (if he “understood” them in the first place). That is another interesting concept to his character, his interpretation of language…any language he encountered he viewed through a bias of his own language: he tried to apply their words to European concepts and practices. That is a distinct difference between him and Emilio. Emilio tried to use the language in order to understand how the culture functions, of course he had to do that in reference to what he knows about human interaction, but he recognized that there was a fundamental difference between the languages of Earth that he knows and this new alien language. And through these differenced he was able to understand some of the cultural differences. Columbus on the other hand saw the natives simply as potential Christians or as savages to be killed or exploited. His opinion of them seemed to change overtime, but he always twisted facts to support his theories or ideas. For example, on page 40 he talks about how they are cowardly and not a threat, and so chooses to leave some of his men behind, and then comes back to find them murdered…so he makes up some theory about how they are easily scared but also vile creatures who kill when someone gets separated from the group. Reading that just made me laugh. He is so hypocritical and engrossed in his own views that he is truly blind to the reality around him.
Cortes on the other hand seems to be more aware and observant of things, even though he is just as manipulative. Like Columbus he too manipulates facts and “signs” in order to achieve his goals, but he still seems more aware of reality. Also, the whole concept of “signs” as presented in this book was a fascinating idea to me. People have always tied symbolism to things; even the common action of naming an object creates a function or explanation for it. And it was interesting to read how differently cultures can use signs and symbolism. It is interesting to think that, as Todorov says, the Spaniards were able to defeat the natives using signs. Looking at the big picture it does make sense that the Spanish were able to come out on top because unlike the Aztecs they were able to (to an extent) learn about the other culture and then use what they found out about it to manipulate and destroy it. (Goes back to the idea in Card’s book that you must understand your enemy in order to eliminate them). Mike raises this point in his post as well: the fact that Cortez needed to know something about the culture in order to manipulate it to his own benefit.
In the end such cultural interacts are basically frustrating to me, because it is not respectful of cultures.
The Sparrow: Post-class Reaction
This book is so complex and raises such intricate issues that we obviously weren’t able to exhaust discussion about it. I agree with Tim, it was interesting to focus on who would be qualified for such a mission and try to make a list out of it. I think our discussion concerning that got most interesting when people started raising the issue of what would be the goal of the mission: making contact or gathering information? Which led to the whole idea of a series of missions and what kind of mission should go first. I think we established as a class that the Jesuit mission didn’t think things entirely through, but then again what can you expect, they seemed to have expected God to take care of the things they overlooked.
The other part of discussion that I think was very important originated with Phil saying that the people on the mission got too comfortable. And that led to the question of how scientific were they actually acting and at which point did they make their mistake(s). I am also interested to see how the second book will flip things around. I think that it will be able to tell us more about the mistakes of the first expedition.
Lastly I want to mention a thought that crossed my mind during discussion. While we were discussing Supaari and debating how they should have interacted with him and viewed him, the thing that I thought is: despite his appearance, claws and carnivorous nature, he exhibits very human qualities. He desires to have a family and although he is marginalized by society he does his best to figure out a way to achieve his goals. We may find him selling Emilio as a means of getting what he wants as “inhumane” but if we look at our own history, humans have used other humans to reach their own goals on numerous occasions. And if you think about it when people have created aliens (in various forms of fiction) the aliens always to some extent exhibit human characteristics and desires; that is because that is the only way we can perceive things, I don’t know if anyone can actually create a truly “non-human” alien.
The other part of discussion that I think was very important originated with Phil saying that the people on the mission got too comfortable. And that led to the question of how scientific were they actually acting and at which point did they make their mistake(s). I am also interested to see how the second book will flip things around. I think that it will be able to tell us more about the mistakes of the first expedition.
Lastly I want to mention a thought that crossed my mind during discussion. While we were discussing Supaari and debating how they should have interacted with him and viewed him, the thing that I thought is: despite his appearance, claws and carnivorous nature, he exhibits very human qualities. He desires to have a family and although he is marginalized by society he does his best to figure out a way to achieve his goals. We may find him selling Emilio as a means of getting what he wants as “inhumane” but if we look at our own history, humans have used other humans to reach their own goals on numerous occasions. And if you think about it when people have created aliens (in various forms of fiction) the aliens always to some extent exhibit human characteristics and desires; that is because that is the only way we can perceive things, I don’t know if anyone can actually create a truly “non-human” alien.
Conquest: an All-American pursuit
Good evening everyone:
Having just finished the book, let me begin by saying that every bit of knowledge I have ever picked up or been taught before reading this book was not particularly fair; this book attempts to present things as they occurred, without a preference or bias for either. Since objectively looking at anything is impossible, the book still comes close via interesting methodology: the author examines both the conquistadors' and Indians' side of things, and goes further into detail by trying to present all contemporary points of view.
Near the end of the book, one of the author's points struck me as extraordinary for its level of insight into the ridiculousness that is humanity. The author explains on page 248 that the extraordinarily high level of success in Westernizing the previous colonies is paradoxically due to the European ability to identify with the other. This is one theme whose passage through the book I can easily follow, because each successive conqueror and/or priest came with their own specific take on one or two bits of Aztec and other Indian culture, which allowed them to make so much progress in their endeavors. Whether it was Cortes and his very clear understanding of the necessity to constantly evoke fear and awe in the Indians (causing his godliness in their eyes to take deeper root for a time) or Duran's insistence on learning the Aztec religion in order to erase it, each of these individuals highlight this paradoxical tendency to use one's ability to understand the other towards the end of converting/subjugating/conquering that same other.
A few pages later, on page 252, the author makes a point that made me think of The Sparrow, when he is talking about sacrifice versus massacre societies. I was thinking that the Jana'ata would be a sacrifice society, because their theology sets up the original twins for duogeniture and the allowance of the Runa to breed more frequently. The people of Earth, taken as an aggregate people (which isn't really doable, but for the sake of this comparison:) are much more of a "massacrifice" society as the author coins it; they both claim membership in religion and therefore have acceptable sacrifice of life, yet at the same time are capable of killing large numbers of each other off without any religious backing. This sort of fluidity to the concepts laid out in the Conquest of America seems to be a fairly accurate look at the mindset of the Western nations, and especially as additional back-history to Stephanson's Manifest Destiny: even before the North American continent was settled, the certain type of European that enjoyed pushing their values to the exclusion of everything [but gold] were already testing out procedures in South America; these types of operating methods later worked in the North, with a lesser loss of life, but still genocidal in nature. I cannot say that I am pleased to be subjected to more of why the history of the Americas was terrible, but I am glad to have heard such a balanced account of it (something I don't usually feel when reading accounts of North American subjugation of the Indians).
your fellow conqueror
-Mike
Having just finished the book, let me begin by saying that every bit of knowledge I have ever picked up or been taught before reading this book was not particularly fair; this book attempts to present things as they occurred, without a preference or bias for either. Since objectively looking at anything is impossible, the book still comes close via interesting methodology: the author examines both the conquistadors' and Indians' side of things, and goes further into detail by trying to present all contemporary points of view.
Near the end of the book, one of the author's points struck me as extraordinary for its level of insight into the ridiculousness that is humanity. The author explains on page 248 that the extraordinarily high level of success in Westernizing the previous colonies is paradoxically due to the European ability to identify with the other. This is one theme whose passage through the book I can easily follow, because each successive conqueror and/or priest came with their own specific take on one or two bits of Aztec and other Indian culture, which allowed them to make so much progress in their endeavors. Whether it was Cortes and his very clear understanding of the necessity to constantly evoke fear and awe in the Indians (causing his godliness in their eyes to take deeper root for a time) or Duran's insistence on learning the Aztec religion in order to erase it, each of these individuals highlight this paradoxical tendency to use one's ability to understand the other towards the end of converting/subjugating/conquering that same other.
A few pages later, on page 252, the author makes a point that made me think of The Sparrow, when he is talking about sacrifice versus massacre societies. I was thinking that the Jana'ata would be a sacrifice society, because their theology sets up the original twins for duogeniture and the allowance of the Runa to breed more frequently. The people of Earth, taken as an aggregate people (which isn't really doable, but for the sake of this comparison:) are much more of a "massacrifice" society as the author coins it; they both claim membership in religion and therefore have acceptable sacrifice of life, yet at the same time are capable of killing large numbers of each other off without any religious backing. This sort of fluidity to the concepts laid out in the Conquest of America seems to be a fairly accurate look at the mindset of the Western nations, and especially as additional back-history to Stephanson's Manifest Destiny: even before the North American continent was settled, the certain type of European that enjoyed pushing their values to the exclusion of everything [but gold] were already testing out procedures in South America; these types of operating methods later worked in the North, with a lesser loss of life, but still genocidal in nature. I cannot say that I am pleased to be subjected to more of why the history of the Americas was terrible, but I am glad to have heard such a balanced account of it (something I don't usually feel when reading accounts of North American subjugation of the Indians).
your fellow conqueror
-Mike
Sunday, April 13, 2008
Visions of the Past, Courtesy of Todorov
Once again, I'm horribly early with the post comparatively but I found something interesting and figured I should go ahead and post about it.
First, who knew Columbus was so keen on Jerusalem? All we really learned is how he was backed for the trip and the basic details, he went, mistook what he saw, actually found (not discovered) a new continent not Asia like he wanted, and started the ruin of the native peoples. And the "In 1492, Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue...". I found Todorov's assertions that Columbus really wanted the gold to fund another Crusade really interesting and his evidence very compelling. Speaking of evidence, I found it rather amusing Columbus was so dead set on everything he saw indicating he was right. A strange mixture of faith playing into conviction and events this time around. Columbus seems to have fallen into the trap that The Sparrow folks did except he seems to have wanted it more than they did. He "knew" that gold was in the Indies, he "found" the Indies, so gold was around somewhere. As Todorov said "no longer consists in seeking the truth but in finding confirmations of a truth known in advance" (19). A river looks like another river that has gold, it has gold too. Except, oops, the other river really didn't have gold! I'm not sure whether to bang my head against a wall at Columbus' thinking or feel sorry for the guy, or perhaps impressed he had such firm, unceasing belief.
Second, in light of all the linguist discussion in The Sparrow, I wanted to mention Todorov's discussion of Columbus' obsession with names. He has a blatant disregard for the inhabitants of the islands he runs into, renaming the islands based on his own hierarchy of important elements of life. Instead of exploring, Todorov explains how he immediately planted a flag and renamed the island he first set foot on (28). He's more interested in classifying and categorizing things via names than exploring or trying to explain what he sees, thus his interest in names. Columbus also seems to have pulled a Prince and gone to a symbol for his name, a rather complex and precise one at that (28).
It seems to me that after Todorov's book, Columbus was still guilty of not understanding what he'd quite literally run into based on his own very narrow view of the world. At least the group in The Sparrow was trying to take in everything and then failed. Columbus didn't even attempt the trying.
First, who knew Columbus was so keen on Jerusalem? All we really learned is how he was backed for the trip and the basic details, he went, mistook what he saw, actually found (not discovered) a new continent not Asia like he wanted, and started the ruin of the native peoples. And the "In 1492, Columbus sailed the Ocean Blue...". I found Todorov's assertions that Columbus really wanted the gold to fund another Crusade really interesting and his evidence very compelling. Speaking of evidence, I found it rather amusing Columbus was so dead set on everything he saw indicating he was right. A strange mixture of faith playing into conviction and events this time around. Columbus seems to have fallen into the trap that The Sparrow folks did except he seems to have wanted it more than they did. He "knew" that gold was in the Indies, he "found" the Indies, so gold was around somewhere. As Todorov said "no longer consists in seeking the truth but in finding confirmations of a truth known in advance" (19). A river looks like another river that has gold, it has gold too. Except, oops, the other river really didn't have gold! I'm not sure whether to bang my head against a wall at Columbus' thinking or feel sorry for the guy, or perhaps impressed he had such firm, unceasing belief.
Second, in light of all the linguist discussion in The Sparrow, I wanted to mention Todorov's discussion of Columbus' obsession with names. He has a blatant disregard for the inhabitants of the islands he runs into, renaming the islands based on his own hierarchy of important elements of life. Instead of exploring, Todorov explains how he immediately planted a flag and renamed the island he first set foot on (28). He's more interested in classifying and categorizing things via names than exploring or trying to explain what he sees, thus his interest in names. Columbus also seems to have pulled a Prince and gone to a symbol for his name, a rather complex and precise one at that (28).
It seems to me that after Todorov's book, Columbus was still guilty of not understanding what he'd quite literally run into based on his own very narrow view of the world. At least the group in The Sparrow was trying to take in everything and then failed. Columbus didn't even attempt the trying.
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