Exactly, thanks Brian. I’ts like someone trying to prove Bush invaded Iraq to steal their oil, and then linking to “Fahrenheit 911” as the big proof: it’s amazing how many “intellectuals” base their points on reading some type of weird meaning into a quote that had nothing to do with the subject they are discussing. Why would anyone read these books? What can you possibly get out of it, that you can’t get out of just watching a youtube video with the same content, by “hippygirl85” or something? Is it just something to casually forget on your coffeetable for you liberal friends to notice when they come over?
I recently noticed celebrities showing up on these E! type shows, carrying shopping bags, and they just so happen to have a big, fancily titled book on Eastern Philosophy, or Liberalism, under their arm, always carefully arranged to show the title to the cameras. (where did they read it, in the Supermarket?)
Is that something all liberals do, is that what sells these non-fiction books? I just can’t imagine someone actually reading them for more than ten minutes: the arguments and the ideas are just so disjointed, and the same pattern just keeps getting repeated.
I don’t know what sort of idea you all are forming here, but I explicitly said I’m trying to debunk what Jensen is implying, suggesting, what have you (ie, that Rand doesn’t think the Indians have rights because they’re uncivilized or that she’s racist or what ever).
Why bring this up?
Because I wanted to know the truth of what happened at her address.
What exactly is your question, if you have any?
I said at the beginning of my post: “Does anyone know what the true story is behind this?”
“This” being Rand’s address to the cadets on March 6th 1974.
And more importantly, if you are interested in an honest conversation:
What are your views on Ayn Rand and Objectivism, and what are they based on?
I’ve read “For the New Intellectual” and I’m half way through “Atlas Shrugged” and over all I either agree with Rand or I think she makes real good arguments which I’m still considering and haven’t necessarily accepted. My views of her are based on reading her works, thinking about it critically and questioning.
*** Mod’s note: Merged with an earlier topic. - sN ***
she said that the white man was justfied in genocide of the indeans because white men were superior and the Indians were below humans. They the deserved no respect. Why did she hate them so much?
she said that the white man was justfied in genocide of the indeans because white men were superior and the Indians were below humans. They the deserved no respect. Why did she hate them so much?
This is a “When did you stop beating your wife?” type of question. If you can produce some references and quotes, it might bolster your claim. Or, perhaps it might show that you are misunderstanding. Or, perhaps even that you’re simply stretching the truth. Without a quote or reference, … its a bit of a dud.
Now, I don’t care to discuss the alleged complaints American Indians have against this country. I believe, with good reason, the most unsympathetic Hollywood portrayal of Indians and what they did to the white man. They had no right to a country merely because they were born here and then acted like savages. The white man did not conquer this country.
“[The Native Americans] didn’t have any rights to the land and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using… What was it they were fighting for, if they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their “right” to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or maybe a few caves above it. Any white person who brought the element of civilization had the right to take over this continent.” * Source: “Q and A session following her Address To The Graduating Class Of The United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, March 6, 1974”
Some history from our family’s tribe,* the Choctaw:
The Choctaw are native to the Southeastern United States and members of the Muskogean linguistic family, which traces its roots to a mound-building, maize-based society that flourished in the Mississippi River Valley for more than a thousand years before European contact.
Although their first encounter with Europeans ended in a bloody battle with Hernando de Soto’s fortune-hunting expedition in 1540, the Choctaw would come to embrace European traders who arrived in their homeland nearly two centuries later. By the time President George Washington initiated a program to integrate Southeastern Indians into European American culture following the Revolutionary War, many Choctaw had already intermarried, converted to Christianity and adopted other white customs. The Choctaw became known as one of America’s Five Civilized Tribes, which also included the Chickasaw, Cherokee, Creek and Seminole.
Of Native Americans more generally, there was no genocide. Deaths were overwhelmingly due to infection from the Europeans for which Native Americans had no immune defenses. Nobody had our knowledge of that in those days. It was not a deliberate mass killing.
She didn’t hate the native race. She passionately despised racism as a particularly viscious sort of irrationality.
She hated the native lifestyle prior to colonization, and rightly so, because men aren’t meant to scrape a living out of the mud with their bare hands.
So she rejected this supposed “right” to prevent anyone else from building factories on that mud.
The hatred isn’t for Native Americans; it’s for their ancestors’ philosophy. You should see what she said about her own.
The takeover of Native American lands in continental USA was by many different sorts of treaties and methods, but it was not for the sake of building factories. My tribe and its sister tribes were hunters and farmers who adopted the better technology of the European settlers. It is false that those tribes and others merely “lived in the mud.” The takeover was overwhelmingly for the sake transferring farms and other lands of the tribes to European settlers, which means European farmers and ranchers. Some land was taken for mining, but that was the exception. The rule was takeover for agriculture by factions of people having influence in the US government.
There can be no informed sweeping conclusion saying there were two sides throughout the new settlement of America, one of them always without moral title to the land they had been using, the newcomers always with moral title. That is the collectivist thinking you and I both oppose. Ayn Rand and the person who posed the question to her fell into that error on this occasion, error made possible by their ignorance of the history of the real people, beyond stereotypes.
I want to thank you for your response. It is insightful and holds true to what little I have studied about some of the facts and myths of the “conquest” of the Americas. It should be pointed out also that the Cherokee of Texas were cooperative with the government of the Republic of Texas. So much so that they owned African-American slaves, and, years later, fought for the Southern Confederacy. To be sure, racism, and/or ethic identities, were determining factors as to ones rights as a citizen, (or tribal member for that matter), throughout the known world of the 19th Century. We have the advantage of living in an age when people and their ethnic identity are viewed much differently.
I recognized the challenge of dealing with the legacy of our collective past, and caution against those who would make claims of collective guilt. As for the quote from Ms Rand in 1974, she clearly favored constructive progress, in both ideas and industry, if the only other choice was the false security of mysticism and stagnation.
Much of the history of the interactions between English and then Americans with the Indians was shaped by the differing institutions and cultures of the different Indian tribes.
I’m aware that the situation was much more complex than I described, with good and evil individuals on both sides (if they’re even concieved of as two sides). But Ayn Rand’s statement was essentially that the natives had no right to exclude others from land they weren’t using, which I agree with.
As for living in the mud, I’m not familiar with choctaw history, but the cherokee (and most iroquois nations, I think) lived seminomadically, farming one area for several years before moving to a new one and repeating the process again, in a giant circle, for one generation after another.
The same process, repeated throughout multiple centuries, without alteration. That’s horrible.
Now, yes, both statements (not using the land and not living as men qua men) are massive oversimplifications. Many colonists didn’t live any closer to man qua man and I have no doubt that many natives (like sequoia) were exceptionally rational.
Furthermore, the actions of a few men (general custer comes to mind) were downright evil, point blank.
But of all possible oversimplifications, I think Rand’s is the nearest to being accurate.
There can be no informed sweeping conclusion saying there were two sides throughout the new settlement of America, one of them always without moral title to the land they had been using, the newcomers always with moral title.
You oppose collectivist thinking. And yet, you allude to your TRIBE having a moral title to land.
Yes, I speak also of my company, my family, and my country. Yes, my tribe way back had rightful title to some farms in the South, rightly recognized at times by the US government, much like we recognize ownership of farms by large corporations today. Yes, today my tribe owns land and a casino in Oklahoma.
In another recent post, a generous one to you personally, I told you what I thought about something in addition to agreeing to what you thought about it, then showed you, for the fine old language and entertainment, what Thomas Hobbes wrote on the topic, his view, not mine. You responded by spitting on the precious personal information I had shared with you in the first paragraph* and by distortion of my own express view and not as if I had given you a congenial smile, but a punch, and proceeded there as here to striking out at phantoms. You have demonstrated you do not benefit from my thought or information, and I’ll not bother with you further.
I do not currently have enough knowledge about the history of the displacement of the Indians to judge whether or not the U.S. government’s actions overall were moral. I think that everyone on here agrees that there were atrocities committed by both sides.
My impression is that most of the tribal leaders were interested in pursuing peace, but I may be wrong about that. I would also maintain that the white settlers had an obligation to respect the rights of tribes to land that they were using, as long as the Indians agreed to respect their rights. Even though the Indians may not have fully developed the concept of property rights, the settlers did have this understanding, and had a moral obligation to apply it to the Indians in a manner consistent with the philosophical underlying property rights as recognized within Western societies.
I also find Rand’s comments to be making an unfair generalization about the Indians. While it may have been true that many of the tribes were primitive, and that their claims of sovereignty over much of their territory were unfounded, I think it is irresponsible to make blanket statements about groups of people.
And finally, I have a question about an argument which I’ve seen from a lot of Objectivists regarding primitive societies – namely, that you should support any advanced civilization which is in conflict with a more primitive society for possession of territory, for the reason that they are more advanced. How far do you take this argument? Let’s say that a bunch of people from Europe move to some African country and set up camp, and find themselves in a dispute with primitive tribes who also lay claim to the territory. Do they have the right to simply turn around and exterminate the tribesmen so they can build a modern Western society? If not, then why not?
I also find Rand’s comments to be making an unfair generalization about the Indians. While it may have been true that many of the tribes were primitive, and that their claims of sovereignty over much of their territory were unfounded, I think it is irresponsible to make blanket statements about groups of people.
Then don’t discuss politics?
The fact is that everything we deal with in conceptual terms is a generalization (including this statement); that’s just part of what thinking is. So when we discuss large groups of people we’re going to make blanket statements about them (including every implicit reference to “everyone”, when I just explained how the mind of every person who ever has lived or will live works).
Now, some generalizations are more accurate than others. One can categorize people according to the color of their skin or their own beliefs; they’re the same type of action, but would you say that either could be used to make equally-accurate assertions? Not all generalizations are equal.
Blanket statements as such, however, are an inherent part of politics; if one is irresponsible then so is the other.
– namely, that you should support any advanced civilization which is in conflict with a more primitive society for possession of territory, for the reason that they are more advanced. How far do you take this argument?
I can’t help you with that one; I think that the concept of a society having territory at all is flawed.
The fact is that everything we deal with in conceptual terms is a generalization (including this statement); that’s just part of what thinking is. So when we discuss large groups of people we’re going to make blanket statements about them (including every implicit reference to “everyone”, when I just explained how the mind of every person who ever has lived or will live works).
Then I should correct my previous post somewhat. I think that generalizations may be appropriate in some contexts, when you’re trying to hold a particular group accountable for actions which are characteristic of a large number of people in the group. For instance, when discussing feminism I will lump all feminists into the same category in order to call out the aspects of feminism which I believe are immoral, and to hold feminists who do not believe in these aspects of it responsible for their failure to address them. I think a lot of people (Including Objectivists) do the same thing in critiquing Islam, and I also think that’s fine if you think that Muslims aren’t taking enough responsibility for the actions of violent terrorists.
But when we’re analyzing the actions committed by individual members of one group versus another, then making these types of generalizations only serves to shift responsibility away from individuals and onto the particular group being cast in a negative light. For instance, saying that oppression of blacks is justified because many blacks are living on welfare and committing violent crimes. These may be moral failures for which the black community needs to take responsibility, but that does not mean that all black people, or even all black communities, are inherently a bunch of welfare parasites and violent criminals. And this would be even more inappropriate as a response to someone pointing out ways in which blacks are mistreated, as it would be in effect condoning all racist actions taken by whites.
I have a problem with Rand’s comments on the Indians for the same reason. I wouldn’t have a problem with her arguing that the Indians should take responsibility for unprovoked attacks made against white settlements, but dismissing all of the wrongs which native people suffered because they were all a bunch violent savages is not an acceptable position.
And finally, I have a question about an argument which I’ve seen from a lot of Objectivists regarding primitive societies – namely, that you should support any advanced civilization which is in conflict with a more primitive society for possession of territory, for the reason that they are more advanced. How far do you take this argument?
I actually haven’t heard anyone state this. Or at least, stated this way, it really isn’t Rand’s position. For Rand’s position, I agree she made unfair generalizations of Native Americans, but her premise as I remember is that a sufficiently primitive societys has no sense of property rights. If they have no sense of propety rights, there are no property rights to violate. Any “invaders” are morally justified to claim territory, especially by being a considerably advanced society. I don’t think it is meant to justify killing, just that property wasn’t stolen or appropriated. It’s not that one society or another has territory, though.
The important question is if they really were so primitive. Maybe some were, but as you say, plenty did have notions of property and/or rights, even if not fully developed.