RSN Fundraising Banner
FB Share
Email This Page
add comment

writing for godot

I Shall Live No More -Forever

Print
Written by Andor Carnes   
Friday, 10 July 2015 07:50

In response to: “As Long as the Grass Shall Grow”
by Marshall Carter-Tripp RSN Monday 06 July 2015

Thank you for the piece.

Opinion:
Every time we explore and re-examine the ever-present undercurrents of individual and societal behavior, civil rights, indigenous rights, environmental and species rights, as exemplified by the survival and commercial excuse that "Life Feeds on Life", we inevitably come around to what easy pickings native cultures have been and are, throughout the world. Those "easy pickings" are for those whose self, or institutionalized, appointed positions are to conquer, dominate and profit from anything they can manipulate, milk or leverage.

There is little hope for mitigating what individuals or institutions do to individuals in harm, if we continue to ignore what was, and still is, done to whole peoples. Yet, what we do to the individual certainly shows how we continue to be capable of paying little attention to what we do to the lives and traditions of whole cultures in the name of progress and greed.

The original displaced tribes of North, Central & South America are clearly the microcosm of the full arc of human greed, indifference and the continuation of those culturally devastating traits in society –tragically, with no exceptions. The economic, cultural and genetic terrorism, dilution and decimation visited upon the native cultures by any conquering cultures, even their neighbors, and by their own rulers from within, is clearly the map to our inner nature’s guarded “treasure” of power, displacing empathy and the value of common original heritage.

Clearly, we all undeniably share a common destiny. However, there is no progress, wisdom or change possible through simply rationalizing the inevitable demise of all, including the perpetrators of cultures' and nature's destruction.

The actual unwritten mantra is still, "Yes, we share a common destiny but not the same length of path because you are here to be eaten by me and my progeny." Therefore, through the eyes of prosperity, we are not "brothers" after all but rather unavoidable and acceptable collateral damage along an entitled life path.

Living at the expense of others is a common and cruel fact of culture. In fact, it is so accepted in practice, and denied as such, that we give even more power and influence to those who prosper, while so many suffer, caught in the chains and threads of the sources of their prosperity.

The common man is continually ridden down for others’ self-gain. Unfortunately, as long as that common man struggles just to simply survive, and we continue to give a behavioral pass, power and prestige to the perpetuators of that human struggle, the plight of a single culture, or its treatment, or extinction in the past will mean little to those in the world with the power to do anything about the problems, past or present. One does not tend to significantly use their resources, in their house of plenty, to better their food sources’ plight, as long as that source of their survival is adequate.

As spoken as his Nez Perce tribe surrendered on October 5th, 1877, Chief Joseph’s famous line, “From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever,” is perhaps the most famous combination of resignation and resolve that has ever been uttered by a compassionate, resistant leader of the oppressed. At the time of that speech, he had seen most of the world, bonds and connections he knew meet their destinies. I believe he was less resigned to the “order of nature” playing out for his people than he was he was conserving the “nothing” they had left for the rest of their lives because he clearly saw no hope for empathy and realized that the oppressive culture upon him would be pleased to reduce them to dust.

Perhaps his drive and perpetual fight could have been stated as, “I shall live no more –forever on your terms”; however, when he realized that their challenges were unsustainable against the juggernaut of the whites’ cultural cruelty and non-empathetic greed, he surrendered that which he would: the challenge to the power of oppression. He protected the lives of his people for their last days in their journey in life. He extended their path just a little –just enough to cast a heritage of progeny and discussion for future generations. Simply being slaughtered or starving to death on the way would leave nothing of note or honor for all his peoples.

I believe that in that surrender moment, and in countless other moments of the oppressed and the devastation of cultures, the best, like Chief Joseph, cry out for the world to see the problem of “life feeding on life” not as a locked destiny but rather as what it does to an individual’s life. They were trying to point out the need for empathy, not for any given culture, tradition or ownership –they saw that all that was lost, but rather for the individual, the singular bonds and lives being devastated and prematurely lost. Chief Joseph led a band of individuals, and not a tribe, along a proud but futile path. I think he knew that and the importance of preserving any individual he could, for the good of the tribe, and not as a sacrifice for the good of the tribe, and the preservation of the individual for the tribe became his goal.

What we might learn from our history is how to learn through such plights of cultures that arguing the value of the heritage and great loss to re-enforce change, guilt, preservation or empathy is simply to push the predators into evaluating how preserving anything will benefit themselves.

Working on predators’ empathy for its “food” is probably a long shot at best in our common destiny. Nevertheless, every time we hesitate to kill, use or destroy, or even as we revisit the past to understand our nature, we give ourselves a moment’s hope to understand that a less fortunate life made better, or allowed at all to live, could make everyone’s life better. That perspective still cannot escape pandering to the greed and usury nature in us all but the action can lift a people one-by-one, rather than to destroy them, in mass, for short-term gain.

As only a few in our society, for example, struggle with the guilt of what our forefathers did to anyone to get ahead, and how we continue to do the same, we would be well served to stop to think. Think about how inevitability is not guaranteed for much but decay, in the cultural and anthropological world. Profit, as well, is not inevitable; and yet, profit inevitably destroys lives. Yes, profit enhances a few lives but the metrics have always shown that only the few at the top of the food chain increase the quality of their lives, as the others, supporting the system (“the life to feed upon”), struggle subsistently to hold on. “Profit” insures that the struggle for the masses continues. In many ways, there is little difference between the usury struggles of our general populations and subgroups in today’s societies and those life struggles of, for instance, the Native cultures and tribes of North America in the past.

There is of course no easy solution. However, it is clear that the common demise of everyone as a common destiny is unlikely. Yet, as “Life Feeds on Life”, and cultures, environments, species and rich traditions literally vanish under the hand of profit, may we remember that the past is simply an example of what we do, to ourselves. If anything, we have learned to destroy lives more efficiently and stealthfully by simply seeing profit, avarice, aggrandizement and lack of empathy as desirable and the successful thriving, built upon them, as desirable and heroic.

May we also realize that even with great insight and wisdom, there can still be well intentioned but wrong beliefs and notions. For instance, even with his singular insight, sensibility, compassion and empathy, the great Chief Joseph got it wrong, when he said, “Whenever the white man treats the Indian as they treat each other, then we shall have no more wars. We shall all be alike, brothers of one father and one mother with one sky above us and one country around us and one government for all. Then the Great Spirit Chief who rules above will smile upon this land and send rain to wash out the bloody spots made by brothers' hands upon the face of the Earth.”

It is clearer every day of our lives that “Man” tends to treat everyone and everything, especially his own, like the “White Man” did the Native Cultures. It is just that the Native Cultures were well defined in tribe and geography, could fight back in unison a little and therefore were easy to single out in mass. Whereas, the common man, who is treated similarly, is just blended into society, with no way of easily identifying the cause and effect of their struggle, diminishment and demise.

I do not believe that we are all doomed to never learn from our treatment of others, past and present. That learning is just highly inefficient, and countless loss happens in the wake of that slow learning. I further do not believe that our combined, shared destiny is oblivion. Nevertheless, if only the dead, powerless to do much directly, as a result of their passing, get the proper empathy and perspective to do none harm, then how are we ever going to recognize that our treatment of each other has not actually ever really changed?


“The winds which pass through these aged pines we hear the moaning of departed ghosts, and if the voice of our people could have been heard, that act would never have been done. But alas though they stood around they could neither be seen nor heard. Their tears fell like drops of rain.” –Chief Joseph

e-max.it: your social media marketing partner
Email This Page

 

THE NEW STREAMLINED RSN LOGIN PROCESS: Register once, then login and you are ready to comment. All you need is a Username and a Password of your choosing and you are free to comment whenever you like! Welcome to the Reader Supported News community.

RSNRSN