Two books

I don't know how this book, published in 1992, escaped me for so long. Columbus and Other Cannibals by Jack D. Forbes, is the kind of book I should have turned up in my usual reading agenda. As it was published by someplace called Autonomedia that might explain it. It was actually published in some kind of pre-print edition in 1979 by an equally obscure publisher (I have been unable to locate any copy of this version). In any case I have now read it. Jack D. Forbes is an American Indian and a Professor of American Indian Studies at the University of California, Davis. This relatively brief book is one of the most devastating attacks on the nature of Western-European culture I have ever encountered. He believes that Europeans suffer from the Witeko disease (a form of cannibal psychosis). You have to understand first of all that Forbes does not mean by cannibalism the literal eating of human flesh. He means the consuming of human lives. And as Columbus certainly consumed many human lives with his cruelty and slavery he clearly fits this definition. So does any group or organization or ideology that consumes human life through exploitation, theft, imperialism, or other forms of aggression. Unfortunately, what Forbes says about the European invasion of the Americas, while exceedingly unpleasant, is mostly true. The history of contact between American Indians, Columbus, and those who followed is truly a history of brutality, theft, exploitation, and genocide. I believe this is indisputable. Forbes draws a distinction between the ways Indians interacted with the environment and each other, and the ways Europeans did. There is no doubt that Indians did live much more in harmony with nature than did the Europeans that colonized the Americas. And surely there is no culture on earth more out of sync with nature than our contemporary U.S. culture. This is an unpleasant book to read as it minces no words about conquest, slavery, exploitation, racism, and so on. Like so many such tomes dealing with American Indians it does tend to romanticize them and never even suggests there may have been problems or shortcomings in native cultures, but the contrast is so great it probably doesn't matter. Historical truths are unpleasant to confront.

I also just finished How Soccer Explains the World by Franklin Foer. While the book doesn't completely live up to its claim it does give truly enlightening descriptions of the place of soccer in different cultures of the world. Not being a fan of soccer I might not have captured all the nuances of the game and how it is integrated into various cultures, but it is very revealing even to non-soccer aficionados. I found the chapter on Muslim soccer to be particularly informative and interesting. It is quite amazing how the approaches to soccer vary from one culture to another, the Italian style being so different from the English or German, and so on. It also gives you some insight into who in the U.S. plays soccer and why. But I remain unconvinced that soccer will ever be as popular in the U.S. as it is elsewhere. American football is a formidable tradition.

I read somewhere today that China is projected to have more automobiles than the U.S. in a short while. This was in the context of a discussion of oil becoming scarce and etc. Wouldn't you think that if oil is becoming scarce, building more and more automobiles might not be a wise thing to do? You might think that China would be smart enough to learn from the mistakes of the U.S. rather than try to emulate them. The internal combustion engine has to be one of the worst inventions ever, when it comes to human welfare and intelligence. So now we are going to end up competing with China over who can have the most cars and trucks? Is this not an example of human stupidity raised to the nth power? At the very moment we should be engaged in an all out effort to get away from our dependance on oil we are engaged in a world-wide battle over control of what is left of it. The ascendance of the automobile industry over the railroads was a terrible mistake. Let us hope that the American love affair with the automobile will not persist until it becomes too late to do anything sensible about it. And let us hope that the Chinese are smart enough to learn from our mistakes. Europe has fine public transportation, both buses and trains. We could do the same if we weren't so stupid about it.

LKBIQ:
"It would be madness to let the purposes or the methods of private enterprise set the habits of the age of atomic energy."
Harold J. Laski