whoa nellie!

[RICHARD ROMEO]

Diane rebuts:   Andrew (who frequently attacks many of us on this list 
for being
middle-class--sorry dude I am most definitely from the suburbs of Los
Angeles  and not sitting on a throne over there in the Holy Land of 
Anglia
like you apparently are...) annouces that all cultures lead to death and
destruction.  Well that's a pretty gloss over what should be a carefully
contextualized history of European imperialism and American know-how
leading us straight to the bomb.  Don't blame all other cultures in your
humanist rush to define the nature of homo-sapiens--plenty of peoples 
have
inhabited this planet without propagating mythologies of domination and
destruction and calling that progress. 
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Diane--first, can you provide an example of any groups of humans who do 
not/did not  propigate domination, slavery, and/or destruction.  I can 
think of many non-western ones that have:  Turks in Armenia, the 
Indonesian state and native tribes, hutus tutsis,, etc. etc.  
Might want to take a look at Pat Barker's _The Ghost Road_, where Dr. 
Rivers comes to the conclusion that even "primitive" societies need their 
blood rituals (he's studied headhunters in the south pacific), it's not 
just a disease of WW1-diseased Europe.  Barker's arguments tend to focus 
on the male-dominated societal death wish in both "primitive" and 
"advanced" societies, which is more plausible to me than claiming "plenty 
of peoples have inhabited this planet without 
propigating..domination/destruction".  IMHO, 'course.

Richard Romeo
Coordinator of Cooperating Collections
The Foundation Center-NYC
212-807-2417
rromeo at fdncenter.org