MDMD pacifism

[Doug Millison]

I don't have my copy of M&D with me today (on my lunch
break here at a meeting in SF), but I wonder if the
Line might also be seen as a boundary between two
religious/spiritual worldviews, and two ways of life
that emerge from those worldviews.  I'm not talking
about the obvious boundary that the Mason-Dixon line
came to represent, between "free" and slave states. 
The first purpose of the Line was to settle the
boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania, the latter
state being the center of settlement by Quakers -- a
pacifist people who from the start in North America
generally preferred trying to get along with the
indigenous inhabitants and who refrain from killing
and war for reasons of conscience.  Contrast that with
the stern Puritan, Calvinist religion/spirituality o
the north, in New England (which P explores in GR),
where colonists immediately began slaughtering the
native peoples to accomodate their desire for land and
resources. There are passages in M&D, too, where P
seems to talk of some sort of deep-seated taint or
poisoning of the continent and which he may even
compare to original sin, or Cain's murder of Abel.  We
had some discussion of this in the first MDMD, back in
'97-98. Maybe I'll have time to dig up what I wrote
back then and bring it up as appropriate during the
current discussion.

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