The Sadness of America

[Paul Mackin]

On Oct 9, 2005, at 3:56 PM, Thomas Eckhardt wrote:

> Paul Mackin schrieb:
>
>
>> I think Thomas has a point here. But talking about what "most US   
>> citizens" do or don't feel is treading on dangerous ground. It's  
>> a  very diverse country.
>>
>>
> Of course.
>
> I was thinking very generally, if you wish stereotypically, along  
> the lines of a sense of loss, of a promise squandered, as evoked by  
> the passage from M&D I quoted.

Sorry, I meant to reply to this in my previous response. Yes I agree  
there is much reason for sadness here.

By the way, there is another reason for sadness over post 1492  
America that is not captured by the M&D paragraph but is developed in  
a new book reviewed in the NY Times today.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/09/books/review/09baker.html? 
pagewanted=all

What emerges is an epic story, with a subtly altered tragedy at its  
heart. For all the European depredations in the Americas, the work of  
conquest was largely accomplished for them by their microbes, even  
before the white men arrived in any great numbers. The diseases  
brought along by the very first unwitting Spanish conquistadors, and  
probably by English fishermen working the New England coast, very  
likely triggered one of the greatest catastrophes in human history.  
Before the 16th century, there may have been as many as 90 million to  
112 million people living in the Americas - people who could be as  
different from each other "as Turks and Swedes," but who had  
cumulatively developed an incredible range of natural environments,  
from seeding the Amazon Basin with fruit trees to terracing the  
mountains of Peru. (Even the term "New World" may be a misnomer; it  
is possible that the world's first city was in South America.)

Then, disaster. According to some estimates, as much as 95 percent of  
the Indians may have died almost immediately on contact with various  
European diseases, particularly smallpox. That would have amounted to  
about one-fifth of the world's total population at the time, a level  
of destruction unequaled before or since. The exact numbers, like  
everything else, are in dispute, but it is clear that these plagues  
wreaked havoc on traditional Indian societies. European misreadings  
of America should not be attributed wholly to ethnic arrogance. The  
"savages" most of the colonists saw, without ever realizing it, were  
usually the traumatized, destitute survivors of ancient and intricate  
civilizations that had collapsed almost overnight. Even the  
superabundant "nature" the Europeans inherited had been largely put  
in place by these now absent gardeners, and had run wild only after  
they had ceased to cull and harvest it.

In the end, the loss to us all was incalculable. As Mann writes,  
"Having grown separately for millennia, the Americas were a boundless  
sea of novel ideas, dreams, stories, philosophies, religions,  
moralities, discoveries and all the other products of the mind. Few  
things are more sublime or characteristically human than the cross- 
fertilization of cultures. The simple discovery by Europe of the  
existence of the Americas caused an intellectual ferment. How much  
grander would have been the tumult if Indian societies had survived  
in full splendor!"

>
>
>> If we're talking about American foreign policy there is much   
>> Americans SHOULD  feel sad about.  How many do feel personally  
>> guilty  is another question.  I think I feel that if any other  
>> country were  in charge things would be even worse. If that were  
>> possible.
>>
>
>
> Hmmm, now that you mention it, I am definitely in favour of putting  
> Venezuela in charge for a change. Or Finland.
>
> Thomas
>
>