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1. Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

#153: July - Sept. 2017 (Non-Fiction)
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Robert Tulip

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1. Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

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This opening chapter presents a tragic picture of the first contact between Europe and America. The noble peaceful friendly generous savages of the Bahamas were enslaved, exploited, murdered and exterminated, as part of the Spanish lust for gold.

I read this story against the framework of deep time, looking at how this appalling incident sits against the sweep of human cultural evolution since the Neolithic.

The essential fact here is that Eurasia has had metal based economies for thousands of years. This technological advance meant that the clash with the stone based economies of the Americas and Australia was bound to be a matter of grief and incomprehension.

The intense competitiveness driven by European war between nation states meant that Columbus was just applying the same mentality to the Bahamas as the Spanish applied to its other wars in Europe. The discovery of the inability of the people of the new world to fight back on anything like an even basis meant that initially the result was extreme slaughter.
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Re: 1. Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

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I changed the thread title to match Chapter 1 because it's about much more than Columbus. Zinn compares Columbus' tactics to many other assaults on indigenous people and notes genocidal similarities. He contrasts his own approach to history to others: Where others completely bury or briefly dismiss genocide (mistakes and progress were made), Zinn will focus on the slaughter as well as those who are spared, but remain severely disadvantaged. Some of these themes are similar to our discussion of Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - by Jared Diamond. Zinn also ponders why genocide and human progress are perceived to be intertwined.
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Re: 1. Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

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"History is written by the winners." attributed to Adolf Hitler.

In reading this first chapter, I was reminded of how Eurocentric the history I learned in elementary and high school (during the 1940s and '50s) was. We learned about the Americas, Africa and Asia (with the exceptions of Egypt and the Fertile Cresecent) only in terms of the "discovery" and "exploration" (or should I say exploitation) of these lands by the European powers. Yes, Zinn is also biased in his presentation, but he admits to this bias early on in Chapter 1. I may add more comments to this chapter later as I read further, but for now it is a very interesting read.
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Re: 1. Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

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Cattleman wrote:"History is written by the winners." attributed to Adolf Hitler.

In reading this first chapter, I was reminded of how Eurocentric the history I learned in elementary and high school (during the 1940s and '50s) was. We learned about the Americas, Africa and Asia (with the exceptions of Egypt and the Fertile Cresecent) only in terms of the "discovery" and "exploration" (or should I say exploitation) of these lands by the European powers. Yes, Zinn is also biased in his presentation, but he admits to this bias early on in Chapter 1. I may add more comments to this chapter later as I read further, but for now it is a very interesting read.
That quote is from Churchill. This book can be viewed against Hegel's theory of history as a dialectic process of the evolution of ideas. A positive thesis, in this case Eurocentrism, over time gives rise, or gives way, to its negative antithesis, in this case the politically correct loathing of western civilisation. Then gradually the dialogue between these extremes produces an integrating synthesis, balancing the perceptions of both the positive and negative accounts.
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Re: 1. Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

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Because when this book came out, and for some years after, there was a lot of commentary on Zinn's view of writing about history, it might be a good idea to look closely at how he describes his approach.
It is not that the historian can avoid emphasis of some facts and
not of others. This is as natural to him as to the mapmaker, who, in
order to produce a usable drawing for practical purposes, must first
flatten and distort the shape of the earth, then choose out of the bewildering
mass of geographic information those things needed for the purpose
of this or that particular map.
The statement is most obviously true in the case of a one-volume history that Zinn is offering as an alternative to the ones commonly given to high school students. With so much to cover, clearly anyone's treatment must be selective and sketchy. One way to cut the job down to size is to focus on a single level, which in most cases has been the level of national politics, or of local events that turned out to be nationally important, such as those in Lexington and Concord in 1775. It's pretty much an impossible job to to do justice to the richness and complexity of the U.S. or any other country in one volume. Many books are longer than Zinn's but center on only a few years, or the career of one important figure. So I think that with his focus on the underdog and the oppressed, Zinn whittles down the task somewhat. A strong point of view can do that. He also rescues history writing meant for the general reader from the dullness it usually has--one damn war after another, as a wag once said.
My argument cannot be against selection, simplification, emphasis,
which are inevitable for both cartographers and historians. But the
mapmaker's distortion is a technical necessity for a common purpose
shared by all people who need maps. The historian's distortion is more
than technical, it is ideological; it is released into a world of contending
interests, where any chosen emphasis supports (whether the historian
means to or not) some kind of interest, whether economic or political
or racial or national or sexual.
He seems to say that selection is inevitably distortion. Whether he applies this rule to his own writing here, as it seems he should, is unclear. The guise of objectivity that the professional historian assumes is just that, a failed attempt to obfuscate the historian's own unacknowledged interests and the fact that when he releases his findings to the world, they attach to all sorts of political interests (Zinn's view, not necessarily mine).
Furthermore, this ideological interest is not openly expressed in
the way a mapmaker's technical interest is obvious ("This is a Mercator
projection for long-range navigation-for short-range, you'd better use
a different projection"). No, it is presented as if all readers of history
had a common interest which historians serve to the best of their ability.
This is not intentional deception; the historian has been trained in a
society in which education and knowledge are put forward as technical
problems of excellence and not as tools for contending social, classes,
races, nations.
He says that although historians want us to think they are only wielding tools they were arduously trained in, they do not escape the ideological nature of their work. They again want us to believe they have succeeded, through "education and knowledge," in objectively viewing the past, but they are serving the interests of their own class nonetheless. Historians unwittingly provide fodder for a welter of competing parties at all levels of society. Perhaps Zinn is suggesting that historians should openly engage socially and politically, as he did in his career. Zinn, although a Ph.D from Columbia in history, is viewed as having more of an activist than a historian career. I would very strongly disagree with him if he means to downplay the "tools of excellence" that are integral to a historians's training. Without these being at the center of the discipline, well, there is no discipline at all.
To emphasize the heroism of Columbus and his successors as navigators
and discoverers, and to deemphasize their genocide, is not a
technical necessity but an ideological choice. It serves-unwittingly to
justify what was done.
He is referring to his mention of Samuel Elliot Morrison's summary of Columbus. Morrison gives one line to Columbus's genocide, but he chose to expand on his skills, indomitable will, and faith in God (!). In Zinn's mind, the selection betrays Morrison's own class interests. Do I agree with Zinn? I do in part, but if the historian will inevitably distort, as Zinn believes, that doesn't mean that the whole of every conventional historian's work is tainted. And to be fair, Zinn doesn't actually say that. It might come down to whether it's more important to detail the history of thousands or millions killed, or to slight this history by following the history of the influential, mainstream victors. I don't think that doing the latter condones the evil that went on, though.
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Re: 1. Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

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I don't recall Zinn accusing Morrison of "class interests". Rather, the clash is about values and philosophy. Communists have analysed this clash in class interest terms, as a monolithic theory of value, reducing culture to economics.
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Re: 1. Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

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Robert Tulip wrote:I don't recall Zinn accusing Morrison of "class interests". Rather, the clash is about values and philosophy. Communists have analysed this clash in class interest terms, as a monolithic theory of value, reducing culture to economics.
But a difference in values and philosophy due to what? "Class interests" has a Marxist tone I don't intend, but don't professional historians in Zinn's view most often identify with the winners such as Columbus and leave out most of the story of those sacrificed in the name of progress?
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Re: 1. Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

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DWill wrote:But a difference in values and philosophy due to what?
Values are moral assessments about what is good and bad. One of the big clashes of values in historiography is between the great man theory of history and economic reductionism.

If we see historical change as primarily a function of genius, will and personal initiative of great men, our values will be very different from people who see change as a function of material forces. This difference is seen clearly in the debate between Hegel’s dialectical idealism and Marx’s dialectical materialism, with Marx rejecting the personal agency of leaders as what he called an ‘epiphenomenon’, a byproduct of the real economic forces that he thought create events.

Columbus is viewed as a great man by conservative history. His discovery of America is seen as the product of will, and as the positive enabler for the creation of the modern world. The contrasting materialist view was summarised by Marx’s statement that all history is the history of class struggle, a view that Zinn looks sympathetic to.
DWill wrote: "Class interests" has a Marxist tone I don't intend, but don't professional historians in Zinn's view most often identify with the winners such as Columbus and leave out most of the story of those sacrificed in the name of progress?
I am not sure that Zinn is speaking so much about the history profession in his comment about how history identifies with the victors. Many historians are critical and analytic, interested in rigorous sorting of facts, rather than propagating political agendas.

Zinn's critique applies more to popular history, the story or myth of the nation as it appears in school textbooks and mass media portrayals, which aim to inculcate patriotism, loyalty, nationalism, and admiration for the achievements of great men, encouraging people to try to emulate the values of leaders who made the nation great.

Here of course we find the echo of Mr Trump’s Make America Great Again philosophy, his view that collectivism destroys personal initiative and pride, and that individuals should copy the entrepreneurs of capitalism to make business the engine of growth, displacing the central role of the state, in a return to values of a previous era.

Critics say that Trump is just reflecting class interests, and deceiving his poor supporters. Supporters say that Trump is presenting a philosophy that also enables the poor to succeed, and is not just ruling for the rich.

With Columbus, as the original 'deplorable', it is clear that the suffering of Native Americans was a direct result of the European genocidal greedy invasion of the New World. And yet, without this invasion, the multi-trillion dollar scale of modern production could not have happened, and the Americas would have stayed in the stone age, without wheels, writing, smelting, or other modern technology.

By Zinn focusing on the emotional pain, destruction and evil of the moment of contact, the whole creative destruction that enabled modernity is impugned. The value system of class analysis is behind this focus on suffering, and encourages people to see themselves as belonging to a collective group with the only action as solidarity. The contrasting value system sees people as individuals who can defy the world to transform situations. This clash of values was in stark relief in the recent Presidential election, and helps to explain the collective fury towards President Trump.
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Re: 1. Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

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Was all this bloodshed and deceit - from Columbus to Cortés, Pizarro, the Puritans - a necessity for the human race to progress from savagery to civilization? Was Morison right in burying the story of genocide inside a more important story of human progress? Perhaps a persuasive argument can be made - as it was made by Stalin when he killed peasants for industrial progress in the Soviet Union, as it was made by Churchill explaining the bombings of Dresden and Hamburg, and Truman explaining Hiroshima. But how can the judgment be made if the benefits and losses cannot be balanced because the losses are either unmentioned or mentioned quickly?

That quick disposal might be acceptable ("Unfortunate, yes, but it had to be done") to the middle and upper classes of the conquering and "advanced" countries. But is it acceptable to the poor of Asia, Africa, Latin America, or to the prisoners in Soviet labor camps, or the blacks in urban ghettos, or the Indians on reservations - to the victims of the progress which benefits a privileged minority in the world?

...If there are necessary sacrifices to be made for human progress, it is not essential to hold to the principle that those to be sacrificed must make the decision themselves? We can all decide to give up something of ours, but do we have the right to throw into the pyre the children of others, or even our own children, for a progress which is not nearly as clear or present as sickness or health, life or death?
p. 17
These vital questions are rarely explored. In his last two paragraphs, Mr. Tulip appears to take the side that yes, bloodshed and deceit are indeed required for human progress and goes further, claiming that just examining evil that takes place "impugns" the inevitable march of progress. Presumably he agrees that repressing stories of genocide and abuse are required to maintain the sunny façade of progress.

This is a false dichotomy. When the English arrived in North America, they didn't know what they were doing and were starving. They could have requested help, cooperated, and negotiated more peaceful terms. A devastating coast to coast invasion including the massive importation of slaves was not required to transfer technology in both directions. But being so arrogant they were unable to treat the Indians as anywhere near equal and were incapable of abiding by the terms of their own agreements.
In the North American English colonies, the pattern was set early, as Columbus had set it in the islands of the Bahamas. In 1585, before there was any permanent English settlement in Virginia, Richard Grenville landed there with seven ships. The Indians he met were hospitable, but when one of them stole a small silver cup, Grenville sacked and burned the whole Indian village.
p. 12
And so continued the genocide for well over a hundred years... We must examine history fearlessly in order to learn.
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Re: 1. Columbus, The Indians, and Human Progress

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Robert Tulip wrote: am not sure that Zinn is speaking so much about the history profession in his comment about how history identifies with the victors. Many historians are critical and analytic, interested in rigorous sorting of facts, rather than propagating political agendas.

Zinn's critique applies more to popular history, the story or myth of the nation as it appears in school textbooks and mass media portrayals, which aim to inculcate patriotism, loyalty, nationalism, and admiration for the achievements of great men, encouraging people to try to emulate the values of leaders who made the nation great.
Popular history is created by the historians who are accorded the role of spokesman for their subject, people such as Samuel Eliot Morison. "In that inevitable taking of sides which comes from selection and emphasis," historians who tell about the past "from the point of view of governments, conquerors, diplomats, leaders" have controlled the agenda. Of course, many historians, especially since the 1960s, have written in opposition to the rosy scenario of heroism, but at the time when Zinn is writing (1980), these views had not ever been made themes in a survey of U.S. history. Zinn proposed to change that, and judging by the success of his book, his message was one that Americans wanted to hear.
With Columbus, as the original 'deplorable', it is clear that the suffering of Native Americans was a direct result of the European genocidal greedy invasion of the New World. And yet, without this invasion, the multi-trillion dollar scale of modern production could not have happened, and the Americas would have stayed in the stone age, without wheels, writing, smelting, or other modern technology.
"Deplorable" for a completely different reason from the one conceived by HRC. I suppose your point about the inevitability of the change to a modern capitalist economy would be generally conceded, but then most would still want to object to the terrorism and brutality employed. What can we do but "deplore" that human beings can be such evil bastards and sometimes be called great despite that, or even because of it. Zinn says what most would also agree with, that technological backwardness doesn't justify wanton murder and mutilation. He rightly says that other features of the native cultures that were destroyed place them ahead of the master cultures, features such as few class distinctions, less sexism, even democratic process.
By Zinn focusing on the emotional pain, destruction and evil of the moment of contact, the whole creative destruction that enabled modernity is impugned. The value system of class analysis is behind this focus on suffering, and encourages people to see themselves as belonging to a collective group with the only action as solidarity. The contrasting value system sees people as individuals who can defy the world to transform situations. This clash of values was in stark relief in the recent Presidential election, and helps to explain the collective fury towards President Trump.
Surely you don't mean to include the destruction of human beings in this capitalist creative destruction. The terror went well beyond "the moment of contact," as well. But what you might be getting at is the purpose of Zinn's wanting to let us in the stuff that has been sanitized away. He says that he doesn't wish to try leaders in absentia or ramp up our sense of collective guilt. What he wants to do is something that academic historiography would shun: make it the job of history to serve society by showing how we have been better people and can be in the future.
If history is to be creative, to anticipate a possible
future without denying the past, it should, I believe, emphasize new
possibilities by disclosing those hidden episodes of the past when, even
if in brief flashes, people showed their ability to resist, to join together,
occasionally to win. I am supposing, or perhaps only hoping, that our
future may be found in the past's fugitive moments of compassion rather
than in its solid centuries of warfare.
That, being as blunt as I can, is my approach to the history of
the United States. The reader may as well know that before going
on.
Robert, you might have viewed a different U.S. election than I did. You certainly see a Donald Trump unfamiliar to me.
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