Dream: I am killing monsters & trying to protect a beloved group of people. But I am feeling great guilt every time I strike one of these monsters, because I sense that they are really just people dressed up in monster costumes. No one else seems to be aware of this, though. So I keep charging ahead, supressing the conviction.
Interpretation: Last night, during my reading, I finally found a shred of empathy for the European settlers who felt the need to civilize the savages. They were trying to protect their families and order, and considered gross human rights abuses and cultural (sometimes complete) genocide to be the only strategy to accomplish that.
Conclusion: WTF
From the drafts folder
6 years ago
I don't know. It's like in the Little House books when it says that Ma hates Indians. I understand her fear of them - being in a cabin in the middle of nowhere while Pa's off walking to the next state to get work or whatever, and she's there alone with three daughters - so she hates Indians because she's incredibly frightened of what they could do to her - but then I think, Well, the Ingalls family shouldn't be there to begin with because it isn't their land, no matter what the government decrees. It's the Indians' land. I don't know. I don't have any sympathy at all for the Church w/r/t what they did to the Native Americans, described by you in a previous post.
ReplyDeleteBleh, I know. No history lesson gives me more physical and psychological distress than this chapter. It disturbs me like literally nothing else I have ever read of.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I sense great danger the moment I look at a people group and damn them without being to relate to their depravity in any way whatsoever. Because, while I trust with all my heart that I would not have endorsed the terrible injustices, the perpetrators are my brothers and sisters just as much as the victims are. Just as the Nazis and Jews are. Just as CEO's and beggars are. Just as pagans and saints are.
I still damn those evil priests & colonials, but now I can make eye contact when doing it.