RoR: Forum

Steven, is this the incident that the Michael Caine movie, Zulu, is based on?

Ross

Post 1

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 4:16am

Excellent point there, Ross! The Battle of Blood River, the occurrence for my article, took place in 1839. The incident to which Ross is referring is the Battle of Rorke's Drift, which took place 40 years later. Eleven VCs (American equivalent: Medal of Honor) were handed out for 11 of 150 soldiers defending against 5000 Zulu troops. Another excellent example. I thought about using this one, except for a) to my knowledge, the British never attempted to be peaceful with the natives at first ,b) the betrayal of the Trekkers was so appalling and c) rather than just defending for 12 hours, the Trekkers resoundingly crushed their betrayers.

Post 2

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 5:59am

Thanks for the history mate.

The battle raged for two hours, with the Zulu foolishly charging their considerable number headlong into the fury of grapeshot

Grapeshot comes from a cannon doesn't it? If so it suggests the Dutchies were packin' it pretty well, and no small wonder they cleaned up. Not to take away from their being champions of reason over a bunch of dopes- but for that fact I bet I could think of a better example to illustrate the principle.

Well writ. Cheers.

Post 3

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 6:45am

Leave it to an Objectivist to hail wholesale slaughter of an indigenous people, just as thier facsist counterparts, the Nazis. did in WWII. WHY should we be celebrating, again? Because the "white man" was able to, yet again, "beat down" the "black man"? Has it occurred to any of your that CULTURAL DIFFERENCES may have accounted for the problems? It is quite likely that the Zulu simply had a different conception of right and wrong, and of honesty and dishonesty. After, all, call it peaceful if you must, but those Dutch were like so many Westerners, exhibiting a pathological drive towards violent Imperialism. For a more recent example, please see the Middle East, where the US seems intent on annexing any territory with oil. Oil and money, when all it is really about is Peace and Love.

Ok, the above is horse poop. Great article! However, I think that I may have successfully hit upon every bogus/collectivst argument typically used, and in the span of a single paragraph!

Post 4

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 9:00am

If your story is true, Steven, then I foresee two possible explanations for why the Zulus set the Voortrekkers up like that:

1) The Zulu king really was afraid of the "wizards".

2) The Zulu king knew he lead a vast army, and assumed he had the greater power. Therefore, doing this was sadistic amusement for him.

I'm inclined to believe the second explanation more. It's people who believe they have the greater power, who are usually the ones who get off on these unfair acts of overwhelming cruelty.

It may also be a reason why certain cultures never advance out of the dark ages... because they just can't put aside their addictions to delusory acts of grandiosity like ritual torture and trickery, to truly embrace rationality long enough to advance themselves. They develop a "we're fine as we are" attitude.

I've seen this far too many times, in far too many cultures resentfully lamenting how "downtrodden" they are, when they always somehow manage to perk up immediately and summon boundless reserves of energy when it comes to engaging in some petty act of ritualistic grandeur.

Their priorities are screwed up.

Post 5

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 9:09am

Has it occurred to any of your that CULTURAL DIFFERENCES may have accounted for the problems? It is quite likely that the Zulu simply had a different conception of right and wrong, and of honesty and dishonesty.

Here you have it, folks. Evil itself, in written form.

There is no good or bad, only different.

This mentality is the most ultimate, veiled racism, for the following reason: It basically says that certain races of people are so innately inferior and savage that they cannot be held to any rational standards of thought or behavior. The "wogs" are hopeless, and we just have to set them aside as a kind of "backward nature preserve".

In other words, we have to "patronizingly allow" them and those who set the rules for their culture to not only terrorize others, but to let them terrorize their own people who may wish to embrace rationality.

Congratulations, Scott.

Post 6

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 9:28am

Scott,

I was just emailed by someone who informed me that you were kidding... a point that wasn't made in your post until the second paragraph.

Until that second paragraph, however, everything you said sounded exactly like the bile I'm used to hearing from all my college classes and just about everywhere else. It was that perfect.

I got to the end of the first paragraph and just couldn't read any more. I had to say something. So there you have it.

Post 7

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 1:33pm

There are many stories from the history of the American West that colorfully illustrate the superior abilities of rational American adventurers compared with the primitive and passive habits of thought of hostile Indians.

Around the period 1820 to 1830, fur trappers were returning to St. Louis from their trapping grounds in present day Montana, floating down the Missouri River in round boats laden with furs, traps, and other belongings. When the four trappers pulled abreast of what they thought was a peaceful Pawnee Indian village on the river bank, they were invited to the chief's lodge to smoke. The trappers were invited to leave their guns outdoors. As the festivities got underway, one of the trappers noticed a bead pattern or other marker that raised his suspicions about the identity of the tribe. Turning to his companions, he hissed "Arikrara's!", a tribe notorious for its violent hostility toward Americans. The chief, who noticed this exchange, immediately responded with signs and orally, "No Arikara! Pawnee we!" The trappers, whose number included the famous Jim Bridger, looked silently at one another for a moment, and in the next instant jumped to their feet and exploded from the tent.

Their guns had been stolen by the Arikara, but one of the four spotted a brave in possension of his rifle and pouch, which he wrestled away from the Indian. The Indians cut down one of the four as they raced for the river, but his suvivors plunged headlong into the water and swam for their lives. Upon reaching the other shore, the three holed up in the brush while 150 or so braves arrived on the beach and began hunting them. With their one rifle, the trappers shot crawling Indians whenever they came into sight. This dangerous hunt frightened and scattered the braves, who scrambled for cover. Forced by these risky circumstances to think, strategize, and fight one on one, the Indians soon retreated.

The three American adventurers eventually made it back to St. Louis after more harrowing challenges.

Post 8

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 2:54pm

Mark goes on about how we outfoxed and whupped up ass on those pesky Injuns.

There are many stories from the history of the American West that colorfully illustrate the superior abilities of rational American adventurers compared with the primitive and passive habits of thought of hostile Indians.

Take a look at what the Europeans did to the locals on the Aleutians so they could speed up their otter pelt business- They kidnapped their families and held them hostage to force the men to help them.

Yeah, we've got a spotless record. Those natives just don't get it, the dumb fuckers.

rde
Ma, make me a steak- I need energy for MORE KILLIN'.

Post 9

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 3:00pm

M. Engle, your message is exactly the reason that I chose the story I did. I didn't want people like you whining about how if we fail to have a spotless record, we must have zero redeeming qualities whatsoever. Myself, I have been guilty of this at times by refusing to even hear what some leftist trash (i.e. my post concerning Erich Fromm) has to say, but I am coming to realize that if all we have is a diamond in the rough, at least it's still a diamond. I find it rather malevolent of you, M. Engle, to handpick your horror stories about some aberrant pioneers rather than tackle the fact that the entire Native American philosophy was irrational, mystic, and yes, savage.

Post 10

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 3:11pm

Rich,

Great post; brilliantly written. Loved it.

Post 11

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 6:57pm

Steven, brilliant riposte to Rich's multiculti snipings. There is indeed a great deal of cherry-picking that goes on in discussions of the conflicts between American settlers and natives. The Europeans' worst offenses are trotted out and recited over and over again, with nary a mention of the betrayals and brutality commited by the indigenous tribes. Hatred of the victors for being the victors, I suppose.

Post 12

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 7:17pm

Drew-
Gotta love ya. You are sometimes reticent, but you are always succinct. Good post.

Post 13

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 8:02pm

Scott,

Whew! I was sharpening knives and loading bullets until you said -

Ok, the above is horse poop. Great article! However, I think that I may have successfully hit upon every bogus/collectivst argument typically used, and in the span of a single paragraph!

You suckered me. Well done.
-----------

I find it strange that when it comes to North American history, we tend to stop at the year 1492. I''m sure before that, there is nothing to write about, because it was such a peaceful and harmonious place. Lots of frolicking in sunshine and rainbows n' such!

But, there are a few things that make me go...hmm.

Like the Ute word, Comanche, which means "they who fight us all the time!" And, the Comanche word, Comanche, which means, "The People!"

Well, that almost sounds like some folks on this continent were little war like and maybe a little racist.

Nooooo, they were all happy, shiny people, right?

No wars. No butchery. No land grabs for resources. Nawww, not those peace luv'n Injun's.

Only love, peace, sugarcanes & lolipops!

Yeah, right!

gw

And by the way, the Spell Check on this site shows the word American to be a misspelled word (but, Bin Laden is not!)

What kind of French smell'n, mullah luv'n, Saddam kiss'n, Bin Laden blow'n crap is that?

A M E R I C A N! It's been spelled that way for well over 229 years!

I demand to speak to the Manager! :-)

(Edited by gary williams on 8/23, 8:03pm)

(Edited by gary williams on 8/23, 8:07pm)

Post 14

Tuesday, August 23, 2005 - 10:57pm

Celeste Norcross, hahaha. Yea... I was starting to feel sick to my stomach toward the middle half of Scott's first sentence. My skepticism that he would write such a thing held me through. : )

Post 15

Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - 2:12am

You guys are too much! Cherry-picking? You're serious? Trail of tears mean anything to you? Extermination of the buffalo? Y'all can call me anything you like but if it looks like genocide, sounds like genocide--well, you know the rest.

And please, fellow rationalists, I'm not saying or implying that European Americans have "no redeeming qualities whatsoever." Or that Native American history is all "sugarcanes & lolipops." I'm saying that the use of overwhelming force systematically and over the course of decades with the express purpose of eradicating a people is the wrong way to go about spreading the light of reason across a continent.

Mr. Druckenmiller, where do you get your information that Native American philosophy is "irrational, mystic, and yes, savage?" Watching Dances with Wolves? I somehow doubt that you've made a scholarly study of the matter. You know any Native Americans? I've lived with Native Americans and the folks I knew were some of the most grounded and rational people to talk to that I've ever met; thoroughly honest, unbelievably calm, no nonsense people with a hell of a sense of humor, even about our history.

So you say we're more rational and intellectually advanced than they are, does that make it necessary to denigrate and malign them? Do you also make fun of the mentally retarded and the handicapped because you're smarter and can run faster?

Post 16

Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - 6:31am

Do you also make fun of the mentally retarded and the handicapped because you're smarter and can run faster?

Yes.

gw

Post 17

Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - 7:06am

Whenever faced with a false dichotomy, I always go the third way, the way of reason.

I cannot rejoice that reason is used for making better war. The need to make war at all is distasteful to me, even against savages. If it must be engaged in, so be it. And may those more dedicated to reason win.

I cannot rejoice in the constant recourse to brute force by both savages and pioneers.

I cannot rejoice in genocide instead of education.

I cannot rejoice in the resistance of savages to adopting reason when they encounter it in order to maintain their own brutal "traditions."

I cannot rejoice in the resistance of pioneers to adopting reason when they acquire what they want by killing natives.

There is so much in this White Man versus Native approach that I simply cannot relate to - on either side.

Conquest on savages happened all over the world. It is part of our history. There are many good things on both sides and many despicable things on both sides. The good is where reason was used. The bad is where it was not.

There is a wonderful novel of historical fiction about the Lakota Indians by a friend of Ayn Rand that I read several years ago, "Hanta Yo" by Ruth Beebe Hill. This lady met a guardian of the culture of a dying tribe, spent a few years with him relearning all the legends, customs, rituals, songs and everything else about the Lakotas, became fluent in the Lakota language, threw away about 1,000 pages of a book she had already written, wrote a new book based on an actual set of painted commemorative hides, translated her whole book into Lakota, then translated it back into English using a bilingual dictionary from the beginning of the 1800's. It is simply stunning.

The book is about the encounter of the Indians with the White Man. It gives an excellent rational perspective of this culture clash. (I especially got a kick out of how the Indians viewed slaves, as black White Men, and their difficulty in understanding slavery because they did not practice - therefore understand the concept of - property rights for real estate.)

For a look at a documentation based account of what the American government did with the Indians, there is an excellent book, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown. It is slanted to the Indian side, but it goes a long way in setting the record straight. (For example, it documents without mercy the treaties that were constantly broken by the American government, but does not analyze the irrational parts given in many of them, like not having clauses for being able to access valuable materials if they were discovered on enormous tracts of land and some kind of compensation for it.)

This whole thing is not as simple as a Cowboy and Indian movie.

Michael

Post 18

Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - 7:25am

Thank you Mr. Haggerty for the breath of good sense (#15). Some of my ancestors were Choctaw. My first lover Jer was half Choctaw. We were together from when we were both 19 to his death at age 41. I learned a little of that tribe. One Labor Day we went with Jer's mom (the full-blood) and his stepfather (who was mostly Crow) to the capital of the old Choctaw Nation for the annual tribal meeting. There I entered the grand old capitol building, which they were working to restore. This tribe's survivors of the Trail of Tears had had a constitution. These so-called Civilized Tribes adopted superior instruments of the pale-faces very quickly, such as iron pots in place of clay pots.

I read once the account of an early European visitor to the tribe in its original region of the South. I remember he was struck by their lack of religion and their lack of art. They danced and sang, and the visitor recorded that "the Choctaw are a fun-loving people." Jer and I often laughed over that remark.

Before the assembly for the meeting, we tried out some of the traditional food. Pretty bland, no salt. We visited with relatives who had remained in this region of Oklahoma, to which the tribe had been marched by Jackson and cohorts. (This tribe had refused to trade their cultivated farms in the South for wilderness land in Indian Territory.) They joked that the Chief was a crook, which was a false rumor going around. We assembled in an open-air structure having a roof of leafy branches. We sang Choctaw hymns (Christian, you know). Then was the business meeting. What good folk.

Post 19

Wednesday, August 24, 2005 - 9:58am