These books are getting shorter and shorter, this one was about 100 pages long, excluding author notes and forwards and all that stuff that isn't actually part of the story.
The story itself was enjoyable, but the philosophy that made it up was a little hard to believe. The whole book was about a sheepherder boy who has a dream about a treasure in Egypt. A Gypsy tells him it is an omen and gets him to agree to pay her one tenth of the treasure if he finds it. He is then told by a mysterious man who calls himself a king about the spirit of the world and personal legends. The philosophy is that every person when they are young has a dream that is their "personal legend" and if they pursue it the universe will conspire to help them achieve it.
This view is strikingly similar to the view of optimism that was so thoroughly torn down in "Bright Sided." The view of optimism is that if you think positively the universe will send positive things your way. So if you were pursuing your personal legend the universe would send you what you needed so long as you were thinking about your goal.
That's what's said in the book anyway, after that the same concept repeats continuously until the boy finds his treasure, so there isn't much more to say about it. It'd be interesting if this whole philosophy were correct, because I remember my childhood fantasy was to be some sort of superhero who would fight evil in massive battles stretching across several dimensions (often including a dimension that was the home to one or more of the shows/movies I liked). Now that would be a tall order for the universe to fill, assuming the universe takes requests, which is doubtful, but hey if the universe wants to make me a god-like being I won't stop it.
Joking aside, there really isn't much more to say about this book, the story was good, the view interesting to a point, and that's about it.
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglas, 8 to go!-15
As the title says, we're approaching the end of the 52 list, I actually have more blog posts than books to read, but I plan to be caught up this week or next week in all respects.
This biography was incredibly short, 86 pages if I remember correctly, but it was only about Frederick's life as a slave, whereas other biographies cover life after slavery. So it makes sense that it would be much shorter than normal.
As always, reading about how slaves were treated made my blood boil, and because of that the book was one I was happy to be done with quickly. Thankfully this book, though infuriating in it's content, provided more detail on the slave situation then other books. Perhaps since this was written by an actual slave instead of someone trying to write about slaves there is less of an urge to censor the material and try and preserve the pride of the white race. After all at the time this was written there were two types of people, slave owners who would either not believe a black could write or would burn any black book, or the abolitionists who were appalled by slavery and would likely be disturbed by such humiliating knowledge of how it works. The majority of people probably read books written by whites about black slavery that had some censorship to make it seem like something that came from hell, but from a higher level of hell then it actually came from. As a race people don't like owning up to their wrongs, so even the ones trying to expose the wrongs of their race would be restrained in doing so.
A black slave recently liberated from slavery doesn't have these restraints though, if anything the built up resentment towards slave owners would make his descriptions even more graphic. Since it's not the pride of his race that he's smashing he has no need for censorship.
That's my theory about why this book had so much more detail than normal, but now it's time to talk about some of the details themselves.
It's been established beyond a doubt that slavery was evil, slaves would be worked to death for nothing more than just enough food to survive, they would be treated like property and be abused maliciously. As if this weren't bad enough, it seems some slave owners neglected to even provide enough food for their slaves to survive.This is not a surprising new concept to me, as considering how much whites hated their black slaves it doesn't seem like much of a stretch of the imagination, but it is the first case I remember where I have actually encountered such a situation.
Also, several books ago I expressed my distaste for the actions of organized religion, and I provided several crimes against humanity committed in the name of religion. Now it appears that in the South religion was again used as the ultimate refuge of evil. Frederick describes in detail how religious zealots made the most brutal masters. He states that these masters use religion to justify their heinous actions to an extent that they never could have without it. One example he gave was when he watched his master whip a girl over some minor transgression until she bled, and then continued to whip her mercilessly until he was tired. His justification was a passage from the bible that read "he who knoweth the will of his master, and does it not..." I forget the rest, something about severe punishment. Not being very knowledgeable about the bible I can't say what that passage was actually meant to say, but I'm pretty sure it was not meant to say "if you enslave someone for their whole life and they don't behave perfectly the whole time you can whip them until they're mutilated for the rest of their life or until they die of whipping."
When Frederick learned to read and write and attempted to teach his fellow slaves religion their schools would be raided and broken up by the practitioners of that very religion. Fredrick wastes no time in pointing out the sick and twisted irony there.
On a (somewhat) more positive note, not all slave owners were malicious demons incapable of kindness. Fredrick was at one point a slave to a carpenter company, and through a series of events his owner reluctantly paid him a whole quarter, a sum which at that time was a ludicrous amount of money to pay a slave. Frederick had worked hard and earned much more money than that, but he says that the concept of slavery was so deeply ingrained in Southerners that being paid a quarter was an indicator that his master was kind and believed he deserved the whole sum, but couldn't pay a slave that much money due to social pressure. This took place during a time where white workers were growing more and more hostile to the black slaves of the company, indicating that the social pressure to not pay Fredrick his due was even greater than normal.
This raises an important question, we arbitrarily classify slave owners as evil, greedy, whatever negative term you specially reserve for the lowest of the low in your life. This man who paid Frederick shows what was at the time incredible kindness and compassion, so can we say that he was an all around evil man? It's a case of nature vs. nurture. This man was raised in a society where slavery was the norm, justified by countless means, and practiced by all his peers. The natural result of this is that he'd be raised to believe slavery was right, but the cruelty of some slave owners didn't fit in with his (apparently) kind nature. So he was doing something we view as evil, but it didn't automatically make him evil himself. I guess the lesson to take from this is "don't judge a book by it's cover," even though slavery is probably one of the most ugly covers you can slap onto the book of a person.
Frederick also details how slave owners kept slaves from revolting. The method is ethically appalling, but my rational mind is forced to admit it is rather ingenious. The first and most crucial part of the process is to keep blacks as uneducated as possible, simple enough, those who know nothing can dream of nothing else. The rest is a series of unrelated things that lead to a broken slave. One such thing is the giving of a holiday at Christmas, during which slaves are discouraged from working and encouraged to drink and party, the whites would get the blacks drunk and create an illusion that this is what freedom was like. The next day the blacks go back to work with awful hangovers, uneducated as they are they make a connection between freedom and the feelings of a hangover without realizing the connection between being drunk and a hangover. The end result is the slaves who fall for this trick becoming appalled with freedom and, unbelievable as it may seem, preferring slavery.
Another trick that was widely used by whites covers pretty much everything else. If a black complains about a lack of food his/her owner can't very well deny the slave more food for fear of a revolt. So the owner pretends to graciously allow the slave more food, then orders a large amount of food and orders the slave to eat it in a set period of time that is far to short to conceivably eat it in. When the slave reports that he can't eat that much food he is whipped for being hard to please, the request for more food does not come again. The same principle was used on slaves who would steal a certain favorite food, the owner would order huge amounts of the favorite food and force to slave to eat until they were sick, the thievery would then cease.
The context is awful, but the principle is ingenious. As I am writing this blog I am reminded of the book "Brave New World," in which the method of conditioning people who don't know any better to hate certain things was a central concept. The basic principle is virtually identical, though the scale of it's application and the methods are vastly different, which is to be expected in a science fiction novel being compared to real life.
Unfortunately I have run out of things to say about this book. I do feel the need to take a moment to appreciate the oddity that an 86 page book about a subject I have read about so many times it has become repetitive and boring has yielded one of the most long and full blog posts of the bunch. I guess big things often come in small packages like this.
Well I'm off for now, I'll be blogging again soon, so if anybody is actually following this, stay tuned!
This biography was incredibly short, 86 pages if I remember correctly, but it was only about Frederick's life as a slave, whereas other biographies cover life after slavery. So it makes sense that it would be much shorter than normal.
As always, reading about how slaves were treated made my blood boil, and because of that the book was one I was happy to be done with quickly. Thankfully this book, though infuriating in it's content, provided more detail on the slave situation then other books. Perhaps since this was written by an actual slave instead of someone trying to write about slaves there is less of an urge to censor the material and try and preserve the pride of the white race. After all at the time this was written there were two types of people, slave owners who would either not believe a black could write or would burn any black book, or the abolitionists who were appalled by slavery and would likely be disturbed by such humiliating knowledge of how it works. The majority of people probably read books written by whites about black slavery that had some censorship to make it seem like something that came from hell, but from a higher level of hell then it actually came from. As a race people don't like owning up to their wrongs, so even the ones trying to expose the wrongs of their race would be restrained in doing so.
A black slave recently liberated from slavery doesn't have these restraints though, if anything the built up resentment towards slave owners would make his descriptions even more graphic. Since it's not the pride of his race that he's smashing he has no need for censorship.
That's my theory about why this book had so much more detail than normal, but now it's time to talk about some of the details themselves.
It's been established beyond a doubt that slavery was evil, slaves would be worked to death for nothing more than just enough food to survive, they would be treated like property and be abused maliciously. As if this weren't bad enough, it seems some slave owners neglected to even provide enough food for their slaves to survive.This is not a surprising new concept to me, as considering how much whites hated their black slaves it doesn't seem like much of a stretch of the imagination, but it is the first case I remember where I have actually encountered such a situation.
Also, several books ago I expressed my distaste for the actions of organized religion, and I provided several crimes against humanity committed in the name of religion. Now it appears that in the South religion was again used as the ultimate refuge of evil. Frederick describes in detail how religious zealots made the most brutal masters. He states that these masters use religion to justify their heinous actions to an extent that they never could have without it. One example he gave was when he watched his master whip a girl over some minor transgression until she bled, and then continued to whip her mercilessly until he was tired. His justification was a passage from the bible that read "he who knoweth the will of his master, and does it not..." I forget the rest, something about severe punishment. Not being very knowledgeable about the bible I can't say what that passage was actually meant to say, but I'm pretty sure it was not meant to say "if you enslave someone for their whole life and they don't behave perfectly the whole time you can whip them until they're mutilated for the rest of their life or until they die of whipping."
When Frederick learned to read and write and attempted to teach his fellow slaves religion their schools would be raided and broken up by the practitioners of that very religion. Fredrick wastes no time in pointing out the sick and twisted irony there.
On a (somewhat) more positive note, not all slave owners were malicious demons incapable of kindness. Fredrick was at one point a slave to a carpenter company, and through a series of events his owner reluctantly paid him a whole quarter, a sum which at that time was a ludicrous amount of money to pay a slave. Frederick had worked hard and earned much more money than that, but he says that the concept of slavery was so deeply ingrained in Southerners that being paid a quarter was an indicator that his master was kind and believed he deserved the whole sum, but couldn't pay a slave that much money due to social pressure. This took place during a time where white workers were growing more and more hostile to the black slaves of the company, indicating that the social pressure to not pay Fredrick his due was even greater than normal.
This raises an important question, we arbitrarily classify slave owners as evil, greedy, whatever negative term you specially reserve for the lowest of the low in your life. This man who paid Frederick shows what was at the time incredible kindness and compassion, so can we say that he was an all around evil man? It's a case of nature vs. nurture. This man was raised in a society where slavery was the norm, justified by countless means, and practiced by all his peers. The natural result of this is that he'd be raised to believe slavery was right, but the cruelty of some slave owners didn't fit in with his (apparently) kind nature. So he was doing something we view as evil, but it didn't automatically make him evil himself. I guess the lesson to take from this is "don't judge a book by it's cover," even though slavery is probably one of the most ugly covers you can slap onto the book of a person.
Frederick also details how slave owners kept slaves from revolting. The method is ethically appalling, but my rational mind is forced to admit it is rather ingenious. The first and most crucial part of the process is to keep blacks as uneducated as possible, simple enough, those who know nothing can dream of nothing else. The rest is a series of unrelated things that lead to a broken slave. One such thing is the giving of a holiday at Christmas, during which slaves are discouraged from working and encouraged to drink and party, the whites would get the blacks drunk and create an illusion that this is what freedom was like. The next day the blacks go back to work with awful hangovers, uneducated as they are they make a connection between freedom and the feelings of a hangover without realizing the connection between being drunk and a hangover. The end result is the slaves who fall for this trick becoming appalled with freedom and, unbelievable as it may seem, preferring slavery.
Another trick that was widely used by whites covers pretty much everything else. If a black complains about a lack of food his/her owner can't very well deny the slave more food for fear of a revolt. So the owner pretends to graciously allow the slave more food, then orders a large amount of food and orders the slave to eat it in a set period of time that is far to short to conceivably eat it in. When the slave reports that he can't eat that much food he is whipped for being hard to please, the request for more food does not come again. The same principle was used on slaves who would steal a certain favorite food, the owner would order huge amounts of the favorite food and force to slave to eat until they were sick, the thievery would then cease.
The context is awful, but the principle is ingenious. As I am writing this blog I am reminded of the book "Brave New World," in which the method of conditioning people who don't know any better to hate certain things was a central concept. The basic principle is virtually identical, though the scale of it's application and the methods are vastly different, which is to be expected in a science fiction novel being compared to real life.
Unfortunately I have run out of things to say about this book. I do feel the need to take a moment to appreciate the oddity that an 86 page book about a subject I have read about so many times it has become repetitive and boring has yielded one of the most long and full blog posts of the bunch. I guess big things often come in small packages like this.
Well I'm off for now, I'll be blogging again soon, so if anybody is actually following this, stay tuned!
Monday, February 20, 2012
The Help-16
I usually don't like these books about how blacks used to be treated before the civil rights movement, for me it's usually repetitive and monotone, I still feel they are important, but I normally dislike reading them. However, this book was an exception to the rule.
I have said in one of my comments once that I enjoy books where the main character(s) is(are) well developed and feel like something more than words on a page. When characters are developed in this way they eventually become dear friends to the reader, and you start to really care about what happens to them. If the writer achieves this all the content in his/her book becomes infinitely more valuable, in suspenseful moments the reader's heart starts to beat faster and they get an adrenaline boost along with the character, when a character dies the reader feels genuine grief. In my opinion it is this that separates good writing from masterful writing.
In the past I have read countless "good" books, but only a handful of "masterful" ones. Even in the masterfully written books I have read usually there are only 2 characters developed to the level I described, the best of them have 3, and upon consideration I'd say the record is 6. This development usually occurs over a series of books, and the record for fully developed characters in a single book was 2.
Why am I rambling on like this? Notice that I said the record for fully developed characters in a single book was 2, this book has 3.
This book's author, in the course of a single novel, managed to create three unique, fully developed, interesting characters, while still having an interesting plot and not stretching on for thousands of pages. That is an accomplishment that in itself made the book a good read. The characters were not the most developed I have ever seen, however the fact that this author was able to create 3 in a single (approximately) 500 page book is a sign of unbelievable talent.
I also enjoyed the twist of the book being about how the characters conspired to write a book about how they were treated by the white people they worked for and published it with the title of
The Help." I'm a bit strange so I don't know about anyone else but this twist amused me to no end.
The actual "treatment of the blacks" part of the novel contained no new concepts to work with, by and large it was all the same, though I must admit some of the white actions against the blacks were particularly hateful, even for this type of book. Despite the particularly strong discrimination presented it boils down to the same things we all have understood for years.
So maybe there were no great revelations about white and black relations in this book, but I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys this type of book, and possibly to some people who would ordinarily not read it.
I have said in one of my comments once that I enjoy books where the main character(s) is(are) well developed and feel like something more than words on a page. When characters are developed in this way they eventually become dear friends to the reader, and you start to really care about what happens to them. If the writer achieves this all the content in his/her book becomes infinitely more valuable, in suspenseful moments the reader's heart starts to beat faster and they get an adrenaline boost along with the character, when a character dies the reader feels genuine grief. In my opinion it is this that separates good writing from masterful writing.
In the past I have read countless "good" books, but only a handful of "masterful" ones. Even in the masterfully written books I have read usually there are only 2 characters developed to the level I described, the best of them have 3, and upon consideration I'd say the record is 6. This development usually occurs over a series of books, and the record for fully developed characters in a single book was 2.
Why am I rambling on like this? Notice that I said the record for fully developed characters in a single book was 2, this book has 3.
This book's author, in the course of a single novel, managed to create three unique, fully developed, interesting characters, while still having an interesting plot and not stretching on for thousands of pages. That is an accomplishment that in itself made the book a good read. The characters were not the most developed I have ever seen, however the fact that this author was able to create 3 in a single (approximately) 500 page book is a sign of unbelievable talent.
I also enjoyed the twist of the book being about how the characters conspired to write a book about how they were treated by the white people they worked for and published it with the title of
The Help." I'm a bit strange so I don't know about anyone else but this twist amused me to no end.
The actual "treatment of the blacks" part of the novel contained no new concepts to work with, by and large it was all the same, though I must admit some of the white actions against the blacks were particularly hateful, even for this type of book. Despite the particularly strong discrimination presented it boils down to the same things we all have understood for years.
So maybe there were no great revelations about white and black relations in this book, but I would definitely recommend it to anyone who enjoys this type of book, and possibly to some people who would ordinarily not read it.
The Story of My Life by Helen Keller-17
I find the concept of this story fascinating, someone who is both blind and death achieving a college education and living a full life is an amazing thought. I tip my hat to Helen Keller, her family, her teacher, and all the other people who helped her achieve such success.
Unfortunately, the story itself is not as fascinating. A large portion of it was spoiled for me by my time in public school, during which we were forced to watch part of the Helen Keller movie in one of their themed education days. They've done similar things with the holocaust, slavery, presidents, and other things. With the exception of the holocaust, which is covered over the course of weeks with way too much focus without adding new information to the curriculum each year, these themed days usually end up with us watching part of a arbitrarily selected movie that serves the purpose of fulfilling the school's "moral obligation" to teach the material and then never seeing it again.
The rest of the story doesn't really have much to enjoy, the best parts of the book take place in Helen's childhood, when she was first learning how to learn things, which was consequently the part that was spoiled for me. After that the biography is rather dry, and unfortunately is the part I didn't know about and had to read thoroughly.
At the end of the biography itself was a collection of some of Helen Keller's letters as she matured, these were interesting at first, watching the writing progress from awful to bad to decent and then finally to good quality was entertaining. After the letters reached perfection the novelty wore off, and the rest of the letters reverted to the overall dull status of the rest of the book.
So in the end my experience with the book was a bit lackluster. However, I do want to say something for the sake of anyone who is being driven away from this book by this blog post. If you do not know the story of Helen Keller and have not had things spoiled by the movie then you should DEFINITELY read this book. The story of a blind and deaf girl becoming educated is inspirational, and if you have yet to receive that inspiration then you should do so. The only reason I did not enjoy the book is because it was spoiled for me long ago, nothing else, it is written well and to anyone other than me it would be very enjoyable.
With that said it is time for me to write my next blog post, so until I post again farewell.
Unfortunately, the story itself is not as fascinating. A large portion of it was spoiled for me by my time in public school, during which we were forced to watch part of the Helen Keller movie in one of their themed education days. They've done similar things with the holocaust, slavery, presidents, and other things. With the exception of the holocaust, which is covered over the course of weeks with way too much focus without adding new information to the curriculum each year, these themed days usually end up with us watching part of a arbitrarily selected movie that serves the purpose of fulfilling the school's "moral obligation" to teach the material and then never seeing it again.
The rest of the story doesn't really have much to enjoy, the best parts of the book take place in Helen's childhood, when she was first learning how to learn things, which was consequently the part that was spoiled for me. After that the biography is rather dry, and unfortunately is the part I didn't know about and had to read thoroughly.
At the end of the biography itself was a collection of some of Helen Keller's letters as she matured, these were interesting at first, watching the writing progress from awful to bad to decent and then finally to good quality was entertaining. After the letters reached perfection the novelty wore off, and the rest of the letters reverted to the overall dull status of the rest of the book.
So in the end my experience with the book was a bit lackluster. However, I do want to say something for the sake of anyone who is being driven away from this book by this blog post. If you do not know the story of Helen Keller and have not had things spoiled by the movie then you should DEFINITELY read this book. The story of a blind and deaf girl becoming educated is inspirational, and if you have yet to receive that inspiration then you should do so. The only reason I did not enjoy the book is because it was spoiled for me long ago, nothing else, it is written well and to anyone other than me it would be very enjoyable.
With that said it is time for me to write my next blog post, so until I post again farewell.
Monday, February 13, 2012
The Prince-18
I was never much of a history person, but I do remember this book being quoted in my history books. My memory is a bit hazy about what context it was quoted in, but I believe it was put in a bad light due to it's line about how it is better for a ruler to be feared then it is to be loved by his people. Taking that one statement by itself makes it seem like the book is about how to oppress the common people in the same way as a dictator.
Why this particular bit of propaganda was deemed necessary I do not know, however I do know that this book is not as history books would portray it. It does say that it is better to be feared than loved, but it also says that the fear should not stretch to the point of hate. In it's entirety the part of the book in question describes how a ruler should not oppress his people, but should not hesitate to enforce the law and make his subjects fear his wrath. In all honesty that's what any government setup is meant to do, the government takes care of the governed, but the courts will punish anyone who breaks the laws set by the government for the sake of the nation. At least, that's the idea, the actual execution often takes a less simple and honest course of action, but that is not the point here.
All in all this book describes a perfectly reasonable plan for a ruler to take, there are parts that seem less than benevolent, such as establishing your colonies in areas inhabited by the poor since they will be unable to do any harm once dispersed and stripped of all their land, but all in all there is none of the "evil tyrant" philosophy that history textbooks attribute to this novel.
Things like not engaging in wars that do not benefit you and place you in a stronger position or not relying on foreign/mercenary troops to defend your homeland are simply common sense. They have nothing to do with dictatorship, or even monarchy to an extent. These concepts can be taken from this book, rewritten for modern forms of government, and applied without any trouble.
There really isn't much else to say about this book, the main question is why the government feels the need to shine a bad light on this book and raise public opinion against it. Most people would probably not read it in the first place, and those who did would not see any major discrepancy between the system described and how our current system is supposed to work. They may think certain diplomatic decisions are more or less wise, but since most of the book deals with common sense anyway it wouldn't turn a person into a political activist if they weren't already prone to actively opposing illogical and stupid decisions. My only guess is that the government doesn't want anyone knowing how any part of politics work, but that doesn't seem like a good enough reason.
I have said my piece now, I leave it to any comments to add more, perhaps someone will know why there is a need to put this book in a bad light.
Why this particular bit of propaganda was deemed necessary I do not know, however I do know that this book is not as history books would portray it. It does say that it is better to be feared than loved, but it also says that the fear should not stretch to the point of hate. In it's entirety the part of the book in question describes how a ruler should not oppress his people, but should not hesitate to enforce the law and make his subjects fear his wrath. In all honesty that's what any government setup is meant to do, the government takes care of the governed, but the courts will punish anyone who breaks the laws set by the government for the sake of the nation. At least, that's the idea, the actual execution often takes a less simple and honest course of action, but that is not the point here.
All in all this book describes a perfectly reasonable plan for a ruler to take, there are parts that seem less than benevolent, such as establishing your colonies in areas inhabited by the poor since they will be unable to do any harm once dispersed and stripped of all their land, but all in all there is none of the "evil tyrant" philosophy that history textbooks attribute to this novel.
Things like not engaging in wars that do not benefit you and place you in a stronger position or not relying on foreign/mercenary troops to defend your homeland are simply common sense. They have nothing to do with dictatorship, or even monarchy to an extent. These concepts can be taken from this book, rewritten for modern forms of government, and applied without any trouble.
There really isn't much else to say about this book, the main question is why the government feels the need to shine a bad light on this book and raise public opinion against it. Most people would probably not read it in the first place, and those who did would not see any major discrepancy between the system described and how our current system is supposed to work. They may think certain diplomatic decisions are more or less wise, but since most of the book deals with common sense anyway it wouldn't turn a person into a political activist if they weren't already prone to actively opposing illogical and stupid decisions. My only guess is that the government doesn't want anyone knowing how any part of politics work, but that doesn't seem like a good enough reason.
I have said my piece now, I leave it to any comments to add more, perhaps someone will know why there is a need to put this book in a bad light.
Monday, February 6, 2012
Things Fall Apart-19
After a long vacation, the books that give me things to blog about have returned!
This book was written from the standpoint of a native tribal man. The majority of the book was about his life, but it also gave insight to the culture of his tribe. Their religion, customs, and society that had existed for as long as the tribes could remember were described.
The real moral conflict appears when the white men come and start taking over the culture of the locals. It is really quite insidious how they do it, they first sent a single man to a tribe, and when communications failed due to a language barrier and the man was killed an army slaughtered the first tribe.
The other tribes, hearing of this, did not dare refuse the white men when they tried to convert them to Christianity, out of fear for their lives they made minor concessions and allowed a church to be built in "the Evil Forest." From that point forward the church acted as a slow poison to the tribes, gradually converting young tribesmen and women and establishing the white government. Time passed on and soon the tribe had no choice but to do whatever the white men said. It got to the point where when the tribe met to discuss what they should do about the problem all the white men needed to do to stop them was send a few men to tell them to disband.
The question that rises from this is if this was morally correct for the whites to do. While the tribal society and religion was "primitive" in the view of the white society, their society had nothing wrong with it. They worshiped different gods, but they got married, had children, traded with each other, made loans and payed them back, and did all the things white society had done when it was at that stage of development. What right then, do we have to say that since their religion differs from ours that we must replace their society with our own? If the tribes had been allowed to develop undisturbed, who's to say they wouldn't have advanced to the same technological and economical levels that ours has?
Of course back then religion operated on the principle that if you didn't follow their god then you were a barbarian who needed to either killed or be "saved" from your own ignorance. A concept that today is infuriating to even think about. Yet somehow back then it was accepted as perfectly logical and justifiable. How that was the case is beyond me, but it was.
So my question to any readers is how do you think this mindset came to be so absolutely accepted when even the slightest ounce of common sense would disprove it?
This book was written from the standpoint of a native tribal man. The majority of the book was about his life, but it also gave insight to the culture of his tribe. Their religion, customs, and society that had existed for as long as the tribes could remember were described.
The real moral conflict appears when the white men come and start taking over the culture of the locals. It is really quite insidious how they do it, they first sent a single man to a tribe, and when communications failed due to a language barrier and the man was killed an army slaughtered the first tribe.
The other tribes, hearing of this, did not dare refuse the white men when they tried to convert them to Christianity, out of fear for their lives they made minor concessions and allowed a church to be built in "the Evil Forest." From that point forward the church acted as a slow poison to the tribes, gradually converting young tribesmen and women and establishing the white government. Time passed on and soon the tribe had no choice but to do whatever the white men said. It got to the point where when the tribe met to discuss what they should do about the problem all the white men needed to do to stop them was send a few men to tell them to disband.
The question that rises from this is if this was morally correct for the whites to do. While the tribal society and religion was "primitive" in the view of the white society, their society had nothing wrong with it. They worshiped different gods, but they got married, had children, traded with each other, made loans and payed them back, and did all the things white society had done when it was at that stage of development. What right then, do we have to say that since their religion differs from ours that we must replace their society with our own? If the tribes had been allowed to develop undisturbed, who's to say they wouldn't have advanced to the same technological and economical levels that ours has?
Of course back then religion operated on the principle that if you didn't follow their god then you were a barbarian who needed to either killed or be "saved" from your own ignorance. A concept that today is infuriating to even think about. Yet somehow back then it was accepted as perfectly logical and justifiable. How that was the case is beyond me, but it was.
So my question to any readers is how do you think this mindset came to be so absolutely accepted when even the slightest ounce of common sense would disprove it?
Friday, February 3, 2012
The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao-20
This book was, in a word, different. It broke a lot of unspoken rules that apply to most types of books. The author spoke in slang and used words like "nigger" frequently. The F-word was used without restraint, which is a word that even today is strictly forbidden. The sexual themes were also much stronger than usual.
I also noticed that the names of games like Dungeons & Dragons were used instead of creating a similar but copyright free substitute. As a general rule copyrighted names are NEVER used in a fictional book, this book breaks that rule without hesitation with multiple games.
All in all the book was enjoyable, but unfortunately there did not seem to be any moral or philosophical points that would make good blog post material. I'm not sure what makes this book a "must read" out of the thousands of books that could have been put on the list. It may be well written and enjoyable, but I'm just not seeing the "must read" title being applied to it.
So, apart from the breaking of many unspoken rules of writing, there really isn't much else to say about this book. I got more material out of this book than some other books, so I think I will wrap things up here rather than type a bunch of meaningless filler. The next few books should yield better posts, up next is "Things Fall Apart," which has plenty of moral ideas to consider and write about.
I also noticed that the names of games like Dungeons & Dragons were used instead of creating a similar but copyright free substitute. As a general rule copyrighted names are NEVER used in a fictional book, this book breaks that rule without hesitation with multiple games.
All in all the book was enjoyable, but unfortunately there did not seem to be any moral or philosophical points that would make good blog post material. I'm not sure what makes this book a "must read" out of the thousands of books that could have been put on the list. It may be well written and enjoyable, but I'm just not seeing the "must read" title being applied to it.
So, apart from the breaking of many unspoken rules of writing, there really isn't much else to say about this book. I got more material out of this book than some other books, so I think I will wrap things up here rather than type a bunch of meaningless filler. The next few books should yield better posts, up next is "Things Fall Apart," which has plenty of moral ideas to consider and write about.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)