In view of your long posting below, I don't want to appear churlish so I am
answering this as politely as I can. Nothing of what you have written below
about the two problems of rising energy costs and automation is presented
in a factual, objective way that can be discussed.
So, as I wrote to Ed the other day, I am taking a holiday from your
constant insertion of the Cherokees into almost any and every topic that
might appear on FW list.
KSH
At 10:19 12/01/2011 -0500, REH wrote:
KSH: What are the Cherokees saying about rising energy costs and
automation? That is, if you don't deny that they are two of the most
serious problems that we (and the Cherokees) face today?
Summary of what Ive said in the past on this list:
THE PROBLEM OF ENERGY;
1. Government should fund green Research and Development for
sustainable energy run by scientists on salary and not by the politicians
or the private sector only interested in maximizing surplus. Balance
rather than devouring the planet. I was taught and learned that first
hand from birth to the age of seventeen [when I left the reservation and
the desolation of the worlds largest lead and zinc mining fields].
a. Cherokees had sustainable forestry and agricultural technology and
we limited population based on environmental balance. Before the
98% die off from European diseases, we considered devouring the earth to
be an incestuous activity. After that the remnant populations ignored
many of the old laws about balance, universal suffrage and peace.
2. America should build a society that cares about the earth, the
diversity of peoples, plants and animals and that strengthens that
diversity as a knowledge base and stresses personal responsibility for the
long term future needs of the whole earth and not just the two legged
variety. Keith, if you got up every morning at sunrise and prayed for
all of the varieties of Animals and Plants and their life and success, you
would have a different attitude than you have spoken on these lists. I
realize its not very English but then we have a lot traditions that dont
make sense to the average English Man. Yet our ancient traditions are
as true today as any of yours and we are just as stubborn as Englishmen in
keeping them.
a. Cherokees had universal suffrage long before England, as a part of
the culture, education, political and religious structures. Our clan
mothers came to diplomatic meetings with English men and were spurned even
though the history has recorded their intelligence.
b. We have preached the viability of natural systems versus unnatural
irresponsible human systems that overstress visual intellectual
intelligence to the detriment of the wisdom of the whole person. I do
not support systems that are short term, poorly designed and not based in
the development of personal competence as a goal for every
citizen. [How can someone be free if they are incompetent in a complex
world?] How can someone be free if they are unable to excel or even
minimally succeed in providing for the development of their holistic
consciousness and the evolution of the competence of their families?
c. Cherokees and most Indigenous peoples contend that un-natural
systems based merely in human logic and short term thinking are a race to
the bottom of life and potential, not an appropriate ideal for the future.
3. If you [and Harry?] are right and economics is the core value of
life and history then the rapacious mining of the world makes
sense. However I believe that when free technologies that cant make
money [because they cant be contained and limited] are used and initial
research and development capital is provided to make mechanics for those
technologies available to the general public, then a different model for
society emerges. A more compassionate humane society filled with the
best of ideals and competencies. I believe an ethic of balance and
harmony rather than an ethos of excess and surplus wastefulness is more
efficient in the long term than Harrys simple logic. An aesthetic ethic
that is much closer to the individual forestry model used by Indigenous
peoples that stressed the individual responsibility of every citizen for
the upkeep of the system.
Something that may be emerging in Asia as they turn back to their
pre-Western cultural values. I dont hold much hope here in the
U.S. however, a synthesis of the various cultures could work out a
uniquely American vision and identity apart from its Western roots.
There may be hope but they would have to trash the economic theories that
value the split between haves and have nots and that advocates raw brutish
external motivation, surplus and high salaries as an indicator of status,
as the only mover of human progress. Mahler said there could be no
original American complex music until the problem of the Folktraditions
[identity] were solved. Most of the great European composers who came
here ignored the Europeans and looked either to Native musics or to the
transplanted African forms that became Jazz. Im not sure they were
correct in that but I am sure that current American identity is not much
higher than the fad and fashion of the moment. You can see in that film
on the Gamo people of the Rift Valley, the problems of Western Culture at
its worst in the missionaries and the corporate push to destroy the
peoples spiritual connection to the land for
temporary profit.
<http://www.globalonenessproject.org/videos/athousandsuns>http://www.globalonenessproject.org/videos/athousandsuns
AUTOMATION:
1. Automation is good as long as it frees the workers to pursue the
goals of human competence and the elevation of the spirit. That means
that the benefits of automation has to be shared and that serious work on
human competence and the elevation of the quality and spirit of the
culture must be rewarded by the country that benefits from that type of
citizen.
2. Automation is simple machine slavery. Musicians know this very
well and assign the term slaveto extra keyboards and other materials that
substitute for live performers. But the normal way of dealing with
cost reductions through mechanical slaves is to hire a number of live
musicians to sit and play cards and collect their paychecks in return for
the savings. Instead of coming up with other types of musical work, the
employers and unions opt for Harrys second premise. A solution that is
un-artistic, demeaning of the human spirit and just dumb in my opinion.
3. Simple surplus or what the West calls profit is never much of a
reason for living. In my faith it is idolatrous. Its also inefficient
since having more time or money is useless if your imagination is dead and
your patriotism is only to your pocketbook.
KSH You, as a product of modern times, are no more a traditional Cherokee
than I am a medieval English serf. As before, the Cherokees have a great
deal to tell us but no more than a great many other non-industrial societies.
1. We are all products of our time, lineage, heritage and
cultures. Telling someone whose family has had to fight for four
generations to maintain their culture and hide their spirituality in the
church of their oppressor until 1978 when he was 46 years old and it
literally took an act of the U.S. Congress to finally allow him and his
community and family to worship in public; telling them that they are
not traditionalis like me saying that you havent a prayer of knowing what
those scores you edited mean because you have no idea of the performance
practice or the culture that they sprang from. Musica Ficta.
Im a lot closer to my culture, having grown up in an Indian community and
on Indian land, than you are to those composers you market over the
internet. My great grandfather was born in 1838 running away from
American troops. I may not be the traditional Cherokeein your head but
we are very familiar with what is known as the White Mans Indianwho only
exists on paper and in the movies. The term: Kill the Indian to save the
mancomes to mind or is it to win the argument.
Am I not more than a little closer in time, culture and proximity to my
traditions than you are to Dowland or Campion? I could make that
case. I have worked with great English conductors and have been a part
of the Early Music movement almost from the beginning of that
movement. The approach and rules of the Early Music movement are very
similar to our approach to things. A student that I developed was
considered the finest baroque baritone in America and made over 100
recordings of music unrecorded by English and French composers including
the first recording of many of Handels Londonoperas. All done with
original instrumentation. But do I know more about that than an
Englishman? No. You are English in your bones and you live
there. That speaks volumes for what you understand without even knowing
it. But your statement about my people and our faith is ignorant,
embarrassing and beneath the accomplishments of your life and your peoples
traditions. Ive never once called you a fraud but as an Indian Ive had
to deal with hyper judgmental people like yourself all my life.
2. As for the second statement I would say that industrial society and
modern economic thought is bankrupt and has pretty well ruined the
planet. When I read about Monsanto and see the immune illnesses around
me I think that your industrial ethos has gone to the dark side.
Thats all I will say about energy, automation or your accusations about my
heritage. As Dame Eva Turner told me so many years ago. Ray, you must
learn to let it roll off of you like water off of a ducks back. I know
she was right, but will it never end until Im dead?
REH
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/01/
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