This will probably get me in trouble, but (IMHO) it needs said.
First off, Orwell was absolutely spot on. Whoever controls the past controls the
present, because what people regard as their past determines their self-image : their internal images of who they are, where they came from, what they've been in the past, what their character is, and so on.
And whoever controls the present controls the
future, because people base their decisions and actions on these images of "themselves" -- on the basis of who (and what) they think they "are."
The self images of people tend to be self-fulfilling prophecies.
No one has to look any further for evidence of this than the "image" of who (and what) Black people are that the entertainment media have trumpeted for the last 20 years, and the effect this has had on making police forces and prison work a growing employment field even in a recessions. You simply cannot reason a young black "gangsta" into regarding a steady job and staying out of trouble as anything but insufferably lame after he's been
somebody out in the street, packing a glock and living large. I know that for a fact. I spent six and a half years of my life trying. His self image simply rules out anything but the high-voltage excitement (and personal importance) of being a "playa." What the world that's locked him up regards as responsibility/maturity comes across, given
who he thinks he is, as utterly alien. Even in school, when he was younger, he had to turn his back on what was being offered him, because connecting with it would have been "acting white."
People being the way they are, peer pressure insures that self images are collective as well as individual.
Once you're aware of this as a manipulative technique, it starts to be more and more apparent going back in time. Elementary school books in England, for an example, once portrayed Britons as the proud heirs of their own legendary history and high culture up until around the early 1800s. Then came the switch, and they were presented as having been half-naked, tattooed savages until the civilizing influences from Rome turned them into passable imitations of human beings. Along with this, medievalist sentimentalism presented the Feudal era as a kind of romantic golden age when, in fact, it had been an abject slavery that they had revolted against at every opportunity and finally -- for a time -- overthrew.
This was the replacement of one body of history/mythology with a different one. Specifically, with an alien one that served an essentially alien agenda. In warfare, psychological "softening up" of the target population always precedes the actual attack. Argue the factual justification of Trojan colonists vs. woad-smeared cannibals as you will, but one fact looms large : a change in mythology entails a corresponding change in self image. The two are, ultimately, reflections of each other.
At this point, I would like to pause, leaving one idea behind : The reason (as I see it on this end) this topic is engendering such emotionally charged responses is because the above has yet to be worked-through. The issue involved isn't whether your ancestry is Native American or Caucasian. Facts are facts. And so long as they remain facts, without triggering implanted suggestions in response, we're all on the same page here. And the implanted suggestions are numerous.
The crux of the issue is our actual history, on both sides : where our respective people came from, and when, and how. Dealing with that (without the attempt being derailed by automatic sniping) is, IMHO, both the problem and the opportunity. I think we can do that. If we can, there may well be some genuine surprises.
We're all pretty much in this together. We've all got some history we regard as shameful. Grudges get us nowhere. But they DO keep us divided. And, at this point, this does not serve OUR interests.
Fresh air and sunlight are the best disinfectants.
Then again. I've been wrong before
(?)
![:-\](https://www.treasurenet.com/smilies/undecided.gif "Undecided :-\")
Right?
uniface! well said
