Bill: >On Tuesday, May 25, 1999 at 21:11:10 (-0500) Yoshie Furuhashi writes: >>... >>While I am sympathetic to David Harvey's pro-urban + anti-primitivist >>strain of thought (and distrustful of the rhetoric of the "noble savage"), >>does it really matter (to marxists as political activists, that is) whether >>Native Americans were ever or are really now "close to nature," >>"ecologically conscious," etc? What's wrong with Native Americans >>performing "Native Americans" if such performance helps them make a >>stronger claim to their land rights in a war of positions? Native Americans >>may well decide that under the present circumstances, benefits of this >>rhetoric far outweigh its dangers. In the past, abolitionists, in their >>agitation, appealed to and grounded their claims upon God, morality, >>natural rights, etc., mainly because those were powerful ideological >>resources that were available to them. The same can be said about "nature" >>for Native Americans: a useful political resource. > >One's "useful political resource" is another's dishonest rhetoric. I >don't have too much of a problem with lying when desperate measures >are called for, but we should at least label it for what it is. Lying normally refers to conscious deception. I think that abolitionists who spoke of God's judgment upon slaveowners were and Native Americans who say their tradition has been on the whole ecologically correct are sincere in their beliefs. On the other hand, my post raised the question of how marxists may view the rhetoric of those groups whose cause they generally support. A topic different from your question. Yoshie
