Another response to Genocide by Any Other Name.... We begin with Matt's response to another poster:

Rob's reply to Matt
>> Interesting problem here. If the thing I am denying did not exist, how am I erasing anything? We are disagreeing on how to interpret something. I don't excuse anyone for what they have done. <<

When you say things like "The first Europeans who came to this country did not know there was anyone here," what you're denying is the facts. As I said in another posting, Columbus met Indians on the very first island he visited. So much for Europeans who "did not know."

I believe most explorers encountered inhabitants almost immediately. That would make sense. If the population of pre-contact America was, say, 10 million, that would mean there was "only" one of 25 people compared to today. That's still a lot of people. Walk along any Eastern seaboard community at night or in a storm and you'll see how "deserted" a 4% density rate is. It's populated enough that you'll still encounter people frequently.

The point is that the Europeans came with the intention of taking the land and enslaving the inhabitants—or at least removing them as obstacles. That disease did most of the work for them is almost a detail. They killed enough Natives directly to call their actions genocidal, and they took full advantage of the effects of disease.

What is there not to blame in this imperialistic attitude? That the Europeans let disease do their dirty work for them? When apportioning blame, the point is that they intended to do dirty work. How they accomplished it is irrelevant.

So it's not that I'm "demonizing" Europeans, as you put it. It's that you're apologizing for them by stretching the facts. (They didn't know?!) Or so it seems to me.

>> Let me put this another way. Suppose the Europeans did not directly kill a single Native American. Suppose they committed no violence, no taking of land. Suppose they simply came to trade and set up coastal trading posts. Almost certainly they would have been welcomed as traders. And almost certainly diseases would have killed off a major portion of populations of Native Americans. No one deserves blame for the deaths that would have occurred simply by the contact between the two groups. <<

If the Europeans had followed the dictates of Christ, they would've helped the Indians survive...backed off when they saw the harm they were causing...rather than take advantage of it. Yes, a lot of Natives still would've died of disease—but not the 90% or whatever who did die of disease. Whether you realize it or not, you're tacitly admitting that Europeans were to blame for some of the disease-related deaths.

>> The German people did not commit a crime, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of individual German committed great evils. Many committed evils by direct actions, others by knowing inaction. But it was each of those individuals who did wrong. To blame the people, to say it was "the Germans" is to, in a very real sense, excuse the individuals. <<

No, it's a simple generalization. Or to put it another way, your distinction is semantic. When I say "the Europeans" were to blame, it's your interpretation that I mean the entire European populace. In fact, I mean only the people who actually did what I blamed them for. The soldiers who killed or enslaved Indians. The settlers who occupied their land. The merchants who considered natural resources more important than Native lives. The leaders of church and state who made it a policy to conquer the "barbarous nations" for their own good.

Enough people were involved that I'd say a generalization like "the Europeans" is valid. You know or should know whom I mean. But if it makes you feel good to excuse all the European peasants, tradespeople, and other citizens who had nothing to do with the American invasion, by all means excuse them. As you say, there's enough blame to spread among the Europeans who were guilty.

>> Similarly, if it is the fault of "White America", then nothing I can do as a white American can change things. <<

Nonsense, Matt. "White America" is a facile but accurate reference to the predominant culture in our country. A culture is composed of people and institutions. You can change those people and institutions in countless ways. As a teacher, you can uplift hearts and minds one by one. As a novelist you can write an influential book. As president you can sway a whole generation. Etc.

You almost seem to be saying that the concept of "culture" doesn't exist. Or if it does exist, that it's an abstraction like "infinity." But if cultures do exist, don't they spring from the collective action of individuals? Can't the same collective action of individuals change said culture?

>> But if it is the fault of individuals who do or don't do things, then my actions as an individual have moral meaning. <<

Individuals make up a culture. Get enough individuals acting a certain way and you have a culture acting a certain way. Again, the distinction you're making seems to be semantic. We can blame every individual we can identify or we can blame a culture, the collective beliefs and choices of unidentifiable individuals.

>> If you can tell me how to stop being white we might have something to talk about. <<

Many people could tell you how to change "white American" institutions such as government, business, the media, schools, churches, and so forth. Do you recognize that such cultural institutions exist and that they're subject to change?

>> I can see why you need to feel guilt about committing genocide. If you can specify how I have excused a history of genocide do so. <<

You excuse it when you put most of the blame for Native deaths on infectious diseases without admitting that Europeans intended to conquer the land one way or another. You excuse it when you deny that these Europeans didn't know what they were doing.

Let me repeat that Columbus enslaved the first Indians he met, a pattern that the European invaders repeated many, many times. What exactly is your evidence that these Europeans didn't have a predisposition to conquering, enslaving, and killing—i.e., to genocide?

Rob

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