Date: Tue, 6 Jan 1998 22:42:25 +0000
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-I: Mythologising Native Americans


In message <3.0.1.32.19980105112025.006cef20-AT-pop.cc.columbia.edu>, Louis
Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu> writes
>Mander, Shiva and Sale have taken a close look at how such peoples live and
>come to the conclusion that the city is much more idiotic. I kind of go
>along with them. Where I part company is in the belief that the answer is
>some kind of Khmer Rouge reverse population shift.
>
>I will have much more to say about this in a few weeks, but this "rural
>idiocy" thesis has to be confronted and purged from our vocabulary. The
>ecological crisis of the 21st century is a product of exactly those
>demographic shifts that Marx and Engels were celebrating. Resolution of the
>crisis will have to be found in "rural wisdom" itself. People who depend
>upon and live close to nature have a much better perception of the types of
>measures that are needed. People like Rigobertu Menchu and American Indian
>shamans have to be listened to.

The man who is tired of London is tired of life, Dr Johnson said. Like
Mark Jones, Louis Proyect's rural idyll is just the inverted projection
of his hatred of the masses. It is not that he likes native Americans,
its that he doesn't like those teeming masses of immigrant Americans,
with their vulgar cars and music.

This is the original motivation of the idea of the noble savage, the
romantic rejection of modern life, the retreat into an idealised past.
This kind of idea is commonplace amongst the landed gentry in England.
Sir Laurens Van Der Post, close confident of Prince Charles and all
round mystic used to wax lyrical about the Kalahari bushmen and their
noble simplicity - we all knew that what he really meant was that he
didn't like all those pushy industrial workers in Britain. So much
easier to have someone that you can patronise from a distance. 

'Listen to Shamans' I ask you! The idea that this kind of obscurantist
rubbish has got anything to do with socialism is absurd.

Fraternally
-- 
James Heartfield


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