Many of the eighteenth-century European explorers set sail with these ideas in mind, often to have these dashed in their first encounters, some of these with New Zealand Maori.
Twenty-five crew were killed in Du Fresne's encounter with Maori in 1772, Cook would never forget the deadly attack on his crew in 1773, the burning of the Boyd and murder (and cannibalism) of its crew in 1809, and all too obvious evidence of intense intertribal warfare, and endemic cannibalism, seemed to put the seal on the idea of the "gentle utopian savage".
No doubt unnumbered Rousseauians returned to Europe no longer Rousseauians, and some did not return at all.
Rousseau's idea that people in their natural state are fundamentally good, and that it is society that corrupts them, is highly problematic.
If history shows anything, it shows a broadly similar propensity to do evil things across time and culture, the primary limiting, or exacerbating, factor being the technological advantages one group might have over another.
As far back as any records go, and as amply evidenced in a vast array of anthropological artifacts, and ancient myths, we know, without any doubt, that competition between groups for resources, and the struggle to survive, has consistently revealed the darker side of man.
The perceptions of pre-European New Zealand as ordered, peaceful, prosperous, and equal is one of the great mischiefs of our age.
It defies undeniable evidence (anthropological and early written accounts) of endemic warfare, cannibalism, genocide, and lives that were brutal and short.
Even the notion of considered custodianship of the environment reflected necessity, more than some inherent and magnanimous oneness with nature.
In reality, human beings are neither fundamentally good, nor fundamentally bad, they are a mix of both. This includes the first settlers to this country, and every subsequent wave of settlers.
We are far more similar than we are different, are capable of good or bad in equal measure, and all have bloody ancestral histories if we go back far enough.
To say anything else is mischief, but mischief is what we are very good at.
Psychoanalyst Alfred Adler (second in line after Freud) remarked often on our abilities to lie to ourselves. In fact, he said that we are perpetual liars.
We populate our worldview with facts that suit, we reject the facts that don't, we paper over our faults (and our histories) and damn those of others (and their histories).
We love to project our darker side onto others, after all, we have to do something with it.
The tribalism of today is no different than the tribalism of old. The concept of Maori wonderfulness is as eminently nonsensical as that of European wonderfulness.
It is just not as simple as this.
Once we accept this basic fact, and only once we accept this fact, will New Zealanders mend the mess that has been created by those who have made an industry of division.
Psychoanalyst Carl Jung (arguably next in line to Adler) said that life is a process of integration of our darker side. The more we can integrate, the more accepting we become of ourselves and others, and the better we are able to live with our individual and collective pasts.
I think there is such a thing as collective (national) integration.
Our willingness to address our history post-1840, while ignoring our history pre-1840, will create distorted perceptions and disastrous and unjust outcomes.
Open and honest discussions
need to occur, free of propaganda and censorship.
Caleb Anderson, a graduate history, economics, psychotherapy and theology, has been an educator for over thirty years, twenty as a school principal.
6 comments:
While politicians, academics and media continue to remake, report and repost historical FACT into a fiction to suit the 'new current thing', we as a people within this nation called NEW ZEALAND will continue to be prescribed a divisional pill of lies, deceit and plain propagandist skulduggery.
It is called simply a strategy of indoctrination. Goebbels said that if you tell a lie often enough it becomes a truth and this is what we are seeing in action.
The use of aotearoa on, and by the media is a classic example of socio-lingusitic eugenics in progress.
It sickens my brain to imagine that humans are so easily misaligned from reality but there you have it in a nutshell. We seemingly will happily believe the unbelievable to not be seen as 'different'.
Being different gets you spotlit and only a very few humans enjoy or can endure the spotlight. Within the group that likes the spotlight lurk the dangerous humans, the ones that usually take control of the very narrative this article is about.
We have seen in the last three years the outcome of what complicit control does to the humanity of people and to their country as a whole.
Those who lurk under the spotlight also enjoy the art of the gaslight too.
We'll probably get only one chance at this, to be totally open about all of NZ's history. Some pre-european history has been recorded by early settlers from the accounts of Maori elders, but handed down stories can be a little unreliable, most of us put a bit of a spin on what we recall.
Time to lift the lid on all of the embargoed archeology/ reports which the conspiracy theorist in me believes has been hidden because it goes against the "Maori are indigenous" narrative.
What about rocker jaw. Prominent in NZ Polynesians ie Maori. But not necessarily in NZ archaeology - unless you destroy and/or hide / erase the evidence that non Polynesians were prior inhabitants of NZ.
In 1877 Chief Justice Sir James Prendergast ruled the Treaty of Waitangi a simple nullity. "So far indeed as that instrument (TOW) purported to cede the sovereignty it must be regarded as a 'simple nullity'. No political body existed capable of making cession of sovereignty".
New Zealand had been declared British sovereignty under the 'Law of Nations' 1839 Royal Charter/Letters Patent six months before the first signature appeared on the treaty.
Truthful historical fact!!
This history, of maori behaviour not unlike that which occurred in Rwanda in the 20th century, should be taught in all history lessons. It shatters the vision of the noble savage. https://nzetc.victoria.ac.nz//tm/scholarly/tei-SmiHist-t1-body1-d18-d8.html
Evolution kicks in with the early Polynesians being aware that deceit coupled with physical prowess was the winning combination for one's tribe to prosper.
After many generations these qualities were refined by tribal warfare and conquest so that modern Maori are the descendants of the best fighters and cleverest manipulators. In the late 20th century activists used their inherited manipulative skills to bend a simple Treaty into an instrument for establishing a lucrative movement to gain control of taxpayers wealth and exploit it to their ongoing advantage. Admit it non-Maori NZers, the iwi have entrenched themselves as parasites exploiting gullible citizens including most Maori. We are the victims of virtuosos in the art of deception.
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