Tucker says many things of worth in his post about not blaming the
Sixties, but an unintended error slipped in to the rhetoric. Being
nasty to Columbus "using 20th values" is not what blaming Columbus is
about. Blaming Columbus is about identifying the debate AT THAT TIME
that denounced the cruelties of the conquest. The outcome of this
debate also determined the course of Western and World Civilization up
to the present, so we are not projecting backwards when blaming
Columbus, but continuing the debate. The Sixties were years of
of protest against the status quo arising from the culture created
in Columbus' wake. It was a response to conditions and thus was
more of a symptom of the era's contradictions and problems than their
cause (Love is all you need? In the 1500s, Las Casas fought
against the conquistadors' greed and for the application of love,
instead of rationalist, progressivist, exploitation in America--his
words, not mine). That other problems were caused as a result of the
Sixties protest is inevitable, as it is for any movement, but the
machine-like society in which we now live was a product of what the
Sixties was trying to stop. Drug use today is a product of what the
Sixties was trying to stop. Crack is not a Sixties drug and if you
think that the Sixties made such drug use acceptable chew on this:
study drug use in China and other societies and you will find
obliterating (not mind expanding drugs) drugs rampant in times of
social dissatifaction. It can thus be argued that the Movement
might never have happened and you would still a drug problem in
Newt's America. It cannot be argued that the Movement alone created
Crack America: it certainly fought against it, and lost.
La Casas, drawing on Christ, said love is all you need. His opponent,
Sepulvada, drawing on Aristole, said only the efficient should
survive.
If you do not recognize these debaters, turn in your membership to
debate culture in historical terms. You have to know something about
the past to talk about it effectively, unless you just enjoy
posturing, which, I think, was Tucker's point.
By the way, Las Casas won the debate--it was rigged. But he lost the
policy battle. Sounds like the West I know and love.
Marc