History Can Be Uncomfortable For Some
So I’m watching Kevin Costner’s ‘Magnum Opus’ the other night, Dances With Wolves (for about the 30th time), and realizing once again what a fine filmmaker and actor he is. Look, I get that he has to take a hit for that horrific film, Waterworld, as well as agreeing to do JFK with its X-File-like conspiracy theory storyline...but we all have our crosses to bear. How do you always seem to come back to The X-Files, boss? It’s a gift, my little alien friend. Anyway, every time I watch this film I find myself giving Costner some credit for trying (as much as it probably pains him) to be even-handed in his treatment of Indians. While it is only one or two scenes, he does try and get the point across that not all Indian tribes were the saintly earth-worshippers a lot of people make them out to be. Don’t get me wrong, his treatment of the soldiers (or, if we’re being stark in our differences, the White man) is quite one-sided. And to be fair, for what he’s trying to accomplish in this film, his depictions are probably as they should be. But as someone who as studied history, this always annoys me...maybe more than it should. But people watch these films or they read stories of the old West and the narrative is very much the same. White man, evil; North American Indian, angelic...even in The X-Files! You really are an idiot.
Anyway, believe it or not, this brought me around to everyone’s favorite shrink, Sigmund Freud. Costner, Indians, Freud? This is gonna be good! It also reminded me of a wonderful book I read not long ago, titled Indigenous Continent by Pekka Hamalainen. But let’s start with Sigmund. While not many people treat his psychoanalytical theories with the same overwhelming reverence they used to in the past (and rightly so), I think Freud still has much to teach us with regard to his literary criticism and even some of his lesser psychological theories. Take “reaction formation”, for example. This refers to a psychological defense mechanism against guilt. It’s when an individual responds to a shame-inducing instinct with an over-correction. The simplest example is when a guy does something really stupid, not heinously wrong, just stupid...you know, like loading the dishwasher wrong. So he goes out and buys his lovely wife or girlfriend or partner, six-dozen roses! It’s a beautiful and wonderful gesture, but most people might say it’s a bit over the top. That’s “reaction formation.”
Now, every time I watch Dances With Wolves, I think “reaction formation”! I mean, it’s how most everyone treats American history today vis-a-vis the American Indian. Was the migration of Europeans to the New World and then westward violent? Absolutely. That said, it wasn’t much different than any other migration throughout the ages and across cultures; including the successive waves of North American Indians coming across the Bering Strait and downward through the western part of what is now the United States. And while the history of those migrations is murkier, I’d bet on violence. So instead of trying to understand, let alone teach these events in the context of larger historical patterns, the Indian Wars are cast as some sort of morality play, like that dope Howard Zinn does, where the European settlers are the only reprehensible ones. And I get that this is probably a response (Freud again) to all the racist caricatures of Indians on television and in movies, as “savages”, etc., but that doesn’t make it historically accurate.
This, in turn (because I’m a geek), led me to the aforementioned book, Indigenous Continent. It’s fascinating and controversial. Fascinating because our history is amazingly fascinating; controversial because Hamalainen tells the story from the perspective of the Indians, but does not shy away (no matter how hard he tries) from the historical truths that the Indians were just as savage and war-like, as their European counterparts. He covers the centuries from the arrival of Europeans in North America through to the final battle and subjugation of the last tribes in the late 19th century. This book is well researched and fascinating from cover to cover. However, watching the author try to come to terms with the history he is telling also makes for, what my ex-father-in-law would call, fascinating psychological analysis!
The author is clearly sympathetic to the Indians, and that’s fine. They deserve more than a small amount. And he amplifies this sympathy by portraying the Europeans as dirty, bumbling idiots who are outwitted every time, until, well, they’re not. Hamalainen pushes this narrative until he runs into historical truths. And to his credit, he does not shy away from those truths. For this he is to be admired, because so many times history is distorted to suit the needs of political and academic elites of any given period. But it is fun to see him tap dance while trying to preach moral lessons. For example, on one page we are told that the Indians were hierarchical and respectful of women, until a few pages later we are provided with specific examples of tribes keeping women as sex slaves, and brutally abused by tribe members. Or when we’re told how the North American Indians were energetic participants in the trade of other indigenous peoples, selling slaves to other tribes and to Europeans. Hamalainen shows an admirable willingness to discuss such practices, but you can tell he’s not comfortable doing it.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, that rather than revealing what a huge cultural chasm there was, the historical record clearly shows us how similar the Europeans and North American Indians were. Like almost every other culture on the planet, each battled for status and power, kept slaves, engaged in genocide against neighboring groups, mistreated women, indulged ethnocentrism, etc., etc., etc. The history of the North American Indian is not unlike reading The Iliad. There’s a lot of blood, a lot of killing, and war is the norm. That’s not meant to denigrate them, it is simply evidence of our shared (if profoundly flawed) humanity...as I have recently written about...We Are Who We Are. I mean, the Indians gave as good as they got, not only to the Europeans, but to each other. And embracing that universalist truth can help us move past the morality tales so often told in the guise of history.
This is the problem with faux historians like Howard Zinn. Zinn’s history resembles a biography written by a bitter former spouse. Instead of a nuanced and accurate historical account it offers a deliberate slander of one’s own culture. The result is self-indulgent and childish. A balanced account doesn’t flinch from our misdeeds and the mistakes, sometimes heinous, as well as those of others. However, today’s history is taught with the end-result of becoming a neurotic wallowing in half-truths of our own failures. While at the same time, describing other cultures in such a utopian way as to make them look like those purple things in James Cameron’s Avatar; the morality play that made me want to take a melon-scooper to gouge my eyes out.
The people who partake in this kind of history, writing with disgust at our own culture and history, have no interest in historical truth or helping marginalized communities. It seems to me all they want to do is advertise their own cleverness, and show how self-critical they can be. By flattering their moral egos it relieves them of the need to donate money to worthy causes, or donating time to communities in need. It fosters division, and the main beneficiaries are not Native Americans or any other marginalized groups you want to write or talk about, but only benefits the egos of those doing the writing or talking.
At the risk of sounding glass-half-full, I think we can do better than this. People and cultures are complex social organisms. We can highlight our own historical and current misdeeds, while still reminding ourselves and the world that we have overcome many of these black marks and are still striving to better ourselves, while becoming a beacon for progress, individual human rights, and representative democracy. In the same way, we can and should highlight other cultures' (North American Indians, etc.) art, religion...whatever, without turning them into pious examples of pastoral innocence and moral instruction. Today’s ethnic studies departments and history departments in general have lapsed into propaganda designed to indict and shame the West and all its works. Maybe if students (and others) were permitted to understand that human failings are universal but can be overcome, it might help alleviate the depression and anxiety of those unjustly burdened by the sins of their ancestors.
Books like Indigenous Continent and movies like Dances With Wolves strive to provide an honest and fascinating account of complex history. But it also helps us to see how uncomfortable filmmakers and especially historians are with the inconvenient truths they have to tell, working in today’s Progressive environment, if they are to be honest with themselves and their audience.
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