Gosh the world needs your teaching! I hope you come to Madison, Wi some day! As you know I've been a hermit for half a decade now, but my sense is we are, as a state as schizophrenic as the justice system on indigenous issues is, and fortunately, that does include some folks who would be very appreciative of understanding these issues more deeply! <3
“In 1888, Burke A. Hinsdale examined the question of ‘Why the Christian powers rested their claims on discovery, not conquest. The answer, he said was that ‘discovery would reach much farther than conquest.’ “Discovery, by contrast (to conquest) was a symbolic assertion, requiring only symbolic acts.”
After having completed Federal Anti-Indian Law a month ago - an excellent, even vibrant read - I think the various words of praise are in place and well-deserved.
Praise self-selects, alas; those who do not accept d'Errico's disquieting perspective probably won't bother to polemicize. Apart from this high-quality scholarly and historical effort in the field of Law, d'Errico raises troubling questions for the world today. Old notions (of domination) slowly die. In the legal universe, such notions even survive themselves, by dissolving the supposedly sacred separation of Church and State, among other things. Even progressive judges in the early 21st Century still build on a 1823 precedent (part one of the 'Marshal Trilogy'), denying Indian nations even a smattering of the independent and free existence unlawfully stolen from them.
Hint:
The qualifier "anti-Indian" has a specific significance. It isn't synonymous to 'white supremacist', nor to 'racist', since it carefully connects current injustices (including misguided notions of 'justice') with the centuries old 'view from the ship.'
FYI:
I benefitted immensely from another landmark study; "Pagans in the promised land. Decoding the Docrine of Christian Discovery" [2008] by Shawnee/Lenape scholar [& author, & activist] Steven Newcomb. He did an astute analysis of the 'reimagining' effort - if I may so put it - by Christendom's colonizers and their feudal overlords, going back to 15th century Papal bulls (and prior to that, to Popes and princes prompting footsoldiers to embark on crusades to "free" Jerusalem from "Pagans" and "Heathens") - problematic and yet mainstream to this day, since the core domination matrix is still in place; Christendom's late-medieval (proto-techno-) feudalism only seemingly vanished; it now experiences an imperial, if not global come-back.
Thank you, Peter. It took time ere I cracked that nut - not for intellectual reasons so much, but...
One way to put it, is saying: *Try to think outside the box.* Fine - as long as you can return to the box... Or get annoyed over the 'discovery' that the box will always await you, no matter what you do & whither you amble.
You can try and go a bit further: *Ditch that box - and panic over losing all its comforts.* Or (some variant of) *Go native.*
But then it may be less artificial to call my parents & grandparents 'ancestors.' So far, I am best pleased with this view. And since they all crossed the divide by now, it feels perfectly natural too. And who knows, such a practice may even be an antidote to brain fog or worse including (maybe.... at least in part....) artificially induced propaganda. (In late 2020, early 2021, it publc space was like the Cultural Revolution under Mao, I imagine) All over was that bureaucratic, nagging, steely voice: "Put on your masks... Stay six feet apart... We do this for each other - which I, going mental as it were, repeated internally as 'We do this TO each other").
Sorry, this is off-topic - or tangentially connected at best.
This is excellent news! I hope to be teaching a course soon where I can assign it!
Gosh the world needs your teaching! I hope you come to Madison, Wi some day! As you know I've been a hermit for half a decade now, but my sense is we are, as a state as schizophrenic as the justice system on indigenous issues is, and fortunately, that does include some folks who would be very appreciative of understanding these issues more deeply! <3
I too believe the world needs Peter's teaching, Alicia Kwon. Wish he were my teacher back in University.
Congratulations! I love my hardcover and I'm so glad your paperback is out!
I love the hard-cover as well, but it sure is good news for Peter's students
Indeed! <3 <3
“In 1888, Burke A. Hinsdale examined the question of ‘Why the Christian powers rested their claims on discovery, not conquest. The answer, he said was that ‘discovery would reach much farther than conquest.’ “Discovery, by contrast (to conquest) was a symbolic assertion, requiring only symbolic acts.”
P 89
After having completed Federal Anti-Indian Law a month ago - an excellent, even vibrant read - I think the various words of praise are in place and well-deserved.
Praise self-selects, alas; those who do not accept d'Errico's disquieting perspective probably won't bother to polemicize. Apart from this high-quality scholarly and historical effort in the field of Law, d'Errico raises troubling questions for the world today. Old notions (of domination) slowly die. In the legal universe, such notions even survive themselves, by dissolving the supposedly sacred separation of Church and State, among other things. Even progressive judges in the early 21st Century still build on a 1823 precedent (part one of the 'Marshal Trilogy'), denying Indian nations even a smattering of the independent and free existence unlawfully stolen from them.
Hint:
The qualifier "anti-Indian" has a specific significance. It isn't synonymous to 'white supremacist', nor to 'racist', since it carefully connects current injustices (including misguided notions of 'justice') with the centuries old 'view from the ship.'
FYI:
I benefitted immensely from another landmark study; "Pagans in the promised land. Decoding the Docrine of Christian Discovery" [2008] by Shawnee/Lenape scholar [& author, & activist] Steven Newcomb. He did an astute analysis of the 'reimagining' effort - if I may so put it - by Christendom's colonizers and their feudal overlords, going back to 15th century Papal bulls (and prior to that, to Popes and princes prompting footsoldiers to embark on crusades to "free" Jerusalem from "Pagans" and "Heathens") - problematic and yet mainstream to this day, since the core domination matrix is still in place; Christendom's late-medieval (proto-techno-) feudalism only seemingly vanished; it now experiences an imperial, if not global come-back.
"The qualifier "anti-Indian" has a specific significance. It isn't synonymous to 'white supremacist', nor to 'racist'..."
Yes! You neatly summarized that crucial point!
Thank you, Peter. It took time ere I cracked that nut - not for intellectual reasons so much, but...
One way to put it, is saying: *Try to think outside the box.* Fine - as long as you can return to the box... Or get annoyed over the 'discovery' that the box will always await you, no matter what you do & whither you amble.
You can try and go a bit further: *Ditch that box - and panic over losing all its comforts.* Or (some variant of) *Go native.*
But then it may be less artificial to call my parents & grandparents 'ancestors.' So far, I am best pleased with this view. And since they all crossed the divide by now, it feels perfectly natural too. And who knows, such a practice may even be an antidote to brain fog or worse including (maybe.... at least in part....) artificially induced propaganda. (In late 2020, early 2021, it publc space was like the Cultural Revolution under Mao, I imagine) All over was that bureaucratic, nagging, steely voice: "Put on your masks... Stay six feet apart... We do this for each other - which I, going mental as it were, repeated internally as 'We do this TO each other").
Sorry, this is off-topic - or tangentially connected at best.
important to make connections to the tangents!! I think that is the way to understanding...