Jewish thought points to a human Messiah to come, who will bring peace on earth, said Barry Feinstein, leader of the Westminster Jewish Congregation.
And many Westerners believe humankind can achieve world peace on its own because the world is progressing--or getting better--over time.
But can we make that assumption of progress? DeMallie asked.
For traditional Lakota Indians, he said, such a concept of achieving such a Utopian goal would be alien in a world that moves in unchanging natural cycles.
3 comments:
Writerfella here --
Odd coincidence, that. The 'cap' story for my series that begins with "The Last Quest" and ends with both "Fifth And Last Horseman" and "Time Of The Sixth Horseman," is based on that very concept, that the 'Fifth Generation' of Natives past the time of their defeat, would be the ones who would be there to hold the whiteman's head when he breathes his last. And it is that very 'divorce from nature' on the part of white 'civilization' that will doom it to destruction, at least in the story, "Fifth And Last..." The principle is this: from Paul Storer's THE WEB OF LIFE and Robert Ardrey's AFRICAN GENESIS, overpopulation of the human species and destruction of the animals with whom the various races once lived, is the key to their eventual and inevitable downfall. As the series progressed, the Natives discover that their safeguard against the coming apocalypse is to save the animals with which they once lived, and so they do. The moose, the deer, the antelope, the mountain lion, the fox, the wolf, the bison, the bear, the eagle, the hawk, the beaver, the otter, the condors, and and all. My, what magnificent conservation efforts, the rest of the world says when the Natives stock and raise their animals on what few tracts of wilderness and reservation land they have left. 'Fifth And Last Horseman' finds a Kiowa man, Jason Loneman, from the movement started by John Tallowhands, helping the Taos Pueblo people manage a bison herd on their Blue Lake land in New Mexico. The time of the cataclysm is at hand as a massive, virulent flue epidemic begins in Southeast Asia. The Natives realize they only have to sit and wait, and the rest of the human world will die save for them, because their animal protectors are all around them. The rest of the world has destroyed its animals and so they are doomed. LoneMan has had his doubts about what they are doing and what they are nhot doing, and that is to warn the rest of the world. Tallowhands comes to him and says it is too late and, if they knew, they only would come and take our animals from us and destroy them out of jealousy. A group of Interior Dep't rangers comes to inspect the Taos herd, LoneMan finds his white blood brother is among them, and that the man has figured out what the Natives are doing. That one man could undo it all...
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
Writerfella here --
POSTSCRIPTUM: Um, I guess I should mention that when 'Fifth Horseman..." was written, it was science fiction. Today, Native people are doing exactly what I wrote in the story, and flu epidemics are arising in SE Asia. Is the story still SF, or has the world changed that much, after all?
All Best
Rus Bates
'writerfella'
Writerfella here --
The %?@#!/!* Postscriptum won't jump into the queue! Let's see if this will kick it into place.
All Best
Russ Bates
'writerfella'
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