There truly is a dearth of stories that deal honestly with how these engagements happened. Which is truly a shame, because if more people understood the actual complicated dynamics at play, maybe we'd stop trying to moralize the history one way or another
Jul 26·edited Jul 26Liked by Bruce Ivar Gudmundsson
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It's not a matter of two opposing narratives - it's a matter of *all* narratives interweaving into where the truth probably actually lies - somewhere in the muddled middle. These things are messy and never ever simple. Because human beings are messy and never ever simple. That is the beauty of this Mystery. The reason the oracle at Delphi admonished the great as well as the small "Know Thyself," is so nobody else would have the ability to decide for you, much less tell you, who they think you ought to be, and also, so you might know everyone else too. We are not that dissimilar from each other where the rubber meets the road.
Ultimately, story telling - the relating of these mythos - is about who has power - and who doesn't. The USSR knew that - so does the CCP. And bending mythos is not just a crime against humanity and culture, it's a weapon of war. Of, "soft power" if you will, that isn't so soft. History is always written by the victors. Sort of. The history of the vanquished, or absorbed, or inconveniently parallelled, is also written but, more obliquely, more, occultly. You have to look harder for it. But like a palimpsest - it's still there.
King Philip's War is a turning point in colonial affairs and one that's not studied nearly enough. "Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip's War" is a fairly recent book on the subject that won the Bancroft Prize in 2019.
Bruce, do you know if there are digital formats of "King Philip's War" and "Flintlock and Tomahawk?"
I'm reeeeally wary or the American Creation and Origin mythos being told by other than ourselves. Admittedly it's good to get an outside perspective. And it would be really good for us all to remember it accurately, in more and richer detail.
Carl Jung, the great psychotherapist of individual human beings said that your subconscious - where your own origin and creation mythos lie as well as your Shadow - the things you don't want to look at about yourself - will drive you and you'll think it Fate, until you yank it into the daylight, examine it thoroughly and then fully integrate it all consciously.
Joseph Campbell, the great cultural mythologian, and, if you will, cultural and sociological psychotherapist, whose PhD thesis was on the Holy Grail mythos, took Jung's work into the deep waters of cultures and civilisations. He said that just as every individual has an origin mythos and a creation mythos, and a subconscious and a Shadow, so too do cultures and civilisations - and Nations - and that if those become lost or unknown, then they will still drive the bus until they are remembered accurately. The origin mythos and creation mythos of a culture or a Nation is the collective subconscious of all of its denizens. Only when you remember those, and fully *consciously* integrate them for both good and ill, do societies and cultures have the power to direct their own evolutions.
It's kind of like Russian nesting dolls. Individuals nested inside their families, nested inside their homes of origin, nested inside their own cultures, nested inside their own countries. The origin and creation mythos of all dolls nested together reverberate and inform each other and create a larger complex narrative.
There truly is a dearth of stories that deal honestly with how these engagements happened. Which is truly a shame, because if more people understood the actual complicated dynamics at play, maybe we'd stop trying to moralize the history one way or another
(more)
It's not a matter of two opposing narratives - it's a matter of *all* narratives interweaving into where the truth probably actually lies - somewhere in the muddled middle. These things are messy and never ever simple. Because human beings are messy and never ever simple. That is the beauty of this Mystery. The reason the oracle at Delphi admonished the great as well as the small "Know Thyself," is so nobody else would have the ability to decide for you, much less tell you, who they think you ought to be, and also, so you might know everyone else too. We are not that dissimilar from each other where the rubber meets the road.
Ultimately, story telling - the relating of these mythos - is about who has power - and who doesn't. The USSR knew that - so does the CCP. And bending mythos is not just a crime against humanity and culture, it's a weapon of war. Of, "soft power" if you will, that isn't so soft. History is always written by the victors. Sort of. The history of the vanquished, or absorbed, or inconveniently parallelled, is also written but, more obliquely, more, occultly. You have to look harder for it. But like a palimpsest - it's still there.
I'd like to see American Indigenous film production tackle the subject of Miles Standish, the Pilgrims and King Philip. And Native film production is actually a fair sizeable portion of the production ecosystem now. https://variety.com/2021/tv/features/joely-proudfit-inclusion-rutherford-falls-native-americans-indigenous-filmmakers-1234997801/
King Philip's War is a turning point in colonial affairs and one that's not studied nearly enough. "Our Beloved Kin: A New History of King Philip's War" is a fairly recent book on the subject that won the Bancroft Prize in 2019.
Bruce, do you know if there are digital formats of "King Philip's War" and "Flintlock and Tomahawk?"
As far as I know, both games are only available in a form that will tempt your cat to jump all over the map and knock over the pieces.
Cats gonna cat .
This was produced by a South African Film company and distributed by National Geographic according to IMDB here
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4705002/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm
I'm reeeeally wary or the American Creation and Origin mythos being told by other than ourselves. Admittedly it's good to get an outside perspective. And it would be really good for us all to remember it accurately, in more and richer detail.
Carl Jung, the great psychotherapist of individual human beings said that your subconscious - where your own origin and creation mythos lie as well as your Shadow - the things you don't want to look at about yourself - will drive you and you'll think it Fate, until you yank it into the daylight, examine it thoroughly and then fully integrate it all consciously.
Joseph Campbell, the great cultural mythologian, and, if you will, cultural and sociological psychotherapist, whose PhD thesis was on the Holy Grail mythos, took Jung's work into the deep waters of cultures and civilisations. He said that just as every individual has an origin mythos and a creation mythos, and a subconscious and a Shadow, so too do cultures and civilisations - and Nations - and that if those become lost or unknown, then they will still drive the bus until they are remembered accurately. The origin mythos and creation mythos of a culture or a Nation is the collective subconscious of all of its denizens. Only when you remember those, and fully *consciously* integrate them for both good and ill, do societies and cultures have the power to direct their own evolutions.
It's kind of like Russian nesting dolls. Individuals nested inside their families, nested inside their homes of origin, nested inside their own cultures, nested inside their own countries. The origin and creation mythos of all dolls nested together reverberate and inform each other and create a larger complex narrative.
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