How the Conquest of Indigenous Peoples Parallels the Conquest of Nature
SEPTEMBER 18, 2020 AT 2 PM PST
LOOKOUT FM presents a lecture from the archives of one of our content partners, the Schumacher Center for New Economics. In this talk, John Mohawk, a Seneca master singer and orator of the Turtle clan who was also a scholar and activist, outlines the history of the West in its relationship to the natural world. In this investigation he identifies several unique aspects of Western thought: a linear view of time, a penchant for utopian abstractions, the abstraction of nature into financial wealth, and many others, that create a world in which unfathomable injustices become inevitable. Mohawk challenges us to reflect deeply on the intellectual and emotional structures that fuel our historical epoch, and make even extraordinary acts of cruelty seem not only justifiable, but desirable. Finally, rather than settle into an accusatory paradigm, he asks in what ways we might be perpetuating similar injustice through our own unrecognized cultural constructs.
SPEAKER
John Mohawk (1945-2006)
Center for Indigenous Studies at the Center of the Americas State University of New York
Center for Indigenous Studies at the Center of the Americas State University of New York