Conrad In Search of Humanity

Why We Fight, How to Stop, and the Role Business Must Play
1. Auflage 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5445-3014-7
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 200 Seiten

Humans can be incredibly kind, but our evolutionary wiring can also lead to astonishing cruelty. With In Search of Humanity, Dr. Conrad exposes a sordid history of mind-numbing social and economic inequality, of government promises made but not kept, and of ineffective plans to level the field-from politicians whose policies are paid for by powerful industry interests. Discover why the American Dream is a fantasy designed to enrich the few over the many, how this country developed into what it is today, and how change can be achieved against such overwhelming odds. We can no longer trust solely in our governing bodies to drive us forward. American companies, many of them complicit in maintaining inequality as the status quo, hold the key to bridging America's significant ideological divides.Humans can be incredibly kind, but our evolutionary wiring can also lead to astonishing cruelty. With In Search of Humanity, Dr. Conrad exposes a sordid history of mind-numbing social and economic inequality, of government promises made but not kept, and of ineffective plans to level the field-from politicians whose policies are paid for by powerful industry interests. Discover why the American Dream is a fantasy designed to enrich the few over the many, how this country developed into what it is today, and how change can be achieved against such overwhelming odds. We can no longer trust solely in our governing bodies to drive us forward. American companies, many of them complicit in maintaining inequality as the status quo, hold the key to bridging America's significant ideological divides.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Conrad, Jarik

Leseproben

Chapter 2.
American Exceptionalism Under the Microscope Before Europeans settled in what was later named the United States of America, the pre-Clovis people had lived on the land for about 6,000 years. These non-Europeans crossed the Bering Straits connecting Siberia in Russia to present-day Alaska. Nearly 80 percent of Indigenous people today contain genetic traces of the original settlers, the real discoverers of America, making them truly Native Americans. Over time, they separated into as many as 160 different tribes, each with its own language, customs, and rich cultural traditions. Today, more than half of all US states are named after these tribes. Like the European settlers who followed, Native Americans did what was needed to survive, leveraging human traits like curiosity and tribalism. Curiosity drove them to experiment with herbs as medicines and wild plants as foods. Tribalism enabled them to kill large mammals for nutrition, clothing, and shelter, and to keep families safe and preserve their culture. Violence was a part of life, resulting in sporadic conflicts with other tribes. In popular entertainment forms like movies and television shows, Native Americans are often typecast as either savages or simple, peaceful people, grossly understating the complexity of their lives. Stereotypical images of Native Americans propounded these characterizations, evident most palpably in the logos of sports teams named for different tribes. These offensive impressions marginalized Native Americans as “lesser people,” while rendering their true history and attainments invisible to the greater public. Fortunately, there has been a recent wave of name changes in sports, including the Washington football team, the Commanders, which used to be called a slur for Indigenous people. Prior to the arrival of the first settlers, the land was theirs, but only in terms of its bounty, beauty, and spiritual sustenance. Little did they realize, until more Europeans arrived and established settlements and colonies along the Atlantic coast, that this land was a veritable gold mine, one the entire world would soon exploit. Countries took turns searching for their pot of gold. Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch, and English explorers mounted expeditions to claim a share of the untold riches. Among them was the Italian seafarer Christopher Columbus, who sailed three ships to what he thought was the Indies, an old world, yet was credited with discovering a “New World.” We now know that previous explorers like Leif Erikson had already “discovered” America, making Columbus not just a misguided explorer but a late one, as well. He died in 1506, still believing he had settled in Asia. Columbus anchored first in the Bahamas, or Guanahani, as the native Taino people called the island. He described the Tainos in his journals as strong, kind, generous, and fine featured. Columbus subsequently sailed to what are today known as Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and Haiti, and continued to praise the kindness of the local inhabitants. “They brought us all they had in this world, knowing what I wanted, and they did it so generously and willingly that it was wonderful,” he wrote.21 These depictions by Columbus were important in advertising throughout Europe the bountiful riches and subservient natives of the Americas, ultimately impelling a cavalcade of subsequent seafarers to conquer the Western Hemisphere, one tribe after another. Not just the weapons of battle killed off much of the Indigenous population; diseases like smallpox also wielded a sharp sword. Columbus was anything but a kind benefactor, despite the comforting passages in his journal. After writing that there were few better people than the Tainos, he kidnapped ten of them to train as interpreters for the return trip to Spain. He subsequently sailed to the Bahamas with more ships and larger crews, with a singular purpose—subjugation. His men turned on the very people he called “wonderful,” robbing, raping, murdering, and enslaving them. By 1510, nearly 90 percent of Tainos had died from disease and the physical toll of slavery, resulting in the demand for new sources of forced labor.22 As the Tainos perished, the Atlantic slave trade from Africa emerged in 1518 to fill the yawning gap. One hundred fifty years later, Columbus Day was designated an official federal holiday, during the height of the civil rights movement. Schoolchildren were taught about Columbus’s heroic transatlantic explorations, but not his treatment of the Native people he had deemed kind and generous. After reexamining the historical record, several US states and cities no longer celebrate Columbus Day, preferring to honor the legacy of Indigenous people instead. Many individuals were unhappy with the decision to redirect the observance toward Native people, suggesting it whitewashes history in the quest for political correctness. The truth is otherwise. To continue a wrongheaded tradition denigrates the people who settled here first. Did those countless lost lives not matter? Pause for a moment and imagine how insulting it is to ask Native Americans to celebrate the life of their enslaver, an inept navigator whose subsequent actions fomented the enslavement of African people. Once Columbus opened the doors of the Americas to the world, explorers came from all over. For some, curiosity drove the voyage. For poor peasants struggling to survive in their home countries, emigration was a response to fear and desperation. Still others ventured west due to political oppression and/or religious persecution. What they all had in common was the search for a better life. Profit Rules the Roost
Nevertheless, throughout this period of colonization, one thing motivated the governments, corporations, and religious institutions funding the expeditions—making a profit right from the start. In establishing the New World’s first city, St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565, Spanish explorer Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles had visions of turning the region into a commercial empire.23 Pioneers like the Virginians in Jamestown in 1607 and the Puritans in Massachusetts Bay in 1630 brought with them the forerunners of modern-day capitalism, creating goods that were sold at competitive market prices, generating the capital needed to increase employment and pay taxes to government entities providing services like roads and schools, enhancing the quality of life. Eager to profit from the untapped resources of the New World, capital flowed from European investors to early settlers hoping to carve out businesses and other commercial enterprises and provide a nice life for themselves and their families. In contrast to the overcrowded cities in Europe, the New World was sparsely populated and blessed with vast agricultural and mineral riches. The problem, from the settlers’ perspective, was the Native people who inhabited this land. To appease Native Americans, governments realized they needed to form alliances with Columbus’s “Indians.” Most were established by missionaries seeking to “convert” tribes to Christianity, another form of subjugation, albeit one vastly more humane than enslavement. But these alliances were outliers, and most tribes resisted pressures to convert to Christianity while others prepared for battle. Since there weren’t enough settlers to perform the grueling work of tending the land, another form of labor was needed. In 1619, English pirates hijacked a Portuguese slave ship bound for Mexico and captured approximately two dozen Africans to fill the void. The foundation for slavery in the American South was built on the backs of these people and countless others. From the standpoint of capitalism, free labor offered the extraordinary opportunity to widen business profit margins, making America’s products less expensive to produce and sell in the global marketplace. Spain initiated the practice of enslaving Africans, but other European nations soon joined the country in what would become the largest migration of people in history, albeit forced. Although Africans and Europeans had a long history of trading people and goods, the transatlantic slave trade reached new commercial heights—and inhuman lows. The irony of the American Revolution is that Americans fought for the ideals of freedom, independence, and their right to claim land, while simultaneously raiding Native lands and holding Africans as slaves. Despite their harsh treatment by pioneers, both Africans and Native Americans fought in that war, in the hope that fighting would prove them worthy of personhood. Some Native American tribes fought on the American side, while others fought for the British, thinking it would halt territorial encroachment.24 Africans, both free and enslaved, fought squarely on the American side. The first casualty of the war, another irony, was Crispus Attucks, whose parents were Black and Native American.25 Once America obtained its independence, these marginalized groups were treated as lesser humans or less than human. As per the Three-Fifths Compromise, slave owners counted three out of five slaves for legislative representation and taxation purposes. The American Way
Like other specious individuals extolled in history books as great Americans, Daniel Boone’s legacy is a mixed bag. Boone was hailed as a hero for ignoring British orders prior to the war and for carving a trail through Cumberland Gap to establish a permanent settlement in...