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Notes -
Happy National Day of Mourning, fellow Americans!
As a naturalized American, and out of curiosity about recurring public rituals, I decided to spend some time this morning to research this holiday. The historical parts, what with it being rooted in Anglican religious tradition and carried over by early English settlers as early as 1610 make for a charming story: I imagine a group of people, all unfamiliar with the new land they've settled, and right on winter's doorstep, giving each other support over a feast. Forgiving past grievances, reaffirming existing friendships, renewing familial ties--all in an age when cold, hunger, and even minor accidents lead to death, death, death.
This spirit resonates with me despite my utter disbelief in any higher power. There's something very potent and healthy in expressing gratitude, though I can't quite put my finger on it.
However, my curiosity turned into bafflement, then into distress upon getting to the Criticism & Controversy part of the wikipedia entry.
The way I read this and other parts of that section is that modern day Americans should, instead of giving thanks, focus on exploring their guilt and practicing atonement for the wrongs done to Native American nations. In other words, Thanksgiving should revolve around guilt instead of gratitude.
It's utterly baffling to me. Why should I feel guilty for anything as a newly-minted American? What part did I take in any of the violence that happened centuries ago? In the same vein, why should the majority of contemporary Americans, whose families immigrated here hundreds of years after these sad events took place, feel any guilt?
(I'm not very well versed in history, so perhaps I'm wrong, but it appears that the great immigration period ("After 1820, immigration gradually increased. From 1836 to 1914, over 30 million Europeans migrated to the United States.") began at the tail of the great Native American termination this appears to have fizzled out around 1850 (eg. Trail of Tears))
All this guilt has to me a definite, Old World flavor: Christianity. The original sin, the sin that one cannot cleanse oneself of, the sin that one must regularly and harshly atone for. What's baffling is the paradox that this reactionary agenda of mourning and atonement for the actions of one's ancestors is pushed by left-leaning individuals that would often identify as progressive and usually want to have nothing to do with religion or tradition.
Once, at work, when I raised my point, I was rebuffed by a coworker who stated, more or less, that White Americans should be guilty because they benefit from the fruits of the violent extermination of Native Americans. But isn't this a slippery slope? Who decide where this stops? Should I also feel guilt about Roman conquest? Or, going farther, the many petty conflicts that occurred between the Tigris and Euphrates?
All in all, this whole line of arguing for guilt seems not only like a sloppy argument, but also an inelegant weaponization of guilt to exert control. I'm sad that in my professional circle of East Coast tech workers, even wishing "Happy Thanksgiving" is frowned upon.
But enough sadness. Here's what I'm grateful for right now: the opportunity to share this unique virtual space with so many people whose opinions are so radically different than my own, and who adhere to an uncommonly high bar of discourse. Being here is intoxicatingly challenging and mind-expanding.
Tonight, at dinner, I'll drink a quiet toast to you all.
Happy Thanksgiving.
Here’s a history of the economics of the first Thanksgiving, by the late, great Rush Limbaugh. The original commune contract collapsed, and they chose an ownership economy, which prospered. But this was not a part of the mainstream American mythos of Thanksgiving Boomers and GenX grew up with, so it wasn’t one of the reasons left-aligned Americans grew to despise it.
The first time I remember Thanksgiving publicly mocked was the Addams Family Values camp scene. It’s the classic Blue Tribe borrowing the virtue of the victimized far group and insisting their outgroup, the WASPs at the time, are forever stained by the blood of genocide, so let’s mock the ignorant WASPs in the most transgressive and shocking way possible. That’s probably the most lasting public depiction of critical theory’s revision of American mythos, because it’s a hell of a meme. It was my first glimpse of the culture war. (I might even call it an act of memetic ethnogenesis, given how different the signifiers of the two tribes were back then.)
My grandmother traced our family history back to four of the Pilgrims, and also one of their white indentured servants. This is my family’s holiday. I invite you all to enjoy the bounty and come together as a community to celebrate with turkey and maize, with potatoes and ham, with apple or pumpkin or cranberry pie and be thankful for making it through this past decade of chaos alive and able to appreciate providence, natural and/or divine.
Have a happy Thanksgiving!
I think you misinterpret Addams Family and read into it something that wasn't there. Surely, they are anti-normal and in that quality they are opposed to the WASPs as WASPs are the quintessential "normal" for pre-culture-war America. Of course, this is a stereotype, because that's how satire operates. Nowdays, for such an idea you could be cancelled even if you bring it in for the purpose of mocking it. However, if you look into it, Addamses, while being anti-normal, are never at war with normies, all they want is to be left alone and enjoy their weird life in their weird ways. It is only when the normies try to aggressively normalize them, they turn their world upside down, striking into the most WASPish myth ever - not because they think it is virtuous, but because they think the normies would hate that, and they deserve it for not letting the anti-normies be in peace. That's how it looked before the culture war. The culture war changed the picture - SJWs don't want to be left alone, they want to proselytize aggressively and nothing less than turning every single normie into SJW would suffice them. Not only non-compliance is violence, silence (i.e. not being an active SJW) is violence. They don't want to enjoy their own lifestyle in their own community - they want it to be the only possible lifestyle, everywhere, and would aggressively persecute anybody who admits the possibility of any other way. Addamses would never go there.
So I think the Addams Family is not the first glimpse of the culture war, it is the last glimpse of how it was before the war. How you could diverge from the normie culture and still not try to destroy the civilization.
You’re right, the Addams family are much more like goth Looney Tunes than hardcore SJWs. There’s a reason I mentioned ethnogenesis, though: I remembered it completely wrong until I watched it again, and I bet I’m not alone.
The cultural appropriation of the Native Americans was forced by the camp counselors, so Wednesday’s faction is let off the hook for its responsibility. It also wasn’t part of the standard political correctness package until around 2012.
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