History Is Written By The Conquerors

"The experience of the guru who sits in opulence, bejeweled and begowned, has nothing to do with the peasant who works in the field and whose belly is empty. And so it has been through the centuries.

"In these terms, our histories were not written by the people who worked the earth. They were created by the priests and the elite, who made up their own histories to suit their purposes - to hold down the masses... Those histories never spoke of the vast, massive emotions and needs of the human beings involved, who listened, because their hearts and survival depended upon their doing so, to the voices that speak within the earth that your instruments even now cannot perceive. Those histories did not tell of the human beings who had to know what insects would crawl or fly from one end of a continent to another, so that they could be captured and roasted and eaten. They did not speak of the human beings who had to know what migrations of animals would roam through their land - and _when_ and _where_, and at what phase of the moon - lest they starve...

"And so those people lifted up their minds and hearts and heard the voices of the earth speak to them, as they still do. The elite did not hear those voices. They wrote histories in which in their own memories they annihilated races of people with emotions as strong and as real as their. The elite leave you records and methods, telling of kings and queens, of gurus and prophets and gods, in whose eyes the masses of people vanished. The magic that the people had, those gurus never learned. They learned techniques, but the techniques did not bring them magic, did not allow them to _really_ hear and understand the voice of one leaf.

"So forget all the histories, my dear friend, and listen to your own thoughts, which are today as alive and vital as those of anyone ever born, in whatever time. Forget the dusty old records and feel your reality in the moment as you are. In _that_ moment can you hear the insects sweeping across the continents and the voices of the leaves speak, and feel their echoes in your blood - and that blood _lives_, beyond the _time_. It throbs beyond destiny, even as the masses of those people live beyond the beliefs of those gurus."

-- JaneRoberts

When I was a kid, my great-aunt Jackie took me fishing on her old ranch. She walked me along a stream, and told me just the right place to sit - a hollowed elbow of the flow shaded and cooled by a tree.

I pulled out 20 fish; perch and a couple catfish. I even caught one with the hook thru its belly, by mistake. I felt kind'a proud of myself.

When my mom gathered me up to take them home, I learned Aunt Jackie had caught 35. She had given me her second-best spot.

-- PhlIp

See also: StagesOfCivilization

So forget all the histories, my dear friend

Great advice, but not easy when these myths have been taught to us as if this history was the RealWorld.

A gorilla called Ishmael, also has some helpful insights which may help us all to forget.(IshmaelBook) Ishmael calls the conquerors takers, the people who remained close to the earth the leavers.

It is concerning how much of our day to day habits (e.g FortyHourWeek) are based on the myths that the takers have created. The primary myth being that is our purpose to conquer the world. Prior to this myth, we lived in harmony with nature, the agricultural revolution provided the fuel for this myth to take. If we can unlearn that myth what else falls away?

Another interesting angle is that although HistoryIsWrittenByTheConquerors, the leavers did influence history. An example is the garden of eden story. DanielQuinn has a very convincing argument that this was actually a leaver?s story. It was the leavers who were the external observers and story tellers in this case. Leavers watched as tribes emerged believing the had the knowledge of good and evil and began to conquer the world. It may have been written down and modified by the conquerors but the conquerors would not have called it TheFall?.

DanielQuinn also makes that observation that our culture (taker culture) believes history began 4000 years ago around the time of the Fall, not 40,000 or 400,000 or 4,000,000 years ago. The Story of B, calls this the GreatForgetting?.

The first written documents appear about 4000 years ago, so that's about the earliest time period once can investigate by means other than digging up pots and tombs, hence the start of history there. It's no coincidence that this same time period is when the first priest-kings rose to great power, but let's not pretend that means nobody is interested in anyone but them. We know a reasonable amount about people before them, and would love to learn more, if only more materials were available.

And, speaking of documents, one of the Sumerian texts is the story of a schoolboy whose father bribed the teacher with dinner in order to improve his grades. One of the defining works in Greek Mythology was written by a humble farmer, and it is full of information on what a farmer's life was like. Just as two examples of the many things the "leavers" left us besides Eden. All in all, it was quite as much as the conquerors, I assure you, and has not gone unnoticed.

What insights are gained if we could determine whether the conquerors judged themselves to be morally superior, before or after they began exterminating primitive tribes?

One of the ideas being explored on this page is that all our behaviours based on a drive to conquer the world are flawed. Part of this idea leads to questioning history, if indeed HistoryIsWrittenByTheConquerors.

What insights are gained if we determine that judging ourselves as morally superior is a big mistake?''

You'd first have to prove it. And in the endeavour, you'd have to disprove the masses of evidence we do have which disprove the notion that past societies were our moral equals.

Same thing with any conclusions based on the "insight" that we have some "drive to conquer the world". First, prove that such a thing exists. And remember, you're not talking about American culture, or Anglo-American cultures, or even Western European cultures, you're talking about all cultures for the past several millennia.

no proof but maybe some clues

I ask myself these questions and conclude personally that HistoryIsWrittenByTheConquerors and that in the words of The The: 'my mind has been polluted and my energy diluted

There is an alternative to the conquering paradigm. A quote from 'Aikido and the harmony of nature' ISBN 0877738556 presents this well, "Instead of exploring the mysteries of this world we are attempting to redesign perfection to suit the imperfect"

Also, I am not saying all cultures today are takers (almost! - over 95% of the population I'd guess, both East and West. Tribal cultures with no desire to proliferate their beliefs are not included).

See LoveIsNotAnInstinct, and all the mis-interpretations of history it repeats to us.

Care to name some?

To be sure, conquerors wrote their own histories, and often didn't care too much for accuracy. But these are looked at skeptically, and are not the only materials which have come down to us. To claim that we know nothing about the ancient commoners is simply an out-and-out lie, and worse still one apparently with an agenda, to claim there was an early utopia despite lack of evidence. Well, friends, the worst way of seeking the truth is to start by denying all the facts.

All I am claiming is that our belief that we should conquer the cruel side of nature because we know best is insane. I actually agree with DanielQuinn that it is leading to the destruction of our world.

The point of the original section:

Listen to your own inner voice first, your own feelings first, and your own relationship with nature (and the natural people in it) first. Attend to history in history class, but do not let it taint your understanding of your own connection to the world.

-- PhlIp

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