Uncharted Territory

Uncharted Territory

               

                Something that came up in our most recent Socratic seminar on Things Fall Apart really got me thinking about the world today.  A scenario was presented stating that a new land was discovered in the middle of an ocean, and then we proceeded to discuss how the world would react to such a discovery. Some thought that we would roll in, guns blazing, and obliterate the current residents for their land or for their resources. I must say that I disagree with this hypothesis, to a degree. I think that we have grown since Christianities conversion rampages, since the slaughtering of the Native Americans, even since the holocaust. I think that, unless there where substantial valuable resources, the world would leave them alone. In Things Fall Apart the whites came and basically took control, and it wasn’t even that cruel or an overall detrimental experience, there was minimal bloodshed and the whites brought technology. I don’t believe in any way that this was warranted or okay for the missionaries and whites to do, but you have to see that over the hundreds, even thousands of years that the Africans have lived there they never progressed past the Stone Age. They never had a higher or more complicated form of government than cheiftanism, they didn’t even invent the wheel. I don’t mean to be arrogant or cruel, but although these people may have thought that their life was adequate, it could have been much better. Eventually some form of change had to happen, and who says it was a bad change anyway? Okonkwo’s society was a rough one, murder and theft was pretty commonplace, it could have continued to be that difficult of a life for a very long time, but with any change some things have to fall apart, whether it is only the old ways of doing things, or other more important things. What is a little culture loss when it would have morphed and changed over a few years anyway? Is the cost of losing some culture too much for the technology and benefits that came out of it? I’m not one of those people that think things happen for a reason or that there is some sort of plan for the universe, but I think that there are always good things associated with change.  What if we discovered a new land and there was a native society?  Think of how difficult it would be for them to conform to society or even understand us, if it would even be possible. Wouldn’t it be better to have been introduced when our two societies where somewhat close in technology and culture rather than having centuries of gap between them? I for one can confidently say that if some higher being where to come to earth and offer enlightenment and technological advancement I would accept it no matter the cost to our petty cultures and traditions. I understand that that may be out of context or from someone without much culture to lose, but stand firmly in the belief that in the end these changes may have been for the best.