What are the major differences or similarities between the ethos of the creation story or stories you are familiar with and the story King tells in The Truth About Stories ?
I chose this question because it really forced me to think about, what exactly is the culture of where I live? To really examine not only my personal experiences, but to think about the stories of others I know.
Western culture as a whole I think is dominated by certain features. It is obviously a capitalist society, which necessitates there being a top and a bottom of the ladder. It is a very individualistic society, that focuses on the self. We are constantly told that we can do whatever we want, if only we try hard enough. The emphasis is always on our own effort. It doesn’t matter what barriers are in place, if we as individuals put our mind to something, we can achieve anything. I think the combination of these things can lead to problematic situations though. This Western cultural ethos leads to labelling and putting people in boxes.
I’m again going to bring in some of my neuroscience background here… but putting things in boxes is something we naturally do. It is how our brain more easily stores information. As a very simple example: imagine the last time you went and got a coffee. You might recall you ordered a small coffee. This might not be because you have a detailed memory of that specific experience, but because you remember there are 3 sizes of coffee, small, medium, and large, and you normally order a small coffee. By chunking things down a little, our brain more easily remembers this information. Now after that brief aside, in terms of how this relates to our Western culture, there are those who do, and those who do not. Those who work hard supposedly rise to the top, and those who don’t naturally sink to the bottom. Now what does this lead to? Why it leads us exactly to what King tells us about in “The Truth About Stories”, it leads us to dichotomies.
Dichotomies are the central theme of our Western culture. The have and have nots, the in and the out, us vs. them mentality. The capitalist structure and the narrative of us needing to work hard so that we can rise to the top, in order to not be like those on the bottom naturally creates an us vs. them mentality. This central dogma from the get go creates divides. It puts labels on people and because we are told that we must always improve ourselves, we are always comparing ourselves to others to prove that we are somehow “better”.
As Thomas King points out this all stems from our Western creation story. “In Genesis, the post-garden world we inherit is decidedly martial in nature, a world at war – God vs. the Devil, humans vs. the elements. Or to put things in corporate parlance, competitive”(King 24). Our creation story wants us to compete, to struggle and deal with adversity, and to come out on top. Those who do are rewarded, and those who don’t suffer.
Now how does all of this compare to the Native story King shares with us in “The Truth About Stories”? “In our Native story, the world is at peace and the pivotal concern is not with the ascendancy of good over evil but with the issue of balance” (24). I believe that this idea of balance is the central ethos to this story. Charm interacts with all of the animals in the story equally, and considers all of their opinions as valid. Her children, the Twins, “a boy and a girl. One light, one dark. One right-handed, one left-handed” (18).” “The right-handed Twin created roses. The left-handed Twin put thorns on the stems. The right-handed Twin created summer. The left-handed Twin created winter. The right-handed twin created sunshine. The left-handed Twin created shadows (20)”. Everything in this story is about balance, for every action there is an equal an opposite reaction. Which quite nicely fits some of the laws of nature as Sir Isaac Newton gave us.
These conflicting ethos’s between Native and Western culture can also explain why we see things today like pipelines being forced through on unceeded territory. The Western idea is that this is a competition. If they just keep pushing harder and harder, regardless of what the law states, they’ll “win” eventually. This is in direct contrast to the Native view which is being destroyed here. The Unist’ot’en use their land for trapping and healing responsibly. But the unnatural activities of the Coastal GasLink Pipeline have driven away wildlife, and forced the Unist’ot’en out further and further into more difficult areas to continue trapping. They are trying to preserve the balance of the ecosystem, but CGP only care about their profit margin. The Unist’ot’en aren’t “us”, so they’re “them” and need to be pushed aside by any means so that CGP can get what they want.
The questions I’ll end on then are these. Do you think the employees of CGP are bad people? Or do you think that they are simply a product of the story they have been told their entire lives? Has this competitive focus only created stronger dichotomies, which in turn, only make it more difficult to strike a balance and hear other stories from those around us? And for those inclined…do you think our biological tendencies (i.e. memory systems) should be considered in our teaching of these stories so that we can be more inclusive?
Works Cited
Hemmer, Pernille, and Kimele Persaud. “Interaction between Categorical Knowledge and Episodic Memory across Domains.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 5, 2014, doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00584.
Intercontinental.Cry. “Coastal GasLink Ordered To Cease Work on Unist’ot’en Trapline.” Intercontinental Cry, Intercontinental Cry, 6 Mar. 2019, intercontinentalcry.org/coastal-gaslink-ordered-to-cease-work-on-unistoten-trapline/.
King, Thomas. The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative. Peterbough:Anansi Press. 2003. Print.
Thanks for blogging your thoughts Ross. You’ve given me a lot to think about.
It seems you have set up a dichotomy between the big bad Western culture and the gentle, morally superior Native culture. I, like King, am skeptical of such dichotomous thinking.
I’ve heard a lot of generalizations about Western culture that seem easy to say but hard to support. Sure, I can find examples of individualism, but just as easy, find examples of collectivism. In fact, this individualism-collectivism divide that has come out of cultural psychology is really meant to be a general heuristic for helping understand particular phenomena using a cultural psychological lens. For a chore theoretical principle in cultural psychology is there are more within cultural differences than between.
I can complicate King’s neat comparison by telling versions of Western stories that are prosocial while finding morally dubious narratives from other cultures. Unfortunately, Native stories have be erased by colonial powers, so this is more difficult, even impossible, to provide a more complex account of Native thinking. Nevertheless, since Native peoples are people too, and all people have moral and immoral qualities, histories, beliefs, ect., Native peoples have all these qualities too – not just the good ones. The general point I’m try to make is that the world, and all the people within, cannot be easily divide up into neat piles of good and bad.
Hi Ryan!
Thanks for your thoughts. I totally agree with your comments, and I believe that the nature of the assignment, asking to compare two different stories, in its nature sets up a dichotomy which is problematic. I think the point I was trying to get across is that society (and our brains natural processing) has forced us into dichotomous thinking no matter what we do. Of course we can look at Western or Indigenous culture and point out good and bad points, but I would argue the very act of doing so is a byproduct of the creation story of Genesis and the competition it has created. We have grown so accustomed to evaluating things in reference to others, and placing one as better than the other, that we don’t have any other way of thinking. After being exposed to the story of Charm and the Twins though, I genuinely believe that if society as a whole had been introduced to that instead, that we would think entirely different than we do now. We would be used to the idea of balance and interrelatedness, and the need for comparisons between everything would become less essential. Instead of evaluating which is better, it would be how does one thing affect another?
Hi Ross,
Very interesting article, I like the psychological aspects you brought in and it had me thinking about the idea of competition in Western culture. I think it’s an interesting depiction to say if we constantly push we can win despite what the law states. Your pipeline and the relation to competition got me thinking about how Neoliberal ideas are very prevalent in many Western economies, which is a divide between Western and Indigenous culture. Since these Neoliberal ideas promote free trade and less government restriction, we see more competition from supply and demand, therefore companies like the CGP are not necessarily “bad people” but their economic value supersedes the social and environmental value of Unist’ot’en people. It can be sad to see but that is what a lot of companies have evolved to in our economic system and why the fight for humanitarian rights, land use and more cooperation from Multinational Corporations (MNCs) still exists. Do you see Neoliberalism as an outcome from competition in Western culture?
Hi Kynan,
Thanks for your question! I’m not going to lie, I had to look up what neoliberalism was to try and answer this. I can’t say I’m up to date on more nuanced political and economic theory. BUT, from what google has quickly taught me is that it is a form of liberalism that favours free-market capitalism. Which means that it’s a form of capitalism. From my limited understanding of what a “free-market” is I would also say that this is would also lead to greater competition between producers, as consumers have greater choice in who they buy from. To answer your question then, I would say yes, I do think neoliberalism is an outcome of competition in Western culture. As our current system is not a free-market, this leaves people from having to choose between limited options and/or from monopolies. This leads to dissatisfaction, and leads to desire for more choice. Enter then the idea of a free-market which seems quite attractive in this scenario and I would say then that competition has led to the desire for free markets and therefore Neoliberalism. I apologize if my logic doesn’t follow entirely as, like I said, I’m not totally versed in these ideas, but hopefully that answers your question!
Ross