Phil Thrash

Good or Evil:  Where Have We Come From,
Where Are We, Where Are We Going?

     LITR 5731 is a voyage to the foundations of the American Dominant Culture. There are “light” and “dark” sides to this story or voyage which some might not want to acknowledge due to the evil aspects of human nature.  In the readings from Exodus, Moses was picked to lead God’s chosen ones to the Promised Land.  This Judaeo-Christian story became the foundation of laws of the Western Culture through the 10 Commandments given to Moses from God.  The Declaration of Independence: has a subtitle little known or recognized in these words: “The Want, Will, and Hopes of the People.”  Jefferson penned in the opening sentence to the Declaration,”…when it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve…and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them…”   The “God” Jefferson referenced was the “God” of Moses, and the “God” of the Pilgrims who came to the “New World” for economic and religious freedom.  The light side of the “Dominant Culture” remains in the bastion of unrelenting faith that God is “Good,” and good fortune will follow those who follow his ways.  The dark side of the “Dominant Culture,” is greed that manifests itself with economic gain and progress by exploitation and marginalization of others. 

     Bradford’s “Of Plymouth Plantation” reflects this dichotomy of the “Dominant Culture” as a text of the dominant culture.  Sometime after 1650, when Bradford had stopped writing he penned a note on page 21 of his manuscript, including these words of despair, “O sacred bond, whilst inviolably preserved!  How sweet and precious were the fruits that flowed from the same! But when this fidelity decayed, then their ruin approached…it was with much comfort to enjoy the blessed fruits of this sweet communion, but it is now a part of misery in old age to find and feel the decay and want with grief and sorrow.  And for others’ warning and admonition, and my own humiliation, do I here note the same.”  (Bradford, Intro. p. xvi)  The first generation of the Pilgrims was passing as was their dedication to God and his laws.  Their religious fervor was giving way to economic progress at the expense of the Native Americans, by the “next” generation offspring of the Pilgrims.  Bradford seems to have captured the moment and now seems prophetic when one examines the advancement of the “Dominant Culture’s American Dream.”

     Nathaniel Philbrick’s recent book, “Mayflower,” brings some objectivity to the “Myth of the Pilgrims” in American History.  Philbrick pens, “The oft-told tale of how the Pilgrims and the Indians celebrated the First Thanksgiving does not do justice to the history of Plymouth Colony.  Instead of an inspiring tableau of tranquil cooperation…the Pilgrim’s first half-century in America was of a tragic nature where heroic figures tried to maintain a precarious peace—until that peace erupted into one of the deadliest wars ever fought on American soil…A hundred years before the signing of the Declaration of Independence, King Phillip’s War—brought into disturbing focus the issues of race, violence, religious identity, and economic opportunity that came to define America’s inexorable push west.”  (Philbrick, Dustcover) These concepts unearthed by Philbrick are seen in our course readings and objectives.  The enslavement of Africans enabled the dominant culture with “free” labor to perpetuate its greed and expansion.  The Native Americans experienced pogroms by the “White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Dominant Culture” in its pursuit of land and the natural resources producing wealth.  This greed had an “evil side” at the expense of human suffering and degradation suffered by the American Minorities, the Afro-Americans and the Native American Indians. 

    These characteristics of the dominant culture exist today, but no one seems to want to discuss them or do anything about them.  The apathy of the American voters perpetuates the politics of the dominant culture.  The Federal government perpetuates the United States Military-Industrial-Complex of which Eisenhower warned the nation shortly after WWII.  The Military-Industrial-Complex is made up of 70 major industries in American who are run by “White Anglo-Saxon Protestants/Catholics,” perpetuating the greed of the Pilgrim’s second generation, which so depressed Bradford.  We seem to live in a schizophrenic nation where “might equals right” in the name of God and the laws he passed to Moses, which became the basic laws of the land, in the Constitution.

     I would be hypocritical to say that I have not enjoyed the fruits of the capitalist society into which I was born.  As I age, I try to become more comfortable and enjoy the fruits of my labor.  I enjoy my life and have moved into a reconciliatory period in the past few years.  My rages, resentments and remorse of the Vietnam War have been compartmentalized by my going back to school and taking such thought provoking courses such as LITR 5731.  The recent birth of a granddaughter has brought a new perspective to my reconciliation. The fact remains that our nation’s and the dominant culture’s progress has a trail of violence, depravity and exploitation. I have learned to develop patience, sensitivity and understanding of other’s viewpoints through the experience of this course through the study of the immigrant and minority literature.  We may emerge as a faith based nation, based upon many faiths, with unified possibilities for all if the “good” side prevails in the “light.”  The “evil” side is ever present and the other end of the spectrum is the “dark side.”  In between these spheres is the spectrum’s continuum of the reality in which we exist, the now.

                                              Bibliography: Works Cited

Bradford, William, “Of Plymouth Plantation,” The Modern Library, New York, McGraw Hill, Random House, 1981.

Philbrick, Nathaniel, “Mayflower,” Penguin Group, Nathaniel Philbrick, New York, NY, 2006.

The Second Book of Moses Commonly Called Exodus, “The Holy Bible,” Revised Standard Version, Thomas Nelson and Sons, Toronto, New York, Edinburgh, 1952.

White, Craig, PhD, LITR 5731: Seminar in American Multicultural Literature: Immigrant, University of Houston at Clear Lake, Texas, Summer Term 2006.  Numerous Course Handouts (HO).

Yezierska, Anzia, “Hungry Hearts,” “Soap and Water,” by A. Yezierska, 1920.