The Culture of Make Believe

[lored]

I am about 1/3 of the way through Derrick Jensen's Culture of Make-Believe. It is an incredible book on racism. It explains how we can rationalize the exploitation of the weak by making these groups into an Other. (My word for his concept) An Other is a group that can be overpowered and exploited. Groups can create an "Other" within their own race. An example would be the Victorians: They could as easily exploit children that looked the same as they would children who looked different. They could take the poor and starving and create an Other. They would exploit the East Indians and Africans, but they also would take the starving children of their own country, as young as six, and send them to work and die in textile factories and mines. All they had to do was say that they were different and had become an Other.

These are the people in this country who can see a child starving or dying from lack of health care and say that these people are not their problem, because they are not within their group.

Powerful book. I also recommend his A Language Older than Words.

LoreD