Christiaan Briggs wrote:
As John Mohawk has argued, in regard to America for
example, American
Indians are directly or indirectly responsible for the public-meeting
tradition, free speech, democracy, and "all those things which got
attached to the Bill of Rights." Without the Native example, "do you
really believe that all those ideas would have found birth among
people who had spent a millennium butchering other people because of
intolerance of questions of religion?"
Um, some guy claiming this doesn't make it an undisputed fact.
Europeans had a lot of misconceptions about Native American society,
both positive and negative; some of these were not fully understood
until the scientific development of anthropology in the 20th century.
An educated white American of the 18th century was more familiar with
the doings of the ancient Athenian boule than with the society living
on the other side of the hill outside his door; Ben Franklin's
admiration of the natives was considered just another one of his
charming eccentricities.
Reflexive condemnation of Western civilization is no more rational
than uncritical praise.
Stan