Did the Chinese discover America?

[Del]

Maybe...

[FairySari]

Ummm.... weren't the Vikings in North America like 500 years before that?

Regardless, Columbus was probably still the first to establish a lasting connection between the Americas and Europe.

[c-towns]

I'm pretty sure Vin Diesel discovered everything known to man.

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

how can you discover something that was already civilized?

[djmelbatoast]

"lasting connection" is a strange way to describe genocide, rape and slavery

[Calamity Jane]

I'm pretty sure Vin Diesel discovered everything known to man.

"BRING BACK THE VIN DIESEL CAN DO EVERTYHING AND ANYTHING THREAD!!!"

[bouche]

The flying spaghetti monster discovered america. Also, arent' chinese dates all screwed up anyways? Do they even have a 1418 on their calendar?

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

. I heard someone on about this on CBC last year - I guess the story's gaining momentum.

Apparently the Chinese were poised to take over the world by sea until around the time of Columbus, when the Emperor decided his fleet wasn't worth the upkeep and scuttled half of it. Just goes to show. History is a fickle bitch.

I don't think they would have been any less genocidal or generally crazy than the Europeans, mind you.

[Aheather462]

Well who ever discovered america first we will never know truly, we will only know what white man was first to do the big things in life but didnt the native americans first inhabit the land?

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Sure (unless you take Farley Mowat too much in earnest - cf. The Wayfarers ).

I'm reminded (as always) of the bumper sticker I once saw - "Canada: love it or give it back".

Edited January 17, 2006 by Guest
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[Birdy]

how can you discover something that was already civilized?

i read this and started thinking about it.. isn't it odd, the history we choose to call our own? or the history of the 'way it is'. you're right.. north america was settled long before the europeans, but we remember it as if it didn't exist until the europeans ran upon shore. so odd.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

By all accounts, it seems as if they had been doing just fine, too (certainly compared with the pandemonium going on back in Europe - witch hunts, expulsion of Sephardic Jewry, Spanish Inquisition, disease, etc. etc. etc.).

What helps put it in perspective for me is thinking about all those things that were written in the US during the full-on Manifest Destiny days about the "virgin lands" east of the Sierra Nevada mountains, which had not only been inhabited by native Americans for ages, but which had also had Spanish settlements on them for generations. Guess it goes to show that you see what you want to see, when you want something so bad you take it for your own.

I'm a little hesitant to equate civilisation (viz., culture based on highly organised cities) with "better", for this among other reasons. Civilisation could in the end be a losing proposition. I'm not ranting, I hasten to add - civilisation has been the means to perfect methods of destroying ourselves, as well as putting ourselves under tighter and tighter control, and sucking the life out of the earth for the sake of calculated profit (of someone).

I actually saw some graffiti one day near Yonge and Bloor in Toronto - "Civilisation is a pyramid scheme." Just about killed myself laughing.

[StoneMtn]

Well, I haven't read this whole thread, but am I correct in my understanding that they've only just now released "Horse With No Name" and other such classics, in China?

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

how can you discover something that was already civilized?

i read this and started thinking about it.. isn't it odd' date=' the history we choose to call our own? or the history of the 'way it is'. you're right.. north america was settled long before the europeans, but we remember it as if it didn't exist until the europeans ran upon shore. so odd.[/quote']

here is an interesting definition: "An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions."

I think what might be necessary to consider here is the word 'advanced' and how and who defines it. I would suggest it is usually defined by the one who puts it in print, which is usually parallel or equal to the one with the "bigger stick".

[Calamity Jane]

The flying spaghetti monster discovered america.

all is forgiven, brother. Let the insults live in the past. May you be repeatedly touched by his noodly appendage!

in his name, RAmen

[Birdy]

ahh the pompousness of 'manifest destiny'.

gawd, imagine some other entity unbeknownst to us one day drives a ship of some sort upon our soil and plants a flag and shouts 'EUREKA!'?? pretty crazy indeed.. what would we do? we're so used to thinking ourselves superior, imagine someone came in who thought themselves superior to 'us'?

in the words of my dad, 'huh'.

[Birdy]

how can you discover something that was already civilized?

i read this and started thinking about it.. isn't it odd' date=' the history we choose to call our own? or the history of the 'way it is'. you're right.. north america was settled long before the europeans, but we remember it as if it didn't exist until the europeans ran upon shore. so odd.[/quote']

here is an interesting definition: "An advanced state of intellectual, cultural, and material development in human society, marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing, and the appearance of complex political and social institutions."

I think what might be necessary to consider here is the word 'advanced' and how and who defines it. I would suggest it is usually defined by the one who puts it in print, which is usually parallel or equal to the one with the "bigger stick".

it's true. the "bigger stick" always wins out in the end. just ask roger waters.

really though i think it boils down to 'print' and the longevity that 'print' gives any particular moment in history. the fact that we can study from it and learn it and pass it along throughout the ages really gives credence to any particular 'side'. look at homer and greek mythology.

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

well, once again, I would like to direct you to the definition of civilization--and three particular areas that they use to define 'civilization'--"marked by progress in the arts and sciences, the extensive use of record-keeping, including writing,"

what is interesting about today, is the shift in how we record history. It is no longer just in print, but in live moving pictures which can be far more difficult to manipulate--however, not impossible.

[Birdy]

but in live moving pictures which can be far more difficult to manipulate--however, not impossible.

*cough* michael moore

[guigsy]

christ, here we go.....

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

I get the feeling that thought is becoming more and more difficult to control, you know with all them liberals in education, and arts, and print.

[Birdy]

christ, here we go.....

lol.

funny

[Birdy]

I get the feeling that thought is becoming more and more difficult to control, you know with all them liberals in education, and arts, and print.

i think as long as we can recognize other angles to any given whatever than thought will be difficult to control. thank god.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

what is interesting about today, is the shift in how we record history. It is no longer just in print, but in live moving pictures which can be far more difficult to manipulate--however, not impossible.

I think it's more a problem in general of what gets into frame and what's left out of it, whatever the medium. If all I get of the world is Bill O'Reiley and Arnold Schwartzenegger movies, I'm not going to be that open to other ways of looking at the world, unless I make special effort to do so.

There are good arguments suggesting that film is an even more effective means of authoritarian control than stage or even print. See, e.g. Walter Benjamin's Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction , or Adorno and Horkheimer's Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception .

I think that's why someone like Michael Moore needs sometimes to resort to hyperbole and bombast - just to spark people's sense of outrage long enough to get them to see that it's not all seamless, that there are more important things in life than the smooth flow of capital, and that there are people who will never be heard who get ground daily underfoot.

I don't buy the "Michael Moore is especially deceitful" line, either. His is a particular style of delivery, and he's been doing his schtick for a really long time, longer than all the vitriol thrown at him after Fahrenheit 9/11 ever warranted. His whole thing is about being a pain in the ass. I think the people in that movie do more to damage their own credibility than he does.

Left to political and cultural conservatives (say, the money people at Disney), that movie would have been politely ignored and never seen in the US - the censorship of the marketplace. I took ESL classes to see it, and they all breathed a collective sigh of relief to know that we in North America are finally seeing the US government (and military) in something like the same way that they're seen around the rest of the world.

[ggrtrhhrtgg]

I think from a media standpoint, it is hard to stage or even frame live television. not impossible, but indeed difficult. The written word allows one's point of view to deliver history, live television is more open to interpretation. At least, that is how I see it.