The Myth of Innocence
“The myth of innocence and violence is a dominant theme of the culture of the United States, innocence and violence and the constant movement back and forth between the two….
So we have an increasing volume of violence in the culture, no one can understand why, everyone gives sociological explanations of it, and they are all valid by the way, the poverty and the oppression and the racism and the decline of education, the sociological reasons are absolutely valid, I’m not decrying them, but there’s a myth also in here.
We came to America, the Pilgrims and the Puritans and all the rest because it was a new paradise, we came with innocence in mind, the innocence of the lamb, these are mythical motifs, and our movements were full of violence, the earth of the United States is filled with the blood of what we killed in order to make it our paradise, the buffalo blood, the tribal blood, the animal bloods, the bloods of the African American slaves, that’s what’s in the soil. And other peoples are very aware of what’s in the soil, but innocence keeps us from even looking at it, until very recently, we begin to look at it. Those of you who went to school in my generation, or at least lets say ten years less.. the story of the Indians was something you saw on TV.. you played Cowboys and Indians, ‘the only good Indian is a dead Indian’, and you know, it was built in, they were just…
