here's an idea: the narrative from this angle

[autodidactic]

Okay, think of a family, born in a neighborhood where they've come up for a few generations. Supposing, like, your name is O'Malley, and you're from Boston. You identify with being Bostonian, and you're very prideful of where you're from, because of that drive we have inside of us to identify with where we're from

Comments

[st_ranger]

Robert Anton Wilson explored this theory in Prometheus Rising. I think there could be something to it. He mentions something to do with people who have the will to travel against the spinward motion of the Earth's rotation. Whether or not the theory holds up, good book!

[autodidactic]

Oooh, I gotta find out what page. And whether or not I have a copy...

[st_ranger]

Given what we now know of the original route of the first people who left Africa, which was now anti-spinward, but spinward, I'm gonna say phooey on RAW, but still a lot of what both of you are saying holds.

[st_ranger]

I think Timothy Leary talks about this theory in some of this books too-- maybe The Intelligence Agents or Quantum Psychology. I forget!

[niyabinghi]

Oh, this is fascinating ~~ it feels like you're on to something here, keep going :)

As a (white) person who was made to feel defective from a very early age on up (due to undiagnosed AS, neurologically 'different') I sought out black culture and people as a teen b/c even as 'outsiders', it felt like they were more interested in the unity of the human race/all people (and gee, even me quite possibly) than white people/culture ever could or would be.

[niyabinghi]

Also, decades later I discovered that it's very natural for many AS kids/people to seek out friendships from those in other cultures both for bigger efforts are made toward clear communication/understanding, and they can relate as being 'outsiders'.

[madolan]

You'd have a fairly impossible time differentiating those who left their tribe out of escape, punishment, pioneering, or curiosity versus the slightly more traceable route of following resources. Food and hospitable climes left traces in the fossil record; wanderlust or banishment didn't.

But as a romance, as a theory, as a gut feeling, I like this. Not sure where it grabs me. Maybe because sociology and human impulse are usually more interesting to me than raw data. :)

[autodidactic]

Duh, that makes way more sense.

[azure_armand]

Does the attitude apply to white people in Europe too? It's a cool theory, but my guess is that it comes from a much more recent event: white people leaving Europe to immigrate to America.

[autodidactic]

You don't think white people didn't feel superior to other kinds of people before then? Or did white people not exist as a concept? Or, did chattel slavery just REALLY fuck us up?

Just asking your opinion, here...

[panzerkunst]

Well, don't they always find the bones of our earliest ancestors in Africa?

[autodidactic]

Yeah, white people far enough back are black Africans. May take a few thousand years, but shake anyone's family tree hard enough, and a black person is sure to fall out.