Regeneration through Violence

[Today we have another guest post from our regular contributor, John Hess.]

In my previous post on the forgiveness theme, I introduced Slotkin’s book, Regeneration through Violence, where he depicts the way groups create an evil “Other” to justify attacking the other.

Mary Rowlandson’s captivity narrative most fully represented this approach and became the paradigm for future captivity narratives. The wife of a Puritan minister, Rowlandson was captured in a Native raid on and destruction of the frontier village of Lancaster. She was held captive for nearly three months before being ransomed. Her Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson is an extraordinary book, the first colonial best seller. (See http://www.hannahdustin.com/maryrolandson.htm)

In Regeneration Through Violence, Slotkin argues (p. 100): “The situation of the captive (the settler captured by the Natives) presented an exaggerated and emotionally heightened illustration of the moral and psychological situation of the community,” the embattled community, assailed from within and without.

This outlook passed into what became American culture, though obviously transformed and adapted to meet changing needs. Essentially what remains is this confrontation with the Other seen as the direct opposite of the (imagined) nation. If you substitute Taliban for Natives, you will see what I mean by adapted and transformed.

One other aspect that Slotkin doesn’t stress that has also passed into our cultural heritage is revealed in the citation from the ”Preface” to Rowlandson’s Narrative, probably written by Increase Mather, where “lessons” are drawn for Puritan readers.

Here is how the Natives are portrayed: “such Atheistical, proud, wild, cruel, barbarous, brutish, (in one word,) diabolical Creatures as these, the worst of the heathen.”

Why are the Natives the enemies of the English? Well, the behavior of the English has, in this view, nothing to do with it, as the author speaks of “the causeless enmity of the Barbarians against the English, and the malicious and revengeful spirit of these Heathen.”

The word I want to stress is “causeless,” for what this word implies is that the English were innocent, guiltless. According to that enduring narrative, we today, like the English then, are innocent of wrong-doing when we participate in aggression because we mean well—a theme that continues to pervade our culture.

John Hess, Senior Lecturer in English and American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston

[By guest author, John Hess.]

I was stunned by the title of a post on Engaging Peace. “Recovery through forgiveness” contrasts so greatly with Regeneration through violence: The mythology of the American frontier, 1600-1860, the first volume of Richard Slotkin’s trilogy on American culture.

Slotkin’s argument is similar to that advanced by Christopher Hedges in War is a force that gives us meaning.

Specifically, nations often seek to work out pressing internal problems and bring about national unity through violence directed at an adversary who is portrayed as “the Other,” an embodiment of evil.

The U.S. used this approach in justifying the “War on Terror,” and later the Iraq War:

Us against them
Good against evil
War against those who hate our way of life and want to destroy it.

The first major example Slotkin discusses in Regeneration is King Philip’s War. That 1675-6 conflict is said to have been, relatively speaking, the most destructive war ever fought on (what became) American soil.

Puritanism was then in the throes of a spiritual crisis, with many of the more intransigent ministers claiming there had been a “falling away” from the fervor and purity of the original colonists. At the same time, the New England colonies were rapidly expanding, which led to a demand for more land. This in turn brought them more and more into conflict with the Native tribes, who were on land the Puritans desired.

Puritan thinkers increasingly came to portray the Natives as their direct opposites:

Where the English were Christian, the Natives were pagan
Where the English were civilized, the Natives were savage
Where the English were the new Chosen People, the Natives were not
Where the English were doing God’s will, the Natives were certainly on the other side.

John Hess, Senior Lecturer in English and American Studies, University of Massachusetts, Boston

The causeless enmity (Portraying “the Other,” Part 2)

Us versus them (Portraying “the Other,” Part 1)