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North American Expansion
September 3, 2008, 3:29 pm
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During the 1600’s the American Indians and Europeans had two different ideas regarding the rights each had as the Europeans landed on North American shores.  The Europeans had thought they found new lands and it was their territory.  Most of the indians took the Europeans in with open arms based upon their culture.  They thought the white men were some sort of god.  The Europeans took their way of life as a way to conquer the Indians.  The Europeans eventually took over all the lands of the Indians.  The indians according to their culture felt that opening their arms to the new people would be the right thing to do.  The Europeans had thought differently because they thought they had found new lands and it was theirs to keep.  Both parties thought they were doing the right thing, but of course history tells us that the Europeans got the upper hand and wiping out the Indians of their habitats.  The whole idea behind each culture not knowing anything about the other culture proved to show that the Europeans went about it ‘physical’ and took all the Indians land and possessions.


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A very interesting example. What do you think the cultural relativist will say about it? Just because the Indians believed it was moral to welcome the Europeans “with open arms”, it doesn’t follow that they thought it was morally acceptable for the Europeans to take their land. From this point of view, European conquest is morally wrong. But the Europeans believed that they had the moral right to take the Indians’ lands, so from their point of view their conquest is morally right. So CR gives us two opposite answers to the same question. What does this say about CR as a theory?

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