The Mountain and the Tower in Conflict
Felix Moyer
Last Thursday, March 28th, we watched In the Light of Reverence: Protecting America's Sacred Lands, and a key theme was the conflicting worldviews between the Native American groups and the Western groups. These two ways of seeing the world correspond to Eisenberg's idea of the Mountain and the Tower as centers of the world. What happens when these two worldviews collide and the desired course of action cannot be reconciled between the two?
Western culture looks down at the world from the Tower of civilization. It sees land not as inherently valuable, for as much as you can ascribe value to something like nature, but rather as civilization in potentia. Whether to be mined for resources, like Woodruff Butte, or developed for recreation, like the ski resort on Mount Shasta, land is seen only for what benefits it can offer the current civilization. And as the dominant culture, Western ideals are, more often than not, prioritized over native religious practices. Looking down from the Tower, it is easy to overlook what the natural world has to offer, and can go so far as to destroy it entirely without understanding why someone might want to protect it.
In many Native American groups, the Mountain acts as the World Pole. The exact location depends on the tribe, but their connection to the land they live on is a constant throughout different tribes. However, their religious beliefs are not respected in the same way Western ones are. People are allowed to intrude on their sacred sites without consequence, and destruction due to ignorance is not uncommon. The lack of respect for nature in modern Western beliefs has lead to a dismissive attitude of the Mountain as a World Pole, and as technology has advanced, it has only further distanced us. Now, people demand to see some sort of proof in order to not deface and destroy native spiritual grounds, instead of respecting native people when they say a place is holy. This is based in a fundamental lack of value and empathy toward a culture that sees the land and the ecology around them as something worthwhile just as it is, and without a cultural shift toward understanding and respect, it seems unlikely this destruction will stop, despite native protests and backlash.
Last Thursday, March 28th, we watched In the Light of Reverence: Protecting America's Sacred Lands, and a key theme was the conflicting worldviews between the Native American groups and the Western groups. These two ways of seeing the world correspond to Eisenberg's idea of the Mountain and the Tower as centers of the world. What happens when these two worldviews collide and the desired course of action cannot be reconciled between the two?
Western culture looks down at the world from the Tower of civilization. It sees land not as inherently valuable, for as much as you can ascribe value to something like nature, but rather as civilization in potentia. Whether to be mined for resources, like Woodruff Butte, or developed for recreation, like the ski resort on Mount Shasta, land is seen only for what benefits it can offer the current civilization. And as the dominant culture, Western ideals are, more often than not, prioritized over native religious practices. Looking down from the Tower, it is easy to overlook what the natural world has to offer, and can go so far as to destroy it entirely without understanding why someone might want to protect it.
In many Native American groups, the Mountain acts as the World Pole. The exact location depends on the tribe, but their connection to the land they live on is a constant throughout different tribes. However, their religious beliefs are not respected in the same way Western ones are. People are allowed to intrude on their sacred sites without consequence, and destruction due to ignorance is not uncommon. The lack of respect for nature in modern Western beliefs has lead to a dismissive attitude of the Mountain as a World Pole, and as technology has advanced, it has only further distanced us. Now, people demand to see some sort of proof in order to not deface and destroy native spiritual grounds, instead of respecting native people when they say a place is holy. This is based in a fundamental lack of value and empathy toward a culture that sees the land and the ecology around them as something worthwhile just as it is, and without a cultural shift toward understanding and respect, it seems unlikely this destruction will stop, despite native protests and backlash.
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