 DELORIA'S CULTURAL BINARIES | |
|---|---|
| Western Civ./Euro-American/Christian Worldview | Native American Worldview |
| analysis, division | holism, synthesis |
| LINE [& SQUARE] | CIRCLE |
| "history": linear time, progress | "geography": space, place, & land (timeless "eternal present"1) |
| "end-of-the-world" eschatology/apocalypticism | cyclic "return" |
| evolution | purposiveness (teleology) |
| cause & effect | . . . [synchronicity?] |
| reason & logic | emotion & intuition |
| dogmatism (deductive & inductive) | immediate lived experience (& ergo religious adaptability) |
| the "other world" | "this world" |
| hierarchy of living beings, "dominion" over nature & other species | egalitarianism of life forms, interrelatedness |
| property/ownership | "sharing," incl. with other species |
| individual | community |
| specialists in charge of social/religious esoteria | communal knowledge/access of cultural truths |
| messiah/savior | - - - - |
| "guilt" culture | "shame" culture |
| religious dogmatism & proselytism | religious tolerance |
| [----my interpretive additions----] | |
| Left Brain | Right Brain |
| monism/monotheism (but really: dualism) | monism (but really/and/or "polytheism") |
| mechanistic | organic |
| metaphysical/"mind" | physical/"body" |
| 1 Cf. the colloquialism "Indian time," the apparently casual regard for being "on time" (and related to the racist epithet "lazy Indians"). | |
| [–and see my own web outline of Western Cultural Binaries made independently of Deloria's influence, and in fact aimed at the deep ideological divide ("Classical" vs. Romantic) within Western civilization itself–] | |
