I understand that part of the point of this narrative is to paint western history with the same 2-dimensional brush that has been used on non-western history. However, that does not mean it is unfair to criticize the narrative. My problem is that LaBas's story feels much more complex and thought out and complicated then the Atonist's version of history would be. The character's in LaBas' story are 2-D but the story is much more complex, so it doesn't feel incorrect to expect a more complicated analysis--especially when I feel like that analysis could make the Atonists even clearer as a threat.
The first thing that stuck out to me was the lumping of Moses and Judaism in with Atonism and Christianity. It has been fairly well established that Christianity is a product of Atonist interference, at least it's spreading throughout the world. However, the book, for the most part, neglects to discuss how Judaism and Islam fit into this narrative. Only at the end do we get the lumping of Moses with the Atonists. We have his adoptive mother as an Atonist, believing in the brilliance of all things Greek and Western. This doesn't make sense to me, because the Jews were slaves, to the Atonists in power--namely Moses' adoptive family--they were not the people in power, and it doesn't make sense that the Atonists can be both Moses' parents (in power) and the people that Moses freed from those people. Not to mention, that the Atonists are hinted at being the causes of the World Wars, the second of which involved Hitler (perhaps the most extreme Atonist of the 20th Century) trying to kill all the Jews even though they are apparently also Atonist. And if you want to take the argument that Judaism leads to Christianity and that's the link, then one must realize that Islam also stems from the monotheistic traditions that start up in Judaism. However, Islam is definitely not Atonists, because the Crusades were waged by Christian Atonists.
The problem for me is that the lack of clarity about those two groups weakens what is an otherwise very powerful understanding of the meta-war between Western and African culture. The Atonists are always in the background erasing and destroying and undermining Jes Grew, but if we can't understand who the Atonists really are and what to think about the other monotheistic religions linked to Christianity, then we can't understand our own Atonist biases with as much complexity.
DISCLAIMER: I thought the section was fascinating, and I really enjoyed reading all the stuff about Moses and the rewriting of that history. It just struck me as something that, on the one hand, was 2-dimensional and therefore poignant in that way, but on the other hand it's 2-dimensionality undermined a different point Reed was trying to make. I wish the book had taken the time to figure out where they fit in, and to discuss them. (For all the mentions of the crusades and Mutafikah, Islam is not talked about much, and definitely not much in terms of this metanarrative).
Apologies if that was unclear. I wanted to get the thoughts out there.
Reed's history of the world is outlined in just thirty pages, so it only has room for the most important things. Judaism and Islam aren't particularly relevant to Jes Grew, so they get ignored. Maybe they are deliberately left out, like how in an Atonist history religions like Hinduism and Buddhism get barely a footnote even though they each have over thirty times as many followers as Judaism. Can any metanarrative account for everything?
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I agree they don't have much to do with Jes Grew necessarily, but they do have to do with Atonism, the other part of the metanarrative. Metanarrative's may have problems getting into specifics but if this is about Atonists vs. Jes Grew, I wish it had figured out what the other religions in the Judaeo-Christian traditions were in relation to Atonism. I feel that the current state of Judaism as Atonist, and the lack of explanation about Islam, undermine the power of the narrative of the Atonist Conspiracy. Because the Judaeo-Christian religions are inconsistent in Atonism, the conspiracy and narrative is less potent when we try to map it onto our world. I admit and understand that this reinforces the 2-dimensional criticism that Reed is making, but I think the larger criticism of how the West treats African culture, would be helped by the inclusion of those religions. And I don't think it would be impossible. Judaism bothers me personally more because the Jews were the people not in power but somehow they are the people who are Atonists in Reed's version. However, Islam also is noticeably lacking for a narrative that focuses on events like the crusades so much.
DeleteI don't know if Judaism is Atonist. Moses certainly was, but he started out on the Jes Grew side and was corrupted. Atonism seems to have gained its power by latching onto Christianity, not Judaism.
DeleteBut Judaism doesn't fit in with Jes Grew, either. A big problem is that it's monotheistic. Another is that it has a text which it adheres to. Ideologically it's Atonist, but (as shown by the existence of Anti-Semitism) it has been disowned by the Atonists.
Islam, like Judaism, seems to fall between Atonism and Jes Grew. Islam's ideology is Atonist the same way Judaism's is. But some Jes Grew proponents, notably Abdul, subscribe to it. The Crusades were battles between the Atonists and Muslims, which makes it hard to put them both on the same side.
So there appears to be a middle ground for ideologies that are neither Jes Grew nor trying to oppose it. That does weaken the explanatory power of Reed's metanarrative, but I don't know that that's avoidable.
-Reed
Another interesting thing we have to consider in the Exodus scenario is the fact that the events are all taking place in Africa--thereby making all of the participants black. This differs from the rest of the meta narrative of white Atonists vs black Jes Grew culture.
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