Dead Voices: Natural Agonies in the New World [Paperback]

 

 

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Vizenor cleverly describes the world of animalia while preserving Native American culture, but it's not enough. Several parts were amusing, others deeply philosophical. Towards the end, however, the abstract nature of the text kills the creative voice and makes it more post-modern than literature.

The message in Dead Voices is simply that I am energy, all matter in the universe is energy, therefore I am the universe and the universe is me. And that such energy is constantly being transferred from one entity to another, always reshaping itself. What the protagonist in Dead Voices does is ride this energy. Getting rid of such neurotic thinking patterns of distorted human identity and its relation to everything else in nature brings true divinity and enlightenment. Almost all tribal cultures provide their young with the opportunity to seek their selves and enter adulthood with a spiritual connection to the Universe. The visions obtained from such experiences provide the young with self-actualization and a strong connection to their surroundings, animate and inanimate. Western Civilization somehow thinks itself separate or divorced from Nature. Vision quests provide the young with the opportunity to find their innerselves . The sociohistorical concept of race and identity that newly borns are thrown into is but the neurotic social residue of previous generations. The vision quest to understand nature serves to dissolve this neurotic state and allow for the evolution of higher, more intelligent and all-encompassing cosmic consciousness of non duality. But instead, our young are faced with this neurotic social residue and brainwashed, forced to conform to compulsory education/ignorance and once their fragmented and confused self is formed , thrown into stale and meaningless lives to suffer in a racist system. Gerald Visenor in <Dead Voices> puts it so clearly, they are dead men and dead women in a dead world. The visionary experience dissolves one's socially conditioned, 20th century, hive mind allowing the self to come to its senses. "If the door of perception were cleansed open everything would appear to man as it is, infinite" writes William Blake in <the Marriage of Heaven and Hell>. As exemplified by <Dead Voices> "WE" the self-actualized identity sees intelligence in its raw form--Nature, which operates in complete harmony, without effort or waste. The realization that YOU and I are WE and not that you "black" and me "white" or that you are a cat and I am a human, leads to one of the most ancient philosophical principles, cosmic consciousness. The connection between universe (nature) and humans is evident even in the most basic fact of life--nutrition. "The sun belts out photons of intelligence we call sunlight. That sunlight is captured by plants and is trapped in the excited electron orbits of carbon based molecules. We humans eat the plants, exhale carbon dioxide and release the stored sunlight into our consciousness" writes Michael Eisner. The problem is that Western Civilization denies itself "the photons of intelligence" by not realizing this. Gerald Visenor in <Dead Voices> suggests that perhaps what Western Civilization so desperately needs is to take a deeper look into the psyche of pre-literate tribal peoples, if we are to survive and reach a peaceful future resembling our own ancient tribal past. It is obvious where Western Civilization is heading but what is not obvious to many is that tribal societies, who are thought of as barbaric and uncivilized, have maintained a harmonious balance with nature and themselves for thousands of years. Before there were alphabets, tribal people did not read "dead words," they talked, told and retold, sung, chanted, danced, and more importantly experienced life. As some historian, which I do not remember or really think it important to remember said, "history begins when people start keeping track of events by writing things down." And so, tribal people are thought of as prehistoric and uncivilized. What Visenor suggests is that perhaps tribal peoples have a deeper insight into themselves and nature. A change in our perception is suggested in <Dead Voices.> A re-examination of the distorted and self-destructive Western dualistic paradigm.

Throw out your old, tired American Indian stereotypes before stepping
through Gerald Vizenor's looking glass, Alice; there are bears and tricksters in
here! Very funny and true-to-form

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5.0 out of 5 stars Vintage Vizenor!
Throw out your old, tired American Indian stereotypes before stepping through
Gerald Vizenor's looking glass, Alice; you'll find bears and tricksters
in here! Read more

Published on Feb 20 1997

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