Columbus and Other Cannibals: The Wetiko Disease of Exploitation, Imperialism, and Terrorism

by Jack D. Forbes

Unfortunately, while Native American societies tend to cultivate self-disciplined but non-coerced individuals who have a right to follow their own paths, certain other societies very often seek to train their youth to “follow orders” and to conform to rules formulated by others, whether moral or immoral, logical or illogical. Thus Admiral Yamamoto of the Japanese Navy, although personally opposed to a war with the United States (for ethical as well as tactical reasons) accepted his orders and “obeyed his emperor.” He planned the secret attack upon Pearl Harbor in 1941 and then proceeded to vigorously lead Japan’s naval war, all because he was “obeying orders.” Yamamoto appears to have been a deeply sensitive man, a man who could have set an example for those Japanese who despised militarism and imperialism. Instead he became a high-class murderer, killing tens of thousands for a cause in which he did not believe.