Ausborne Blog

It’s been about 15 years since the I last saw Dances with Wolves. Tonight, I (mostly) paid attention to it while reading the news, and really enjoyed it. I’d forgotten how good it is. Kevin Costner does a good job in all aspects of this movie, though I could have done without the whole seeing his naked butt part.

It’s a wonderful story illustrating the clashes that occurred when “civilization” expanded from the East into lands which had historically been home to many differing tribes of Native Americans. On the one hand, I feel for the Indians, whose land and means of survival were taken over by the “greedy White Man.” On the other, it’s only natural for peoples and civilizations to expand outward. When you consider that the United States had “purchased” the land from the French, I guess it was only natural to presume that its people would want to move out into that land. To be met by a bunch of people who are different from you and who are “savages” would be pretty unsettling, I imagine, and they’d probably want to defend themselves in any way they know how. Both viewpoints have merit but, seeing who my ancestors were, I guess I have to side with them.

Either way, I’m pretty comfortable saying that I’m glad I live in today’s world and not back in the 1860′s. I would rather work on a computer than build a brand-new town from nothing in the middle of nowhere. Hey, but that’s just me.