New World, The

From Zanecorpwiki

The following is quite reductionist in making it's point. My own understanding is more nuanced and I don't mean to lump everyone together, I'm just rushed.

In the opening notes on Hamlet portion for the excellent lecture series "The Literature of Crisis" (free on iTunes), Professor Martin Evans provides incredible insight into the Renaissance view of the New World.

First, the name. It's not "the new land," or "the new island," but the New World. In modern thinking, it's more like discovering another planet than an unknown land mass. The people in that place are alien--not unknown, but entirely different.

For me the most salient point was the Biblical take: if we (meaning, the Old World inhabitants) are descended from Adam and Eve, and we have only just now discovered this New World, then they are not of Adam and Eve. In other words, they are not just another culture, but outside grace in a way it would be hard for most modern students to understand. In other words, not merely ignorant of Jehovah (though they were that too), but existing in a state that, prior to the discovery, was thought to be impossible.

This was not only the source for rationalizing enslaving and stealing from the Indians (helped along by the idea that was shit and could only be wicked without God, therefore, the New World must be entirely wicked), but it also challenged in a rather remarkable and unanswerable way the fundamental basis of so much of European thought. A belief in the manifest absolute laws, ordained by God gave way to reality relativism and chance.

These are my notes, you should really listen to the lecture.