Passage Discussion

[rinagoldfield]

I attached the scale and passage map below.

[BarryM800]

I've difficulty comprehending the first sentence in ¶4: "Because his work concentrates on the nineteenth century, McLoughlin unfortunately overlooks earlier sources of influence, such as eighteenth-century White resident traders and neighbors, thus obscuring the relative impact of the missionaries of the 1820s in contributing to both acculturation and resistance to it among the Cherokee." Specifically, I'm confused about the word "obscure."

The dictionary definition of "obscure" is: keep from being seen; conceal; overshadow. Wouldn't it be the other around? That is, an EMPHASIS of these "earlier sources of influence, such as White resident traders and neighbors" would obscure the relative impact of the missionaries. Since McLoughlin overlooked such earlier sources of influence, how could lack of consideration of these sources obscure the relative impact of the missionaries of the 1820s? Thanks!

[Laura Damone]

Great question!

Consider this analogy:

I go to a fancy sandwich shop and I get a fancy sandwich. It's delicious.
The next week, I try to recreate the fancy sandwich at home. The results are...mixed.
My sandwich isn't as good as the fancy one. I attribute that to the condiments I used. I used store-bought mayo and mustard, whereas the fancy shop used house-made aioli and mostarda.

Because my assessment concentrates on the condiments, it overlooks other sources of influence, like the quality of the cheese, and the ratio of bread to filling.

Thus, my assessment obscures the relative impact of the condiments because it treats them as though they are more important than they really are.

It doesn't obscure the impact of the condiments themselves: it actually over-emphasizes them. But by over-emphasizing them, it does obscure their relative impact, because it makes them look too important relative to the other, unmentioned considerations.

Make sense?

[BarryM800]

I see ... the operative word here is "relative," while I misread the sentence as "obscuring THE impact of missionaries." In my (mis)reading, I interpreted "relative" as "respective" or "corresponding," which could be correct in other contexts. But in this passage, the author focuses on the active role of Cherokee people and only made concession that "missionaries did have a decisive impact during these years." That's why I was able to easily spot the issue with my original interpretation, which would have forced me to look into other meanings of the word. So here, "relative" actually reverses the whole logic - the opposite meaning. "Relative impact" indicates "not absolute impact." Thus, "obscuring the relative impact of the missionaries" = "over-emphasizing the impact of the missionaries." Wow ... that makes a lot of sense now! Thanks a lot!