I agree that the order in which we read The Sparrow and The Conquest of America lends itself very well to a comparison between the two. I think one issue is very interesting in terms of a difference between the two works. The conquest of America was indeed one of conquest, of the side that entered new lands winning out over the other because the invadees did not conceptually understand the rules of the game, so to speak. However, in The Sparrow, paradoxically, the "invaders" ultimately fails to understand what will be done to them at a very basic, linguistic level. Because Emilio never understands the contract and gives his consent to have his hand stretched (which also kills Marc) and is ultimately sent back in shambles. Thus, it is also interesting that in The Sparrow, the side which most resembles the Spanish in that they are characterized throughout the novel as "the one" in relation to "the other", the Jesuit party, meets with drastically different results although they both claim to be on God's side.

I think in many ways, the cultural relativism employed in the way that Emilio's party interacted with "the other" is demonstrative of the new wave of thinking is demonstrative of the shifting societal viewpoint Todorov discusses on 249. He states that nowadays, there is more of an awareness that the predominant ideology that Westernism was superior has diminished in favor of an atempt to find a synthesis between equality and difference. "We want equality without its compelling us to accept identity; but also difference without its degenerating into superiority/inferiority" (249). I feel that this is tightly bound to the ideologies of postmodernism and post-colonialism.

Postmodernism, which forces us to disect and subsequently question the way in which society, knowledge, and basically reality is constructed also leads us to question whether anything can exist absolutely and objectively. Post colonialism, similarly, leads one to question whether one people is absolutely superior to another. The combination of these two ideologies necessarily leads to increased relativism.

I think that The Sparrow’s approach to the interaction between known humanity and unknown humanity is very indicative of a very post-modern, post-colonial mindset whereby objective superiority simply does not exist and things like morality become highly relative in the way they are perceived. The very knowledge that nothing can really be objectively superior was not present in the works of Colombus. As presented by Todorov, the explorers could not even contextualize the other as having an equal human identity (76) because to acknowledge that “the other” could be equal was not in their frame of reference—the one is always superior to the other in the mind of the one. Only in our modern day do we acknowledge that the other’s beliefs he is “the one” have just as much merit as our belief that he is the other.