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DWill 
Masters
Joined: 31 Jan 2008
Posts: 486
Gender: 
Location: Berryville, Virginia
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 Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 8:48 pm Post subject:
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| Robert Tulip wrote: |
| So Kurtz repents of his sins and is forgiven? I am not sure. I said before that “the horror” is the key statement of conscience in the book. However, trying to psychoanalyze Kurtz, it is hard to tell if this statement is an emotional eruption from his unconscious id or a rational product of conscious guilt. I tend towards the former |
I would agree that Kurtz's eruption in his final moments might not be indicative of remorse, but it is of awareness. That seems to be enough for Marlow, who comments that most men are too wrapped up in their own self-pity to learn anything new at the end. So maybe this is a kind of strength in Kurtz, after all.
Thomas Hood posted a modern-day story about brutality and "unspeakable rites" from the Congo. He thinks that the people there were already debased and that Kurtz was simply overwhelmed by this evil cultural influence, going over to the dark side. You think that the influence of corruption might flow in the other direction, with the Europeans being the initiators with their destruction of the culture. We saw in the U.S. what the native culture could look like after the Europeans had destroyed it: debased and degraded. So I lean toward your view.
It also isn't a matter of Kurtz merely adopting the native ways, but of doing so in order to attain immense power. He was still the dominator. He became an innovator who was so good at bringing in ivory that he posed a threat to the establishment and had to be stopped.
DWill |
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Thomas Hood
Sophomore
Book Discussion Leader
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
Posts: 260
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Location: Wyse Fork, NC
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| Posted: Mon May 05, 2008 10:09 pm Post subject:
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Thomas Hood posted a modern-day story about brutality and "unspeakable rites" from the Congo. He thinks that the people there were already debased and that Kurtz was simply overwhelmed by this evil cultural influence, going over to the dark side. You think that the influence of corruption might flow in the other direction, with the Europeans being the initiators with their destruction of the culture. We saw in the U.S. what the native culture could look like after the Europeans had destroyed it: debased and degraded. So I lean toward your view.
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You misunderstand me, Will. I do not think that traditional African culture is debased or evil, although in terms of modern western thought it is metaphysically bizarre.
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/09/1041990047245.html
Cannibals massacring pygmies: claim
By James Astill in Nairobi
January 10 2003
"Cannibalism has re-emerged throughout eastern Congo as the last vestiges of colonial influence erodes during the war. Much of the vast forested area is controlled by the Mayi-Mayi, a loose grouping of tribal militias united by their magical beliefs and taste for human flesh."
It isn't Virginia over there.
Tom |
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Robert Tulip
Junior
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
Posts: 300
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Location: Canberra
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 6:49 am Post subject:
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| Thomas Hood wrote: |
| I agree, Robert, that the European eruption was foredoomed for both perpetrator and victim and that psychological satisfactions were as important as ivory and rubber. Empires are popular because in in remoter regions of empire the lower class European/American could lord over the natives like a noble. |
Tom, a further thought on this topic - I am currently reading a book by Julian Young, Heidegger, Philosophy, Nazism, where he discusses Nietzsche's concept of will to power as the motivating force of civilisation, and looking at Heidegger's claim that Nietzsche was the culmination of Cartesian metaphysics. Considering these thinkers against a political framework, Descartes was riding the egoic wave of European conquest, presenting the map and gridlines as a powerful framework to represent reality, with the essential Cartesian magic consisting in the conflation between concept and reality. Nietzsche's effective deconstruction/continuation of Descartes set the cogito as an act not of reason but of passion, of will rather than logic. It gets back to how European conquest was built on denial of your earlier comment to the effect that we are much more buffeted by the winds of fate than we usually acknowledge, in no way controlling our destiny as Descartes seems to have imagined as an ideal. Taking these points of high philosophy to the Congo, to discourse with Mr Kurtz, it seems that your term 'satisfaction' occupies a conscious visible portion of the iceberg of motivation, but the enterprise of coin from trade evolved according to its own deep mysterious law. My sense, in terms of instinctive motive, is that organisms expand where they can, with morality a very secondary constraint compared to force. Hence Europeans did what they could - using the Order of the Garter motto Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense - Shame to him who thinks it shameful, or, I don't care what you think - to ride roughshod over human dignity in Africa. |
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DWill
Masters
Joined: 31 Jan 2008
Posts: 486
Gender:
Location: Berryville, Virginia
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 8:12 pm Post subject:
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| Thomas Hood wrote: |
| It isn't Virginia over there. |
You can say that again. I'm sure I have no idea.
I have to remind myself at times that we're discussing a work of fiction. Conrad could have been an eyewitness to scenes like those depicted in HD, and surely formed an impression about what was happening in the Congo and why, but that is not to say that we need to accept one person's view as authentic historically, especially when the purpose is artistic.
Will |
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Thomas Hood
Sophomore
Book Discussion Leader
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
Posts: 260
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Location: Wyse Fork, NC
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| Posted: Tue May 06, 2008 9:35 pm Post subject:
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[quote="Robert Tulip"]
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| it seems that your term 'satisfaction' occupies a conscious visible portion of the iceberg of motivation, but the enterprise of coin from trade evolved according to its own deep mysterious law. My sense, in terms of instinctive motive, is that organisms expand where they can, with morality a very secondary constraint compared to force. |
Robert, something can be a conscious satisfaction and yet we cannot say why it is a satisfaction. Much that we do is because of appeal to imagination, to fiction and not fact. Marlow says he was drawn to the Congo like a bird fascinated by a snake. Instead of a will to power, I'd vote for a will to imagination.
Tom |
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Robert Tulip
Junior
Joined: 04 Oct 2005
Posts: 300
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Location: Canberra
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| Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 7:22 am Post subject:
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| Thomas Hood wrote: |
| Instead of a will to power, I'd vote for a will to imagination. |
But what is the question you are answering? You introduced the idea of satisfaction as an explanation of why Europe conquered Africa, why the ‘eruption was foredoomed’. Are you now saying that this eruption was a product of imagination? I just don't think that imagination was the key driver for imperialism. That would be like saying lava has an ego.
A closely related issue, linking the operation of power to the concept of eternal return, is whether we can understand fate operating in history. I think we can, in the terms of your earlier post in the Ending of the Novella thread:
| Thomas Hood wrote: |
| we are actors in the Play of History but don't write the script. Considering how unaware we are of ourselves, I don't see how events could have been otherwise. |
I fully agree with this comment, but don’t see how you can reconcile it with your latest suggestion that history is inspired by a will to imagination. Pursuit of power seems a much more elegant explanation, in line with your observation of the lack of awareness of the cause of events and the implication that most motivation for action is subconscious. I am a big fan of imagination as a key force that can redeem and subdue instinctive passion by expanding the realm of the conscious. This gets to the issue of the relative influence of religion and commerce, with religion in the imaginative corner and commerce in the power/passion corner. Looking at history, I would have to say that will to power has been far more decisive than will to imagination, especially in contexts like Heart of Darkness. |
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Thomas Hood
Sophomore
Book Discussion Leader
Joined: 17 Feb 2008
Posts: 260
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Location: Wyse Fork, NC
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| Posted: Wed May 07, 2008 9:50 am Post subject:
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Thomas Hood wrote:
Instead of a will to power, I'd vote for a will to imagination.
But what is the question you are answering? You introduced the idea of satisfaction as an explanation of why Europe conquered Africa, why the ‘eruption was foredoomed’. Are you now saying that this eruption was a product of imagination? I just don't think that imagination was the key driver for imperialism. That would be like saying lava has an ego. |
Robert, imagination is the smoke in which unconscious motives emerge as images. The question I'm trying to answer is, Why were Europeans fascinated by Africa? Why was Marlow there? The answer as I see it is that African culture is the Dionysian complement to the European Apollonian. Marlow was as much under the spell as was Kurtz. The power of the spell comes from unrecognized psychological needs. Even with the disease, brutality, irrationality, the stench and flies -- Africa is a thing of beauty, and the people too. The mythic is usually gory. Part of the irony in Marlow's 'pilgrims vs. cannibals' is that Christianity is a religion of symbolic cannibalism.
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A closely related issue, linking the operation of power to the concept of eternal return, is whether we can understand fate operating in history. I think we can, in the terms of your earlier post in the Ending of the Novella thread: Thomas Hood wrote:
we are actors in the Play of History but don't write the script. Considering how unaware we are of ourselves, I don't see how events could have been otherwise. |
Yes, self knowledge is disclosed through imagination, but this is meditation after the event -- like on a yawl at night with an evocative atmosphere. "When it's dark enough, we can see the stars" (Emerson).
| Quote: |
| I fully agree with this comment, but don’t see how you can reconcile it with your latest suggestion that history is inspired by a will to imagination. Pursuit of power seems a much more elegant explanation, in line with your observation of the lack of awareness of the cause of events and the implication that most motivation for action is subconscious. I am a big fan of imagination as a key force that can redeem and subdue instinctive passion by expanding the realm of the conscious. This gets to the issue of the relative influence of religion and commerce, with religion in the imaginative corner and commerce in the power/passion corner. Looking at history, I would have to say that will to power has been far more decisive than will to imagination, especially in contexts like Heart of Darkness. |
I agree, Robert, that there is salvation through imaginative reconstruction of tragedy. The Heart of Darkness transmutes the sufferings of Africa as Illiad and Odyssey do the sufferings of Troy. And I still believe that Penelope would feel less despair in tragedy if she would cook something creative -- put herself into it  -- for her friends. Worked for Jesus. |
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