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February 21, 2005
White, Ch. 8
White, Hayden. Tropics of Discourse. “The Noble Savage Theme as Fetish”. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1978. 183-196.
Both the terms “Wild Man” and “Noble Savage” (derived from the former) are metaphors for understanding what defies convention. White argues that these dual concepts are fetishized. The magical and irrational elements of fetish were used to inspire an almost faith-based devotion. Libidinal displacement in the Wild Man/Noble Savage fetish is more insidious in that it is used to justify racism by creating the idea of a wild “other”. The “Wild Man” only became viewed as “Noble Savage” after the natives were no longer a threat to European domination. After the native threat was removed, the attention was turned internally as the European middle class became more frustrated with the notion and reality of aristocratic privilege. The transition from “Wild Man” to “Noble Savage” was not to imply that natives were noble, but that nobility was savage.
White uses “logic of metaphor” which he derives from Marx’s “dialectical logic” to explain how humans alienate what is closest to them and idolize what is most removed. The alienation possible through the concept of the “Wild Man” allowed natives to be used as objects of nature, while idolization of the “Noble Savage” permitted the return of a repressed humanity. White explains that “human nature is only negatively definable” (186). Incest, cannibalism, and matrilineal patterns among the natives stirred fear and fantasy among Europeans who equated natives with animals, and themselves between the animal and the divine. The debate over whether natives possess human souls demonstrated the confusion of Europeans over their own humanity. White describes the difference between “human soul” and “animal soul” as vertical which, in turn, implies a hierarchy. The unintended result was that Europeans, natives and animals shared common qualities (189). Unable to scientifically prove the existence of soul and the threat of the “chain of being” may, White surmises, account for the popularity of Buffon’s “degeneracy” theory that believes natives are “an inferior species type” (190).
“Continuity” is associated with the chain-of-being theories and “contiguity” is associated with Buffon. The latter is believed to be more focused on similarities and, therefore, more tolerant and likely to result in “missionary activity and conversion”, while the former is focused on differences, and is more likely to result in “war and extermination” (190). “Pacification” was the term used to justify the slaughter of natives. Out of this moment, between the Renaissance and late eighteenth century, the idea of the “Noble Savage” gained great popularity. Though it may have been out of guilt, White suggests instead that the concept was one “with which to belabor nobility, not to redeem the savage” (192). The bourgeoisie wanted the privileges that the aristocracy took as their inherent right. By extending the concept of nobility to everyone, it also suggested that everyone had a right to a piece of the proverbial pie. The bourgeoisie, however, did not extend such benefits to the workers below them.
The fetishization of natives as objects of repulsion and desire, also fetishized European humanity into the ideal form. Race fetishism eventually gave way to class fetishism “which has provided the bases of most of the social conflicts of Europe since the French Revolution” (195).
Posted by vwatts at February 21, 2005 08:31 PM