Hodgen's chapters suggest that the central conflict in early modern Anthropology was the difficulty for Europeans to apprehend the difference of the peoples they met in their explorations of the world in a way that would be, at once, consistent with European modes of thought, and accurate categories for description. A varieties of positions were taken, from designating them as animals, a-human, to lesser humans, or entirely human albeit primitive. This conflict becomes more pronounced in the case of anthropologists who are committed to a totalistic world-view.
Herodotus, for example, clearly does not attempt any unified or total description of humanity. As everyone else has noted, Hodgen seems to look favorably upon Herodotus' pre-modern conception of difference. According to Hodgen, he is interested in explaining the differences among the peoples he encounters. These explanations, however, need no divine whole nor an enlightenment universality. Hodgen praises his ability to discriminate among peoples.
The problem that Hodgen finds with the idea of totality among the early modern anthropologists and philosophers is the same problem identified by Boas and Lovejoy: ethnographers have had to make the choice between “primitivistic” categories, which are more “favorable” representations, or “anti-primitivistic” categories which are, in turn, unfavorable. To put this problem in the terms I used above, the favorable representations are ones that allow for reconciliation of differences between foreign peoples and Europeans, yet even the most sympathetic ethnographer of this sort was unable to shirk off all of their euro-centric chauvinism. Anti-primitivism then, allows for a radical alterity and incommensurability of different peoples. The quintessential primitivist, in this schema, is Bartolome de las Casas. His religious notion of a universal humanity gave him a strong ethical sympathy for the indigenous people he worked with, yet, according to Hodgen, even he cannot escape this primitivist discourse.
It is not surprising that Hodgen's book was published in the late '90s in an American university. Her critique of enlightenment thought for its universality and for its enduring discourses of savagery and primitivism are timely. Yet by now, we have heard these stories all before. My point is to ask-- as we are trying to formulate our own research questions-- in what ways can we go beyond this critique of the Enlightenment and primitivist discourse? I think that Hodgen could have given more attention, for example, to las Casas. For while he can be easily brushed aside as another primitivist, whose ethical pleas were hypocritical for their complicity in an unsavory representation of the indigenous people in America, it seems clear to me that there is something unique about las Casas that lies outside this categorization. At the very least, he defied violent colonial practices, which sets him apart right away. Is it possible that a more nuanced look at his writing would find a more admirable or (at least interesting) figure in las Casas?
Reading this, I wish I were more familiar with las Casas and his writing. I also felt that Hodgen may have oversimplified the later ethnographies. Certainly the primitivists used stereotypes that were demeaning to the natives, but even Herodutus couldn't completely escape value judgments on the different cultures that he surveyed.
ReplyDeleteWhen reading Hodgen, I also felt that Las Casas was the most underappreciated figure she analyzed. I suppose he wasn't the focus of her work, but still, it does seem to me that he wasn't merely a stepping stone on the path towards Linnaeus. To answer your question, I think that we have to, as hard as it may be, overcome our initial repugnance to the style and terms of early modern travellers. Surely, some did perpetuate stereotypes, but others tried to dispell them while utilizing a common mode of language that can sound racist to modern ears. If Las Casas comes off as arrogant, it probably isn't his own pride but rather the influence of the world he lived in.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Vincent, especially for your mention of Hogden's lack of emphasis on Bartolomé de Las Casas and what he reflects on historical and ethnographic thinking in the early stages of Spanish and Portuguese colonization in the Americas. Hogden does not integrate Las Casas and similar figures into her account as well as she could. I thought her account even of figures like Columbus was not sufficiently integrated into her historical narrative - it was not clear how his primitivist approach to the New World reflected on the handling of medieval ideas after having discovered the Americas and what came of it in the hierarchical ordering of man, mineral, and flaura in later scientific break-ups of the world.
ReplyDelete~Aysha
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ReplyDeleteMackenzie Tudor----
ReplyDeleteIt appeared that Hogden presented Herodutus as free from the bias of later writers because he did not begin the system of classification that existed in early modern european observations. But it appears that inherently when he was observing primitive cultures he must have been making some comparisons and some thought that this type of culture was not as good as the civilized greek culture. It seemed like she did not critique Herodutus very much, which I question.