Cultural evangelism and bizarro-enculturation

It would seem unlikely that Western culture as it stands might find another way of life it holds in higher esteem than its own. It has been the case for centuries that civilizations with greater military hegemony and more advanced technologies have quashed whichever “savage” ways of life they encounter, earning the taciturn respect of history and the condemnation of historians.¹ The “civilization” of less advanced cultures – that is to say, their standardization in terms of religious and cultural practices in order to bring them in line with a normalcy determined by their European “conquerers” – has long been treated as something of a moral imperative, an ethical obligation analogous to the education of insolent children. Their methodologies, however, were frequently less than moral. Unprecedented evils unleashed upon unsuspecting peoples in the course of the white man’s cultural evangelism could often call into question his endorsement of his own culture, the very same he forces upon these lesser tribes of man. In bringing a European understanding of civilization to heretofore “savage” peoples, the white man compromises his own respect for his native culture and begins to question whether this malignant enculturation really represents an improvement on the status quo.

It was the honest opinion of many in the European community that to share Western culture with the natives in Africa – and in other centuries, the Americas, Asia, Australia, and Oceania – was to do them a great service. In a way, they were correct in their assessment in that advances in medicine and scientific understanding could and did greatly improve the quality of life for many people. Education, too, could have been beneficial to indigenous peoples in its purest of forms – which is to say, unadulterated with religion – as would trade relationships and cooperative political dialogues which fair to both sides. The key component of such goals, however, was a degree of respect on the part of the European colonialists for native cultures and practices. As evidenced by the encouragement from Marlow’s aunt to “[wean] those ignorant millions from their horrid ways,”² no such respect existed, creating a colonial “enculturation” process which was exploitative, violent, and entirely one-sided.³

In point of fact, the real motivation for a European presence in the Congo was an economic one – there was a wealth of ivory and other riches to be plundered. “To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire,” Marlow tells us, “with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe.”² And yet the white men are intended to be cultural vanguards, staving off savage customs and breaking the natives of which generational traditions might offend European sensibilities. Since their primary motivation has little to do with the conversion of the natives and more to do with their economic exploitation, it can be imagined that few Europeans gave much thought to their treatment of these indigenous peoples, who seemed more of an annoyance than anything else throughout Conrad’s novella. Kurtz’s assignment to report on the “Suppression of Savage Customs”² reinforces the idea that the enculturation of native Africans was still a mission, albeit secondary to the material opportunities. But his fateful postscriptum suggests that genocidal violence, in place of the more labor-intensive method of systematic education and cultural conversion, was at least to Kurtz considered a viable option to achieve the same ends.

Despite his storied descent into violent madness, seemingly due to his “going native,” Kurtz in his final breath seems to recognize the true nature of the European colonial endeavor. “The horror! The horror!” he famously utters,² perhaps finally understanding that his journey into Africa has transformed him into the very picture of evil Conrad wishes to paint upon the continent. “[E]vil is African in Conrad’s story;” argues Brantlinger in his “Cultural Criticism,” “if it is also European, that’s because some number of white men in the heart of darkness behave like Africans.”⁴ Conrad’s understanding of evil as related to colonialism would seem markedly backwards in light of the narrative he himself penned, as well as in other colonial testimonies from later decades.

In George Orwell’s “A Hanging,” another white colonialist discovers the darkest reaches of his humanity when the author-narrator is forced to participate in the public execution of a Burmese native prisoner. He delivers a poetic and haunting reminder of a prisoner’s humanity, telling us that “[t]ill that moment, I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man.”⁵ He continues to elaborate on the various bodily processes the doomed man’s anatomy futilely performs until the nanosecond before ceasing altogether, and he delivers one of the more moving indictments of capital punishment put to press. It becomes quite clear that Orwell appreciates the gravity of the situation at hand, the significance and import of removing permanently “one world” from this Earth,⁵ but rather than protesting fulfills his duties as an officer and sees the execution through, as much as his conscience pains him.

In another related story, “Shooting An Elephant,” Orwell tells us that, “In reality, I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by those yellow faces behind.”⁶ For fear of “looking a fool”⁶ in front of the crowd of natives flanking him, Orwell shoots a rampaging elephant thrice in the head, at least twice in the heart and a couple of times down the throat – a fair dose of overcompensation which even runs him out of ammunition and forces him to switch armaments.⁶ He does all this for the entertainment – or, more aptly, the appeasement – of the crowd, but also to secure in both his mind and theirs his position of power and authority within the English-constructed colonial society. He has begun to doubt the merit or legitimacy of his own authority, and so he fills the role he’s expected to fill, “he wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it.”⁶ In attempting to live up to the expectations set for him by his European superiors, by the natives looking on, and by his own cultural understanding of the world, he becomes something of a monster – the worst version of himself – who remains silent as a prisoner is murdered and shoots a defenseless animal a dozen times with an elephant rifle. He discovers a level of darkness within himself of which he’d never thought himself capable.

The violence and ethnocidal tactics with which Europeans intend to enculture “uncivilized” peoples ruins them, forces them to question their own moral compasses and their understanding of their cultural dominance. Colonial agents are routinely transformed into hyperviolent, unfeeling, monstrous versions of themselves, and in cases, specifically with Kurtz, they reject their own culture and instead embrace the very rites and practices it was once their mission to suppress. This is bizarro-enculturation, a reversal of the traditional colonial dichotomy of cultural hegemony which is detailed in memoirs and narratives inspired by the time period and contemporary states of international affairs – the colonial vanguards of civilization wind up repulsed by the very practices it was their job to endorse. Western cultural evangelism makes shells of its evangelists, forces them to abandon what it means to be human – let alone European – with the violence and cruelty necessary to adequately suppress an undesirable native cultural practice. It became necessary for Europeans to step outside the European understanding of morality in order to quash immorality, must behave savagely to fend off native savagery. In the end, it’s the conquering culture which is more damaged in this process of cultural conversion, as it forsakes its very ethical coda in the hopes of sharing it with the uncivilized.