Does anyone else get the feeling that the subtitle of Todorov's book The Conquest of America should have been "The Question of Gold and Religion"? Those two subjects seem to come up quiet a bit...
Seriously though, both of these concepts (wealth and God) are inextricably tied within Todorov's historical account of the Americas, with a strong undercurrent of glory for the homeland. So, I think a pretty basic question is worth asking, and getting at an answer to this question may reveal more than expected. Why conquer? Columbus takes God and gold seriously. For him "the goal of conquest is to spread the Christian religion." Gold for the kingdom, and God for the natives.
Cortes is different though. For him, God is a way to conquer the nation, not the end goal of the conquering. Again, Todorov writes that "in practice, religious discourse is one of the means assuring the conquest's success: end and means have changed places."
It's difficult for me to entirely understand the hows and whys of these conquests. So far, I've analyzed the literature with a specific approach - that is, the naturalistic approach, assigning ecological concepts to the human and alien interactions. But here, we face a different situation. This is a purely intra-specific conflict. Can we still apply biology concepts to our own infighting?
Let's start with an even more basic question: is intra-species conflict a "natural" state? A.k.a., did it come about on it's own before humans, or can we see it in other species? Sure, there's often small scale, individual level conflict in nature, whether over mates, or food. Rare is large scale, group conflict, previously thought to be unique to humans. But we know this isn't the case any more.
A video less than 10 years old, it shows humanity is clearly not the only practitioner of war and conquest. (As a side note, play attention close to the 3:22 mark - an action familiar to the Jana'ata hitting very close to home).
For these chimps, the fruit of the tree is similar to the human concept of wealth, namely gold. They follow the same kind of form as the sailors in each expedition, pursuing one goal, one resource. But it's evident from Todorov that Columbus and Cortes have some kind of motivation beyond the purely material - motivation has moved into the spiritual realm. Is the spiritual component of their conquest simply a type of excuse for the conquerors, or an actual motivator? If there weren't any gold there, or supposed "trading opportunities", would the conquistadors even bother?
I believe that yes, the conquistadors would still conquer - that the domination of the other is an aspect of human nature, and was clearly an aspect of our ancestors which was passed onto our primate relatives. Material wealth or posession of niche resources need not be a specific goal of the conquering or attacking. This is the primary difference between interspecific conflict and intraspecific conflict: conflict among humans needs no physical goal.
I think that Andrew's assertion that humans don't require any specific goals in order to attempt conquest. In other words, we conquer for the sake of conquering. To me this is a troublesome feature for humans to possess. I don't disagree with Andrew's statement--humans have always wanted to seize what they can when it comes to land and property, whether or not they actually need any of the spoils. Todorov writes that the simple process of understanding the Indians leads to their being destroyed. He says, "...grasping leads to taking and taking to destruction" (127). This immediately brought me back to Ender's Game. Ender knows how to destroy something as soon as he understands and loves it. I don't know exactly what the connection could be between conquering just to conquer and the understanding that leads to this, but I think that, in Todorov, the conquistadors admire what they see but dehumanize it somehow. Along these lines, destruction occurs when understanding exists, but a deeper human connection is lacking. That's my rambling for today.
ReplyDelete"Todorov writes that the simple process of understanding the Indians leads to their being destroyed. He says, '...grasping leads to taking and taking to destruction' (127)." I think that's an excellent point that I didn't realize when I first wrote my post Jackie! Is it possible completely understand a culture without destroying it? Better yet, is it possible to completely understand a culture while keeping it completely intact and unaware of your existence? There seems to be some essential "destruction" that comes with learning about the other that is unavoidable, some element of never being the same again.
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