Noble savage
From Freepedia
A noble savage is a person who belongs to an "uncivilized" group or tribe and is considered to be, consequently, more worthy than people who live within civilization. Many writers and thinkers through the centuries of Western civilization have believed in the noble savage. The expression is particularly associated with Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
The term noble savage expresses a romantic concept of humankind as unencumbered by civilization; the natural essence of the unfettered person. The concept symbolizes the idea that without the bounds of civilization, man is essentially good. The concept has particularly associations with romantic philosophy, especially that of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and with romanticism in general. However, the phrase noble savage first appeared in The Conquest of Granada by John Dryden in 1672.
The concept appears in many books of the 18th and 19th centuries. Mary Shelley's Frankenstein forms one of the better-known examples: her monster embodies the ideal. German author Karl May employed the idea extensively in his Wild West stories. Aldous Huxley provided a later example in his novel Brave New World (published in 1932).
The concept of the "noble savage", because it is somewhat unrealistic, condescending, and frequently based on (or the basis of) certain stereotypes, is frequently considered a form of racism, even when it replaces the older stereotype of the "blood-thirsty savage". It has been criticised by many in academic, anthropological, sociological and religious fields. For instance Christians consider mankind to be universally unregenerate and sinful at heart regardless of whatever people group or civilisation they are associated with. (See a critique of the Huaorani people of Ecuador in the the documentary Beyond the gates of splendor and the associated film End of the spear.)
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Origins
Around the 15th century certain European states began expanding overseas, initially in Africa, later in Asia and in the Americas. In general, they sought mineral resources (such as silver and gold), land (for the cultivation of export crops such as rice and sugar, and the cultivation of other foodstuffs to support mining communities) and labor (to work in mines and plantations). In some cases, colonizers killed the indigenous people. In other cases, the people became incorporated into the expanding states to serve as labor.
Although Europeans recognized these people to be human beings, they had no plans to treat them as equals politically or economically, and also began to speak of them as inferior socially and psychologically. In part through this and similar processes, Europeans developed a notion of "the primitive" and "the savage" that legitimized genocide and ethnocide on the one hand, and European domination on the other. This discourse extended to people of Africa, Asia, and Oceania as European colonialism, neo-colonialism, and imperialism expanded.
The myth of the "noble savage" may have served, in part, as an attempt to re-establish the value of indigenous lifestyles and delegitimatize imperial excesses - establishing exotic humans as morally superior in order to counter-balance the perceived political and economic inferiorities.
Attributes of the "noble savage" often included:
- Living in harmony with Nature
- Absence of crime
- Generosity
- Innocence
- Inability to lie
- Physical health
- Moral courage
- Lack of sexual inhibitions
- Unusual intelligence
Literature
The noble savage as protaganist or, more often, as companion to the protaganist has long been a popular type of literary character. Perhaps the most notable early example is the character Friday from Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe. Other examples inclide Dirk Peters from Edgar Allen Poe's A Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, Chingachgook gfrom James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales, Queequeg from Herman Melville's Moby Dick, and Umslpoagaas from H. Rider Haggard's King Solomon's Mines. Tonto from the Lone Ranger radio and television programs is one of the best known examples from the 20th century.
Twentieth-century popular culture has also expressed its inherited views of the "noble savage" by placing them in fantasy or science fiction settings. The mythic figures of "Tarzan" and "Conan the Barbarian", both of them imagined as Caucasians. The very meaning of "barbarian" in contemporary popular culture has become sympathetically colored through similar fantasies.
As sensitivity to racist stereotypes has increased, science fiction has often cast aliens in the role of the noble savage. The characters of Worf in Star Trek: The Next Generation and Teal'c from Stargate SG-1 are two well known examples. It is perhaps ironic that these alien noble savages are both played by African American actors.
Further reading
- Fabian, Time and the Other
- Wolf, Europe and the People without History
- Torgovnick, Gone Primitive
