Noble savage

The noble savage is an ideal of uncorrupted by civilization Naturals. The concept expresses the idea that the man should be good without the bonds of civilization by nature. He has remained a popular topos of cultural criticism authors. In modern anthropology, the concept of the noble savage is considered long-outdated thesis.

After the European discovery and conquest of America, this idea some inflow, the Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga particularly had in his epic poem La Araucana expressed ( in 1570 ). One hundred years later, John Dryden took up this idea again, and especially in romance this idea was again well received. The philosopher Jean -Jacques Rousseau is one of their prominent representatives.

References can be found in the state of innocence in the Garden of Eden before the Fall, in the Greek myth of the Golden Age and the island of the blessed in Greek mythology. Unlike the notion of the " noble savage " situate these mythological traditions of the pre- civilizational "golden age" but in a past world age and not with today's existing primitive peoples. While in traditional mythological world views the sequence of world age is usually seen as a decline and deterioration, the developer of the modern rational- evolutionist worldview rejected the traditional view of things and returned to them by history as a permanent upward development of a not paradise, but " raw "original position described.

Development

The idea of ​​the " noble savage " is the coming together of a " civilization " with a " natural society" ahead. Such a situation existed during the time expansion of European powers (Spain, Portugal, France, England, the Netherlands) since the end of the 15th century. The resulting colonization in Africa, Asia, America and the Pacific led to the collection of local cultures in the realm of the conquerors.

Despite recognition of the colonized peoples as human beings, there was no effort to grant them the same political and economic rights. There was a classification of these people as "primitive " or " wild", the indirect unequal treatment ( two-class society ), oppression justified ( slavery ) or cultural or physical extermination.

The idea of ​​the " noble savage " may act either as an attempt to repeal the unequal treatment. The economic and political inferiority was compared with a moral superiority. On the other hand, like the " noble savage " who served as a counter to their own corrupt society ( cf. Tacitus, Germania ). He also remained in spite of everything a "Wild ", which was considered standing in his ascribed " originality " than at a lower level of development than the European " civilized man ".

Even today, influenced the idea of ​​the " noble savage " the political debate, such as the handling of industrial society with the habitat of indigenous peoples ( Tropical Rainforest, Aborigines in Australia). Steven Pinker criticized the idea in The Unwritten Journal ( 2002).

In the literature

The Jean -Jacques Rousseau postulated in his work Discours sur l' inégalité natural state of man is generally regarded as the origin of this idealized image of man.

In 1771 appeared Louis Antoine de Bougainville detailed travelogue of his circumnavigation, Voyage autour du monde par la frégate du roi La Boudeuse et la flute L' Étoile. In this report, the stay in Tahiti represented his most interesting station, here meet European civilization with the culture of the Tahitians together, the noble or noble savage. Friedrich Melchior Grimm who was in charge responsible for the Correspondance littéraire, Philosophique et critique, Denis Diderot asked a book review of Bougainville'schen trip report to post. Diderot corresponded to this request, but working the review even further to an essay, the Supplement au voyage de Bougainville in 1771.

In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein the monster embodies the ideal image. The Wild West of Karl May sees the struggle between good and evil by many as the argument of the noble savage with the corrupt civilization of the savages. Brave New World (1932 ) by Aldous Huxley is a modern treatment of the subject.

Associated Features

The idea of the " noble savage " is idealized and not confirmed by sociological studies. Nevertheless, natural human and overpopulate are often attributed to the following characteristics of a exoticist attitude out:

• A life in harmony with nature;
• A society without crime;
• Full autonomy;
• Innocence and tranquility;
• Absence of lying;
• Health;
• Ethical integrity;
• Sexual permissiveness.