Heart of Darkness - Racist?

[LitNetIsGreat]

I see this novel as racist by our standards certainly, but I think it is one of those things that we must hold to its context. It is always dangerous to read the past through our 21st century eyes - though in many respects that can't be helped.

I'm not keen on the Achebe position either from what I remember, though I think his criticisms opened dialogues that perhaps needed to be opened, he doesn't take the context into position as much as he should.

As for art for art's sake, I just don't buy it. No matter how often I've read Wilde's preface to The Picture of Dorian Grey. Art has value beyond having moralizing messages, and art need not have a moralizing, improving message, but that doesn't mean that all art is without message.

I'd be interested to hear more thoughts about this if you have the time and inclination. What don't you buy exactly?

[Heteronym]

In the history of the arts, the view of art for art's sake is barely a century old. From time immemorial art has always had a social function. The sagas and epic poems kept alive a shared history, and recorded communal laws, social etiquette and traditions. In old Scandinavia a bard would recite, before a trial, the whole of the code of law, in verse, to refresh the memory of the judges. In medieval times, the guild artisans held high standards of quality for their work because it reflected upon the fame of their cities. Dryden and Milton used their poetry for propaganda - surely you've heard of "Annus Mirabilis" and "On the Late Massacre in Piedmont". Alexander Pope used his poetry for pedagogical purposes: "An Essay on Criticism", "Essay on Man".

And only a foolish reader would say that writers like José Saramago, Mikhail Bulgakov, Imre Kertész, William Golding, Leo Tolstoy, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Günter Grass, Czeslaw Milosz, Naguib Mahfouz, Anatole France, Franz Kafka, Eça de Queiroz, Gustave Flaubert, Emile Zola, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, Albert Cossery, Gabriel García Márquez, Voltaire, Toni Morrison, Carson McCullers, Ismail Kadare, and countless others haven't explored, above all, ethics and morality in their work. Most writers tend to live socially and politically militant lives. To say that they only write for the sake of art is a grave insult to them as people and writers. They know their social responsibility in illuminating Mankind with new ideas, new sensibilities, new ways of behaving and living and treating people.

There are many reasons not the take art for art's sake seriously. The first reason is that many great writers don't either. Dostoyevsky was a gambling addict who wrote in a frenzy, with little stylistical concern, in hope of publishing a hit to pay off debts. Little interest in style and linguistic tricks, a la Nabokov or Joyce, but a huge concern for morality. A social function lies within most writers. I'm sure there will always be a few who will read to marvel at linguistic tricks, but for the vast masses of readers, who live in a world where they struggle with ethical and moral values every day, what draws them to arts is what it can tell them about themselves as people.

[Silvia]

I second Heteronym.
I used to agree with the Art for Art's Sake motto, but then I read Booth's The Rethoric of Fiction and changed my mind.
Booth shows how hypocritical such a vision is. No matter how hard the author tries to hide himself and to be neutral/impartial/indifferent, his judgemet is still there and will reveal itself to those who look for it. Each work of literature wants to edify, be the author aware of it or not. Even those works who seem to pursue only pure beauty and intellectual qualities are somehow moral, as Booth points out talking of A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man:

Compared to Dickens, for example, Joyce may appear explicitly amoral. Joyce's professed interests are beauty and truth. Conventional moral judgements are never expressed in his works, unless he does so with irony. Still, the strenght of A Portrait lies in the essentially moral quality of Stephen's discovery of his artistic vocation and in the integrity with which he pursues it. His rejection of conventional morality - the refusal of becoming priest...- is in fact interpreted as a sign of aesthetic integrity, that is to say, a superior morality...

(my translation, hope it's clear enough)

[Heteronym]

Funny you mention Wayne C. Booth. He's written a book of literary criticism, The Company We Keep, which seeks to bring ethics back into the study of literature.

[LitNetIsGreat]

Art for art’s movement is not about denying the moral or the ethical implications of a work, it is merely concerned with placing these matters in their proper subservient position to that of the work’s aesthetics. It is concerned with giving the artist the ultimate freedom of expression, to create without the need to pander to other people’s opinions of what is right and what is wrong.

To deny the art for art’s movement is to deny the expression of the artist, which for me is the ultimate crime. If an artist is told what he can and cannot do because of someone else’s moral or ethical opinions then he ceases to become a real artist. To place barriers of morality upon the artist is a grave insult to the artist and to the art.

[Silvia]

To place barriers of morality upon the artist is a grave insult to the artist and to the art.

This last statement of yours I find it hard to agree with.
If the self-expression of the artist is the ultimate value, then art becomes worthless because there's no measure according to which we can judge it. The artist is free to express his ideas, no matter what they are, and no one has the right to judge them, because the supreme value is the right of self-expression which belongs to the artist more than to anyone else.
Popper once made the example of someone who thinks that the only way to express himself is to go 200Km/h with his new Ferrari on a crowded street. Has this person a right to do that?
@Hetheronym: Booth mentions that book in the second postface to The Rethoric of Fiction. Have you read it? I like him a lot. He can be very funny when referring to those critics who misinterpreted his statements...

[LitNetIsGreat]

I stand by it. I do not agree with placing limitations on the artist, the artist needs to be given freedom of expression. I did not say anything however, about nobody being allowed to judge that art, of course the art can be judged, but it shouldn't be judged on moral or ethical grounds. Instead of asking "is Conrad racist?" we should be concerned only with "is Conrad any good?" that's the point.

[billl]

Leaving aside Conrad for a second, I think it IS worth asking if a particular story written by someone is racist (actually racist, as opposed to an ironic commentary on racism or something like that). We would need to decide if such a book were appropriate for junior high reading lists, for example, or if a political candidate who recommends the book would be worth voting for.

As far as "placing barriers", of course, I don't think that it should matter whether the book (painting, etc.) were good or racist or whatever--for the most part, anyhow. Perhaps there would be some 'dangerous' art (e..g. Ferrari-driving performance art, pro-Nazi propaganda in post-war Germany, etc.).

[Heteronym]

Art for art’s movement is not about denying the moral or the ethical implications of a work, it is merely concerned with placing these matters in their proper subservient position to that of the work’s aesthetics. It is concerned with giving the artist the ultimate freedom of expression, to create without the need to pander to other people’s opinions of what is right and what is wrong.

To deny the art for art’s movement is to deny the expression of the artist, which for me is the ultimate crime. If an artist is told what he can and cannot do because of someone else’s moral or ethical opinions then he ceases to become a real artist. To place barriers of morality upon the artist is a grave insult to the artist and to the art.

Considering that more art has been produced before the art for art' sake aesthetic was conceived than after, I think you should rethink what you just wrote about freedom of expression. Dante's The Divine Comedy and John Milton's Paradise Lost 'pandered' to the moral opinions of their time.

And what do you mean about morality's proper subservient position? Who judges what's the proper place of what in a work of literature? You see, you're still thinking through art for art's sake aesthetics. If you try not to do that, you'll agree that there's no prescriptive reason to assign a specific importance to a specific aspect in a literary work. A writer is as free to give importance to morality as he is to beauty.

Bringing morality to a work of art does not mean to pander to popular morals. It means giving importance to the discussion of ethics. Because before being aesthetic creatures, men are social and therefore ethical creatures. And the search for how to act towards others certainly takes more time and importance in one's life than merely marvelling at beauty.

[ktm5124]

Leaving aside Conrad for a second, I think it IS worth asking if a particular story written by someone is racist (actually racist, as opposed to an ironic commentary on racism or something like that). We would need to decide if such a book were appropriate for junior high reading lists, for example, or if a political candidate who recommends the book would be worth voting for.

As far as "placing barriers", of course, I don't think that it should matter whether the book (painting, etc.) were good or racist or whatever--for the most part, anyhow. Perhaps there would be some 'dangerous' art (e..g. Ferrari-driving performance art, pro-Nazi propaganda in post-war Germany, etc.).

This seems terrible to me! You are suggesting that we stigmatize certain books. There is a huge difference between Conrad and Nazism. One is a hate crime, the other isn't.

Of course we shouldn't condone books that advertise hate crimes. But Conrad is no such author. There is no way we can teach students about 19th century British literature without teaching Conrad. Shakespeare, just like Conrad, is also racist at times. Should we remove Shakespeare from the reading lists?

Considering that more art has been produced before the art for art' sake aesthetic was conceived than after, I think you should rethink what you just wrote about freedom of expression. Dante's The Divine Comedy and John Milton's Paradise Lost 'pandered' to the moral opinions of their time.

And what do you mean about morality's proper subservient position? Who judges what's the proper place of what in a work of literature? You see, you're still thinking through art for art's sake aesthetics. If you try not to do that, you'll agree that there's no prescriptive reason to assign a specific importance to a specific aspect in a literary work. A writer is as free to give importance to morality as he is to beauty.

Bringing morality to a work of art does not mean to pander to popular morals. It means giving importance to the discussion of ethics. Because before being aesthetic creatures, men are social and therefore ethical creatures. And the search for how to act towards others certainly takes more time and importance in one's life than merely marvelling at beauty.

Christianity no longer motivates art as it used to. It still does, of course, but not to the same degree. Many of the past's great moralizing novels were in discourse with religion. I also find it disappointing that this discourse has been diminished, but that is beside the point.

Regardless, I disagree with your statement. First of all, art for art's sake is more than one century old. I can say that it dates back to Keats, at the very soonest, who articulated his idea of negative capability. Secondly, while the majority of world literature has engaged the question of ethics, one cannot deny that art without morals is a fashionable trend in the twentieth century onwards. It is not just Conrad. It is also Wilde, Nabokov, and far, far, more. One can look to today's television shows too to confirm it. Think of shows like Dexter, or films like those of Tarantino's. It has even infiltrated popular culture. Why do people watch Saw I, II, III, IV? Why do people read Stephen King? You can't just pull a veil over that which permeates our culture.

[Alexander III]

I have recently started reading Verlaine, and he is quickly becoming one of my favored poets. During the course of his life he would get drunk beat his wife or set her on fire, he also left her for a 17 year old boy, and he also happened to shoot that seventeen year old boy later. Now to say that who Verlaine was and his poetry, are two separate entities is balderdash, he, his life, was his poetry, that being said since the man was one hell of a sone of a ***** , does that mean his poetry should be discarded or considered inferior to other poetry based on ethical grounds ?

As for literature's role to teach ethics and morality, well thats a dangerous road, a road where art no longer is art, it becomes politics, religion, not art.

You use an example of Dante, dante is not read because of his message of morality, it is read for its artistic beauty.

Morals are for hypocrites,
Those who preach no morals are greater hypocrites than the former,
Yet at least they are trying to rid themselves of hypocrisy

[billl]

This seems terrible to me! You are suggesting that we stigmatize certain books. There is a huge difference between Conrad and Nazism. One is a hate crime, the other isn't.

Of course we shouldn't condone books that advertise hate crimes. But Conrad is no such author. There is no way we can teach students about 19th century British literature without teaching Conrad. Shakespeare, just like Conrad, is also racist at times. Should we remove Shakespeare from the reading lists?

LOL, I guessed you missed the first three words of my post.

I can see where Achebe is coming from, certainly, but I think you might have a point about Conrad not intentionally wanting to spew hatred about people.

Also, do you think that it would be wrong to stigmatize a book for being racist? Do you consider a racist book a hate crime?

[LitNetIsGreat]

Considering that more art has been produced before the art for art' sake aesthetic was conceived than after, I think you should rethink what you just wrote about freedom of expression. Dante's The Divine Comedy and John Milton's Paradise Lost 'pandered' to the moral opinions of their time.

It is true that the art for art’s sake as a movement was a very brief affair (one which even Wilde himself outgrew or adapted to a large degree) however echoes of it can be found right back to the time of the ancient Greeks. It is Wilde himself who saw that aesthetics began with Plato, so the came before argument doesn’t really come into it or indeed matter at all.

There is no need to point me to artists who produced under less favourable conditions either, for that matter. I am well aware that a huge amount of art has been produced under less favourable conditions at times when freedom for the artist was limited for religious or moral reasons. The argument could even be made, I suppose, that setting the artist limitations on what they are allowed to produce focuses the mind, but I would not buy that argument to any serious degree. For me the artist should be allowed to compose, to paint, to sculpt to suit their own callings and desires. For me, the art should be left to the artist and not other bodies such as the state or church or public opinion to decide.

Anyway, are you trying to say that Paradise Lost or the Divine Comedy are not aesthetically pleasing? That those texts don't possess real beauty?

And what do you mean about morality's proper subservient position? Who judges what's the proper place of what in a work of literature? You see, you're still thinking through art for art's sake aesthetics. If you try not to do that, you'll agree that there's no prescriptive reason to assign a specific importance to a specific aspect in a literary work. A writer is as free to give importance to morality as he is to beauty.

I’m likely to see through the aesthetic position because it is the position that most closely relates to how I feel. Perhaps this is a reason why I love Wilde so much or maybe the reason that I love Wilde so much is that he lead me to see through the aesthetic position, I don’t know?

A writer certainly should be free to give importance to morality because the writer should be allowed to express whatever they want. However, for the reader, for me, I’m interested in issues of whether Conrad is racist or not yes, but I’m much more concerned with how I felt when reading it and if I thought it was any good. That’s the argument.

Bringing morality to a work of art does not mean to pander to popular morals. It means giving importance to the discussion of ethics. Because before being aesthetic creatures, men are social and therefore ethical creatures. And the search for how to act towards others certainly takes more time and importance in one's life than merely marvelling at beauty.

“Merely marvelling at beauty.” “The search for how to act towards others.”

Are you serious? Are you a reincarnated Samuel Richardson?

Art has a far higher purpose than to raise ethical questions for people to talk about on chat shows. People are free to read what they want and I’m not saying otherwise. People can read literature as a guidebook on how to live their life or to reinforce their own narrow views on the world if they want to, but please count me out of that one.

This seems terrible to me! You are suggesting that we stigmatize certain books. There is a huge difference between Conrad and Nazism. One is a hate crime, the other isn't.

Of course we shouldn't condone books that advertise hate crimes. But Conrad is no such author. There is no way we can teach students about 19th century British literature without teaching Conrad. Shakespeare, just like Conrad, is also racist at times. Should we remove Shakespeare from the reading lists?

This is what happens when morality interferes with the artist...

[billl]

It's also what happens when a post isn't read carefully.

[LitNetIsGreat]

It's also what happens when a post isn't read carefully.

Bill I wasn't criticising your post at all, I merely meant that pointless talk about morality always ends up leading to banning every book every written, at least one's that are any good anyway.