On the nonchalant accounts of brutality

When mentioning one of the many brutalities of James Cook, Obeyesekere makes a passing claim that profoundly illustrates his broader argument. Perhaps, he says on page 37, Cook lacked the judgement to delete accounts of his massive destruction from his journal. Cook’s only comment on burning several houses and canoes was that the entire situation was “rather unfortunate”. This nonchalance is emblematic of the broader European disposition towards violence inflicted upon natives: a history confined to footnotes, but available nevertheless. Sure, Cook’s brutality is glossed over with accounts of his supposed nobility, but would the European claim not be more powerful if these accounts were deleted altogether? Obeyesekere was only able to challenge the dominant European narrative of Cook’s supposed apotheosis because the substance of his claim was present in the very texts that portrayed Cook as a ‘Prospero’. This decision not to omit accounts of Cook’s violence is conscious; it represents a fundamental pillar of Western civilisation’s epistemic and cognitive dominance, as Obeyesekere puts it- the reign of mythos, but under the banner of logos.

Asserting that Western civilisation is premised solely on logos is essential in its attempt to differentiate itself from uncivilised Other. Western civilisation’s claim to superiority is predicated on its supposed ability to be rational. It is this rationality, as Obeyesekere argues, that the preliterate lack, it is what makes them a “cold” society, and they must succumb to the drive of history if they wish to progress. This is the premise of the civilisational/imperial project; it seeks to liberate the native from the past and drive it towards the civilised present. The driver of history is the Western man, he has been liberated because he is rational, and he will liberate the native by forcing upon the native’s cognition his rationality.

The essential condition for this argument to hold true, however, is that the Western man must always be rational; he must always be a Prospero, never a Kurtz. This then explains why Cook’s acts of brutality were treated with such nonchalance; they, too, in the European imagination, were rational. The myth model that presents Cook as Prospero seeks to explain away his acts of brutality; every act of brutality is conditional. Resistance must regrettably be quashed if it impedes the civilisational project; Cook was the gentlest navigator, but the natives must be dealt with differently; what else could he have done but burn down tens of houses? They wouldn’t return the goat. And thus, the brutality of Captain Cook was different- it must not be equated to the savagery of the native. No; this is rational violence, necessary violence. This violence is the harbinger of civilisation, it will, like the planting of English gardens and the grazing of English animals, domesticate the land, body, and mind of the ‘savage’. This ‘superior’ violence begins the process of killing a culture.

For the culture of the native to be killed, then, the essential precondition is that it must be replaced with something better. This superior culture is predicated on rationality, and thus every act of the Western man must come under the fold of rationality. As paradoxical as it sounds, this then means that the oppressed are portrayed as the savage, and the savage as their saviours.