Daniel Defoe: Robinson Crusoe And Modern Individualism

DANIEL DEFOE

ROBINSON CRUSOE AND MODERN INDIVIDUALISM PROFESSOR TIMOTHY H WILSON

UNIVERSITY OF OTTAWA

OUTLINE →

Recapitulation

→

Introduction

→

The Origins of the Novel

→

The Theology of Robinson Crusoe

→

Robinson Crusoe and Economic Man

→

Robinson Crusoe and Modern Natural Right 2

RECAPITULATION

Joseph Wright of Derby, An Experiment on a Bird in the Air Pump (1768)

RECAPITULATION →

Narrative could be seen as the glue that unites the “MODES OF LITERATURE” discussed in this course with the varying “MODES OF SELF” that are made possible in different eras

NARRATIVE STRUCTURE OF FIRST WAVE OF MODERNITY

MODE OF LITERATURE: NOVEL

MODE OF SELF: THINKING SELF

e.g., Robinson Crusoe

Rise of sovereign subject and complex interiority of self

DOMINANT STORY / MYTH: Modern INDIVIDUALISM: Modern hero must master and secure his or her material circumstances through rational calculation

ENDURING ARCHETYPES: Sea journey or quest, Human vs nature

4

RECAPITULATION →

ANCIENT GREEK conception of self lacked our aspects of: • •

INNER SELF, and INDIVIDUALISM

→

PLATO did not carve out a space for an “inner self”; rather, it was a reorientation of the usual relational and holistic self from the city and cosmos to the philosophical order of ideas

→

With the Christian New Testament, in particular with the Epistles of ST. PAUL, we have the beginnings of an “inner self” • • • •

→

Kingdom of God that is available in oneself Universalism – all are equal under God Allegorical view of the narrative of existence Eschatological view of history – Greeks had a circular view of time; Hebrew notion of time is linear

ST. AUGUSTINE builds on this notion of the conflicted inner self, but… • •

Free will is fundamentally limited and is reliant on God’s grace The self IS only inasmuch as it is a window onto God 5

RECAPITULATION →

The FIRST WAVE OF MODERNITY dispensed with an agreed upon, communal notion of a telos to all things

→

Modern political rationality assumes that ends are best left to individuals to determine themselves – this is what gives them their “freedom”

→

The role of the state or society is to ensure that all individuals have the MEANS to achieve their individual ENDS – material welfare, security etc.

→

In practice this means that what comes to have commonly accepted value are the means themselves – the means replace the ends

→

This is the case with education as well: rather than a cultivation of the individual to his or her end as virtue, it increasingly is a way of ensuring they have the means (money, the right connections) to achieve their personal goals – education becomes accreditation 6

RECAPITULATION →

Replacing Ends with Means, leads to a loss of the ideals of self that presented themselves as possibilities for the ancients and for the those in the Middle Ages: •

HERO who transcends the lot of ordinary mortals through acts of martial valour that will endure in fame (Achilles, Hector, Ulysses)

•

THINKER who transcends the ordinary lot of mortals (those in the cave) by reflecting on the enduring ideas (Socrates)

•

SAINT who transcends the ordinary lot of mortals by aligning themselves with a Divine order (Jesus, St. Paul, Augustine) 7

RECAPITULATION →

With the modern revolution in thinking, these ideals are replaced by more PRAGMATIC goals: •

Material SECURITY and well-being – versus risking all for honour

•

Concern with “THIS WORLD”, not an “other world” of essences or truths – thinking as philosophical reflection replaced by rational calculation

•

Increasing SECULARIZATION of society

8

FALSTAFF: Well, 'tis no matter; honour pricks me on. Yea, but how if honour prick me off when I come on? how then? Can honour set to a leg? no: or an arm? no: or take away the grief of a wound? no. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? no. What is honour? a word. What is in that word honour? What is that honour? air. A trim reckoning! Who hath it? he that died o' Wednesday. Doth he feel it? no. Doth he hear it? no. 'Tis insensible, then. Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? no. Why? detraction will not suffer it. Therefore I'll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon: and so ends my catechism. (1 Henry IV, 5.1.129139)

RECAPITULATION EPOCH / MODE OF SELF CLASSICAL: INDIVIDUAL AS PART OF COSMIC WHOLE Ancient Greek Hero (Achilles) (800 – 0 BCE)

Christian-Medieval (O – 1500 CE)

AUTHOR / TEXT Homer, Iliad

Thinker (Socrates)

Plato, Republic

Saint (Jesus/Paul/Augustine)

New Testament St. Augustine, Confessions

MODERNITY: SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUAL First Wave Rational Self (1500 – 1780) (Robinson Crusoe)

John Locke, Essay Concerning Human Understanding Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

Second Wave (1780 – 1880)

Feeling Self (Heathcliff)

J-J Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

Third Wave (1880 – Present)

Fragmented Self (Darl)

Friedrich Nietzsche, Selections William Faulkner, As I Lay Dying 9

OUTLINE →

Recapitulation

→

Introduction

→

The Origins of the Novel

→

The Theology of Robinson Crusoe

→

Robinson Crusoe and Economic Man

→

Robinson Crusoe and Modern Natural Right 10

INTRODUCTION • • •

Historical Context Introduction to Daniel Defoe Sources of Robinson Crusoe

Eyre Crowe, Daniel Defoe in the Pillory, Salford Museum and Art Gallery

HISTORICAL CONTEXT →

18th Century marks the beginning of the ENLIGHTENMENT: • • •

→

Expressing struggle of middle-class to gain rights from aristocratic privilege Manifest in the questioning of rituals, rites, and religious prejudices of medieval society All branches of science placed at the service of human projects (Royal Society for the Improving of Human Knowledge, chartered by Charles II in 1662)

English Political Context: • GLORIOUS REVOLUTION of 1688 •

Leads to rule of William III (Protestant) and constitutional monarchy

• BILL OF RIGHTS and Toleration Acts (1689) •

Limits power of Crown and allows for limited religious freedom for “Dissenters” (though not for Catholics or Jews) 12

INTRODUCTION TO DEFOE (1660-1731) →

Born 1660 as Daniel Foe in London – added the aristocratic sounding “De-” later in life

→

From a MIDDLE-CLASS, Puritan family, had a varied career – varying from trade, journalism / writer, and political espionage (in a way a father of journalism)

→

Wrote some PRO-WILLIAM III pamphlets, poetry, economic journalism (over 370 known publications on almost any topic) •

• •

→

For the strictly literary, with aristocratic backgrounds, he is seen as bourgeois and merely mercenary (writing on various political topics for money) Alexander Pope: “The first part of Robinson Crusoe is very good – De Foe wrote a vast many things; and none bad, though none excellent, except this” Jonathan Swift: “One of these Authors (the Fellow that was pilloryed, I have forgot his Name) is indeed so grave, sententious, dogmatical a Rogue, that there is no enduring him”

TROUBLE WITH THE LAW: • •

imprisoned for debt in 1692 pilloried under Queen Anne for his satire on Government’s intolerance of religious Dissenters 13

INTRODUCTION TO DEFOE (1660-1731) →

Defoe’s STYLE IS VERY BARE, by the standards of the period • •

→

New path in his career begins in 1719 when he publishes Robinson Crusoe, his first novel and the first genuine novel in English • • • •

→

Short, crisp, plain sentences Not artificial language; common English

Robinson Crusoe (1719) Captain Singleton (1720) Moll Flanders (1722) Colonel Jacque (1722)

Robinson Crusoe was an INSTANT SUCCESS – requiring six printings in the first four months • • •

It has since been adapted for children, stage It has been imitated and become its own genre of fiction (Nb: recent film, The Martian; or, Swiss Family Robinson) Translated in over a 100 languages 14

INTRODUCTION TO DEFOE (1660-1731) →

Robinson Crusoe’s almost UNIVERSAL APPEAL: •

To children as an adventure tale

•

To sophisticated readers (among them Samuel Johnson and Jean-Jacques Rousseau) as singular in providing an educational function for the reader

•

John J. Richetti sees Crusoe as the archetypal "personage of the last two hundred and fifty years of European consciousness." • •

•

The division of labor and industrialization have cut off modern men and women from simple tasks; we no longer know the whole process of basic activities, like growing wheat, milling flour, and baking bread This was true in Defoe's time also, though to a lesser extent. So the details of Crusoe's everyday life fascinate us, as we watch him recreate civilization alone

Walter Allen sees in Crusoe the dramatization of "the inescapable solitariness of each man in his relation to God and the universe." Edward Gordon Craig, a modern illustrator, gives a personal and modern spin to Allen's suggestion: "we secretly enjoy loneliness through him" 15

SOURCES OF ROBINSON CRUSOE →

Adventure or TRAVEL TALES – fabulous or real (e.g., story of Alexander Selkirk) • •

→

UTOPIAN literature, such as • •

→

Thomas More’s Utopia (1516) and later Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1726)

Discourses on the STATE OF NATURE, such as • •

→

In 1704, Scottish sailor was marooned on an island in the South Pacific, off the coast of Chile Lived there alone for four years

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (1651) John Locke, Second Treatise of Government (1689)

SPIRITUAL ALLEGORY, such as •

John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress (1678) 16

OUTLINE →

Recapitulation

→

Introduction

→

The Origins of the Novel

→

The Theology of Robinson Crusoe

→

Robinson Crusoe and Economic Man

→

Robinson Crusoe and Modern Natural Right 17

• • •

The First Novels Features of the Novel Factors Contributing to the Rise of the Novel

THE ORIGINS OF THE NOVEL

THE FIRST NOVELS →

Cervantes’ DON QUIXOTE (1605-1615) is often considered the first Novel •

→

But, although it is a satire of traditional medieval and renaissance romance tales, it still operates in their orbit

So, more properly considered, we could say that ROBINSON CRUSOE is the first Novel

19

FEATURES OF THE NOVEL What is a “Novel”? → Usually defined as an extended work of fictional prose • EXTENDED: like older Epic and unlike short, lyric poetry, or the later “short story” • FICTIONAL: unlike extended work of prose that is factual or a theoretical treatise (Note: Augustine’s Confessions)

• PROSE: unlike poetic forms of Epic, Drama, Lyric →

BUT … this definition would still include long works of prose fiction that we

would not call novels: • Socratic dialogues (e.g., The Republic) • Prose Romances (e.g., Malory’s Morte d’Arthur)

20

FEATURES OF THE NOVEL →

So there are a couple of other features that mark the novel as a distinctively modern genre: •

REALISM • An adherence of the novel to “reality” as defined by the material, particular objects of our experience • A movement from Universal to Particular • Tied to similar moves of the early modern philosophers: from a study of things as they “ought” to be to a study of things as they “are” – Machiavelli, Bacon, Descartes

•

ORIGINAL PLOTS • Hence, “novel”

•

INDIVIDUALISM • Foregrounds the experiences of individual characters as ultimately important 21

FACTORS IN THE RISE OF THE NOVEL →

Printing press and PRINT CULTURE

→

Rising MIDDLE CLASS • •

→

Novel as commodity Increases in leisure time (especially later in the 18th Century and into the 19th)

Spread of LITERACY • • •

Among the new middle class and among women Novel provides a fictional genre that does not presume the depth of classical and philosophical education that the preceding genres had Novel, especially the English Novel, celebrates domestic, bourgeois concerns: orchestrating the proper love relation, demonstrating the fluidity of class 22

Jean-Honoré Fragonard, The Reader (1770)

OUTLINE →

Recapitulation

→

Introduction

→

The Origins of the Novel

→

The Theology of Robinson Crusoe

→

Robinson Crusoe and Economic Man

→

Robinson Crusoe and Modern Natural Right 23

• • • •

Puritans and God’s Providence Spiritual Biography and Allegory Crusoe’s Sin and His Conversion Christian Symbolism

THE THEOLOGY OF ROBINSON CRUSOE

Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms

PURITANS AND GOD’S PROVIDENCE →

Puritanism began in the 16th C as a movement to reform the Church of England

→

Followed teachings of JOHN CALVIN (1509-64) on the nature of man, free will and predestination

→

Emphasized God’s majesty, righteousness, and control of the universe to achieve His just ends

→

God's maintaining and directing everything in the universe is God's PROVIDENCE 25

PURITANS AND GOD’S PROVIDENCE →

In his Bible Dictionary (1897), Matthew George Easton describes Providence in this way: •

Providence literally means FORESIGHT, but is generally used to denote God's preserving and governing all things by means of second causes. God's providence extends to the natural world, and the affairs of men, and of individuals. It extends also to the free actions of men, and things sinful, as well as to their good actions

•

As regards sinful actions of men, they are represented as OCCURRING BY GOD'S PERMISSION, and as controlled and overruled for good . God does not cause or approve of sin, but only limits, restrains, overrules it for good

•

The mode of God's providential government is altogether UNEXPLAINED. We only know that it is a fact that God does govern all his creatures and all their actions; that this government is universal, particular, efficacious, embraces events apparently contingent, is consistent with his own perfection, and to his own glory 26

SPIRITUAL BIOGRAPHY AND ALLEGORY →

If read as simply an adventure story, the many references to God, Providence and sin can be overlooked

→

However, in many ways, the novel can’t be understood outside of its religious framework: the journey is a SPIRITUAL BIOGRAPHY OR ALLEGORY meant to educate the reader and incite them to turn their souls to God

→

In the 17th and 18th C’s, the “Conduct” or “Guide” book was a popular genre – guide literature pointed out how readers should live to achieve salvation

27

SPIRITUAL BIOGRAPHY AND ALLEGORY →

The principles discussed by the guide books were given concrete form in spiritual biography and allegory •

→

→

They narrated the Christian's journey or pilgrimage through the wilderness of a fallen world, where they were torn by the conflict between good and evil. The goal was, of course, salvation

The spiritual biography focused on real people: a saint, a martyr, a particularly pious individual, or a notorious sinner who converted – note: even in the fictional Robinson Crusoe, Defoe insisted on the reality of Crusoe and his experience (see the Preface) The spiritual biography was shaped by the PATTERN of: • • •

Denying God Repenting/converting, and Being delivered from sin by God's grace 28

SPIRITUAL BIOGRAPHY AND ALLEGORY →

John Bunyan (1628-88) wrote a SPIRITUAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY during his twelve-year imprisonment for preaching without a license •

→

→

Grace Abounding (1661) traced his journey from his birth into poverty through a sinful childhood and adolescence to repentance and conversion

In the SPIRITUAL ALLEGORY, the protagonist was representative of humanity in general, and his experiences typified the pattern of the soul's struggle toward salvation, not a particular individual's

Often the spiritual allegory was presented as the author's dream or vision • •

In part I of Bunyan ‘s spiritual allegory, Pilgrim's Progress (1678), Christian fled the City of Destruction and passed through the Slough of Despond, the Valley of Humiliation, Vanity Fair, Doubting Castle, and the Delectable Mountains to arrive at, finally, the Celestial City In Part II, his wife, Christiana, accompanied by her children and her neighbor Mercy, also journeyed to the Celestial City

29

SPIRITUAL BIOGRAPHY AND ALLEGORY →

While recognizing that it is a modern novel and focused on the realism of individual experience, Robinson Crusoe can also be seen as continuing the allegorical tradition •

→

His entire story can be seen as an allegory of the spiritual life of humanity

Robinson as EVERYMAN character: • • •

Starts as a wanderer, aimless on a sea he does not understand – as does Dante the Pilgrim at the beginning of the Divine Comedy, lost in the wilderness Ends crossing a mountain to enter the promised land Robinson comes closer to God, not through sermons in a church, but through spending time alone in nature with only a Bible to read (J.P. Hunter, “The un-Sources of Robinson Crusoe”) 30

SPIRITUAL BIOGRAPHY AND ALLEGORY →

Some examples of the ways in which the novel can be seen in this light: •

See the “PREFACE”: Defoe announces that his intention is • “to justify and honour the wisdom of Providence in all the Variety of our Circumstances” (3)

•

See 157-58: Friday also poses questions related to THEODICY – why is there evil in the world?

•

Crusoe receives warnings against the rashness of going to sea from his father and from the captain of the first ship he sails on • Both are figures of authority, representative of God • He is, figuratively, denying God's providential order (see page 4 – 5) 31

SPIRITUAL BIOGRAPHY AND ALLEGORY →

Crusoe narrates his life story long afterward, and from the beginning of his tale Crusoe presents events not only from his point of view as a youth but also from a Christian perspective – like AUGUSTINE does in the Confessions •

He looks at his past through the eyes of the convert who now constantly sees the working of Providence

•

See page 9 – on early chances that Providence had given him for redemption • "Providence, as in such Cases generally it does, resolv’d to leave me entirely without Excuse. For if I would not take this for a Deliverance, the next was to be such a one as the worst and most hardened Wretch among us would confess both the Danger and the Mercy"

32

CRUSOE’S SIN AND HIS CONVERSION →

Crusoe repeatedly refers to leaving home without his father's permission as his “ORIGINAL

SIN” (for e.g., 141) • •

→

→

He regards his sin against his father as a sin against God also Remembering his first voyage, Crusoe says: "my Conscience, which was not yet come to the Pitch of Hardness to which it has been since, reproached me with the Contempt of Advice and the Breach of my Duty to God and my Father” (7)

Has several moments early in the story where he could have converted (see page 8) The Ship Master’s warnings prompt an INNER CONFLICT (“Struggles with [him] self”), but ultimately pride prevents him from returning to his Father / God: humility and gratitude become key virtues that allow Robinson Crusoe to be redeemed (see pages 12-13) 33

CRUSOE’S SIN AND HIS CONVERSION →

These errors become OBJECTS FOR REFLECTION later – not emotional turmoil or remorse (see page 29) •

→

Then I call’d a Council, that is to say, in my Thoughts” (40)

Crusoe’s CONVERSION: •

At first, Crusoe resists a number of Providential warnings and deliverances

• At first, discovering the barley and rice inspires him with religious feeling that this is a miracle (and evidence of Divine intervention in our affairs) •

But he then finds a rational explanation (a few seeds clung to a sack he had used there) – forgetting that according to Providential theory, God works through secondary causes

•

See page 58 34

CRUSOE’S SIN AND HIS CONVERSION →

Then a wrathful God threatens him in a DREAM (64-65) – and he believes •

→

But are we to understand this as a hallucination caused by fever?

With the process of conversion begun, he REVIEWS HIS LIFE (65-71) and his understanding of God deepens •

Prays for the first time in many years for God to help him: “Lord be my Help, for I am in great Distress” (67)

•

Reflects on God’s Providential Order (68)

•

Turns to the Bible as well (69) – note: cannot rely on reason alone, he asserts; it can only take one so far. Beyond that, revelation is required (158)

•

He kneels to God and truly prays for the first time – this time for deliverance from sin, not deliverance from affliction (71) 35

CRUSOE’S SIN AND HIS CONVERSION →

He comes to acknowledge God's power and Providence • •

→

See 182 Compare 197: he “forgot not to lift up [his] Heart in Thankfulness to Heaven; and what Heart could forbear to bless him”

But there are QUESTIONS AS TO THE SINCERITY OF HIS RELIGIOSITY: •

Is his physical survival more important to Crusoe than his relationship with God? • • •

•

Whenever his survival is threatened, his religious practice and sense of God's presence all but disappear Even his conversion after his dream can be seen as a matter of self-preservation Is he terrified by God's threat into conversion?

Despite the references to his faithful devotion to higher, spiritual things, is Crusoe more deeply concerned with amassing wealth and with the control of nature? •

We don’t get detailed descriptions of his spiritual reflections, but we do get detailed descriptions of his physical and economic affairs (see Ian Johnston’s Lecture on Robinson Crusoe for a good description of this tension: http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/introser/defoe.htm )

36

CRUSOE’S SIN AND HIS CONVERSION →

Is there an inherent CONFLICT between Crusoe's RELIGION AND HIS ECONOMIC CONCERNs, one which Defoe may or may not have been aware of? •

Are diligence in making money and concern about worldly affairs necessarily incompatible with spiritual wellbeing and a sincere religious faith?

→

Puritans debated these questions in terms of faith versus works, and some found ways to resolve the conflict

→

Stephen Charnock (1628-80), Puritan clergyman: •

→

"Tho we are sure God has decreed the certain event of such a thing, yet we must not encourage our idleness but our diligence."

Defoe held similar views: •

“To be utterly careless of ourselves, and talk of trusting Providence, is a lethargy of the worst nature; for as we are to trust Providence with our estates, but to use, at the same time, all diligence in our callings, so we are to trust Providence with our safety, but with our eyes open to all its necessary cautions, warnings, and instructions” (Serious Reflections during the Life and Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe) 37

CHRISTIAN SYMBOLISM Story Element

Christian/Allegorical Meaning

Lost at sea

Spiritually adrift

Enslaved

Enslaved by sin

Shipwrecks

Spiritual crises

Illness and recovery

Spiritual disease and conversion/salvation

Almost swept out to sea in canoe

Danger of relying on self, not God

Wild animals in Africa / Cannibals

Human beings’ depraved nature

Struggle in ocean / cast ashore

Rebirth / new life

Alone on island

Human alone in relation to God

Seeds of barley and rice sprouting

Seeds of Grace stirring spiritual growth in Crusoe 38

OUTLINE →

Recapitulation

→

Introduction

→

The Origins of the Novel

→

The Theology of Robinson Crusoe

→

Robinson Crusoe and Economic Man

→

Robinson Crusoe and Modern Natural Right 39

• • •

Crusoe as Homo Economicus Karl Marx on Robinson Crusoe Crusoe and Colonialism

ROBINSON CRUSOE AND ECONOMIC MAN

CRUSOE AS HOMO ECONOMICUS →

Although Robinson Crusoe seems to discover a certain Providence behind all events, in many ways, this spiritual revelation is understated – his focus seems to be much more on economic considerations

→

Homo Economicus (or, Economic Man) refers to the point of departure of much classical economic theory that humans are RATIONAL CREATURES who will always choose that which maximizes their own, narrowly defined self-interest •

Self-interest is understood as practical profit/utility

•

Goals are subjectively defined, but the means to these goals will be pursued optimally 41

CRUSOE AS HOMO ECONOMICUS →

Crusoe’s relationships with others are based almost entirely on their use for him – they are commodities who exist for his ECONOMIC ADVANTAGE •

Crusoe provides an ongoing ledger of his profits and losses of his material wealth, but also of other aspects of existence: •

He keeps a ledger of the cannibal visitors to the island killed by Friday and him (171)

•

See pages 49-50: he keeps an account of the good and bad aspects of his situation on the island

•

See page 93: he recommends a cost-benefit analysis of large undertakings

•

Despite Xury's bravery and loyalty, Crusoe sells him back into slavery – and for less than the boat they escaped in (sixty pieces of eight versus eighty pieces of eight) (26-27)

•

He regrets the loss of Xury twice, as a worker both on his Brazil plantation and on the island 42

CRUSOE AS HOMO ECONOMICUS →

It is on the island that Crusoe discovers an economic system of value based on an item's USE; nevertheless, he keeps all the money he recovers from his expeditions to the two wrecks (43, 140) •

→

→

NB: The myth of Mammon here

Ian Watt notes that money elicits the STRONGEST EMOTION from Crusoe: •

When Crusoe learns how faithfully the Portuguese captain attended to his affairs, Crusoe is moved to tears and immediately writes a receipt for the 100 moidores the captain gives him (203)

•

When his wealth arrives from Brazil, Crusoe becomes so ill with emotion that he believes he would have died if not for being bled by a physician –

See page 205 for this

–

See page 35 and 102 for other instances of the power of joyful shock– but, these instances describe joy arising from one having one’s life saved

NO SOCIAL PRESSURES OR LAWS limit Crusoe's freedom to act in his own interests, so he functions with total laissez faire •

So, Robinson Crusoe is often used in economic theorizing

•

Also, a source for Karl Marx 43

KARL MARX ON ROBINSON CRUSOE →

Karl Marx (1818-1883), in Das Kapital (1867), uses Robinson Crusoe as a favorable example of the pre-capitalist man producing goods because they are useful and producing only as much as is useful to him and not seeking a profit

→

LABOUR THEORY OF VALUE:

→

•

Difference between labour value added to commodity and wage earned to sustain labour = “Surplus value”

•

Surplus value

Profit

The Communist mode of production Marx calls for as an ideal is figured forth, to a limited extent, by Robinson Crusoe – •

“All the characteristics of Robinson's labour are here repeated, but with this difference, that they are social, instead of individual” (276) 44

CRUSOE AND COLONIALISM →

In order to keep expanding, capitalism requires a cheap source of raw materials and markets for finished products. Colonies serve both functions for the mother country

→

Crusoe acts as a colonizer in assuming COMPLETE DOMINION OVER THE ISLAND and any people he encounters •

See pages 73, 100, 108 and 174

•

Several times he notes the abundance of trees suitable for making masts (the British navy and merchant ships looked to the American colonies to meet their need for trees to make masts)

•

Crusoe's actions as an individual duplicate those of nations in claiming land for colonies

•

When Crusoe leaves the island, he leaves behind English and Spanish sailors as colonists 45

CRUSOE AND COLONIALISM •

Crusoe as Master of Friday parallels Crusoe’s own relationship to God •

See page 147 and 149

•

In the Fesquet representation, evokes classical heroes (Heracles) with the nude muscular body and lion skin

•

James Joyce: •

The true symbol of British conquest is Robinson Crusoe, who, cast away on a desert island, in his pocket a knife and a pipe, becomes an architect, a carpenter, a knife grinder, an astronomer, a baker, a shipwright, a potter, a saddler, a farmer, a tailor, an umbrella-maker, and a clergyman. He is the true prototype of the British colonist, as Friday (the trusty slave who arrives on an unlucky day) is the symbol of the subject races. The whole AngloSaxon spirit is in Crusoe: the manly independence; the unconscious cruelty; the persistence; the slow yet efficient intelligence; the sexual apathy; the practical, well-balanced religiousness; the calculating taciturnity Jules Fesquet, Illustration of Robinson Crusoe (1877) 46

OUTLINE →

Recapitulation

→

Introduction

→

The Origins of the Novel

→

The Theology of Robinson Crusoe

→

Robinson Crusoe and Economic Man

→

Robinson Crusoe and Modern Natural Right 47

ROBINSON CRUSOE AND MODERN NATURAL RIGHT • •

The First Wave of Modernity The State of Nature

Declaration of Independence, John Turnbull (1818), Rotunda of US Captiol

THE THREE WAVES OF MODERNITY Key Thinkers

Classical

First Wave of Modernity

Second Wave

Third Wave

Plato

Machiavelli

Rousseau

Nietzsche

Aristotle

Bacon

Kant

Heidegger

St. Augustine

Descartes

Hegel

Derrida

Hobbes

Marx

Locke Concept of Truth /

Being of beings (for instance,

Being/nature to be studied

Nature or Being is replaced

History is still the

Being

humanity) understood as the

outside of ends – beings

by History as what provides

determinative horizon of

nature (phusis) of the being in its

are open to manipulation

the standard; here, history

beings, but history is found

unfolding toward its proper end

by man

is understood as having an

to have no telos: “Radical

end: “Historicism”

Historicism”

History with Telos

History without Telos

(telos)

Nature with Telos

Nature without Telos

49

THE FIRST WAVE OF MODERNITY →

According to the classical conception, all beings have an enduring nature and their own, PROPER ENDS or purposes (in accordance with the all-governing intention of Logos or God)

→

With the modern revolution, the notion of an enduring nature is retained, but the “final cause” or intention behind things is abandoned

→

Things can now be seen as MEANS TO ENDS POSITED BY HUMANS

→

This sense of a human rationality that manipulates things to its own ends coincides with what could be called a general “IMPERIAL DISPOSITION” of modernity – a commanding mastery over: • • • •

Newly discovered lands Raw materials Peoples … All beings 50

THE STATE OF NATURE →

Beings as a whole are stripped of their “ends” or final causes – thus, so are human beings • •

→

Modern political thinking is founded on SOCIAL CONTRACT THEORY – itself founded on thought experiments with respect to a hypothetical “state of nature” – humans stripped of civilization, society, government • •

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Classical political thinking begins with the determination of the “ends of man” – how humans “ought” to live Modern political thinking turns to the “beginnings of man”

Note: this method reflects a burgeoning scientific, experimental method Note: Crusoe refers to his own capacities in his “mere State of Nature” (86)

In this state of nature, there is a “war of all against all” (Hobbes) – all fight for self-preservation and live in fear of violent death 51

THE STATE OF NATURE →

Seeking SELF-PRESERVATION and RADICAL FREEDOM both seem to be in accordance with nature as demonstrated by this thought experiment •

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Crusoe ultimately decides to kill the cannibals, reasoning that he is justified in doing so as it is a matter of self-preservation (144) – at other times, he seriously questions if he has an “authority” to do so just because they have different customs than he (124; 167-68)

The FEAR OF VIOLENT DEATH is the most powerful feeling for Hobbes – thus, we are willing to sacrifice some of our natural right to freedom in order to garner a higher degree of security • •

See page 36: the state of nature on the island is “nasty, brutish and short” – here, Crusoe’s paralyzing fear is described See page 112-13: this paralyzing fear returns after seeing a footprint in the sand

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THE STATE OF NATURE →

Locke agrees with Hobbes on every point, but adds that security and self-preservation also require PRIVATE PROPERTY • •

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Private property arises when humans add labour to the commonly held products of nature This is the logic behind Robinson Crusoe’s having claimed ownership of the island – through labour he has appropriated this portion of nature

The roots of MODERN LIBERALISM here: • •

The ends or meanings we find in our lives as individuals will always be own affair What we can all agree upon is that we seek to preserve ourselves and that Government should secure the means (including securing private property) to our own individually defined ends

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CONCLUSION →

Robinson Crusoe is the FIRST MODERN NOVEL: • • •

Extended prose fiction Realism Particular, and novel story – vs, medieval allegory

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The structure of Robinson Crusoe, with its prevalence of religious themes, also seems to point to older forms of SPIRITUAL ALLEGORY

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However, more prevalently, Robinson Crusoe seems to embody modernity’s focus on the practical affairs of securing this worldly power: • As a SOVEREIGN IMPERIAL SUBJECT – securing objects as beings for the use of human power • As HOMO ECONOMICUS – securing economic value through the rational calculation of utility • As bearer of MODERN NATURAL RIGHT – right to self-preservation, to the pursuit of individual ends 54