Insofar as one could actually exist, the ideal reporter might be described as: objective, unbiased, and without agenda (and, you know, smart and good at writing). In the blog-era, though--when your news outlet of choice can be as partisan (and as poorly edited) as you'd like--this kind of reporting is increasingly rare, often relegated to the wasteland of the "literary essay." (I'm going to go ahead and be your typical college kid by saying: David Foster Wallace does this best, for me.)
Don't let the polemical blogophobes mislead you, though--this habit of skewing the facts is far from unique to this Internet Age. Look not further than this week's reading for some prime examples. "Hariot's Report on Virginia" paints an almost comically subjective portrait of the natives, one that island-bound Englishmen (and women) were heartily digesting as truth. Hariot does his best to de-fang the natives, describing them as hopelessly child-like and fractured, without even the capability to unite and fight potential colonizers. (Rather, they're endlessly impressed by and receptive to European visitors.) He gives a long, highly condescending description of their religion, noting that "it be far from the truth." (940) (Imagine reading that in the New Yorker.)
What the actual "truth" is is hard to suss out; the objective, factual tone of the piece reads like an excerpt from Gulliver's Travels (which, if I'm not mistaken, is a parody of this kind of "Truthful" travel writing). The Norton Anthology provides a valuable lens to view the piece through: they say the account was "intended to promote colonization" (939)--not, in other words, to provide a fair and balanced view of a new world. Whatever downsides there may be (and I'm not an expert in this field, but based on the "Wider World" intro I can at least posit death at sea and foreign diseases) to colonization are entirely downplayed.
It brings to mind the photography of Thomas Eakins, who in the late 19th century used his camera to show Easterners what Yosemite Valley in California was like. By artfully blocking and manipulating his images, he created in the public mind an image of Yosemite that was barren, pristine, and devoid of any natives. By omitting certain details and amplifying certain others, he motivated people to colonize the West, the same way that Hariot motivates people to colonize Virgina.
Hariot's view of the natives--as emotion-and-spirit-nourished primitives--contributed to the popular notion of the Native American, one that would persist well into the early 20th century (see: early Cubist painting, which looked to get in touch with the un-rational world that Hariot describes here). Eerily enough, he expresses no serious remorse about the disease his people wrought on the natives,
treating it as yet another piece of ethnology. One wishes they had the natives side of the story.
I think it was great how you were able to relate the literary ideas of what we were reading back to a modern context. I feel Harriet conveys successfully the idea of multiple perspectives, and how each of these positions impact your way of thinking. I think it's important to touch on the effectiveness of a writer, who with enough ability can convince readers of almost anything, looking at fiction as if it were true.
ReplyDeleteThe passage about the disease was particularly interesting to me precisely because there was that striking lack of remorse or any morality. This fits pretty well with your thesis because it seems that Hariot was using the disease to show the native's weakness, their ignorance, and the ease with which they can be controlled and manipulated. The way Hariot framed the disease and the natives' reaction continues to paint the pictures of natives who should not be feared.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Daniel. I love the connections you make among Hariot, Swift, blog news, Eakins, cubist art, etc.
ReplyDeleteWhat I also like is that you take Hariot seriously. It seems so often we're guilty of, to use your wording, "de-fanging" people from the past. Hariot views the natives as though they're children; we sometimes do the same with those who lived hundreds of years ago. But people are complex, and moving across space (say, across the Atlantic) *and* time (say, back to c. 1600) allows us to see more, not less complexity.
I totally agree that the Natives were not described in the best light at points throughout our readings and in different accounts. Point of view is something that greatly affects a reader's take on a work. The point of view in some of the works showed the Natives in a negative light in which they were not an evolved people. However, the Natives made out fine for them selves without many of the resources other places in this world had at the time. I guess it always easier to put yourself in a better light than others especially when its for an audience.
ReplyDeleteI love that you tied our reading in with current events/the current news model because it really made it interesting to read! It’s interesting to connect blogging with the reporting that was being done so many years ago, but I definitely see where you draw the connection. This rumination was also really informative – I learned a lot just from reading this! Harriot’s complete skewing of the facts definitely relates back that this was basically a piece of propaganda for colonization – he did not have a reporter’s mindset, but an advertiser’s mindset while writing it. Definitely a persuasive pieces of literature, which you touched on. Great rumination!
ReplyDeleteI would agree with your initial statement that an Ideal Reporter would be objective, unbiased, and without an agenda. Unfortunately, as you point out, that's like trying to find a needle in a haystack both back in the 16th century and today. Comparing Hariot's report to Swift's "Gulliver's Travels" was an excellent idea since Hariot is downplaying the dangers of a new world as much as Swift was blowing them up. Perhaps if Hariot and other writers had been more truthful (he couldnt be the only one advertising the new world) the colonoization would have turned out somewhat differently than it did.
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