Underconsumed: The Conquest of America (II)

First, I see that Todorov does in fact frame his story as historical.  It's harder to excuse his historical failings, then.  I'm still planning on arguing that he doesn't pay enough attention to Las Casas' role as the mediator of our texts (on page 31 he refers to a note that Las Casas wrote "in the margins of Columbus's journal"), nor does he consider the historical context of the Spanish Reconquista of Granada when he claims on page 12 that "even his form of religiosity is quite archaic (for the period)".  There is a bit on the Reconquista at the end of the third chapter, which excuses Todorov somewhat. I need to call greater attention to the way Todorov paints Colón as anti-human.  "Gold is too human a value to interest Columbus to any real degree," he says on p. 9, and Colón's relationship with the Taínos is also anti-human.  In fact, Todorov associates both goldlust and regular lust with the Spaniards' "human side" (42).  So I can continue to claim that Todorov paints Colón as an other--not human, not modern.  I've got to add, though, more about Colón's one modern characteristic: his delight in discovery for the sake of discovery.  However, Todorov doesn't really believe that Colón values discovery as an intrinsic good; like gold, it's really just another means to an end. I should say some more about the possible ethical consequences of the rejection of interpretation (delight in nature for nature's sake).  Don't have any thoughts right now, but there should be something here to say. When I discuss Colón's nominalism, I should cite this passage: "Colón's failure to recognize the diversity of languages permits him, when he confronts a foreign tongue, only two possible, and complementary, forms of behavior: to acknowledge it as a language but to refuse to believe it is different; or to acknowledge its difference but to refuse to admit it is a language" (30).  So even in Colón's attitude towards language, we fail to see him recognize both identity and alterity. Perhaps I should say more about the way Colón portrays the Taínos as an absence. I should say more about the way Todorov associates his two poles of egocentricity--identity and alterity--with two related aspects of the Conquest: evangelization (identity) and economic exploitation (alterity). Perhaps I should do some more with the idea that Colón both reveals and rejects alterity.  This seems like a minor thought, though.

The conquest of America, the question of the other

The conquest of America, the question of the other

The semiotic conquest of America

European conquest and the rights of indigenous peoples, the moral backwardness of international society

War in the early modern world