Editing Noble savage (section)

==Uses of the stereotype==
===Romantic primitivism===
In the 1st century CE, in the book ''[[Germania (book)|Germania]]'', Tacitus ascribed to the Germans the cultural superiority of the ''noble savage'' way of life, because Rome was too civilized, unlike the savage Germans.<ref>Lovejoy, A. O. and Boas, G. ''Primitivism and Related Ideas in Antiquity'', Baltimore, I, 1935. pp. 0000.</ref> The art historian [[Erwin Panofsky]] explains that:

{{blockquote|text=There had been, from the beginning of Classical speculation, two contrasting opinions about the [[state of nature|natural state of man]], each of them, of course, a "Gegen-Konstruktion" to the conditions under which it was formed. One view, termed "soft" primitivism in an illuminating book by Lovejoy and Boas, conceives of primitive life as a golden age of plenty, innocence, and happiness — in other words, as civilized life purged of its vices. The other, "hard" form of primitivism conceives of primitive life as an almost subhuman existence full of terrible hardships and devoid of all comforts — in other words, as civilized life stripped of its virtues.<ref>Erwin Panofsky, "Et in Arcadia Ego", in ''Meaning in the Visual Arts'' (New York: Doubleday, 1955).</ref>|author=Et in Arcadia Ego: Poussin and the Elegiac Tradition (1936)}}

In the novel ''[[The Adventures of Telemachus|The Adventures of Telemachus, Son of Ulysses]]'' (1699), in the “Encounter with the Mandurians” (Chapter IX), the theologian [[François Fénelon]] presented the ''noble savage'' stock character in conversation with civilized men from Europe about possession and ownership of [[Nature]]:

{{blockquote|text=On our arrival upon this coast we found there a savage race who {{omission}} lived by hunting and by the fruits which the trees spontaneously produced. These people {{omission}} were greatly surprised and alarmed by the sight of our ships and arms and retired to the mountains. But since our soldiers were curious to see the country and hunt deer, they were met by some of these savage fugitives.<br>

The leaders of the savages accosted them thus: “We abandoned for you, the pleasant sea-coast, so that we have nothing left, but these almost inaccessible mountains: at least, it is just that you leave us in peace and liberty. Go, and never forget that you owe your lives to our feeling of humanity. Never forget that it was from a people whom you call rude and savage that you receive this lesson in gentleness and generosity. {{omission}} We abhor that brutality which, under the gaudy names of ambition and glory, {{omission}} sheds the blood of men who are all brothers. {{omission}} We value health, frugality, liberty, and vigor of body and mind: the love of virtue, the fear of the gods, a natural goodness toward our neighbors, attachment to our friends, fidelity to all the world, moderation in prosperity, fortitude in adversity, courage always bold to speak the truth, and abhorrence of flattery. {{omission}}<br>

If the offended gods so far blind you as to make you reject peace, you will find, when it is too late, that the people who are moderate and lovers of peace are the most formidable in war.”|author=Encounter with the Mandurians|source=''The Adventures of Telemachus, Son of Ulysses'' (1699)<ref>François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, Encounter with the Mandurians, in Chapter IX of ''Telemachus, Son of Ulysses'', Patrick Riley, translator (Cambridge University Press, 1994), pp. 130–131; Riley's translation is based on the translation by Tobias Smollett, 1776 (op. cit. p. xvii).</ref>}}

In the 18th century, British intellectual debate about Primitivism used the Highland Scots as a local, European example of a mythical ''noble savage'' people, as often as the American Indians were the example. The English cultural perspective scorned the ostensibly rude [[Etiquette|manners]] of the Highlanders, whilst admiring and idealizing the toughness of person and character of the Highland Scots; the writer [[Tobias Smollett]] described the Highlanders:

{{blockquote|They greatly excel the Lowlanders in all the exercises that require agility; they are incredibly abstemious, and patient of hunger and fatigue; so steeled against the weather, that in traveling, even when the ground is covered with snow, they never look for a house, or any other shelter but their plaid, in which they wrap themselves up, and go to sleep under the cope of heaven. Such people, in quality of soldiers, must be invincible. . . .|''The Expedition of Humphry Clinker'' (1771)<ref>Smollett, Tobias, ''[[The Expedition of Humphry Clinker]]'' (1771) London: Penguin Books, 1967, p. 292.</ref>}}In the Kingdom of France, critics of the Crown and Church risked censorship and summary imprisonment without trial, and primitivism was political protest against the repressive imperial règimes of [[Louis XIV of France|Louis XIV]] and [[Louis XV of France|Louis XV]]. In his travelogue of North America, the writer [[Louis-Armand de Lom d'Arce de Lahontan, Baron de Lahontan]], who had lived with the Huron Indians ([[Wyandot people]]), ascribed [[deist]] and [[Egalitarianism|egalitarian]] politics to Adario, a Canadian Indian who played the role of noble savage for French explorers:

{{blockquote|text=Adario sings the praises of [[natural religion|Natural Religion]]. {{omission}} As against society, he puts forward a sort of [[primitive Communism]], of which the certain fruits are Justice and a happy life. {{omission}} [The Savage] looks with compassion on poor civilized man — no courage, no strength, incapable of providing himself with food and shelter: a degenerate, a moral ''cretin'', a figure of fun in his blue coat, his red hose, his black hat, his white plume and his green ribands. He never really lives, because he is always torturing the life out of himself to clutch at wealth and honors, which, even if he wins them, will prove to be but glittering illusions. {{omission}} For science and the arts are but the parents of corruption. The Savage obeys the will of Nature, his kindly mother, therefore he is happy. It is civilized folk who are the real barbarians.|author=Paul Hazard|source=''The European Mind''<ref>See Paul Hazard, ''The European Mind (1680–1715)'' ([1937], 1969), pp. 13–14, and passim.</ref>}}

{{blockquote|text=Interest in the remote peoples of the Earth, in the unfamiliar civilizations of the East, in the untutored races of America and Africa, was vivid in France in the 18th century. Everyone knows how [[Voltaire]] and [[Montesquieu]] used Hurons or Persians to hold up the [looking] glass to Western manners and morals, as Tacitus used the Germans to criticize the society of Rome. But very few ever look into the seven volumes of the [[Abbé Raynal]]'s ''History of the Two Indies'', which appeared in 1772. It is however one of the most remarkable books of the century. Its immediate practical importance lay in the array of facts which it furnished to the friends of humanity in the movement against [[Atlantic slave trade|negro slavery]]. But it was also an effective attack on the Church and the sacerdotal system. {{omission}} Raynal brought home to the conscience of Europeans the miseries which had befallen the natives of the New World through the Christian conquerors and their priests. He was not indeed an enthusiastic preacher of Progress. He was unable to decide between the comparative advantages of the [[state of nature|savage state of nature]] and the most highly cultivated society. But he observes that "the human race is what we wish to make it", that the felicity of Man depends entirely on the improvement of legislation, and {{omission}} his view is generally optimistic.|author=J.B. Bury|source=''The Idea of Progress: an Inquiry into its Origins and Growth''<ref name="theideofprogress">{{cite book |title=The Idea of Progress: an Inquiry into its Origins and Growth|author=J.B. Bury |location=New York |edition=second |publisher=Cosimo Press |year=2008 |page=111}}</ref>}}

===Benjamin Franklin===
Benjamin Franklin was critical of government indifference to the [[Paxton Boys]] massacre of the [[Susquehannock]] in [[Lancaster County, Pennsylvania]] in December 1763. Within weeks of the murders, he published ''A Narrative of the Late Massacres in Lancaster County'', in which he referred to the Paxton Boys as "Christian white savages" and called for judicial punishment of those who carried the Bible in one hand and a hatchet in the other.<ref>{{cite web |title=A Narrative of the Late Massacres |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-11-02-0012 |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref>

When the Paxton Boys led an armed march on [[Philadelphia]] in February 1764, with the intent of killing the [[Moravian Church|Moravian]] [[Lenape]] and [[Mohicans|Mohican]] who had been given shelter there, Franklin recruited [[associators]] including [[Quakers]] to defend the city and led a delegation that met with the Paxton leaders at [[Germantown, Philadelphia|Germantown]] outside Philadelphia. The marchers dispersed after Franklin convinced them to submit their grievances in writing to the government.<ref name="Kenny">{{cite book |last1=Kenny |first1=Kevin |title=Peaceable Kingdom Lost: The Paxton Boys and the Destruction of William Penn's Holy Experiment |date=2009 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=9780199753949 |url=https://archive.org/details/peaceablekingdom0000kenn |url-access=registration}}</ref>

In his 1784 pamphlet ''Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America'', Franklin especially noted the racism inherent to the colonists using the word ''savage'' as a synonym for indigenous people:

{{blockquote|text=Savages" we call them, because their manners differ from ours, which we think the perfection of civility; they think the same of theirs.<ref>{{cite web |title=Remarks Concerning the Savages of North America |url=https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-41-02-0280 |website=Founders Online |publisher=National Archives |access-date=3 July 2023}}</ref>}}

Franklin praised the way of life of indigenous people, their customs of hospitality, their councils of government, and acknowledged that while some Europeans had foregone civilization to live like a "savage", the opposite rarely occurred, because few indigenous people chose "civilization" over "savagery".<ref name="ForgottenFoundersCh5">{{cite book |title=Forgotten Founders: Benjamin Franklin, the Iroquois, and the Rationale for the American Revolution |publisher=Gambit, Inc. |location=Ipswich, Massachusetts |isbn=9780876451113 |year=1982 |chapter=Chapter 5: The Philosopher as Savage|first=Bruce E. |last=Johansen |chapter-url=http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/FFchp5.html|author-link=Bruce E. Johansen}}</ref>

===Jean-Jacques Rousseau===
[[File:Allan Ramsay - Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778) - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|right|300px|Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) by [[Allan Ramsay (artist)|Allan Ramsay]] (1766) ]]
{{wikiquote|Jean-Jacques Rousseau and noble savage}}
Like the Earl of Shaftesbury in the ''Inquiry Concerning Virtue, or Merit'' (1699), [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] likewise believed that Man is innately good, and that urban civilization, characterized by jealousy, envy, and self-consciousness, has made men bad in character. In ''[[Discourse on Inequality|Discourse on the Origins of Inequality Among Men]]'' (1754), Rousseau said that in the primordial [[state of nature]], man was a solitary creature who was not ''méchant'' (bad), but was possessed of an "innate repugnance to see others of his kind suffer."<ref>Lovejoy (1923, 1948) p. 21.</ref>

Moreover, as the ''[[philosophe]]'' of the [[Jacobin (politics)|Jacobin radicals]] of the French Revolution (1789–1799), ideologues accused Rousseau of claiming that the mythical ''noble savage'' was a real type of man, despite the term not appearing in work written by Rousseau;<ref>Ellingson, Ter. (2001).</ref> in addressing ''The Supposed Primitivism of Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality'' (1923), the academic Arthur O. Lovejoy said that:

{{blockquote|text=The notion that Rousseau’s ''Discourse on Inequality'' was essentially a glorification of the State of Nature, and that its influence tended to wholly or chiefly to promote “Primitivism” is one of the most persistent historical errors.<ref>Lovejoy, A.O. ''The Supposed Primitivism of Rousseau's Discourse on Inequality'' (1923) in ''Modern Philology'', Vol. 21, No. 2 (Nov. 1923):165–186, Lovejoy's essay was reprinted in ''Essays in the History of Ideas''. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, [1948, 1955, and 1960], at [https://www.jstor.org/stable/433742 JSTOR].</ref>}}

In the ''Discourse on the Origins of Inequality'', Rousseau said that the rise of humanity began a "formidable struggle for existence" between the species man and the other animal species of Nature.<ref>(Lovejoy (1960), p. 23)</ref> That under the pressure of survival emerged ''le caractère spécifique de l'espèce humaine'', the specific quality of character, which distinguishes man from beast, such as [[intelligence]] capable of "almost unlimited development", and the ''faculté de se perfectionner'', the capability of perfecting himself.<ref>Lovejoy (1960), p. 24.</ref>

Having invented tools, discovered fire, and transcended the state of nature, Rousseau said that "it is easy to see. . . . that all our labors are directed upon two objects only, namely, for oneself, the commodities of life, and consideration on the part of others"; thus ''amour propre'' (self-regard) is a "factitious feeling arising, only in society, which leads a man to think more highly of himself than of any other." Therefore, "it is this desire for reputation, honors, and preferment which devours us all . . . this rage to be distinguished, that we own what is best and worst in men — our virtues and our vices, our sciences and our errors, our conquerors and our philosophers — in short, a vast number of evil things and a small number of good [things]"; that is the aspect of character "which inspires men to all the evils which they inflict upon one another."<ref>Rousseau, ''Discourse on the Origins of Inequality'' quoted in Lovejoy (1960), p. 27.</ref>

Men become men only in a civil society based upon law, and only a reformed system of education can make men good; the academic Lovejoy explains that:

{{blockquote|text=For Rousseau, man's good lay in departing from his "natural" state — but not too much; "perfectability", up to a certain point, was desirable, though beyond that point an evil. Not its infancy but its ''jeunesse'' [youth] was the best age of the human race. The distinction may seem to us slight enough; but in the mid-eighteenth century it amounted to an abandonment of the stronghold of the [[Primitivism|primitivistic]] position. Nor was this the whole of the difference. As compared with the then-conventional pictures of the savage state, Rousseau's account, even of this third stage, is far less idyllic; and it is so because of his fundamentally unfavorable view of human nature ''quâ'' human. {{omission}} [Rousseau's] savages are quite unlike Dryden's Indians: "Guiltless men, that danced away their time, / Fresh as the groves and happy as their clime" or Mrs. [[Aphra Behn]]'s natives of [[Surinam (Dutch colony)|Surinam]], who represented an absolute idea of the first state of innocence "before men knew how to sin." The men in Rousseau's "nascent society" already had 'bien des querelles et des combats" [many quarrels and fights]; ''l'amour propre'' was already manifest in them {{omission}} and slights or affronts were consequently visited with ''vengeances terribles.''<ref>See Lovejoy (1960), p. 31.</ref>}}

Rousseau proposes reorganizing society with a [[social contract]] that will "draw from the very evil from which we suffer the remedy which shall cure it"; Lovejoy notes that in the ''Discourse on the Origins of Inequality'', Rousseau:

{{blockquote|text=...declares that there is a dual process going on through history; on the one hand, an indefinite progress in all those powers and achievements which express merely the potency of man's [[intellect]]; on the other hand, an increasing estrangement of men from one another, an intensification of ill-will and mutual fear, culminating in a monstrous epoch of universal conflict and mutual destruction. And the chief cause of the latter process Rousseau, following Hobbes and [Bernard] [[Bernard Mandeville|Mandeville]], found, as we have seen, in that unique passion of the self-conscious animal — pride, self esteem, ''le besoin de se mettre au dessus des autres'' [the need to put oneself above others]. A large survey of history does not belie these generalizations, and the history of the period since Rousseau wrote lends them a melancholy verisimilitude. Precisely the two processes, which he described have {{omission}} been going on upon a scale beyond all precedent: immense progress in man's knowledge and in his powers over nature, and, at the same time, a steady increase of rivalries, distrust, hatred and, at last, "the most horrible state of war" {{omission}} [Moreover, Rousseau] failed to realize fully how strongly ''amour propre'' tended to assume a collective form {{omission}} in pride of [[Race (biology)|race]], of [[nationality]], of [[Social class|class]].<ref>Lovejoy (1960), p. 36.</ref>}}

===Charles Dickens===
In 1853, in the weekly magazine ''[[Household Words]]'', Charles Dickens published a negative review of the Indian Gallery cultural program, by the portraitist [[George Catlin]], which then was touring England. About Catlin's oil paintings of the North American natives, the poet and critic [[Charles Baudelaire]] said that "He [Catlin] has brought back alive the proud and free characters of these chiefs; both their [[nobility]] and manliness."<ref>Eisler, ''The Red Man's Bones'' (0000), p. 326.</ref>
[[File:William Fisk - George Catlin - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|right|250px| For European art collectors, the American portraitist ''George Catlin'' painted idealized representations of the North American noble savage. ([[William Fisk (painter)|William Fisk]], 1849)]]
[[File:George Catlin - Sha-có-pay, The Six, Chief of the Plains Ojibwa - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|right|250px|The Noble Savage as stereotype: [[Sha-có-pay]], Chief of the Ojibwa Indians of the Great Plains. (George Catlin, 1832)]]

Despite European idealization of the mythical noble savage as a type of morally superior man, in the essay “The Noble Savage” (1853), Dickens expressed repugnance for the American Indians and their way of life, because they were dirty and cruel and continually quarrelled among themselves.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20100521073634/http://www.readbookonline.net/readOnLine/2529/ "The Noble Savage"]</ref> In the satire of [[Primitivism|romanticised primitivism]] Dickens showed that the painter Catlin, the Indian Gallery of portraits and landscapes, and the white people who admire the idealized American Indians or the [[San people|bushmen]] of Africa are examples of the term ''noble savage'' used as a means of [[Other (philosophy)|Othering]] a person into a [[Racialism|racialist stereotype]].<ref name="ReappraisingDickens'sNobleSavage">Moore, "Reappraising Dickens's 'Noble Savage'"(2002): 236–243.</ref> Dickens begins by dismissing the mythical noble savage as not being a distinct human being:

{{blockquote|text=To come to the point at once, I beg to say that I have not the least belief in the Noble Savage. I consider him a prodigious nuisance and an enormous superstition. . . . <ref>Dickens, Charles. "The Noble Savage" (1853) p. 000.</ref><br>

I don't care what he calls me. I call him a savage, and I call a savage a something highly desirable to be civilized off the face of the Earth. . . . <ref>Dickens, Charles. "The Noble Savage" (1853) p. 000.</ref><br>

The noble savage sets a king to reign over him, to whom he submits his life and limbs without a murmur or question, and whose whole life is passed chin deep in a lake of blood; but who, after killing incessantly, is in his turn killed by his relations and friends the moment a grey hair appears on his head. All the noble savage's wars with his fellow-savages (and he takes no pleasure in anything else) are wars of extermination — which is the best thing I know of him, and the most comfortable to my mind when I look at him. He has no moral feelings of any kind, sort, or description; and his "mission" may be summed up as simply diabolical.<ref>Dickens, Charles. "The Noble Savage" (1853) p. 000.</ref>}}

Dickens ends his cultural criticism by reiterating his argument against the romanticized ''[[persona]]'' of the mythical noble savage:

{{blockquote|text=To conclude as I began. My position is that if we have anything to learn from the Noble Savage it is what to avoid. His virtues are a fable; his happiness is a delusion; his nobility, nonsense. We have no greater justification for being cruel to the miserable object, than for being cruel to a WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE or an ISAAC NEWTON; but he passes away before an immeasurably better and higher power than ever ran wild in any earthly woods, and the world will be all the better when this place [Earth] knows him no more.<ref>Dickens, Charles. "The Noble Savage" (1853) p. 000.</ref>}}

===Theories of racialism===
In 1860, the physician [[John Crawfurd]] and the anthropologist [[James Hunt (speech therapist)|James Hunt]] identified the racial stereotype of ''the noble savage'' as an example of [[scientific racism]],<ref>Ellingson (2001), pp. 249–323.</ref> yet, as advocates of [[polygenism]] — that each [[Race (human categorization)|race]] is a distinct species of Man — Crawfurd and Hunt dismissed the arguments of their opponents by accusing them of being proponents of "Rousseau's Noble Savage". Later in his career, Crawfurd re-introduced the ''noble savage'' term to modern [[anthropology]] and deliberately ascribed coinage of the term to Jean-Jacques Rousseau.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://epress.anu.edu.au/foreign_bodies/mobile_devices/ch03s02.html |title=John Crawfurd – 'two separate races' | publisher=Epress.anu.edu.au |date= October 2008|doi=10.22459/FB.11.2008 |access-date=2009-02-23|isbn=9781921536007 |editor1-last=Douglas |editor1-first=Bronwen |editor2-first=Chris |editor2-last=Ballard |doi-access=free }}</ref>