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Civilization vs savagery meaning2/9/2024 It is important to keep in mind it is largely agreed upon that Shakespeare had access to literature of his day surrounding colonialism and European encounters with new peoples. Prospero and Miranda get to enjoy membership in this same non-Caliban category, even though their similarities end at the fact that they simply are not Caliban. As Jenna notes, in Shakespeare on the Green’s production he is given “outsider-status and condemned him to be unsympathetic.” In the Dramatis Personae section of the Dover Thrift edition of The Tempest, Caliban is described as “a savage and deformed Slave.” Prospero tells him he is “earth” is Act I, Scene II, giving a clear image that Caliban is both other from he and Miranda, but also inherently lower or lesser. The same can be observed in Shakespeare’s The Tempest: Caliban is categorized as a lesser being that Prospero and Miranda, and his categorization as such allows these other characters to have a stable identity based on that which they are not. “Civilization” can only be recognized by the creation of this other thing which Morgan’s theory calls “savagery” or “barbarism.” Without these other categories that civilization is meant to not be, there would be no stable identity for it to lean on. Roach says that the result of an ingroup’s creation of an outgroup is “a mobile, conflictual fusion of power, fear, and desire in the construction of subjectivity: a psychological dependence upon precisely those Others which are being rigorously opposed and excluded at the social level.” In the context of the ladder of cultural evolution, this is seen in the fact that the highest categorization, “civilization,” relies as much on what it is not–the characteristics of “barbarism” and “savagery”–as it does on the values it supposedly espouses (order, morality, etc). However, this did little mitigate the resultant bigotry that the theory–at least to some–justified.Īfter reading Jenna’s post “ Caliban, Colonialism, and Me,” I saw some connections between The Tempest, Morgan’s theory, and the “othering” described by Roach in Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance. Aligning his theory with that of Charles Darwin, Morgan proposed that it was possible for a culture to evolve from one category to the next. “Savagery” was the lowest, most undesirable state that was equated with a complete absence of law, order, and morality. “Barbarism” denoted those cultures in transition towards civilization who still had some “backward” ways to correct. “Civilization” consisted of the Western ideals of private property and christian morality. Morgan’s scale had three distinct categories: civilized, barbarian, and savage. His theory, accepted as scientific at the time, suggested that there was a natural hierarchy between cultures that supported racial prejudice and subjugation of the perceived lesser peoples. Lewis Henry Morgan, a nineteenth century anthropologist, is credited with bringing the idea of the “ ladder of cultural evolution” to the public.
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