Do not eat this fruit
Posted on March 20, 2003 @ 22:05 in General
In 1772 Diderot wrote a piece called "Supplement to the voyage of Bougainville, or dialogue between A and B on the inappropriateness of attaching moral ideas to certain physical actions that do not accord with them." This richly layered text takes off on the account of Bougainville, commander of a French maritime expedition, who published an account of his voyage around the world in 1771. In Diderot's text, the visit of the expedition to Tahiti plays a central role and offers him a setting for exploring ideas of different but not necessarily worse cultures, and ideas of what laws govern mankind.
In Diderot's rendering of Bougainville's account, when the ship arrives on Tahiti, the sailors are initially warmly welcomed and the Tahitians are portrayed as "noble savages". Especially noteworthy is their frankness about sexuality, their apparent lack of shame and their women's bare breasts. According to their tradition, the Tahitians even offer their visitors to sleep with their women and daughters. In Diderot's story, the ship's chaplain is welcomed in this way by one of the villagers, Orou, and of course finds himself in a rather difficult emotional and social situation, especially when he's told that he should not offend his hosts by refusing their hospitality. A long discussion ensues between Orou and the chaplain in which Orou's role mainly is to question the chaplain about his beliefs and the laws and mechanics of the chaplain's world. Somehow, many of the questions that this fictional two centuries old Tahitian poses to the equally old and fictional chaplain, seemed very pertinent to this particular moment in space and time as I read Diderot's story this morning. Below follows a quote from Orou that really caught my eye (about which I maybe should add that the chaplain previously explained to Orou that his "God" could be likened to a "great craftsman who made this world and everything in it"):
Yesterday at supper you talked to us about magistrates and priests. I don't know what you mean by 'magistrates' and 'priests', who have the authority to regulate your conduct, but tell me, are they masters of good and evil? Can they make what is just unjust, and transform what is unjust into what's just? Can they make harmful actions good, and innocent ones evil? One would hardly think so, since nothing could then be true or false, good or evil, beautiful or ugly, unless it pleased your great craftsman and his magistrates and priests to deem them so; in which case you'd be obliged, from one moment to another, to change your beliefs and conduct. One day, on behalf of one of your three masters you'd be told, 'Kill', and you'd then be obliged in conscience to kill; another day, 'Steal', and you'd then have to steal; or 'Do not eat this fruit', and you wouldn't dare eat it; 'I forbid you this plant or animal', and you'd refrain from touching them. There's nothing good that couldn't be forbidden, nothing evil that might not be required of you. And where would you be if your three masters, out of sorts with one another, took it upon themselves to permit you, command you, and forbid you the very same thing, as I suspect must happen often? Then, to please the priest, you'll be forced to displease the great craftsman; and to satisfy the great craftsman, you'll have to abandon Nature. And do you know what will happen then? You'll come to despise all three of them, and you'll be neither a man, nor a citizen, nor a true believer. You'll be nothing. You'll be out of favour with each form of authority, at odds with yourself, malicious, tormented by your heart, miserable and persecuted by your senseless masters, as I saw you yesterday when I offered my daughters and wife to you, and you cried out, 'But my religion; but my holy orders!'
(Thanks to Stijn who brough this piece to the attention of the PhD club)
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