Page 65 - Vinkler, Jonatan, Ana Beguš and Marcello Potocco. Eds. 2019. Ideology in the 20th Century: Studies of literary and social discourses and practices. Koper: University of Primorska Press
P. 65
Epistemology, Ideology, and Literature ... 65
to gain and convey knowledge. Whatever other motives, arising from his
missionary work, encouraged him to publish, after he spent two decades
in America, a grammar and a dictionary of Ojibwe,4 this experience sure-
ly somehow shaped his intellectual profile and deterred him from joining
into the violent Anglicization of Native Americans.
The work Ancient Society (1877) by the American anthropologists
Lewis Henry Morgan shows a slight change in the anthropological dis-
course that happened in the four decades after Baraga published his book
on Native Americans. A considerable part of Morgans work that re-
ceived much attention, discusses the complex structures of the Iroquois
society. The discourse had become strictly scientific, objective and neu-
tral. This alleged objectivity and neutrality is based on one single point
of view, i.e. on the external observer. No changing between internal and
external view—as Linhart would use—is possible, no first person narra-
tion to retell personal experiences—as Baraga would do—is allowed any
more. This ‘zero point epistemology’ (Mignolo 2009, 159) is the bedrock
of the European ‘epistemological hegemony’ (Castro-Gómez 2010, 287)
that the authors of decolonial studies focus on in their critical inquir-
ies. These studies, developed mostly by South American scholars, disa-
gree with the assumption that colonialism reached its end. Instead, they
unveil the means and strategies of its ‘postmodern reorganization’ (Cas-
tro-Gómez 2010, 282). “The coexistence of diverse ways of producing and
transmitting knowledge is eliminated because now all forms of human
knowledge are ordered on an epistemological scale from the tradition-
al to the modern, from barbarism to civilization, from the community
to the individual, from the orient to the occident” (Castro-Gómez 2010,
287). One such scale can be found in Morgans work. He lists the ‘ethni-
cal periods’, ranking them from ‘savagery’, over ‘barbarism’, to ‘civiliza-
tion’. While ‘savagery’ and ‘barbarism’ are further subdivided in a ‘lower’
or ‘older’, a ‘middle’, and an ‘upper’ or ‘later’ period, ‘civilization’ stands,
monolithic, for itself (Morgan 1877, 10–12). Morgan adopts a neutral po-
sition, external and objective, a ‘zero point’ of view. At the same time, he
imposes the main criterion for the ranking of ethnical periods, defining it
as the “Supremacy of Mankind over the Earth” (ix). With this, he divides
men from the Earth and puts them in an oppositional and potentially hi-
erarchical relation. The relation of the external observer to the observed
4 After the reprint of the dictionary in 1992, Anton Treuer wrote that was “probably
the largest Ojibwe dictionary published to date”, but had problems with the “orthog-
raphy and dialect inconsistencies”. Similar problems make it difficult to read Baragas
writings in Slovenian today (Treuer 1995, 1003).
to gain and convey knowledge. Whatever other motives, arising from his
missionary work, encouraged him to publish, after he spent two decades
in America, a grammar and a dictionary of Ojibwe,4 this experience sure-
ly somehow shaped his intellectual profile and deterred him from joining
into the violent Anglicization of Native Americans.
The work Ancient Society (1877) by the American anthropologists
Lewis Henry Morgan shows a slight change in the anthropological dis-
course that happened in the four decades after Baraga published his book
on Native Americans. A considerable part of Morgans work that re-
ceived much attention, discusses the complex structures of the Iroquois
society. The discourse had become strictly scientific, objective and neu-
tral. This alleged objectivity and neutrality is based on one single point
of view, i.e. on the external observer. No changing between internal and
external view—as Linhart would use—is possible, no first person narra-
tion to retell personal experiences—as Baraga would do—is allowed any
more. This ‘zero point epistemology’ (Mignolo 2009, 159) is the bedrock
of the European ‘epistemological hegemony’ (Castro-Gómez 2010, 287)
that the authors of decolonial studies focus on in their critical inquir-
ies. These studies, developed mostly by South American scholars, disa-
gree with the assumption that colonialism reached its end. Instead, they
unveil the means and strategies of its ‘postmodern reorganization’ (Cas-
tro-Gómez 2010, 282). “The coexistence of diverse ways of producing and
transmitting knowledge is eliminated because now all forms of human
knowledge are ordered on an epistemological scale from the tradition-
al to the modern, from barbarism to civilization, from the community
to the individual, from the orient to the occident” (Castro-Gómez 2010,
287). One such scale can be found in Morgans work. He lists the ‘ethni-
cal periods’, ranking them from ‘savagery’, over ‘barbarism’, to ‘civiliza-
tion’. While ‘savagery’ and ‘barbarism’ are further subdivided in a ‘lower’
or ‘older’, a ‘middle’, and an ‘upper’ or ‘later’ period, ‘civilization’ stands,
monolithic, for itself (Morgan 1877, 10–12). Morgan adopts a neutral po-
sition, external and objective, a ‘zero point’ of view. At the same time, he
imposes the main criterion for the ranking of ethnical periods, defining it
as the “Supremacy of Mankind over the Earth” (ix). With this, he divides
men from the Earth and puts them in an oppositional and potentially hi-
erarchical relation. The relation of the external observer to the observed
4 After the reprint of the dictionary in 1992, Anton Treuer wrote that was “probably
the largest Ojibwe dictionary published to date”, but had problems with the “orthog-
raphy and dialect inconsistencies”. Similar problems make it difficult to read Baragas
writings in Slovenian today (Treuer 1995, 1003).
