A couple of weeks back we were granted the treat of listening to Dr Nicole Perry discuss German ‘indianthusiasm’, the obsession and idolisation of Native Americans by Germans throughout modern history. This was a topic that I had absolutely no knowledge of, and I was thus intrigued to hear what she had to say. The Germans have historically been obsessed with an outdated image of Native Americans as noble representatives of an archaic age of purity.
This concept of the ‘noble savage’ is not exclusive to Germany. The condescending idolisation of Native Americans specifically goes back to Rousseau. Both Locke and Rousseau used Native American societies as evidence for their political theories, contemporary examples of the theoretical ‘state of nature.’ This is part of a wider trend in Western philosophy. It was common historical practice for theorists to use broad references to non-European societies to justify their arguments. Non-European societies were used as case studies of various forms of political organisation or civilisational stages. For example China was generally used to illustrate a ‘stagnant’ society and India was used by John Stuart Mill as an example of a country not yet civilised enough to gain the liberty he advocated. The cardinal sinners here are historical theorists like Marx and Engels, who drew on broad understandings of cultures (both contemporary and historical) from across time to verify their materialist narrative.
These kinds of broad understanding are no substitute for a genuine engagement with the complexity of the culture in question. To view all Native American tribes as representatives of a single ‘state of nature’ obscures the diverse forms of political and spiritual practice which existed between tribes, resulting in a distorted philosophy as a result.
