Heart of Darkness in Fort Hood
In Conrad's "Heart of Darkness," the central figure- deep in Africa, in the Central Station- is Kurtz, a "universal genius," we are told, a man in Leopold's Congo not for the sordid mercenary aims of the other Europeans in the story, but the author of "a beautiful piece of writing" addressed to the "International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs."
It contained much rhetoric, but no practical suggestions- except, the narrator, Marlow, notes, for one scrawled postscript to the 'edifying' manuscript:
"Exterminate all the brutes!"
When Marlow approaches the Central Station, he sees what seem to be round knobs on the palisade, but which are actually the shrunken heads of some of these 'brutes.'
Kurtz is, we are told, "the product of all Europe." His adoring bride to be considers him to have been the perfection of every noble trait. Marlow does not have the heart to tell her the truth.
The irony, then, is that of a humanitarian becoming even more inhuman than his fellow pillagers of Africa, whose motives are clearly base, under a thin veneer of bringing "progress". Is there a similar irony in this terse description of Major Hasan's impending deployment to another wilderness:
An Army spokeswoman says the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings had been scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan to counsel soldiers suffering from combat stress.
The contradiction between Kurtz' supposed aims, and his "methods," are only too apparent in the novel. But the problem is not just Kurtz. The problem is that the "pilgrims" from Europe- and the religious connotation is deliberate and apt- are destroying what Kurtz wants to "save"- so he says, and there is no reason to doubt he means it, though his "methods" reflect the underlying horrors of the situation- the Europeans are monsters masquerading as gods.
We should fight wars with drones, if we are going to be as high-minded as Kurtz about our aims, if we are going to be humanitarians in distant places we are clueless about and where we do not understand what we are supposed to do. Drones do not require psychological counsel, nor do they go berserk under stress. (Their operators do, but their numbers are smaller and more manageable.).
It contained much rhetoric, but no practical suggestions- except, the narrator, Marlow, notes, for one scrawled postscript to the 'edifying' manuscript:
"Exterminate all the brutes!"
When Marlow approaches the Central Station, he sees what seem to be round knobs on the palisade, but which are actually the shrunken heads of some of these 'brutes.'
Kurtz is, we are told, "the product of all Europe." His adoring bride to be considers him to have been the perfection of every noble trait. Marlow does not have the heart to tell her the truth.
The irony, then, is that of a humanitarian becoming even more inhuman than his fellow pillagers of Africa, whose motives are clearly base, under a thin veneer of bringing "progress". Is there a similar irony in this terse description of Major Hasan's impending deployment to another wilderness:
An Army spokeswoman says the suspect in the Fort Hood shootings had been scheduled to deploy to Afghanistan to counsel soldiers suffering from combat stress.
The contradiction between Kurtz' supposed aims, and his "methods," are only too apparent in the novel. But the problem is not just Kurtz. The problem is that the "pilgrims" from Europe- and the religious connotation is deliberate and apt- are destroying what Kurtz wants to "save"- so he says, and there is no reason to doubt he means it, though his "methods" reflect the underlying horrors of the situation- the Europeans are monsters masquerading as gods.
We should fight wars with drones, if we are going to be as high-minded as Kurtz about our aims, if we are going to be humanitarians in distant places we are clueless about and where we do not understand what we are supposed to do. Drones do not require psychological counsel, nor do they go berserk under stress. (Their operators do, but their numbers are smaller and more manageable.).
