What did Mandeville take from William of Tripoli, and why?
As we are all aware, the Book of John Mandeville is a giant compilation of plagiarism with “information” taken from a variety of texts. What caught my attention while reading Appendix B was the information that Mandeville borrows from William of Tripoli’s work “Tractatus de statu Sarracenorum”. I found this particularly interesting because throughout TBJM there are numerous instances in which the author is seemingly pro-crusade and continually refers to Jerusalem as rightfully belonging to the Christians, and hints at the forced return of the holy city to Christian rule. Furthermore, Mandeville describes Muslims as wicked, barbaric people who are innately evil. According to our book, the Treatise on the State of the Saracens was/is read by some as an anti-crusading tract due its emphasis on the similarities between Christianity and Islam and the claims that Muslims can be converted to Christianity in ways other than violence. This piece also goes in to detail about the life of the profit Mohammad, and describes Muslims not as evil or wicked, but simply as misinformed. So why did Mandeville use information from this piece? He clearly wanted to have some legitimate information concerning Islam to make his own work seem somewhat objective. Having some facts helps the reader feel as if what they are reading is entirely true, making them more easily manipulated or convinced. Mandeville uses this information throughout his work, but especially in chapter 15, where he does a good amount of re-wording but does not completely revise the material. Keeping in mind that the Treatise also uses a ton of anti-Islamic language and continually refers to Christianity as the “true” or “enlightened” faith, it presents Saracens as innocently misled people who would be easily converted: “many people, misled by error, are made Saracens: and not only Jews, but also great and ordinary Christians” (239). Though both accounts belittle the Muslim faith and make it seem superficial and weak, the TBJM aims to demonize Saracens themselves. A consistent example of this is clear when comparing the previously provided excerpt with this one from Mandeville: “Christians become Saracens either out of simplemindedness or poverty, or out of wickedness”. The idea of Muslim people as wicked is prevalent throughout TBJM where different peoples who practice Islam are described, as are their cultural rituals. In each instance there is obvious fabrication in favor of Mandeville’s main agenda and that is, to gain support for the crusades.
I completely agree with your stance in regards to why Mandeville based his own work on aspects of William of Tripoli's "Tractatus de statu Sarracenorum", however, I think there is more of an explanation to why Mandeville exaggerated Tripoli's work as he did.
The most main point of Tripoli's work is to convince the reader how easily the Muslim people could be converted to Christianity. He bases this argument on the history of Islam itself, beginning with Mohammed, the "false prophet" (236). Once Tripoli manages to list, in detail, how the Muslims will meet their end- "...one part will fall under the sword, another part will seek to flee to the desert and perish, and the third part will cross over to the faith of the Christians," (239) the reader is able to rest assured that this innocent but supposedly ignorant group of people will not pose a threat in the face of the almighty Christianity.
Tripoli's stance is nice and all, but Mandeville knows the secret to really reaching a grand audience, and that is exaggeration. Mandeville recognized the fact that an audience would read Tripoli's work and approve of it. It would even fill them with a sense of reassurance. But he knew that the best way to rally people to take action against the Muslims would be to convince said audience that the Muslims would take action against Christians first, if presented with the opportunity. So, Mandeville does exactly that when he makes the Sacarens out to be a violent, degraded group of people- a group that doesn't fear the Sultan, let alone any leader. (39) By making the Muslims out to be a threat, Mandeville is able to instill fear into his audience and reinforce the idea that Christianity is the only way to "save" these seemingly un-tamable others.
We can see countless examples of exaggerated opinions and personal stances in the media today. Take for instance the clip of Ted Nugent that we watched in class the other day. There's no way that Ted Nugent would have made nearly as many headlines as he did had he been more reserved and respectful in sharing his feelings regarding the president. But the fact of the matter is that drama and lies sell, and have since John Mandeville and before even his time. It is human nature to be more attracted to exiting and seemingly unbelievable news- hence, why Mandeville altered Tripoli's work the way he did.
As embarrassing as this is, I just realized that I misspelled **prophet in my first paragraph. Lesson to be learned from this-never ever write your blog post on your nephews iPad mini.
What I found very interesting about the section "How to Mount a Crusades" was the simple fact that the author seemed to have a genuine wonder about the spread of religions as a whole, not just the spread of Christianity. Also, he takes into account the recorded geographical history of each religion as well, remarking upon how Christianity was at first mainly taught through Africa, but has recently made a home in the European countries, and even remarks on how small that influence actually is within the continent. I thought that for a medieval text, this sort of religious self-awareness is rather progressive, even if not entirely accurate. For instance, he brings up how Asia was not populated at the time of Jesus's teachings, which is completely ridiculous. To suggest that a continent as large as Asia was not populated at an earlier time simply because Christians decided not to walk East puts a large mark on the author's earlier attempt at scientific impartiality. Regardless of this minor hiccup, the author continues to marvel at these observations, and discusses that in relation to what was thought to be known, there is so much more that is yet to be discovered. Yet, even with all of this, the title, as well as the very religious attitude the author has towards exploration, points to the idea that he is suggesting that these areas may become more fertile areas for Christianity to spread. The piece begins to form the message of domination rather than scientific exploration, and the wonder behind the discovery of new populations breeds the undertone of superiority that accompanies the idea behind Christian salvation. This author wants to go to these places with an army to suppress those who worship their own spirits and deities before other religions, most likely the Muslims, reach these hidden nooks and convert the natives to their ways of thinking, and insists on a crusade to prevent exactly that.
How is the Flower of Histories of the Land excerpt different and similar to Mandeville’s accounts on the Mongol’s new leader? The excerpt taken from the Flower of Histories of Land fallows the events described in Chapter 24 pretty well. The vision of the knight and the rise of a new leader are the same in both accounts. However, Mandeville’s account describes Chan having more power and influence over the Mongols as compared to Hayton’s version. For example in chapter 24, after Changuys has been chosen to be Emperor he demands the heads of the seven families to give up their inheritance to him. Mandeville reports: “Afterwards he ordered all the heads of the seven families to give up and renounce whatever inheritance they had, and to consider themselves paid from then on with what he would give them out of his grace” (136). In the translated version, the Chan is honored by people and is named their new leader but there is not any mention of him pressing demands on others. Also, Hayton shows his disapproval towards the tartars ceremony by saying, “No one should not marvel at this ceremony that the Tartars made to their lord at that time, for perhaps they did not know any better…”(259). The way that Hayton describes the Chan’s rise to power is more focused on the narrator’s views of their ceremony than on Chan’s rise to power.
In Appendix B section 1 of the Book of John Mandeville, a German Dominican of whom little is known named William of Boldensele, is brought to the forefront as one of the main sources consulted when the author of John Mandeville was writing the work. Who is he and why is he relevant? Well, for starters William of Boldensele’s previously written work, a travel memoir composed after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, is altered, as, it is translated from Latin into French by a friar of the name Long John in 1351 and then drawn from by the Mandeville author, who decides to fashion his text primarily from the latter of the two (although he does consult both). My question is this: If the author of John Mandeville was familiarized with the language of Latin as he professed himself to be, why did he work mostly from the French version as opposed to taking from each version equally? Or was it simply that he could not read Latin as he aforementioned and thereby only had the French manuscript to mainly consult? This brings me to my next point which is in chapter 3 of Appendix B section 1, where, John’s French is placed side by side with the version in Latin by William of Boldensele—however very much so subdued in comparison. While it may be said that John’s French is composed in a piously and religiously superior tone—it hardly seems cruel next to the original version in the right hand column by Boldensele. It is not only a longer written column, but bias, it appears, to the extreme. John’s version may refer to the Sultan as the leader of Machomet’s “false” law, however William’s Latin version concludes that the Sultan is the “principal champion and disseminator of Machomet’s impious perfidy, since that wicked liar originated with the Sultan’s rule,” (228). In the author of TBJM’s attempt to provide a more objective piece, rather than a digression of callously constructed remarks aimed at insulting the religion of another culture, I could conjecture that one, of a more objective purpose, would rather consult Long John’s piece as opposed to its original. That doesn’t make Long John’s or the author of TBJM “objective” so to speak, but relatively more so in comparison to that of William of Boldensele.
From this week’s readings, what stuck out to me most were the opening pages of Odoric of Pordenone’s “Account.” These texts reminded me of one of our first discussions in this class about how as “Westerners” we sometimes tend to make assumptions about the East without any personal confirmation, but instead by relying on impressions we get from literature or the media. Before recounting any of his travels to the reader, Odoric first makes a stern disclaimer that regarding marvels he did not see for himself, and only heard from others, he would not establish as definitive truth, but rather as unverified hearsay; “If I set anything down that I heard from trustworthy people born in the country that these wonders are told about, it will be little, and I will set down the wonders as hearsay and witness them as heard only” (247). This friar is witnessing and experiencing things that much of the world had absolutely no exposure to. With his unique endeavor, Odoric could have embellished his tale for his church’s benefit, but he understood his position of power which would ultimately spread information to the masses. I feel that Odoric’s policy serves as a great example of how we could exercise our dissemination of information today; that which we understand little about should not be made more extravagant than we know. Extreme proclamations can have a heavy effect on those who hear them, and assumptions and stereotypes should be dealt with delicately.
I think one of the most interesting aspects of the author of The Book of John Mandeville, and others such as William of Tripoli is that they are both able to talk about Muslims in a somewhat positive way, perhaps even better than 2014 Americans can. There are many negative things about The Book of John Mandeville that we have covered extensively upon in class, such as the vast amount of prejudice and inaccuracies; however, I’d like to look at it in a more positive light (if possible). First of all, we must remember that this is a book that was written in European medieval times, and therefore is bound to have many prejudices against anything that is not Christian-based. However, the unknown author of this text was fairly accurate when discussing the Muslim religion and their beliefs. He even goes as far as to defend them in sorts. He is able to emphasize the many similarities between Christianity and Islam. He goes ahead and mentions the Saracens’ belief in heaven and hell, the Virgin Mary, and the Incarnation. The narrator also talks about how Islam has a very positive view of Jesus. Of course, we know that the author of The Book of John Mandeville took many ideas from other authors. His knowledge of the Muslim people comes mainly from the author William of Tripoli, who defends the Muslim religion much in the same way that the author of Mandeville does. Now, it cannot be ignored that William of Tripoli is also very Christian, and therefore slightly prejudiced against the Muslims. For example, he states “…the place and reign of the Saracens will be ruined, but the faith and the place of the Christians will last until Christ descends again from Heaven…” (240). But again, we must remember that these works were created in medieval times. The fact that this author can defend the Muslims at all is quite impressive, given the time period and the heavy emphasis put upon Christianity. That being said, I believe it can be argued that the author of the Book of John Mandeville and William of Tripoli are better able to paint the Muslims in a positive life than many Americans of 2014. Although they were by no means greatly educated in the Muslim way of life, I believe their accounts show that they had more knowledge than many Americans do now. This is quite depressing, given that we should be far more progressed than we were in medieval times. In conclusion, there are many prejudices that are easy to point out in The Book of John Mandeville and the authors he stole from, such as William of Tripoli, however, the way they are able to paint Islam in a somewhat positive light is quite impressive, when we see how ignorant Americans from the 21st centuries remain upon the subject.
Though I agree that many of William of Tripoli's accounts do seem more positive than other sources (such as William of Boldensele's account) in that he isn't directly offensive to Muslims, I think it is a bit dangerous to create a historical dichotomy between contemporary and past. Yes, religious rhetoric within medieval times is notoriously heavy handed and offensive. However, we need to remember that this rhetoric created contemporary West/East understanding, and so the past and present cannot be viewed as isolated entities. I definitely agree that a lot of Western/American ignorance around the Middle East is startling, but I don't think we can use that to excuse the past. The subtle negative commentary in William of Tripoli's account seems more dangerous than the outright offensive discourse to me, because negative subtleties (such as the virgin wives waiting in Paradise) are ultimately more believable and therefore damaging to perception of Islam. These stereotypes are the ones that tend to prevail and influence the contemporary so that many remain ignorant and invariably biased.
I'm very glad to see another positive opinion, I think it is easy to become depressed through these studies. I would like to compare this opinion to some other cultural phenomena that happen today, for the time period maybe his opinions are revolutionary, but what do these underhanded truths mean for future generations? For instance, there is the Macklemore effect, which is what the LGBTQ community calls straight people giving gays validation for existing, unnecessary validation. He basically says that he is not gay, but it is okay with him for other people to be gay, to which the gay community replies, we already exist and we do not need you to tell us it is okay. So, although William of Tripoli is doing some good by being partially truthful, the consequence of the bad can sometimes outweigh the good. I'm not sure in this situation, since there seems to be no good outlook from Europeans. The best scenario would have been for literature written in the Middle East to educate Europeans. It appears, however, that what persisted through time was the negative rather than the positive.
Throughout written history, the West has been obsessed with the desire to “otherize” cultures in an effort to define themselves. This practice is most often seen with regards to Islam and the East. By comparing the Book of John Mandeville to the sources from which it was drawn, we can see how societal change has altered the ways in which Orientalism is perpetuated.
The documents the Mandeville author used in his book present a subtly different view of the East than the book does. Especially in contrasting the passages on the Sultan, it is interesting to see how the Mandeville author thought the East should be presented to his contemporaries differently than it had been in the past. His toning down of the original passage’s harsh invectives implies that he believed Islam should be painted in a more sympathetic light, but retained the original sentiment of derision. At the same time, Mandeville leaves out many of the compatibilities between Islam and Christianity that are pointed out in the source texts. While the sources claim that Muslims are “close to the path of salvation,” Mandeville focuses solely on differences between the two religions, fixating on erroneous interpretations of Muslim moral mandate. As an example of Christian moral superiority, he cites the story of the Sultan offering him a bride and riches in exchange for forsaking Christianity. This tale of Muslim iniquity, not seen in the source material, seems like an odd addition for the man who toned down the anti-Muslim sentiment of the original documents to make.
What Mandeville is doing is pandering to a more educated audience than the one for which his predecessors wrote. He expects his readers to have a basic grasp of Muslim culture and knows he cannot get away with the wrath and vitriol of those who wrote for an uninformed readership. It’s similar to what we saw in today’s Ted Nugent video. Mandeville’s public would not allow him to get away with the same level of hate rhetoric as those who came before him just as the American public would not have let Nugent get away with decrying Obama for having the audacity to be born black. In these cases, Mandeville and Nugent are forced to find more subtle (keep in mind that that’s comparative) ways of spreading the same bigoted sentiment. Tolerance is not acceptance: tolerance just means that messages of hate just need to couch their rhetoric in more obtuse terms.
I definitely agree with your point that Mandeville was well aware of his audience and thus found ways to make claims about Muslims in a smart, calculated way that provided western Christians with information and judgments that would seem feasible and anti-east but not too anti-east. I particularly remember the language that Mandeville used throughout much of the travelogue, blaming Muslims here and there for the destruction of churches and other holy "Christian" sites, but ultimately remaining wary of his educated audience and allowing them to draw their own conclusions. he often wrote things like "such a beautiful city was destroyed" or "a beautiful chuch once stood here" in chapters about Muslims. Using the past tense of verbs and other similar tactics, Mandeville was able to "tone down" his racist and unwarranted claims about Islamic culture in such a way that still allowed for the perpetuation of racism among his readership.
Michael, you really do a great job of making a connection between Mandeville and Nugent. I agree that they both, in their own way, “couch their rhetoric in more obtuse terms”. I can’t say that I completely agree with the part about Mandeville’s readership being that much more informed. The Mandeville author wrote his travelogue in the 1300s—a time when Latin still dominated publications in the western world. Most publications were inaccessible to the public because most people did not know Latin. Therefore, a good part of the public would have to rely on translations coming from the monasteries, or from influential people like Chaucer who still produced accessible literature for all classes with an anti-Muslim sentiment, or from word of mouth. I would not say that Mandeville’s audience is so much more educated than the readership of his predecessors that his audience would be able to see through his contempt of Islamic Culture. If anything, I feel that they would have similar contempt due to how prominent Christianity was in the Western world. His audience may be more exposed to the ideas of Islam because of contact with the east during the crusades, but at this point in history most of the public was still eating out of the palms of the church’s hands, and the church wanted religions other than Christianity to look bad. The Mandeville author was creating a work that was based off of a wide variety of previous works—some, like William Boldensele’s account, containing more hatred for Islam, while others, like pseudo-William of Tripoli’s account, presenting Islam in a kinder fashion and likening it to Christianity. Perhaps the author of TBMJ was trying to find some middle ground in synthesizing these views and maybe that is why some of his perspectives seem less harsh than some of his predecessors’. What interested me most about the Mandeville author was the way he would commend Islam on one page, but then on the next, he would be blaspheming their customs and beliefs; almost as if he could not decide which view was more appealing to him.
For this week, what I found most interesting was the sheer difference between the related texts that John Mandeville drew most of his information from, and how this played in to the prevailing different views of the time. For example, William of Tripoli in his "Treatise on the State of the Saracens" writes that "it is shown that educated and wise Saracens are close to the Christian faith," and are actually "neighbors to the Christian faith" (243). He actually goes on to give a description of their faith - which essentially entails the belief in one God and the belief of Judgment Day as well as the existence of prophets - and points out how Christians believe in essentially the same thing. Alternatively, Odoric of Pordenone in his "Account" wrote of the inherent differences between the two religions, going to the extreme to describe their practices in things such as human sacrifice, cannibalism, and idolatry. Contrary to the rational overview of commonality in the previous text, "Account" draws a big line between Christianity and Islam and urges none to cross it. What strikes me as curious between these texts is the fact that the more positive text, "Treatise on the Stage of the Saracens," is also the less obviously biased one. This is evident in the many opportunities that William of Tripoli clearly had to insult and defame Islam, opportunities that he inevitably did not take. He knew of Islam's tolerance of multiple wives, which he could have portrayed offensively like many other writers of the time period; instead, he writes that while you may have multiple wives in Islam, "you are permitted to use, not to misuse, what your hand has acquired" (244). This, like many other examples in "Treatise on the State of the Saracens," provides a more balanced outlook on the religion of Islam. "Account," however, is not only biased in his description of the East, but even goes so far as to frequently write that there are still things "that would not be good to recount in front of any good Christian" (248). On top of all the insulting misrepresentations of Islam and the East, Odoric of Pordenone is even writing that some of the things he saw are too awful to reveal to "any good Christian." Interestingly, at least for the works that John Mandeville drew from, one can tell the more informative and accurate work by the level of Christian bias within the writing.
One fascinating element John Mandeville made sure to “steal” from the writers before him was the idea that monsters lived in Middle Eastern countries. Throughout Mandeville’s entire book there are mentions of cannibals, people with only one foot/leg, and other terrifying thoughts that would keep people up at night. And yet, as we know from our class lectures, Mandeville knew that there were no monsters or demonic creatures residing in any countries. He knew that the things he read from William of Boldensele, William of Tripoli, and Odoric of Pordenone were false. However, he still used them in his writings.
I would like to focus on one example on page 251 (Odoric of Pordenone’s writings). He writes how in the City of Casay the Great (or Catusie) there is a monk who rings a bell to summon these half animal/half human creatures to scurry on down from the mountain for food. This in particular stuck out to me because of the video we watched in class today where Ted Nugent called Obama a, “subhuman mongrel.” It’s so interesting how even almost a thousand years after a book such as John Mandeville is written, people still refer to “others” as not human when they want to try and “make a point.” And, especially how people who are not white are somehow less than human.
I know in class we talked about whether we have made progress in overcoming racism or not. I personally think that while we might have taken a few steps in accepting different races, we have not taken any steps in accepting other religions. From Odoric of Pordenone, to John Mandeville, to Ted Nugent anyone who is not a white Christian somehow has an alternate agenda. Wars are still being fought over religion, and the intolerance shown for people of different beliefs is still sad and horrible.
To tie this whole post together, basically anything “foreign” somehow has a demonic, ugly, side to it that people from the past and present don’t like. People from the “middle east,” or who are Muslim, are so alien and strange to some that they have be some sort of monster in order for them to make sense. Why though? Why did John Mandeville have to write blatant lies? Why does Ted Nugent have to stoop so low in order to “make his point.” How do these people sleep at night soundly? I know I might sound rather naïve at times, but it bothers me how this is still happening because it’s not logical at all to me.
I am going to take a shot at answering some of those big questions you pose- "Why do educated individuals blatantly perpetuate harmful stereotypes? Why must people use hate language in order to portray their points? How do these people sleep at night?” In one word- Politics.
When educated individuals, such as John Mandeville, Ted Nugent, etc. employ the use of slander, and hate speech, we must be automatically suspicious of their self-serving motives. The fact that you cannot make sense of this, I believe, is simply due to human nature. In my opinion, humans are not naturally inclined to hate, or discriminate. That is why powerful individuals of society employ hate speech. The citizens of the world are perpetually brainwashed by the political motives of the higher-ups, the single best instance of this being the war in Iraq.
The United States government employed the use of scare tactics to gain support of military control in the Middle East. Just like we are becoming more politically correct, we are becoming more intolerant of war. Yet just because we are politically correct does not mean we are not racist, in the same way that our intolerance of war does not mean that manifest destiny has halted. We have to become more creative in our methods. With powerful warnings of “weapons of mass destruction” the American people were eager to jump to the defense of their country. For the “others” in the Middle East pose an evident threat. Yet, upon our invasion, it became clear that these weapons simply did not exist. Instead, we proceeded to destroy their government, and murder their people. What we gained was the spread of our philosophies to the Middle East, and the control of oil.
Had the government come to the public with the notions of entering a war for these self serving reasons, the humanitarians, and the media in America and the world would have charged our officials with War Crimes. So instead, we must be creative. We portray the unfamiliar as dangerous, threatening. Obama is a “subhuman mongrel”, “monsters inhabit the Middle East”, and “there are weapons of mass destruction”. People of power rally support of the public with the use of the unsupported, degrading claims, and we endlessly expand our political philosophies, make economic gains, and expand control.
Racism is the ultimate weapon of power. How they sleep? I am not sure.
Today in class we watched part of the Indiana Jones film which exposed how contemporary society still portrays the east in a negative light. While in the process of taking this course, it was clear that there was much exaggeration. I am curious as to whether or not we would have noted this previous to this class. I have seen the movie before, and I think my attention was averted from the stereotyping and animalistic representations of the Indians- not averted from seeing it, but from acknowledging its significance and influence on my own perceptions. The portrayal made the Indians appear sub-human- like monsters. I saw this in the second sequence when the Indians were dressed up in costume with skulls on their heads. What I found interesting, wasn't just the exaggeration and depiction of the Indians as savage and cruel monsters- but rather, I saw a connection to John Mandeville's text and Christian theology. In Christian theology there is sacrifice as well. Abraham is not seen as a monster when he goes to sacrifice his son Isaac, rather he is looked on as a follower of God. God rewards Abraham for believing in him so devoutly as to be willing to kill his son. Similarly, in the book of John Mandeville, sacrifice is found in honor of idols. One passage reads that a person was considered a holy man if he allowed himself to be stabbed by his friends on the way to the idol and then killed in front of it. In today's society human sacrifice is considered barbaric. Yet to me, I see another act equally as monstrous- human self-interest. America defines itself as a nation of freedom and social climb. Yet despite this, the income is mostly in the hands of the few while the many have less much less. This has resulted in the poor becoming increasingly poor. In fact, the opening scene for the show Newsroom points out our own misjudgments. The main character argues that America is not the greatest country in the world saying “we’re 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income… we lead the world in only three categories. Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending where we spend more than the next 26th countries combined.” The point of me quoting this scene is to show that Americans not only misrepresent the East, but misrepresent ourselves as well. How can we look to better our knowledge and stop exaggerating other countries and their practices when we are stuck believing that we are still the best country out there and exaggerating our own greatness?
As Brodie noted, there is a very imperialistic tone in How to Mount a Crusade Overseas. Of course imperialism is a bit of a given in any text regarding the merits of a crusade, but I don’t just mean in the sense that the writer merely advocates a crusade and is intrinsically imperialist; the writer seems to genuinely think that his land (read: Christian Europe, specifically France) is very superior to even the rest of the world. The last line of the passage on page 257 reads "I think (and I state this from experience) that if this tiny little part of ours were placed on one pan of a scale and all the rest of the great world on the other pan, it would be found to be like gold in a mine, heavier through its men and its virtues, not only in the truth of teaching and purity of faith [...]" On that note, I’m not sure that I can agree with Brodie that this text seems very progressive; a text stating how one belief system or land is naturally superior to the entirety of the outside world, regardless of what other nuances it may have, doesn’t seem to promote open-mindedness in the slightest.
With that said, I feel that this passage accomplishes a few different things. One thing that this sort of belief does is to justify a crusade. Whether the logic is that the subject of the crusade is the foreign, dangerous Other and must die or if the focus of the crusade is to convert the pagans and nonbelievers to Christ, establishing firmly the crusading nation’s superiority from the get-go is a key objective. After all, this mindset is essentially a license to do anything and everything the nation wants in regard to foreign policy. Want to break treaties, betray trusts, invade countries, slaughter thousands, steal and plunder, and generally wreak havoc upon a nation not so unlike your own? Feel free; they’re not really people anyway, so they don’t have rights and feelings like we do.
As much as this mindset is a license to do anything, it occurs to me that it is also a license to do nothing. Consider this: at times, it may not be wise politically or militarily to conduct a crusade. Perhaps it is a time where trade with the Other is the most wise course to follow. It may seem impossible for a nation that justifies killing thousands of people to, in the same breath, conduct trade with those people, but it isn’t so. This mindset of superiority also allows a culture to ignore the Other, as much as it can incite rage against it. After all, why should we be afraid of the Other? We are so far above them that they couldn’t possibly threaten us; they’re more like animals than people! Overall, this sort of ideology-fueled foreign policy seems to be very clever in a time where it can work considering it provides a justification for any action that is convenient at the time.
There is a huge point that was only briefly touched on in class because on one level it is easy to see how Mandeville writes the other-than-Christians as other-than-humans in a physiological sense. I agree that there is a lot more to this than a petty move to demonize Muslims, and that Mandeville was neither the first nor the last to use this move, and that a version of its logic exists in common practice today. However, there is a tiny blurb in chapter 21 that nicely demonstrates how another angle of Mandeville’s aggressive racism ties into modern insidious racism. He says, “[The people of Tracoda] eat snake meat, and they eat little, and they do not speak but hiss to one another like snakes…” (120). Thus Mandeville describes these mythical Others not as physically altered, as he does the one-footed Ethiopians and the dog headed people of Nacumera, but as freaks on the level of reason, technological understanding, and most importantly, language. It is definitely not uncommon for people to slander each other on the basis of language, calling this or that language dirty, a “gutter language,” or “a language I just can’t take seriously.” But just as the racial mythology of eugenics has since been overturned, so has the linguistic mythology of language hierarchy.
From a sociolinguistic perspective, the negative baggage assigned to a language is actually directed at the people who are considered the primary speakers of that language, since what we consider to be separate languages are much more closely related than we might realize. Pidgins, Cajuns, dialects, accents, and local idioms and turns of phrase hybridize the distinct species of language in real practice, so that even our common idea that distinct languages exist is a myth (this is according to the hugely influential linguistic theory of John McWhorter in his book The Power of Babel, 2001). Since there is really no distinguishing feature on the mechanical level to identify extreme western French from extreme Eastern Spanish, for example, making them part of the same mutually intelligible language, their prejudice against each other as speakers of different languages is a political distinction against the people, not actually grounded in any language difference at all. This is definitely the logic at work in Mandeville. He presents the Other as having a unique language that is at best extremely inarticulate, if not completely unintelligible. By the same logic that he describes people as being dog-headed, having no humanity and thus being subhuman, he describes people as actually having no language and being sub-linguistic, in a sense.
This means that just as Mandeville invents physiologically impossible body features following the mythology that there are distinct and unequal “races” of human beings, he invents linguistically impossible languages to do the same, following the mythology that there are distinct and unequal “languages.” While I haven’t heard anyone accusing the Other of having no language at all, you do hear people saying that Turkish is fundamentally less articulate than Farsi or that Mexican is less cultured than English, not realizing that they are only strands within the same hugely diverse language, separated by a few cajuns and local crossover dialects. So, even as we think of painting the Other as physiologically freakish on the basis of race, it is similarly nonsensical to accuse the Other of having a freak language or no language at all, even though such accusations still appear in common use.
At least one funny/telling factor that ties misconceptions in TBJM and current misconceptions about the east is a lack of education or experience or understanding. John Mandeville’s text is a plagiarized compilation of lies. It’s a completely un-founded and illegitimate piece of writing that fronts as if its legitimate. Its power lies – at least partially – in the ignorance of the readership. Now, compare that to Indiana Jones. It was pointed out in class today to be a mass-audience kind of movie, and as such it isn’t required to be any kind of accurate or truthful. Once again, this movie’s success and popularity relies on the ignorance of the populace. If movies like that faced a more educated audience, no one would take it seriously and it wouldn’t be so sellable. Texts like John Mandeville’s can only exist and succeed when the population knows nothing of what he writes. That way, any vitriol he spews can be accepted as fact. Movies like Indiana Jones exist for a slightly different reason: big dumb blockbusters are expected to be fun and non-compelling. Particularly, you’d be hard-pressed to find a big American summer blockbuster that took shots at the American self-perception. So what am I trying (and most likely failing) to point out is that while these influential texts and films have a responsibility to be based in reality, actual information and experience, that’s only part of the problem. Texts that offer a different, more accurate representation of foreign cultures can only do much unless an emphasis towards widespread education is made, and that the important issues are taught in a way that their importance is convincing. In other words, the damage is done as far as the West’s mis-perception of the East. And the issue now, as far as I understand it, is an equal need for accurate, non-biased education and media that follows suit.
What did Mandeville take from William of Tripoli, and why?
ReplyDeleteAs we are all aware, the Book of John Mandeville is a giant compilation of plagiarism with “information” taken from a variety of texts. What caught my attention while reading Appendix B was the information that Mandeville borrows from William of Tripoli’s work “Tractatus de statu Sarracenorum”. I found this particularly interesting because throughout TBJM there are numerous instances in which the author is seemingly pro-crusade and continually refers to Jerusalem as rightfully belonging to the Christians, and hints at the forced return of the holy city to Christian rule. Furthermore, Mandeville describes Muslims as wicked, barbaric people who are innately evil. According to our book, the Treatise on the State of the Saracens was/is read by some as an anti-crusading tract due its emphasis on the similarities between Christianity and Islam and the claims that Muslims can be converted to Christianity in ways other than violence. This piece also goes in to detail about the life of the profit Mohammad, and describes Muslims not as evil or wicked, but simply as misinformed.
So why did Mandeville use information from this piece? He clearly wanted to have some legitimate information concerning Islam to make his own work seem somewhat objective. Having some facts helps the reader feel as if what they are reading is entirely true, making them more easily manipulated or convinced. Mandeville uses this information throughout his work, but especially in chapter 15, where he does a good amount of re-wording but does not completely revise the material. Keeping in mind that the Treatise also uses a ton of anti-Islamic language and continually refers to Christianity as the “true” or “enlightened” faith, it presents Saracens as innocently misled people who would be easily converted: “many people, misled by error, are made Saracens: and not only Jews, but also great and ordinary Christians” (239). Though both accounts belittle the Muslim faith and make it seem superficial and weak, the TBJM aims to demonize Saracens themselves. A consistent example of this is clear when comparing the previously provided excerpt with this one from Mandeville: “Christians become Saracens either out of simplemindedness or poverty, or out of wickedness”. The idea of Muslim people as wicked is prevalent throughout TBJM where different peoples who practice Islam are described, as are their cultural rituals. In each instance there is obvious fabrication in favor of Mandeville’s main agenda and that is, to gain support for the crusades.
I completely agree with your stance in regards to why Mandeville based his own work on aspects of William of Tripoli's "Tractatus de statu Sarracenorum", however, I think there is more of an explanation to why Mandeville exaggerated Tripoli's work as he did.
DeleteThe most main point of Tripoli's work is to convince the reader how easily the Muslim people could be converted to Christianity. He bases this argument on the history of Islam itself, beginning with Mohammed, the "false prophet" (236). Once Tripoli manages to list, in detail, how the Muslims will meet their end- "...one part will fall under the sword, another part will seek to flee to the desert and perish, and the third part will cross over to the faith of the Christians," (239) the reader is able to rest assured that this innocent but supposedly ignorant group of people will not pose a threat in the face of the almighty Christianity.
Tripoli's stance is nice and all, but Mandeville knows the secret to really reaching a grand audience, and that is exaggeration. Mandeville recognized the fact that an audience would read Tripoli's work and approve of it. It would even fill them with a sense of reassurance. But he knew that the best way to rally people to take action against the Muslims would be to convince said audience that the Muslims would take action against Christians first, if presented with the opportunity. So, Mandeville does exactly that when he makes the Sacarens out to be a violent, degraded group of people- a group that doesn't fear the Sultan, let alone any leader. (39) By making the Muslims out to be a threat, Mandeville is able to instill fear into his audience and reinforce the idea that Christianity is the only way to "save" these seemingly un-tamable others.
We can see countless examples of exaggerated opinions and personal stances in the media today. Take for instance the clip of Ted Nugent that we watched in class the other day. There's no way that Ted Nugent would have made nearly as many headlines as he did had he been more reserved and respectful in sharing his feelings regarding the president. But the fact of the matter is that drama and lies sell, and have since John Mandeville and before even his time. It is human nature to be more attracted to exiting and seemingly unbelievable news- hence, why Mandeville altered Tripoli's work the way he did.
As embarrassing as this is, I just realized that I misspelled **prophet in my first paragraph. Lesson to be learned from this-never ever write your blog post on your nephews iPad mini.
DeleteWhat I found very interesting about the section "How to Mount a Crusades" was the simple fact that the author seemed to have a genuine wonder about the spread of religions as a whole, not just the spread of Christianity. Also, he takes into account the recorded geographical history of each religion as well, remarking upon how Christianity was at first mainly taught through Africa, but has recently made a home in the European countries, and even remarks on how small that influence actually is within the continent. I thought that for a medieval text, this sort of religious self-awareness is rather progressive, even if not entirely accurate. For instance, he brings up how Asia was not populated at the time of Jesus's teachings, which is completely ridiculous. To suggest that a continent as large as Asia was not populated at an earlier time simply because Christians decided not to walk East puts a large mark on the author's earlier attempt at scientific impartiality. Regardless of this minor hiccup, the author continues to marvel at these observations, and discusses that in relation to what was thought to be known, there is so much more that is yet to be discovered.
ReplyDeleteYet, even with all of this, the title, as well as the very religious attitude the author has towards exploration, points to the idea that he is suggesting that these areas may become more fertile areas for Christianity to spread. The piece begins to form the message of domination rather than scientific exploration, and the wonder behind the discovery of new populations breeds the undertone of superiority that accompanies the idea behind Christian salvation. This author wants to go to these places with an army to suppress those who worship their own spirits and deities before other religions, most likely the Muslims, reach these hidden nooks and convert the natives to their ways of thinking, and insists on a crusade to prevent exactly that.
How is the Flower of Histories of the Land excerpt different and similar to Mandeville’s accounts on the Mongol’s new leader?
ReplyDeleteThe excerpt taken from the Flower of Histories of Land fallows the events described in Chapter 24 pretty well. The vision of the knight and the rise of a new leader are the same in both accounts. However, Mandeville’s account describes Chan having more power and influence over the Mongols as compared to Hayton’s version. For example in chapter 24, after Changuys has been chosen to be Emperor he demands the heads of the seven families to give up their inheritance to him. Mandeville reports: “Afterwards he ordered all the heads of the seven families to give up and renounce whatever inheritance they had, and to consider themselves paid from then on with what he would give them out of his grace” (136). In the translated version, the Chan is honored by people and is named their new leader but there is not any mention of him pressing demands on others. Also, Hayton shows his disapproval towards the tartars ceremony by saying, “No one should not marvel at this ceremony that the Tartars made to their lord at that time, for perhaps they did not know any better…”(259). The way that Hayton describes the Chan’s rise to power is more focused on the narrator’s views of their ceremony than on Chan’s rise to power.
ReplyDeleteIn Appendix B section 1 of the Book of John Mandeville, a German Dominican of whom little is known named William of Boldensele, is brought to the forefront as one of the main sources consulted when the author of John Mandeville was writing the work. Who is he and why is he relevant? Well, for starters William of Boldensele’s previously written work, a travel memoir composed after a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, is altered, as, it is translated from Latin into French by a friar of the name Long John in 1351 and then drawn from by the Mandeville author, who decides to fashion his text primarily from the latter of the two (although he does consult both). My question is this: If the author of John Mandeville was familiarized with the language of Latin as he professed himself to be, why did he work mostly from the French version as opposed to taking from each version equally? Or was it simply that he could not read Latin as he aforementioned and thereby only had the French manuscript to mainly consult? This brings me to my next point which is in chapter 3 of Appendix B section 1, where, John’s French is placed side by side with the version in Latin by William of Boldensele—however very much so subdued in comparison. While it may be said that John’s French is composed in a piously and religiously superior tone—it hardly seems cruel next to the original version in the right hand column by Boldensele. It is not only a longer written column, but bias, it appears, to the extreme. John’s version may refer to the Sultan as the leader of Machomet’s “false” law, however William’s Latin version concludes that the Sultan is the “principal champion and disseminator of Machomet’s impious perfidy, since that wicked liar originated with the Sultan’s rule,” (228). In the author of TBJM’s attempt to provide a more objective piece, rather than a digression of callously constructed remarks aimed at insulting the religion of another culture, I could conjecture that one, of a more objective purpose, would rather consult Long John’s piece as opposed to its original. That doesn’t make Long John’s or the author of TBJM “objective” so to speak, but relatively more so in comparison to that of William of Boldensele.
From this week’s readings, what stuck out to me most were the opening pages of Odoric of Pordenone’s “Account.” These texts reminded me of one of our first discussions in this class about how as “Westerners” we sometimes tend to make assumptions about the East without any personal confirmation, but instead by relying on impressions we get from literature or the media. Before recounting any of his travels to the reader, Odoric first makes a stern disclaimer that regarding marvels he did not see for himself, and only heard from others, he would not establish as definitive truth, but rather as unverified hearsay; “If I set anything down that I heard from trustworthy people born in the country that these wonders are told about, it will be little, and I will set down the wonders as hearsay and witness them as heard only” (247). This friar is witnessing and experiencing things that much of the world had absolutely no exposure to. With his unique endeavor, Odoric could have embellished his tale for his church’s benefit, but he understood his position of power which would ultimately spread information to the masses. I feel that Odoric’s policy serves as a great example of how we could exercise our dissemination of information today; that which we understand little about should not be made more extravagant than we know. Extreme proclamations can have a heavy effect on those who hear them, and assumptions and stereotypes should be dealt with delicately.
ReplyDeleteI think one of the most interesting aspects of the author of The Book of John Mandeville, and others such as William of Tripoli is that they are both able to talk about Muslims in a somewhat positive way, perhaps even better than 2014 Americans can. There are many negative things about The Book of John Mandeville that we have covered extensively upon in class, such as the vast amount of prejudice and inaccuracies; however, I’d like to look at it in a more positive light (if possible). First of all, we must remember that this is a book that was written in European medieval times, and therefore is bound to have many prejudices against anything that is not Christian-based. However, the unknown author of this text was fairly accurate when discussing the Muslim religion and their beliefs. He even goes as far as to defend them in sorts. He is able to emphasize the many similarities between Christianity and Islam. He goes ahead and mentions the Saracens’ belief in heaven and hell, the Virgin Mary, and the Incarnation. The narrator also talks about how Islam has a very positive view of Jesus.
ReplyDeleteOf course, we know that the author of The Book of John Mandeville took many ideas from other authors. His knowledge of the Muslim people comes mainly from the author William of Tripoli, who defends the Muslim religion much in the same way that the author of Mandeville does. Now, it cannot be ignored that William of Tripoli is also very Christian, and therefore slightly prejudiced against the Muslims. For example, he states “…the place and reign of the Saracens will be ruined, but the faith and the place of the Christians will last until Christ descends again from Heaven…” (240). But again, we must remember that these works were created in medieval times. The fact that this author can defend the Muslims at all is quite impressive, given the time period and the heavy emphasis put upon Christianity.
That being said, I believe it can be argued that the author of the Book of John Mandeville and William of Tripoli are better able to paint the Muslims in a positive life than many Americans of 2014. Although they were by no means greatly educated in the Muslim way of life, I believe their accounts show that they had more knowledge than many Americans do now. This is quite depressing, given that we should be far more progressed than we were in medieval times. In conclusion, there are many prejudices that are easy to point out in The Book of John Mandeville and the authors he stole from, such as William of Tripoli, however, the way they are able to paint Islam in a somewhat positive light is quite impressive, when we see how ignorant Americans from the 21st centuries remain upon the subject.
Though I agree that many of William of Tripoli's accounts do seem more positive than other sources (such as William of Boldensele's account) in that he isn't directly offensive to Muslims, I think it is a bit dangerous to create a historical dichotomy between contemporary and past. Yes, religious rhetoric within medieval times is notoriously heavy handed and offensive. However, we need to remember that this rhetoric created contemporary West/East understanding, and so the past and present cannot be viewed as isolated entities. I definitely agree that a lot of Western/American ignorance around the Middle East is startling, but I don't think we can use that to excuse the past. The subtle negative commentary in William of Tripoli's account seems more dangerous than the outright offensive discourse to me, because negative subtleties (such as the virgin wives waiting in Paradise) are ultimately more believable and therefore damaging to perception of Islam. These stereotypes are the ones that tend to prevail and influence the contemporary so that many remain ignorant and invariably biased.
DeleteI'm very glad to see another positive opinion, I think it is easy to become depressed through these studies. I would like to compare this opinion to some other cultural phenomena that happen today, for the time period maybe his opinions are revolutionary, but what do these underhanded truths mean for future generations? For instance, there is the Macklemore effect, which is what the LGBTQ community calls straight people giving gays validation for existing, unnecessary validation. He basically says that he is not gay, but it is okay with him for other people to be gay, to which the gay community replies, we already exist and we do not need you to tell us it is okay. So, although William of Tripoli is doing some good by being partially truthful, the consequence of the bad can sometimes outweigh the good. I'm not sure in this situation, since there seems to be no good outlook from Europeans. The best scenario would have been for literature written in the Middle East to educate Europeans. It appears, however, that what persisted through time was the negative rather than the positive.
DeleteThroughout written history, the West has been obsessed with the desire to “otherize” cultures in an effort to define themselves. This practice is most often seen with regards to Islam and the East. By comparing the Book of John Mandeville to the sources from which it was drawn, we can see how societal change has altered the ways in which Orientalism is perpetuated.
ReplyDeleteThe documents the Mandeville author used in his book present a subtly different view of the East than the book does. Especially in contrasting the passages on the Sultan, it is interesting to see how the Mandeville author thought the East should be presented to his contemporaries differently than it had been in the past. His toning down of the original passage’s harsh invectives implies that he believed Islam should be painted in a more sympathetic light, but retained the original sentiment of derision. At the same time, Mandeville leaves out many of the compatibilities between Islam and Christianity that are pointed out in the source texts. While the sources claim that Muslims are “close to the path of salvation,” Mandeville focuses solely on differences between the two religions, fixating on erroneous interpretations of Muslim moral mandate. As an example of Christian moral superiority, he cites the story of the Sultan offering him a bride and riches in exchange for forsaking Christianity. This tale of Muslim iniquity, not seen in the source material, seems like an odd addition for the man who toned down the anti-Muslim sentiment of the original documents to make.
What Mandeville is doing is pandering to a more educated audience than the one for which his predecessors wrote. He expects his readers to have a basic grasp of Muslim culture and knows he cannot get away with the wrath and vitriol of those who wrote for an uninformed readership. It’s similar to what we saw in today’s Ted Nugent video. Mandeville’s public would not allow him to get away with the same level of hate rhetoric as those who came before him just as the American public would not have let Nugent get away with decrying Obama for having the audacity to be born black. In these cases, Mandeville and Nugent are forced to find more subtle (keep in mind that that’s comparative) ways of spreading the same bigoted sentiment. Tolerance is not acceptance: tolerance just means that messages of hate just need to couch their rhetoric in more obtuse terms.
I definitely agree with your point that Mandeville was well aware of his audience and thus found ways to make claims about Muslims in a smart, calculated way that provided western Christians with information and judgments that would seem feasible and anti-east but not too anti-east. I particularly remember the language that Mandeville used throughout much of the travelogue, blaming Muslims here and there for the destruction of churches and other holy "Christian" sites, but ultimately remaining wary of his educated audience and allowing them to draw their own conclusions. he often wrote things like "such a beautiful city was destroyed" or "a beautiful chuch once stood here" in chapters about Muslims. Using the past tense of verbs and other similar tactics, Mandeville was able to "tone down" his racist and unwarranted claims about Islamic culture in such a way that still allowed for the perpetuation of racism among his readership.
DeleteMichael, you really do a great job of making a connection between Mandeville and Nugent. I agree that they both, in their own way, “couch their rhetoric in more obtuse terms”. I can’t say that I completely agree with the part about Mandeville’s readership being that much more informed. The Mandeville author wrote his travelogue in the 1300s—a time when Latin still dominated publications in the western world. Most publications were inaccessible to the public because most people did not know Latin. Therefore, a good part of the public would have to rely on translations coming from the monasteries, or from influential people like Chaucer who still produced accessible literature for all classes with an anti-Muslim sentiment, or from word of mouth. I would not say that Mandeville’s audience is so much more educated than the readership of his predecessors that his audience would be able to see through his contempt of Islamic Culture. If anything, I feel that they would have similar contempt due to how prominent Christianity was in the Western world. His audience may be more exposed to the ideas of Islam because of contact with the east during the crusades, but at this point in history most of the public was still eating out of the palms of the church’s hands, and the church wanted religions other than Christianity to look bad.
DeleteThe Mandeville author was creating a work that was based off of a wide variety of previous works—some, like William Boldensele’s account, containing more hatred for Islam, while others, like pseudo-William of Tripoli’s account, presenting Islam in a kinder fashion and likening it to Christianity. Perhaps the author of TBMJ was trying to find some middle ground in synthesizing these views and maybe that is why some of his perspectives seem less harsh than some of his predecessors’.
What interested me most about the Mandeville author was the way he would commend Islam on one page, but then on the next, he would be blaspheming their customs and beliefs; almost as if he could not decide which view was more appealing to him.
For this week, what I found most interesting was the sheer difference between the related texts that John Mandeville drew most of his information from, and how this played in to the prevailing different views of the time. For example, William of Tripoli in his "Treatise on the State of the Saracens" writes that "it is shown that educated and wise Saracens are close to the Christian faith," and are actually "neighbors to the Christian faith" (243). He actually goes on to give a description of their faith - which essentially entails the belief in one God and the belief of Judgment Day as well as the existence of prophets - and points out how Christians believe in essentially the same thing. Alternatively, Odoric of Pordenone in his "Account" wrote of the inherent differences between the two religions, going to the extreme to describe their practices in things such as human sacrifice, cannibalism, and idolatry. Contrary to the rational overview of commonality in the previous text, "Account" draws a big line between Christianity and Islam and urges none to cross it.
ReplyDeleteWhat strikes me as curious between these texts is the fact that the more positive text, "Treatise on the Stage of the Saracens," is also the less obviously biased one. This is evident in the many opportunities that William of Tripoli clearly had to insult and defame Islam, opportunities that he inevitably did not take. He knew of Islam's tolerance of multiple wives, which he could have portrayed offensively like many other writers of the time period; instead, he writes that while you may have multiple wives in Islam, "you are permitted to use, not to misuse, what your hand has acquired" (244). This, like many other examples in "Treatise on the State of the Saracens," provides a more balanced outlook on the religion of Islam. "Account," however, is not only biased in his description of the East, but even goes so far as to frequently write that there are still things "that would not be good to recount in front of any good Christian" (248). On top of all the insulting misrepresentations of Islam and the East, Odoric of Pordenone is even writing that some of the things he saw are too awful to reveal to "any good Christian." Interestingly, at least for the works that John Mandeville drew from, one can tell the more informative and accurate work by the level of Christian bias within the writing.
Monsters, Myths, and Mirages
ReplyDeleteOne fascinating element John Mandeville made sure to “steal” from the writers before him was the idea that monsters lived in Middle Eastern countries. Throughout Mandeville’s entire book there are mentions of cannibals, people with only one foot/leg, and other terrifying thoughts that would keep people up at night. And yet, as we know from our class lectures, Mandeville knew that there were no monsters or demonic creatures residing in any countries. He knew that the things he read from William of Boldensele, William of Tripoli, and Odoric of Pordenone were false. However, he still used them in his writings.
I would like to focus on one example on page 251 (Odoric of Pordenone’s writings). He writes how in the City of Casay the Great (or Catusie) there is a monk who rings a bell to summon these half animal/half human creatures to scurry on down from the mountain for food. This in particular stuck out to me because of the video we watched in class today where Ted Nugent called Obama a, “subhuman mongrel.” It’s so interesting how even almost a thousand years after a book such as John Mandeville is written, people still refer to “others” as not human when they want to try and “make a point.” And, especially how people who are not white are somehow less than human.
I know in class we talked about whether we have made progress in overcoming racism or not. I personally think that while we might have taken a few steps in accepting different races, we have not taken any steps in accepting other religions. From Odoric of Pordenone, to John Mandeville, to Ted Nugent anyone who is not a white Christian somehow has an alternate agenda. Wars are still being fought over religion, and the intolerance shown for people of different beliefs is still sad and horrible.
To tie this whole post together, basically anything “foreign” somehow has a demonic, ugly, side to it that people from the past and present don’t like. People from the “middle east,” or who are Muslim, are so alien and strange to some that they have be some sort of monster in order for them to make sense. Why though? Why did John Mandeville have to write blatant lies? Why does Ted Nugent have to stoop so low in order to “make his point.” How do these people sleep at night soundly? I know I might sound rather naïve at times, but it bothers me how this is still happening because it’s not logical at all to me.
I am going to take a shot at answering some of those big questions you pose- "Why do educated individuals blatantly perpetuate harmful stereotypes? Why must people use hate language in order to portray their points? How do these people sleep at night?” In one word- Politics.
DeleteWhen educated individuals, such as John Mandeville, Ted Nugent, etc. employ the use of slander, and hate speech, we must be automatically suspicious of their self-serving motives. The fact that you cannot make sense of this, I believe, is simply due to human nature. In my opinion, humans are not naturally inclined to hate, or discriminate. That is why powerful individuals of society employ hate speech. The citizens of the world are perpetually brainwashed by the political motives of the higher-ups, the single best instance of this being the war in Iraq.
The United States government employed the use of scare tactics to gain support of military control in the Middle East. Just like we are becoming more politically correct, we are becoming more intolerant of war. Yet just because we are politically correct does not mean we are not racist, in the same way that our intolerance of war does not mean that manifest destiny has halted. We have to become more creative in our methods. With powerful warnings of “weapons of mass destruction” the American people were eager to jump to the defense of their country. For the “others” in the Middle East pose an evident threat. Yet, upon our invasion, it became clear that these weapons simply did not exist. Instead, we proceeded to destroy their government, and murder their people. What we gained was the spread of our philosophies to the Middle East, and the control of oil.
Had the government come to the public with the notions of entering a war for these self serving reasons, the humanitarians, and the media in America and the world would have charged our officials with War Crimes. So instead, we must be creative. We portray the unfamiliar as dangerous, threatening. Obama is a “subhuman mongrel”, “monsters inhabit the Middle East”, and “there are weapons of mass destruction”. People of power rally support of the public with the use of the unsupported, degrading claims, and we endlessly expand our political philosophies, make economic gains, and expand control.
Racism is the ultimate weapon of power. How they sleep? I am not sure.
Today in class we watched part of the Indiana Jones film which exposed how contemporary society still portrays the east in a negative light. While in the process of taking this course, it was clear that there was much exaggeration. I am curious as to whether or not we would have noted this previous to this class. I have seen the movie before, and I think my attention was averted from the stereotyping and animalistic representations of the Indians- not averted from seeing it, but from acknowledging its significance and influence on my own perceptions.
DeleteThe portrayal made the Indians appear sub-human- like monsters. I saw this in the second sequence when the Indians were dressed up in costume with skulls on their heads.
What I found interesting, wasn't just the exaggeration and depiction of the Indians as savage and cruel monsters- but rather, I saw a connection to John Mandeville's text and Christian theology. In Christian theology there is sacrifice as well. Abraham is not seen as a monster when he goes to sacrifice his son Isaac, rather he is looked on as a follower of God. God rewards Abraham for believing in him so devoutly as to be willing to kill his son. Similarly, in the book of John Mandeville, sacrifice is found in honor of idols. One passage reads that a person was considered a holy man if he allowed himself to be stabbed by his friends on the way to the idol and then killed in front of it.
In today's society human sacrifice is considered barbaric. Yet to me, I see another act equally as monstrous- human self-interest. America defines itself as a nation of freedom and social climb. Yet despite this, the income is mostly in the hands of the few while the many have less much less. This has resulted in the poor becoming increasingly poor. In fact, the opening scene for the show Newsroom points out our own misjudgments. The main character argues that America is not the greatest country in the world saying “we’re 7th in literacy, 27th in math, 22nd in science, 49th in life expectancy, 178th in infant mortality, 3rd in median household income… we lead the world in only three categories. Number of incarcerated citizens per capita, number of adults who believe angels are real, and defense spending where we spend more than the next 26th countries combined.” The point of me quoting this scene is to show that Americans not only misrepresent the East, but misrepresent ourselves as well.
How can we look to better our knowledge and stop exaggerating other countries and their practices when we are stuck believing that we are still the best country out there and exaggerating our own greatness?
As Brodie noted, there is a very imperialistic tone in How to Mount a Crusade Overseas. Of course imperialism is a bit of a given in any text regarding the merits of a crusade, but I don’t just mean in the sense that the writer merely advocates a crusade and is intrinsically imperialist; the writer seems to genuinely think that his land (read: Christian Europe, specifically France) is very superior to even the rest of the world. The last line of the passage on page 257 reads "I think (and I state this from experience) that if this tiny little part of ours were placed on one pan of a scale and all the rest of the great world on the other pan, it would be found to be like gold in a mine, heavier through its men and its virtues, not only in the truth of teaching and purity of faith [...]" On that note, I’m not sure that I can agree with Brodie that this text seems very progressive; a text stating how one belief system or land is naturally superior to the entirety of the outside world, regardless of what other nuances it may have, doesn’t seem to promote open-mindedness in the slightest.
ReplyDeleteWith that said, I feel that this passage accomplishes a few different things. One thing that this sort of belief does is to justify a crusade. Whether the logic is that the subject of the crusade is the foreign, dangerous Other and must die or if the focus of the crusade is to convert the pagans and nonbelievers to Christ, establishing firmly the crusading nation’s superiority from the get-go is a key objective. After all, this mindset is essentially a license to do anything and everything the nation wants in regard to foreign policy. Want to break treaties, betray trusts, invade countries, slaughter thousands, steal and plunder, and generally wreak havoc upon a nation not so unlike your own? Feel free; they’re not really people anyway, so they don’t have rights and feelings like we do.
As much as this mindset is a license to do anything, it occurs to me that it is also a license to do nothing. Consider this: at times, it may not be wise politically or militarily to conduct a crusade. Perhaps it is a time where trade with the Other is the most wise course to follow. It may seem impossible for a nation that justifies killing thousands of people to, in the same breath, conduct trade with those people, but it isn’t so. This mindset of superiority also allows a culture to ignore the Other, as much as it can incite rage against it. After all, why should we be afraid of the Other? We are so far above them that they couldn’t possibly threaten us; they’re more like animals than people! Overall, this sort of ideology-fueled foreign policy seems to be very clever in a time where it can work considering it provides a justification for any action that is convenient at the time.
There is a huge point that was only briefly touched on in class because on one level it is easy to see how Mandeville writes the other-than-Christians as other-than-humans in a physiological sense. I agree that there is a lot more to this than a petty move to demonize Muslims, and that Mandeville was neither the first nor the last to use this move, and that a version of its logic exists in common practice today. However, there is a tiny blurb in chapter 21 that nicely demonstrates how another angle of Mandeville’s aggressive racism ties into modern insidious racism. He says, “[The people of Tracoda] eat snake meat, and they eat little, and they do not speak but hiss to one another like snakes…” (120). Thus Mandeville describes these mythical Others not as physically altered, as he does the one-footed Ethiopians and the dog headed people of Nacumera, but as freaks on the level of reason, technological understanding, and most importantly, language. It is definitely not uncommon for people to slander each other on the basis of language, calling this or that language dirty, a “gutter language,” or “a language I just can’t take seriously.” But just as the racial mythology of eugenics has since been overturned, so has the linguistic mythology of language hierarchy.
ReplyDeleteFrom a sociolinguistic perspective, the negative baggage assigned to a language is actually directed at the people who are considered the primary speakers of that language, since what we consider to be separate languages are much more closely related than we might realize. Pidgins, Cajuns, dialects, accents, and local idioms and turns of phrase hybridize the distinct species of language in real practice, so that even our common idea that distinct languages exist is a myth (this is according to the hugely influential linguistic theory of John McWhorter in his book The Power of Babel, 2001). Since there is really no distinguishing feature on the mechanical level to identify extreme western French from extreme Eastern Spanish, for example, making them part of the same mutually intelligible language, their prejudice against each other as speakers of different languages is a political distinction against the people, not actually grounded in any language difference at all. This is definitely the logic at work in Mandeville. He presents the Other as having a unique language that is at best extremely inarticulate, if not completely unintelligible. By the same logic that he describes people as being dog-headed, having no humanity and thus being subhuman, he describes people as actually having no language and being sub-linguistic, in a sense.
This means that just as Mandeville invents physiologically impossible body features following the mythology that there are distinct and unequal “races” of human beings, he invents linguistically impossible languages to do the same, following the mythology that there are distinct and unequal “languages.” While I haven’t heard anyone accusing the Other of having no language at all, you do hear people saying that Turkish is fundamentally less articulate than Farsi or that Mexican is less cultured than English, not realizing that they are only strands within the same hugely diverse language, separated by a few cajuns and local crossover dialects. So, even as we think of painting the Other as physiologically freakish on the basis of race, it is similarly nonsensical to accuse the Other of having a freak language or no language at all, even though such accusations still appear in common use.
At least one funny/telling factor that ties misconceptions in TBJM and current misconceptions about the east is a lack of education or experience or understanding. John Mandeville’s text is a plagiarized compilation of lies. It’s a completely un-founded and illegitimate piece of writing that fronts as if its legitimate. Its power lies – at least partially – in the ignorance of the readership.
ReplyDeleteNow, compare that to Indiana Jones. It was pointed out in class today to be a mass-audience kind of movie, and as such it isn’t required to be any kind of accurate or truthful. Once again, this movie’s success and popularity relies on the ignorance of the populace. If movies like that faced a more educated audience, no one would take it seriously and it wouldn’t be so sellable.
Texts like John Mandeville’s can only exist and succeed when the population knows nothing of what he writes. That way, any vitriol he spews can be accepted as fact.
Movies like Indiana Jones exist for a slightly different reason: big dumb blockbusters are expected to be fun and non-compelling. Particularly, you’d be hard-pressed to find a big American summer blockbuster that took shots at the American self-perception.
So what am I trying (and most likely failing) to point out is that while these influential texts and films have a responsibility to be based in reality, actual information and experience, that’s only part of the problem. Texts that offer a different, more accurate representation of foreign cultures can only do much unless an emphasis towards widespread education is made, and that the important issues are taught in a way that their importance is convincing.
In other words, the damage is done as far as the West’s mis-perception of the East. And the issue now, as far as I understand it, is an equal need for accurate, non-biased education and media that follows suit.