(annoyingly, my local libraries only had a few, and I still resent that when I was interested in French in high school that there weren't any original texts available to me)
>> Here, Verne was a narrator of global integration. His heroes were compelled by a quest to resist
politics and oppose it: their triumphs relied on private sponsors, gentlemen’s clubs, scientific associations,
millionaires – not governments. They ventured afar in spite of government, not because
of it. Global order likewise rarely ever featured states, empires, or political actors. Private actors
were the chief benefactors, beneficiaries, and interlocutors.
But I found this article useful for the perspectives on 'worldmaking'. This helps to understand the elements in game dev (immersion) and speculative fiction (narrative transport) that make (or not) a successful game or book. Something that I find fascinating
I don't understand this "in spite of" and "vs." narrative. As far as I know my history the goals were aligned, not least because government was some of the same people, or connected people, and the goals were aligned. The functions were different.
Where does this either-or (private/government) come from?
I look at Gregor Mendel as an example for how many different parties worked as one. (Biology) professor Eric Lander of MIT mentioned in one biology/genetics intro course lecture video (on edX) that Mendel was not some lone figure, but that he got the task to do his research from his boss, who as representative of the church was in turn part of a local group consisting of important figures from local business and government. They talked about economics and decided that they needed better sheep - for better wool. Back then clothing was the big important business, the technical revolution and also new science was very important for it.
So I don't think there was a situation as described in that quote. I think they all worked along and with one another in those days.
The entire expansion of empires and colonies was not driven by some government officials who were bored, commerce, industry and politics were aligned.
The point was that Verne's fictitious heroes were acting independently of government, real or fictional. For example using fictitious, privately funded super-technology (rockets, aircraft, submarines, etc), or emerging from their exclusive gentlemen's clubs to which they returned when the adventure was over.
And I responded to the clear statement you quoted from the submission:
> His heroes were compelled by a quest to resist politics and oppose it...
> ...They ventured afar in spite of government, not because of it.
:)
Granted, reading the full piece shows a more complex picture, but I'm not sure it supports its own assertion that there is meant to be this "vs" towards nations and governments.
The text later contradicts itself too:
> In part, this betrayed how much Verne and his readers took a world of empire for granted: after all, circumnavigation with the ease described in Around the World in Eighty Days was only possible because of empire. Verne depicted a journey that simultaneously relied on a velocity and connectivity only possible because of globe-spanning imperial transport and communication networks, and a journey where – in stark contrast with most actual circumnavigatory voyages – the travellers return home alive and well.
So the text admits the entire private enterprise is only made possible by the global reach and security provided by empire in the first place. That clearly contradicts the earlier statement of "They ventured afar in spite of government, not because of it." The world the stories play in are based no the existence of that political structure and require it.
Mind you, this is because Verne loathed the British Empire, and his heroes using private means to challenge its authority is meant as a rebuke to his own government for not challenging Britain enough.
I long used Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon: A Direct Route in 97 Hours, 20 Minute" as evidence that privately funded space flight isn't so unimaginable. In that case by the Baltimore Gun Club. Then there is The Man Who Sold the Moon by Heinlein where the moon is first visited by "the last of the Robber Barons".
Of course here in the real world space exploration is too costly and complex a game for any organizations other than governments to play, and Verne and Heinlein were optimists with stars in their eyes. Or that's what it seemed like in the seventies when it was pretty much true.
It turns out that commanding the resources extracted through private monopolies isn't so different from deciding how to spend the revenues of taxation.
Political parties often take credit for social advancements, but if you look closely it was break through technology that made the advancements possible, not some social rights protest as the politicians would have you believe
Antibiotics and vaccines. If you need to give birth to 8 kids so that 2-3 of them could live into the reproductive age, fighting for equal rights is neither possible nor relevant.
At the time (late 19th, early 20th century) antibiotics weren't a thing and vaccines, to the extent that they were there (not quite in the modern sense), had been around for a long time.
Cowpox variolation was around for longer, but vaccines in the modern sense were pioneered by Pasteur in 1880s. This is also the time when the first antibiotics (not penicillin) were developed, even though they reached marked later in 1900s.
The late 19th and early 20th century is exactly when the dramatic (around 4x) drop in child mortality took place. It wasn't of course only vaccines but also a general increase in healthcare and living standards. Without that drop I highly doubt that suffrage movement would gain any traction.
There was no 4x drop in child mortality during that time in, for example, the UK: 1850 to 1900 is about -20%, 1900 to 1920 another ~25% - the big 4x reduction from 1850 wasn't reached until about 1945.
Protest and even suffrage somewhat proceeded the big reduction in the first half of the 20th century.
Broad vaccination of populations against a variety of diseases wasn't a thing until a lot later. The antibiotics at the time were very limited and selective.
Btw., the protests still were the thing that got the change at the time, not the technology!
Seems to me any causal link is weak at best. Claiming that humans have no agency when it comes to society is rather a very strong claim that needs a lot of evidence. Usually people make the change, not technology (it wasn't machines protesting and overthrowing governments in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, for example).
> Usually people make the change, not technology (it wasn't machines protesting and overthrowing governments in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, for example
One of the triggering events of 1989 was a Japanese man walking to a university in Prague, putting a box of new modems in a student lounge and walking away.
> it wasn't machines protesting and overthrowing governments in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, for example
Curious example indeed. It wasn't machines that killed communism but its economic inferiority. Same thing that killed slavery and serfdom and feudalism and sit-at-home-women and other outdated social systems before that.
People are the same as they were 2000 years ago. The economic optimum is not, largely thanks to technology.
Again, the people acted, not some abstract social technology - the people action created the change (contrary to your claim that it doesn't matter). Technology might help/enable to do certain things, but human action might or might not follow from that. Without human action things don't simply change (laws don't write themselves, societies don't constitute themselves from technology only, ...). The presence of different societal model at the same time with the same technologies available shows that human action makes the difference.
> the people action created the change (contrary to your claim that it doesn't matter).
This never was my claim. Of course people action created the change.
Your question was different though:
> What technological breakthrough made, for example, women's suffrage possible?
The answer to that is "reduction in child mortality". It didn't "create the change" but rather "made it possible" in a quite literal sense. Same with the fall of communism.
Industrialization ment that women could make money working factory jobs. The need for factory labour and higher wages led people to move to cities. The technological change driving the industrial revolution also brought about printing press and reading books also became more accessible to women.
The need for factory labour was driving that change. But it improved living standards wholesale and even changed peoples diets. So the laws were changed to give more rights to women. You effectively double the labour pool by having women working. Women having money to affect policy was also a consequence. Though the Key is women gaining leverage. Protesting is overrated. Always has been. Look at Palestinians protesting,doesn't help much. they're still getting bombed almost daily. Because currently they don't have leverage to affect policy or technology to fight back.
This article seems to blame Verne for colonialism "At the French Société de Géographie, of which Verne was a long-time member, as well as among imperialists across Europe, the Voyages became a casual frame of reference in justification of colonial expansion.", I don't see how this fits with Verne's most famous character, Captain Nemo. While his background was ambiguous in 20,000 Leagues, in The Mysterious Island it is established that he was an Indian who fought against colonialism in the failed 1857 rebellion and sees himself as the champion of the oppressed.
> Here, Verne was a narrator of global integration. His heroes were compelled by a quest to resist politics and oppose it: their triumphs relied on private sponsors, gentlemen’s clubs, scientific associations, millionaires – not governments. They ventured afar in spite of government, not because of it. Global order likewise rarely ever featured states, empires, or political actors. Private actors were the chief benefactors, beneficiaries, and interlocutors.
So he was writing a story of 19th century trust fund kids and VC funded tech bros..
It was an interesting point to make 30 years ago when the orthodoxy did not include much of that perspective and general society didn’t think much about it.
At this point is it the orthodoxy, suffusing pretty much everything in intellectual public discourse, is no less oppressive than that which it replaced, and, subjectively, feels trite and reductive.
People in Europe are white. Of course engineers, politicians, cooks, street sweepers are going to be white.
Societies, not only in Europe, have historically been men-dominated. So, again, the elite is going to be mostly men.
It is relevant that what you call a "quick aside" was even made because it reveals the mindset and deeper agenda that pervades some parts of academia and political circles these days, which bluntly is anti-white (and, God forbid, male ones).
Funnily enough, white people were a minority in the French Empire of the 19th century, where Vernes wrote his books. You should read about the second revolution of France, in 1848, where women's role in creating the IInd Republic was instrumental, and yet were refused the right to vote. Underlining those thematics in Vernes books is still interesting, it doesn't have to be relevant to today.
Also, what's that thing about academia and politicians being "anti-white"? This sounds weird.
It is only "anti-white" in the sense it's criticizing white men from over a hundred years ago who were doing pretty horrible things in the name of colonialism.
And the fact they were white is pretty important as they themselves used this as justification for their superiority and thus colonialism.
It would be more productive to engage with the meat of the article rather than dismissing it because they mentioned the race and gender of the subjects and engaging in "anti-woke" dog whistling.
Why do you need to refer to Europeans as "white men" then? To me this highlights the deeper thinking, if not obsession, of the person...
It's similar to the anti-Japanese and anti-Chinese campaigns in the US in the 40s to 60s that over-stressed the "race" of those people. It's similar to the classic racism of over-stressing how Africans are black.
Jules Vernes is a notorious misogynist and racist. Read "The Mysterious Island" for instance. He was a product of his time, but clearly not the best one on those grounds.
Also "People in Europe are white" is really something you just hear from people without any European historical culture, and/or people wanting to sell a racist ideology. You have the whole spectrum of colors in Europe, and that's not recent at all. Africa is 30km from Europe, Asia is connected to it, and people travel since before we were modern humans.
> "People in Europe are white" is really something you just hear from people without any European historical culture, and/or people wanting to sell a racist ideology
There's of course a lot of cross-communication with other continents, from the muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula to the Ottoman wars in eastern Europe, and the colonizing empires.
But the European history is very strongly predominantly white, and pretending otherwise is something you only hear from politically oriented people, unless you try to push ridiculous ideas like 'Italians are not white' as I've seen here and there
> European history is of course very strongly predominantly white
"White" ?
In the context of the thinking in Europe at the time of Verne .. what is "white"?
eg: The Races of Europe: A Sociological Study (1899) - Ripley
Ripley classified Europeans into three distinct races: Teutonic [..] Mediterranean [..] Alpine [..]
Ripley's tripartite system of race put him at odds both with others on the topic of human difference, including those who insisted that there was only one European race, and those who insisted that there were at least ten European races (such as Joseph Deniker, whom Ripley saw as his chief rival).
You're talking about the general history of Europe, and the vision in our current culture, why are you trying to push an obsolete taxonomy "of the time" ?
> "People in Europe are white" is really something you just hear from people without any European historical culture, and/or people wanting to sell a racist ideology
That's clearly talking about current notions, and not "current in the times of Jules Vernes"
Your request for me to "read more carefully" is very much unwelcome : stand by your own writing instead of trying to shift the meaning
> That's clearly talking about current notions, and ...
written by somebody other than myself.
> Your request for me to "read more carefully" is
again restated. Please read more carefully, pay attention to who said what, and don't falsely take the wrong people to task over what other people said.
We all make mistakes, perhaps you can now recognise and acknowledge yours.
"White" is a fictional category, and it is an empty one at that. "White" and "Black" were invented in the Colony of Virginia to keep African and Irish/Scottish slaves apart and from uniting against their masters. To accomplish this end, "white" slaves were given the privilege of being whipped with their shirts on. This was enough to create a feeling of privilege among the "white" slaves and a feeling of resentment among the "black" slaves. Sound familiar?
Eventually, "Black American" actually became a real cultural identity, and in some sense an indigenous ethnic group that formed in the US among the descendants of African slaves (who, usually, also have some European ancestry). Nothing analogous occurred for "White American". There is no "White American" as an ethnic or cultural identity. It's a completely negative notion defined in terms of what it is not. This is why the whole "white boy" phenomenon we're seeing today is preposterously silly. It's not an identity. There is no "white culture". "Black" on its own is not an authentic identity either, unless it is short for "Black American. Black American culture has little to do with Africa, even if some elements of their culture have remote African inspiration or roots.
The "white boy" phenomenon is just a sad result of the loss of ethnic and religious identity. The US is a country especially prone to this issue. The first wave of European immigrants formed ethnic enclaves. With each passing generation, the likelihood of intermarriage, especially with members of the same religion, increased. Over time, ethnic identity is watered down to such a degree that the only remaining identity is religious identity. So, in the US, religious identity played a double role as both ethnic and religious identity. Now, as religious identity has eroded under the incessant pressures of liberal hyperindividualism, people are grasping at something that can given them a sense of identity. This is one reason for the rise of various ideologies, sexual and racial ideologies. So, in this case, the "white boy" is basically a kid with some kind of European ancestry who has no ethnic or religious identity who has latched onto this "white" label in an attempt to make up for having neither.
So, what Europeans had in common was a broadly Christian identity, not "whiteness", whatever that even means. Yes, the peoples of Europe tend to have less skin pigment, they tend to have different shaped noses, different phenotypes, but this is not a cultural or ethnic identity. Having blue eyes or brown eyes is not a cultural identity. These are the kinds of features that people latch onto when they don't have or have a weak ethnic identity.
Was Verne more, or less, misogynist and racist than his contemporaries? I was under the impression that both were common during his day. From the little Verne that I've read, I didn't have the impression that he had a particularly bad opinion of "the savages" he describes in his stories.
I'm not sure this analysis is totally correct though, after all without spoiling to much, an Indian prince features prominently in some of the best known stories of Jules Verne, and another of the famous ones is about a Chinese man.
And most stories take place with characters that are British or American bordering on parodies, rarely French people.
The role of epistemic superiority structures a persistent division throughout the Voyages between the white male scientist (in the singular) and ignorant natives (in the plural)’
The addition of completely unnecessary (to the comparison) "male" really paints this as flag waving.
Nemo was originally written as a Polish aristocrat. When you consider that, all aspects of his description in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870) make sense. By the time Verne wrote The Mysterious Island (1875), his ire had become more directed toward the British rather than the Russian empire, so he changed Nemo to be an Indian prince.
Nemo was indeed originally written as a former Polish rebel against Russian rule, but Verne's publisher objected on the grounds that this might offend Russians[1], and so the published version of Twenty Thousand Leagues had no mention of national origin or ethnicity for Nemo.
[1] Both because the Russian market was important for sales of French books -- and government censorship in Russia was a strong possibility -- and because the publisher supported France's ongoing negotiations with Russia for a potential alliance, and worried a book promoting anti-Russian themes might make the negotiations more difficult.
The change about Nemo's origin must have been done before finishing "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas", because already in that there were expressions of his discontent with the British Empire, above any others, I think towards the end of the novel, when he attacked some British war ship (an attack that was used to convince the more reluctant of the prisoners that they must escape from the submarine).
That novel has been published in episodes scattered over more than a year, so it would not be unusual if towards its end Verne had a different vision of the story line than when he had started writing it, one year before.
The Indian origin was used mostly to explain his dislike for the British.
His story was not uniquely Indian, but it still would have fit only someone from the British colonies, and one who despite that still had access to money that enabled him to get a modern education, which would have been less plausible for the natives in other British colonies.
In the books Nemo is obsessed with fighting British colonialism (and broadly all imperialism) due to his family history. Can't say it's something Verne overlooked.
When it comes to ethnicity / race (or really any characteristic) there's a few ways writers can do it:
1. Colourblind - race has no real impact. It's simply not a big deal when writing the character or story. Nemo was originally going to be Polish, but he ended up Indian. The only important thing about him being Indian is that he opposes the British Empire, but really anyone can stand up against injustice. An awful lot of characters are actually like this, because they are mostly written to serve the plot, so as long as Nemo is smart, brave, cultured, loves the sea, tenacious, and stands up against injustice he can be anyone.
2. Tokenism - it effects the character, but not the story e.g. your plucky group of teenage crime fighters has a black kid who is street smart, and an Asian kid who is book smart. Or you could be cool and reverse the stereotypes. I'd say it's fine, as long as it's not too ham-fisted for whatever the current year is.
3. Make the entire plot about this characteristic, because you want to tell an "authentic" story.
So does race effect nothing (substantial), the character, or the story itself? For Nemo, I'd say his race is absolutely not a big deal at all.
I think it's concerning how a lot of people here seem to take offense at the fact the article underlines the predominantly white and masculine nature of Verne's protagonists.
Should an analysis of Verne's work refrain from pointing this out? Because it would be too "woke"?
Verne lived during the peak of the French colonial Empire. Whites were a minority in the total population of the Empire, racism was pretty much a state institution used to justify an ad hoc hierarchy of the peoples living in the colonies.
Seeing how Verne's archetype of the adventurer was shaped by colonial imagery is relevant to understanding his work. I don't know what more to tell you.
I don’t take offense but is it in any way surprising that Verne being a Frenchman writing for a predominantly French audience depicted adventurers who actually look like him?
Seems to me like taking a sledgehammer to tore down doors which are already wide open but maybe I’m missing something. At this point, the mandatory postcolonial blurb in any literature article feels so expected that it has become slightly trite at least to me.
My previous comment was specifically targeted to those who feel offended this is even brought up.
Jules Verne's books often features adventurers inspired by the heroes created by colonial propaganda, like Lyautey, Marchand, Brazza... Understanding the context of the time Verne lived in is necessary to get where his stories come from. Not mentioning it would lead to a pretty subpar analysis, in my opinion.
> Understanding the context of the time Verne lived in is necessary to get where his stories come from.
Certainly but that’s kind of implied by merely talking about Verne. Anyway, the article leans more heavily towards the overall Verne outlook towards colonialism than his simple choice of character thankfully.
I don’t think the analysis is particularly compelling or interesting - it’s the usual continental philosophy inspired rehash you expect for any modern literature paper, a discipline which has apparently become entirely incapable of producing any novel idea - but well I guess it’s nice it exists even if reading it feels like looking at a paint by number piece of art.
While that is true, it is not something specific to Verne but it is how everybody was educated at that time.
Verne was far more sympathetic towards non-European people that the vast majority of the Europeans of his time and many non-Europeans had very positive roles in his writings, even if their roles were less important than of the main European heroes. There were even a few strong female characters in some of his novels, even if most had male protagonists.
Therefore I think that it is stupid to insist on this. Only in the context of describing racism of the entire society of the 19th century it makes sense to give examples from Verne, among many others, to illustrate the way of thinking of that time.
Discussing this only in Verne can give the impression that he was worse than others, when in fact he was much better from this point of view.
He certainly was not an "apostle of colonization" and even the article recognizes that many of his works are very critical of colonization.
The main thing that can be reproached to Verne is that he tended to be much more indulgent about French colonization than about British colonization, under the mistaken assumption that in the French colonies abuses happen much less frequently than in the British colonies (though the British appear to have indeed been the worst, judging after the very small percentages of surviving natives in the British colonies in comparison with the colonies of all other countries).
As a child I have read a very large number of the novels of Jules Verne. While there were a few passages where he expressed a naive optimism about the possible benefits of bringing "civilization" to some remote parts of the Earth, those have made very little impression on me. What I have retained because I was impressed by them have been exactly the parts where the European colonization was criticized and where various natives had very positive images.
So any article author that describes Jules Verne as an "apostle of colonization" cannot have done due diligence in really reading his works.
The article is not painting Verne as a rabid colonialist, but he certainly was a product of his time, and understanding this is necessary to properly look at his works. I too have read quite a lot of his books.
Having non-European heroes be subordinate to European heroes was a common trope in colonial times. Look at Jean-Baptiste Marchand's expedition though Africa, and the statue he got as a result.
To help put all this in context, a member at the Mobileread forum read these books and commented on them:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=340548
(annoyingly, my local libraries only had a few, and I still resent that when I was interested in French in high school that there weren't any original texts available to me)
For a discussion of the difficulties of reading this in translation see: https://www.usni.org/press/books/20000-leagues-under-sea --- it would be great if all of these novels could be so treated/updated.
The foreground message is quite blunt
>> Here, Verne was a narrator of global integration. His heroes were compelled by a quest to resist politics and oppose it: their triumphs relied on private sponsors, gentlemen’s clubs, scientific associations, millionaires – not governments. They ventured afar in spite of government, not because of it. Global order likewise rarely ever featured states, empires, or political actors. Private actors were the chief benefactors, beneficiaries, and interlocutors.
But I found this article useful for the perspectives on 'worldmaking'. This helps to understand the elements in game dev (immersion) and speculative fiction (narrative transport) that make (or not) a successful game or book. Something that I find fascinating
I don't understand this "in spite of" and "vs." narrative. As far as I know my history the goals were aligned, not least because government was some of the same people, or connected people, and the goals were aligned. The functions were different.
Where does this either-or (private/government) come from?
I look at Gregor Mendel as an example for how many different parties worked as one. (Biology) professor Eric Lander of MIT mentioned in one biology/genetics intro course lecture video (on edX) that Mendel was not some lone figure, but that he got the task to do his research from his boss, who as representative of the church was in turn part of a local group consisting of important figures from local business and government. They talked about economics and decided that they needed better sheep - for better wool. Back then clothing was the big important business, the technical revolution and also new science was very important for it.
So I don't think there was a situation as described in that quote. I think they all worked along and with one another in those days.
The entire expansion of empires and colonies was not driven by some government officials who were bored, commerce, industry and politics were aligned.
> "in spite of" and "vs." narrative
The point was that Verne's fictitious heroes were acting independently of government, real or fictional. For example using fictitious, privately funded super-technology (rockets, aircraft, submarines, etc), or emerging from their exclusive gentlemen's clubs to which they returned when the adventure was over.
And I responded to the clear statement you quoted from the submission:
> His heroes were compelled by a quest to resist politics and oppose it...
> ...They ventured afar in spite of government, not because of it.
:)
Granted, reading the full piece shows a more complex picture, but I'm not sure it supports its own assertion that there is meant to be this "vs" towards nations and governments.
The text later contradicts itself too:
> In part, this betrayed how much Verne and his readers took a world of empire for granted: after all, circumnavigation with the ease described in Around the World in Eighty Days was only possible because of empire. Verne depicted a journey that simultaneously relied on a velocity and connectivity only possible because of globe-spanning imperial transport and communication networks, and a journey where – in stark contrast with most actual circumnavigatory voyages – the travellers return home alive and well.
So the text admits the entire private enterprise is only made possible by the global reach and security provided by empire in the first place. That clearly contradicts the earlier statement of "They ventured afar in spite of government, not because of it." The world the stories play in are based no the existence of that political structure and require it.
Mind you, this is because Verne loathed the British Empire, and his heroes using private means to challenge its authority is meant as a rebuke to his own government for not challenging Britain enough.
I long used Verne's "From the Earth to the Moon: A Direct Route in 97 Hours, 20 Minute" as evidence that privately funded space flight isn't so unimaginable. In that case by the Baltimore Gun Club. Then there is The Man Who Sold the Moon by Heinlein where the moon is first visited by "the last of the Robber Barons".
Of course here in the real world space exploration is too costly and complex a game for any organizations other than governments to play, and Verne and Heinlein were optimists with stars in their eyes. Or that's what it seemed like in the seventies when it was pretty much true.
It turns out that commanding the resources extracted through private monopolies isn't so different from deciding how to spend the revenues of taxation.
Political parties often take credit for social advancements, but if you look closely it was break through technology that made the advancements possible, not some social rights protest as the politicians would have you believe
What technological breakthrough made, for example, women's suffrage possible?
Antibiotics and vaccines. If you need to give birth to 8 kids so that 2-3 of them could live into the reproductive age, fighting for equal rights is neither possible nor relevant.
At the time (late 19th, early 20th century) antibiotics weren't a thing and vaccines, to the extent that they were there (not quite in the modern sense), had been around for a long time.
Cowpox variolation was around for longer, but vaccines in the modern sense were pioneered by Pasteur in 1880s. This is also the time when the first antibiotics (not penicillin) were developed, even though they reached marked later in 1900s.
The late 19th and early 20th century is exactly when the dramatic (around 4x) drop in child mortality took place. It wasn't of course only vaccines but also a general increase in healthcare and living standards. Without that drop I highly doubt that suffrage movement would gain any traction.
There was no 4x drop in child mortality during that time in, for example, the UK: 1850 to 1900 is about -20%, 1900 to 1920 another ~25% - the big 4x reduction from 1850 wasn't reached until about 1945. Protest and even suffrage somewhat proceeded the big reduction in the first half of the 20th century.
Broad vaccination of populations against a variety of diseases wasn't a thing until a lot later. The antibiotics at the time were very limited and selective.
Btw., the protests still were the thing that got the change at the time, not the technology!
Seems to me any causal link is weak at best. Claiming that humans have no agency when it comes to society is rather a very strong claim that needs a lot of evidence. Usually people make the change, not technology (it wasn't machines protesting and overthrowing governments in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, for example).
> Usually people make the change, not technology (it wasn't machines protesting and overthrowing governments in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, for example
One of the triggering events of 1989 was a Japanese man walking to a university in Prague, putting a box of new modems in a student lounge and walking away.
> it wasn't machines protesting and overthrowing governments in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, for example
Curious example indeed. It wasn't machines that killed communism but its economic inferiority. Same thing that killed slavery and serfdom and feudalism and sit-at-home-women and other outdated social systems before that.
People are the same as they were 2000 years ago. The economic optimum is not, largely thanks to technology.
Again, the people acted, not some abstract social technology - the people action created the change (contrary to your claim that it doesn't matter). Technology might help/enable to do certain things, but human action might or might not follow from that. Without human action things don't simply change (laws don't write themselves, societies don't constitute themselves from technology only, ...). The presence of different societal model at the same time with the same technologies available shows that human action makes the difference.
> the people action created the change (contrary to your claim that it doesn't matter).
This never was my claim. Of course people action created the change.
Your question was different though:
> What technological breakthrough made, for example, women's suffrage possible?
The answer to that is "reduction in child mortality". It didn't "create the change" but rather "made it possible" in a quite literal sense. Same with the fall of communism.
> if you look closely it was break through technology that made the advancements possible, not some social rights protest
Edit: yes, sorry, not your claim but the claim under discussion
Reads to me like social protest makes nothing possible,
You so far advanced a hypothesis on suffrage, but not more.
Well for one thing I didn't write that.
Industrialization ment that women could make money working factory jobs. The need for factory labour and higher wages led people to move to cities. The technological change driving the industrial revolution also brought about printing press and reading books also became more accessible to women. The need for factory labour was driving that change. But it improved living standards wholesale and even changed peoples diets. So the laws were changed to give more rights to women. You effectively double the labour pool by having women working. Women having money to affect policy was also a consequence. Though the Key is women gaining leverage. Protesting is overrated. Always has been. Look at Palestinians protesting,doesn't help much. they're still getting bombed almost daily. Because currently they don't have leverage to affect policy or technology to fight back.
This article seems to blame Verne for colonialism "At the French Société de Géographie, of which Verne was a long-time member, as well as among imperialists across Europe, the Voyages became a casual frame of reference in justification of colonial expansion.", I don't see how this fits with Verne's most famous character, Captain Nemo. While his background was ambiguous in 20,000 Leagues, in The Mysterious Island it is established that he was an Indian who fought against colonialism in the failed 1857 rebellion and sees himself as the champion of the oppressed.
> Here, Verne was a narrator of global integration. His heroes were compelled by a quest to resist politics and oppose it: their triumphs relied on private sponsors, gentlemen’s clubs, scientific associations, millionaires – not governments. They ventured afar in spite of government, not because of it. Global order likewise rarely ever featured states, empires, or political actors. Private actors were the chief benefactors, beneficiaries, and interlocutors.
So he was writing a story of 19th century trust fund kids and VC funded tech bros..
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It was an interesting point to make 30 years ago when the orthodoxy did not include much of that perspective and general society didn’t think much about it.
At this point is it the orthodoxy, suffusing pretty much everything in intellectual public discourse, is no less oppressive than that which it replaced, and, subjectively, feels trite and reductive.
The article is just correctly identifying that late 1800s french colonial technocrats were predominantly white males.
The article isn't really making a particular point about this, it's just a quick aside. What are you referring to when you say "here we go again"?
People in Europe are white. Of course engineers, politicians, cooks, street sweepers are going to be white.
Societies, not only in Europe, have historically been men-dominated. So, again, the elite is going to be mostly men.
It is relevant that what you call a "quick aside" was even made because it reveals the mindset and deeper agenda that pervades some parts of academia and political circles these days, which bluntly is anti-white (and, God forbid, male ones).
Funnily enough, white people were a minority in the French Empire of the 19th century, where Vernes wrote his books. You should read about the second revolution of France, in 1848, where women's role in creating the IInd Republic was instrumental, and yet were refused the right to vote. Underlining those thematics in Vernes books is still interesting, it doesn't have to be relevant to today.
Also, what's that thing about academia and politicians being "anti-white"? This sounds weird.
It is only "anti-white" in the sense it's criticizing white men from over a hundred years ago who were doing pretty horrible things in the name of colonialism.
And the fact they were white is pretty important as they themselves used this as justification for their superiority and thus colonialism.
It would be more productive to engage with the meat of the article rather than dismissing it because they mentioned the race and gender of the subjects and engaging in "anti-woke" dog whistling.
Why do you need to refer to Europeans as "white men" then? To me this highlights the deeper thinking, if not obsession, of the person...
It's similar to the anti-Japanese and anti-Chinese campaigns in the US in the 40s to 60s that over-stressed the "race" of those people. It's similar to the classic racism of over-stressing how Africans are black.
Jules Vernes is a notorious misogynist and racist. Read "The Mysterious Island" for instance. He was a product of his time, but clearly not the best one on those grounds.
Also "People in Europe are white" is really something you just hear from people without any European historical culture, and/or people wanting to sell a racist ideology. You have the whole spectrum of colors in Europe, and that's not recent at all. Africa is 30km from Europe, Asia is connected to it, and people travel since before we were modern humans.
> "People in Europe are white" is really something you just hear from people without any European historical culture, and/or people wanting to sell a racist ideology
There's of course a lot of cross-communication with other continents, from the muslim conquest of the Iberian peninsula to the Ottoman wars in eastern Europe, and the colonizing empires.
But the European history is very strongly predominantly white, and pretending otherwise is something you only hear from politically oriented people, unless you try to push ridiculous ideas like 'Italians are not white' as I've seen here and there
> European history is of course very strongly predominantly white
"White" ?
In the context of the thinking in Europe at the time of Verne .. what is "white"?
eg: The Races of Europe: A Sociological Study (1899) - Ripley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Races_of_Europe_(Ripley_bo...> unless you try to push ridiculous ideas like 'Italians are not white'
Most people of the time accepted as "obvious" that Italians were not Germanic in race ...
You're talking about the general history of Europe, and the vision in our current culture, why are you trying to push an obsolete taxonomy "of the time" ?
> You're talking about the general history of Europe
I'm referencing ideas current in the time of Jules Verne ..
> and the vision in our current culture
I made no reference to current notions ..
> why are you trying to push an obsolete taxonomy "of the time" ?
I'm doing no such thing. FWiW I think the ideas cited from 1899 were wrong then and still wrong today.
Perhaps you might try reading more carefully?
> "People in Europe are white" is really something you just hear from people without any European historical culture, and/or people wanting to sell a racist ideology
That's clearly talking about current notions, and not "current in the times of Jules Vernes"
Your request for me to "read more carefully" is very much unwelcome : stand by your own writing instead of trying to shift the meaning
> That's clearly talking about current notions, and ...
written by somebody other than myself.
> Your request for me to "read more carefully" is
again restated. Please read more carefully, pay attention to who said what, and don't falsely take the wrong people to task over what other people said.
We all make mistakes, perhaps you can now recognise and acknowledge yours.
Okay?
"White" is a fictional category, and it is an empty one at that. "White" and "Black" were invented in the Colony of Virginia to keep African and Irish/Scottish slaves apart and from uniting against their masters. To accomplish this end, "white" slaves were given the privilege of being whipped with their shirts on. This was enough to create a feeling of privilege among the "white" slaves and a feeling of resentment among the "black" slaves. Sound familiar?
Eventually, "Black American" actually became a real cultural identity, and in some sense an indigenous ethnic group that formed in the US among the descendants of African slaves (who, usually, also have some European ancestry). Nothing analogous occurred for "White American". There is no "White American" as an ethnic or cultural identity. It's a completely negative notion defined in terms of what it is not. This is why the whole "white boy" phenomenon we're seeing today is preposterously silly. It's not an identity. There is no "white culture". "Black" on its own is not an authentic identity either, unless it is short for "Black American. Black American culture has little to do with Africa, even if some elements of their culture have remote African inspiration or roots.
The "white boy" phenomenon is just a sad result of the loss of ethnic and religious identity. The US is a country especially prone to this issue. The first wave of European immigrants formed ethnic enclaves. With each passing generation, the likelihood of intermarriage, especially with members of the same religion, increased. Over time, ethnic identity is watered down to such a degree that the only remaining identity is religious identity. So, in the US, religious identity played a double role as both ethnic and religious identity. Now, as religious identity has eroded under the incessant pressures of liberal hyperindividualism, people are grasping at something that can given them a sense of identity. This is one reason for the rise of various ideologies, sexual and racial ideologies. So, in this case, the "white boy" is basically a kid with some kind of European ancestry who has no ethnic or religious identity who has latched onto this "white" label in an attempt to make up for having neither.
So, what Europeans had in common was a broadly Christian identity, not "whiteness", whatever that even means. Yes, the peoples of Europe tend to have less skin pigment, they tend to have different shaped noses, different phenotypes, but this is not a cultural or ethnic identity. Having blue eyes or brown eyes is not a cultural identity. These are the kinds of features that people latch onto when they don't have or have a weak ethnic identity.
You must work in the BBC drama department if you believe that people in Britain, France, Germany etc are not historically and overwhelmingly white.
Factually, whites were a minority in the French Colonial Empire of the 19th century.
The empire was much more than the places mentioned in the comment you’re replying to.
Algeria was considered an integral département of France, so technically they might be right if that population was substantial enough.
Was Verne more, or less, misogynist and racist than his contemporaries? I was under the impression that both were common during his day. From the little Verne that I've read, I didn't have the impression that he had a particularly bad opinion of "the savages" he describes in his stories.
I'm not sure this analysis is totally correct though, after all without spoiling to much, an Indian prince features prominently in some of the best known stories of Jules Verne, and another of the famous ones is about a Chinese man.
And most stories take place with characters that are British or American bordering on parodies, rarely French people.
It's true that women are rarely important though.
Also disclaimer, I didn't read this article.
The article is talking about how his stories inspired real world colonial technocrats in France at the time.
The role of epistemic superiority structures a persistent division throughout the Voyages between the white male scientist (in the singular) and ignorant natives (in the plural)’
The addition of completely unnecessary (to the comparison) "male" really paints this as flag waving.
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Nemo was originally written as a Polish aristocrat. When you consider that, all aspects of his description in Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas (1870) make sense. By the time Verne wrote The Mysterious Island (1875), his ire had become more directed toward the British rather than the Russian empire, so he changed Nemo to be an Indian prince.
Nemo was indeed originally written as a former Polish rebel against Russian rule, but Verne's publisher objected on the grounds that this might offend Russians[1], and so the published version of Twenty Thousand Leagues had no mention of national origin or ethnicity for Nemo.
[1] Both because the Russian market was important for sales of French books -- and government censorship in Russia was a strong possibility -- and because the publisher supported France's ongoing negotiations with Russia for a potential alliance, and worried a book promoting anti-Russian themes might make the negotiations more difficult.
The change about Nemo's origin must have been done before finishing "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas", because already in that there were expressions of his discontent with the British Empire, above any others, I think towards the end of the novel, when he attacked some British war ship (an attack that was used to convince the more reluctant of the prisoners that they must escape from the submarine).
That novel has been published in episodes scattered over more than a year, so it would not be unusual if towards its end Verne had a different vision of the story line than when he had started writing it, one year before.
The Indian origin was used mostly to explain his dislike for the British.
His story was not uniquely Indian, but it still would have fit only someone from the British colonies, and one who despite that still had access to money that enabled him to get a modern education, which would have been less plausible for the natives in other British colonies.
In the books Nemo is obsessed with fighting British colonialism (and broadly all imperialism) due to his family history. Can't say it's something Verne overlooked.
> Nemo is Indian, but he is basically a white man with a pallet swap, since he could be anyone.
Can you elaborate on this?
Sorry, back at my computer now.
When it comes to ethnicity / race (or really any characteristic) there's a few ways writers can do it:
1. Colourblind - race has no real impact. It's simply not a big deal when writing the character or story. Nemo was originally going to be Polish, but he ended up Indian. The only important thing about him being Indian is that he opposes the British Empire, but really anyone can stand up against injustice. An awful lot of characters are actually like this, because they are mostly written to serve the plot, so as long as Nemo is smart, brave, cultured, loves the sea, tenacious, and stands up against injustice he can be anyone.
2. Tokenism - it effects the character, but not the story e.g. your plucky group of teenage crime fighters has a black kid who is street smart, and an Asian kid who is book smart. Or you could be cool and reverse the stereotypes. I'd say it's fine, as long as it's not too ham-fisted for whatever the current year is.
3. Make the entire plot about this characteristic, because you want to tell an "authentic" story.
So does race effect nothing (substantial), the character, or the story itself? For Nemo, I'd say his race is absolutely not a big deal at all.
See e.g. the debate on colourblind casting. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color-blind_casting
I think it's concerning how a lot of people here seem to take offense at the fact the article underlines the predominantly white and masculine nature of Verne's protagonists.
Should an analysis of Verne's work refrain from pointing this out? Because it would be too "woke"?
Verne lived during the peak of the French colonial Empire. Whites were a minority in the total population of the Empire, racism was pretty much a state institution used to justify an ad hoc hierarchy of the peoples living in the colonies.
Seeing how Verne's archetype of the adventurer was shaped by colonial imagery is relevant to understanding his work. I don't know what more to tell you.
I don’t take offense but is it in any way surprising that Verne being a Frenchman writing for a predominantly French audience depicted adventurers who actually look like him?
Seems to me like taking a sledgehammer to tore down doors which are already wide open but maybe I’m missing something. At this point, the mandatory postcolonial blurb in any literature article feels so expected that it has become slightly trite at least to me.
My previous comment was specifically targeted to those who feel offended this is even brought up.
Jules Verne's books often features adventurers inspired by the heroes created by colonial propaganda, like Lyautey, Marchand, Brazza... Understanding the context of the time Verne lived in is necessary to get where his stories come from. Not mentioning it would lead to a pretty subpar analysis, in my opinion.
> Understanding the context of the time Verne lived in is necessary to get where his stories come from.
Certainly but that’s kind of implied by merely talking about Verne. Anyway, the article leans more heavily towards the overall Verne outlook towards colonialism than his simple choice of character thankfully.
I don’t think the analysis is particularly compelling or interesting - it’s the usual continental philosophy inspired rehash you expect for any modern literature paper, a discipline which has apparently become entirely incapable of producing any novel idea - but well I guess it’s nice it exists even if reading it feels like looking at a paint by number piece of art.
While that is true, it is not something specific to Verne but it is how everybody was educated at that time.
Verne was far more sympathetic towards non-European people that the vast majority of the Europeans of his time and many non-Europeans had very positive roles in his writings, even if their roles were less important than of the main European heroes. There were even a few strong female characters in some of his novels, even if most had male protagonists.
Therefore I think that it is stupid to insist on this. Only in the context of describing racism of the entire society of the 19th century it makes sense to give examples from Verne, among many others, to illustrate the way of thinking of that time.
Discussing this only in Verne can give the impression that he was worse than others, when in fact he was much better from this point of view.
He certainly was not an "apostle of colonization" and even the article recognizes that many of his works are very critical of colonization.
The main thing that can be reproached to Verne is that he tended to be much more indulgent about French colonization than about British colonization, under the mistaken assumption that in the French colonies abuses happen much less frequently than in the British colonies (though the British appear to have indeed been the worst, judging after the very small percentages of surviving natives in the British colonies in comparison with the colonies of all other countries).
As a child I have read a very large number of the novels of Jules Verne. While there were a few passages where he expressed a naive optimism about the possible benefits of bringing "civilization" to some remote parts of the Earth, those have made very little impression on me. What I have retained because I was impressed by them have been exactly the parts where the European colonization was criticized and where various natives had very positive images.
So any article author that describes Jules Verne as an "apostle of colonization" cannot have done due diligence in really reading his works.
He certainly was not an "apostle of colonization"
The 'apostle of colonization' quoted by the article is something someone said about Verne in 1929. As a compliment.
The article is not painting Verne as a rabid colonialist, but he certainly was a product of his time, and understanding this is necessary to properly look at his works. I too have read quite a lot of his books.
Having non-European heroes be subordinate to European heroes was a common trope in colonial times. Look at Jean-Baptiste Marchand's expedition though Africa, and the statue he got as a result.