When Does Innocence End?

[David Morris]

--- Otto Sell <o.sell at telda.net> wrote:
> I read all posts.
> 
> Weissmann: "He believes (...) in blasphemy" - and to be more precise: "like
> the Rhenish Missionary Society who corrupted this boy." . . . Aren't we
> necessarily to think further: "...believed in blasphemy."
> For Weissmann it seems indisputable that the monks too "believed" in
> blasphemy. In which?

Do you mean by this last question, "In which blasphemy?"  They aren't said to
believe in any *specific* act of blasphemy.  They belived in a "pure" God who
is offended by words uttered, thoughts too.  A chaste, clean, and
easily-offended "white" God.  

Yes, Weissman thinks the monks, like himself, believed in blasphemy.  This
belief in blasphemy is here contrasted with Enzian's purity, that purity being
a "native" state in which Fucking equals God, linguistically, conceptually.

The contrast between the two peoples is simple.  The ultimate corruption of
Enzian would be to get HIM to belive in blasphemy.  He would then have joined
the ruders of the Annubis, perfoming an erotic Minstrel Show.

> Christianity was the corruption the monks committed, but what was the
> blasphemy then?

Where does is say ANYWHERE in the text that the missionaries *COMMITTED*
basphemy?????  That is *your* invention.  The text says they *believed in*
blasphemy.  Like I said before, is this a gap in grammar between your German
and our English?
 
> "nor even a request." - "the boy wants to fuck" (100) - it's a proposal.
> It's Enzian who initiates the situation. He has learned to like it and knows
> that white males like it.
> "why is Enzian's situation any different?" - I haven't been molested
> literally, just metaphorically, corrupted. But this novel helps.
> 
> The boy says a blasphemy (according to Christian values) in using the
> Herero-word for God for the act. Evidently it's no blasphemy for Enzian what
> they're doing. But is this common Herero religion (as Terrance suggests)? Or
> is it Enzian's belief that this is common religion? If Enzian has been
> corrupted with Christianity how come that he's proposing such an act? To a
> Baas! Because it's common for him, what he has learned from his folk what
> Christianity means: being sodomized by that white folk that pretends to be
> God's representatives down here.

I could actually like this interpretation if it had any basis in the text.  But
the text's route is much simpler.  For Enzian to call fucking "God."  Is a sign
of his still-remaining purity, contrasted with the corruption of the
"blasphemy-believing" Christians.  Do you think that before the Christians came
to the Hereros that sodomy (FUCKING) was unknown?  Do you proposed they did not
use this term for heterosexual fucking?  Why can't "God" equal "ALL FUCKING?" 
That is how the text plays it, unless you really insist on laying Christian
values ("sodomy" is a Christian word) on the Hereros prior to their encounter
w/ the missionaries.

I can't believe this is such a hard point.

David Morris

David Morris

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail - Free email you can access from anywhere!
http://mail.yahoo.com/