Today, along with freak shows, bear pits, and public executions, ethnological expositions - aka human zoos - have pretty much been consigned to the shameful past on the grounds that they are cruel, degrading, and racist.
Far be it from me to dispute or deny this; for it's true that the displays often emphasized the ethno-cultural superiority of white Europeans over non-white, non-European peoples deemed to be primitive and inferior, if not, indeed, subhuman. But it seems to me that the contemporary myth of universal humanism that posits a single Great Family of Man sharing a unified history is equally pernicious and, in fact, shares a similar logic.
Far be it from me to dispute or deny this; for it's true that the displays often emphasized the ethno-cultural superiority of white Europeans over non-white, non-European peoples deemed to be primitive and inferior, if not, indeed, subhuman. But it seems to me that the contemporary myth of universal humanism that posits a single Great Family of Man sharing a unified history is equally pernicious and, in fact, shares a similar logic.
Roland Barthes explains how this moralised and sentimentalised myth functions in two stages:
"first the difference between human morphologies is asserted, exoticism [or what we now like to term otherness] is insistently stressed, the infinite variations of the species, the diversity in skins, skulls and customs are made manifest [just as in the human zoo exhibitions] ... Then, from this pluralism, a type of unity is magically produced: man is born, works, laughs and dies everywhere in the same way; and if there still remains in these actions some ethnic peculiarity, at least one hints that there is underlying each one an identical 'nature', that their diversity is formal and does not belie the existence of a common mould ... a human essence ..."
This is the lyrical neutralisation of men and women and the suppression of a history wherein we find not merely colourful, superficial differences, but stark injustices.
Thus, whilst it might seem to be an advance to be accorded equality and granted legal rights - it's certainly prefarable to being exhibited in the monkey house - one still needs to exercise caution and constantly look for signs of the ancient imposture exposed by Barthes.
The human zoos may have closed - but the system of values that opened them continues to operate.
Thus, whilst it might seem to be an advance to be accorded equality and granted legal rights - it's certainly prefarable to being exhibited in the monkey house - one still needs to exercise caution and constantly look for signs of the ancient imposture exposed by Barthes.
The human zoos may have closed - but the system of values that opened them continues to operate.
