摘要:This paper gives some ideas to the study of Robinson Crusoe as well as to the study of modernity. The study reveals that the two aspects, the progressiveness and limitation of modernity, existed from its very beginning. However, the two aspects of modernity were covered by the remaining influence of God and traditional value in the 18th century. This influence makes Robinson’s optimism for modernity.
over local people, is provided with the modernity. He rescued Friday, but did not treat him equally, also treated him as his own slave, this hierarchy in Robinson’s opinion is justified, and the hierarchy among people overwhelmed the concept of equality and democracy. Robinson admonished Friday, his faith is a trick; and taught him, made him knew God. Friday’s indigenous faith is purged by Robinson’s God.
As revealed by Foucault, the concept of rationality has become a tool of power. The rationality not only becomes an excuse to exclude and suppress non-rationality on awareness and behavior, but also becomes an excuse of those in power to inhibit the different ideas, different races and different cultures.
3.3.2 The Excessive Adoration of the Modern Technology
Through centuries struggling men at last freed themselves from the repression from God. But ironically they created another God— technology, a concrete expression for rationality. In the story of Robinson, technology plays a role similar to that of God, or at least, God is omnipotent. When he succeeded in making a pot, he said proudly: “Not joy at a thing of so mean a nature was ever equal to mine. When I found I had made an earthen pot that would bear the fire.” (Daniel Defoe, 2004: 139) He was also fully aware of the importance of the technology particularly when he said, “What should I have done without a gun, without ammunition, without any tools to make anything or to work with, without clothes, bedding a tent, or any manner of covering?” (Daniel Defoe, 2004: 71)
Technology, to some extent, has been elevated to the position of God. It, as a force and a means to construct the world, does not, by far, deserve the task to replace the rational culture whose meaning has been deposited for thousands of years. The technology yet cannot be an excuse for conquering other cultures that have existed on the earth for long.
Robinson Crusoe is a magnificent feat, which is that a person overcomes the nature, but it also put the people in opposition to the nature; technology has become a main opposite asset between human being and nature. Indeed, whether he transported the tools from the boat or used the skills he learned to develop the desert island, Robinson depended on the human science and technology. The novel reveals the appreciation and hope for modern technology. In modern times, especially in a modern society, science and technology has obtained a great success, and also promotes the progress of human society. However, can the excessive adoration of the modern technology totally solve the problem of the existent meaning? People originally exist in nature, and are mixed with nature, but the modern technology changes this world into a presentational world, and accelerates from the originally natural to artificially natural degradation. The significance of existence has been forgotten.
The investigation of the image of Robinson reveals that the technology-centered concept should be partly responsible for the wide spread inequality of the society in modern age. The revolution of modernity overturned the tyranny of God hundreds years before in the name of freedom. Ironically, he put another figure— rationality onto the throne of tyranny which in turn degenerated to the target of the next revolution. In the 20th century, the up springing of post-modernism, feminism, and ecologism are all revolutionary forces to
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