Seite 56 [56]
Domesticating Nature, Appropriating Hierarchy
hunting scene is shown: a group of armed horsemen—seemingly Europeans (prob¬
ably settlers)—are chasing animals, shooting at them with guns. The principal divi¬
sion of Europe itself into a materially developed, industrious “West” characterized
by an indoor-dwelling life-style, as it is shown in the picture of silkworm breeding
(Plate III), and of an outdoor-living, nature/forest-cultivating “North” and “East,”
living close to its animals is another example of the opposing poles or “stades” of
such an imaginary hierarchical history (ills. 3, 9, and 10).
All in all, Raff’s schoolbook provided—especially by means of its images—a
vulgarized, popular version of the general idea of stadial history and contributed a
lot to the distribution of this powerful concept all over Europe, the eastern part in¬
cluded, and North America. Illustrating the imagined hierarchical order of societies
for the students, and designating a place in it for virtually every society, it supported,
again, the prevailing social-political establishment and was aimed toward confirm¬
ing its dominant ideas and ideology for all possible readers. Ihe most important,
historical-philosophical layer of the intended messages of the schoolbook consisted,
I would argue, of a double thought. It taught on the one hand that human societies
are unequal in quality (since unequal in their grade of progress), but, on the other
hand, the theory implied and expressed a certain “assurance” or “guarantee” as
well, namely, that there is a chance for progress for each society. Like non-European
indigenous people may be—as Raff says in the chapter on “Man”—"altogether or
nearly savage,” or they may look “ugly” and “repulsive,” especially under the coldest
and the hottest climates in Asia and Africa”»—they unconditionally belong to the
great family of humankind. They show different signs of social and cultural life;
they are basically content with their situation, he argues; and they as well as all the
other less developed societies of the world necessarily will progress towards “civili¬
zation,” that is, western European high civilization. The same would be the case of
eastern European societies.
So far I have been talking about various aspects of the invariability and consis¬
tency of the work, but a truly profound analysis cannot stop at this point. It would
be especially important to know how Raff’s schoolbook was received in and applied
to the different countries or cultures whose languages into which it was translated.
How much could its readers, coming from various local political-cultural, scholarly¬
intellectual circles identify—or not—with the particular place assigned to them in
the stadial scheme of history and social progress by Raff’s images? How did their
20 The relevant passage in the schoolbook expresses much of the White (Western) man’s disgust,
esthetic as well as social-political biases through which the late-eighteenth-century precursors of those
“imperial eyes” (Pratt 1992) looked at non-European peoples, emphasizing primarily external char¬
acteristics: “in den heissesten Gegenden von Asia und Afrika sind die Leute eben nicht sonderlich gros,
und sehen auch gar nicht gut aus. Was haben die Neger und Hottentoten nicht für häßliche Gesichter, für
stumpffe Nasen, für aufgeworfne Lippen, und für dikwollichte Haare?... Die Amerikaner sehen etwas besser
aus” (Raff 1787: 668). The Hungarian translation is identical to the German text (Raff 1799: 624).
53