Earlier today your faithful correspondent made the mistake of writing on Facebook a rather long piece (for Facebook) about the evolution of the footnotes and introductions of various editions of Conrad's "The Heart of Darkness." There is no point in re-plowing what was written since it is easily found on the Facebook.
But the reason for this continuation of this writer's thoughts about the novel and the various introductions and footnotes on this platform is simply because Facebook is a platform that seems to be intended for people of machines to intrude themselves into places that they really do not belong. For example, the post on Facebook was written about the novel "The Heart of Darkness" while mentioning motion picture versions of the novel. Not an hour later there was a reply from a person or bot who was more interested in films and not novels. This writer is not a great writer and not a deep thinker, but he does not appreciate being a toll of crass commerce without his permission or without payment.
It is this type of thing that makes one wonder if the heart of darkness, spiritually and ethically, is not on the Internet and not in the Belgian Congo over one hundred years ago. The Belgians went for ivory. The modern hunter goes for clicks.
But to get to the point. "The Heart of Darkness" is one of those few novels from the early 20th century ("The Flying Inn" by Chesterton is another) that one is able to see something that the author saw and what the author saw that was not just of his time, but for many years ahead.
And what did Conrad see? Simply this: it is dangerous for all concerned to try to bring up (and this writer uses the term "bring up" as an ethnic European and ergo, by modern thought, a racist) other cultures to the level of Europe or the United States by intruding into their cultures. To do so ruins both cultures. The trade becomes the savage in order to get his product onto steamer or into airplane. The missionary bends the Gospel to fill his missionary church and thus distorts the Gospel and makes it something that his home church would not recognize. The United Nations sends forces into a benighted nation to keep peace and the "peacekeepers" perform acts that they would never want their mothers to know about, let alone God if he could be kept ignorant. And not only useless killing, but rape and pedophilia in an industrial manner. Consider the the liberal who loves every damn body. Soon after hearing a bitch from a Palestinian about how Israel rocketed that man (whether true or not) the liberal is anti-Israel and is calling Jew murderers on the level of the Nazis despite the fact that more Palestinians kill one another than do Israelis kill Palestinians.
It's all too easy for a missionary, a trader or an adventurer to fall into the ways and mores of those who that person once considered benighted by Fate or God and become those things that they once hated or fought against while, at the same time raging against what they have become.
That's the Heart of Darkness. And the last words of Kurtz, "The horror. The horror" are words that are all too often muttered by those who are guilty of those intending to do right while falling into barbarism
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