I remember being strangely preoccupied with the idea of innocence when I wrote this. The summer program for which this paper was the final assignment is also notable as the first time I ever encountered decadence. Somewhere in the UConn library sits the copy of Decadent Subjects that's to blame for everything that's happened since. Exactly three sentences in this essay are worth reading. Can you spot them?
I.
. . . The goal of naturalism is innocence. Ralph Waldo Emerson describes the woods as a place of "perpetual youth," and even the Bible uses the lamb to epitomize innocence and purity. However, this idealization of the natural world encounters a paradox when animals are used to represent ideals of human morality. Not only are carnivores indifferent in their violent consumption of other creatures, but herbivores are made impure, by human standards, by their highly active sexual practices. Even plants, in their self-evident bounty, reinforce the contradiction of Nature as both the gracious provider and the force which drives man to damnation by his rampant sexual urges.
Writers and naturalists have both endeavored to recapture general innocence by mimicking natural animal behavior, but the canon is studded with their failures. Emile Zola, the recognized father of French naturalist literature, writes in The Sin of Father Mouret of a girl whose simple-minded and seemingfly innocent harmony with the world of her country farm goes as far as embracing bestiality. Even the archetypal earth mother, as illustrated by Ma Joad in John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and the title character of Willa Cather's My Antonia, must occupy the thin area between purity and fertility. The most ironic instance of this paradox of naturalism dates back to the ancient epic of Gilgamesh in which Enkidu, "child of the mountain, he who fed with gazelles on grass, he who drank with the wild beasts at the watering place," is dismayed to find that animals scatter from him after he loses his sexual innocence; he is no longer allowed to run with them as he had formerly done. Only the lost Garden of Eden provides a setting for morally acceptable natural life, and even that tale ends, of course, with the loss of Adam and Eve's innocence, and the innocence of all mankind.
The moral naturalist strives to resolve this contradiction by finding an honest sexuality in which he can experience the satisfaction of accepting a natural impulse without engaging in the frank intercourse condemned by Christian ideology as unnatural. Unfortunately for him, any solution that fulfills these criteria will necessarily be so artificial as to be totally alien from the basic principles of naturalism.
II.
J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur wrote in 1782 that "the American is a new man, who acts upon new principles; he must therefore entertain new ideas, and form new opinions." This illustrates the importance of rebirth and new innocence in the mythology of American exceptionalism. When they arrived, the Puritan colonists consciously rid themselves of the sins and guilts of European monarchies, determined to forge a new promised land in the virgin wilderness. Frederick Jackson Turner's "Significance of the Frontier in American History," which has been called the most influential of American historical essays, hinges upon the ability of uncharted wilderness to cleanse the minds and souls of pioneers. These adventurous men and women were ignorant of the evils they were sure to encounter in unexplored territory, from cold winders to conflicts with the natives. Turner's frontier thesis asserts that these Americans strengthened democracy because they did not react to these trials with disillusionment, but instead went from being generally innocent, meaning ignorant of these evils, to particularly innocent, handling these problems in an ethical and democratic manner.
There is a peril facing American innocence in the twenty-first century. Patriots claim that the United States is the first democratic and benevolent empire in history, but innocence cannot recognize itself lest it be lost in self-righteousness. Recent American foreign policy reflects a new, third definition of innocence, one in which certainty of our moral superiority is used to justify otherwise indefensible acts such as preemptive military strikes against suspect nations. What has not been made plain is that American innocence of both kinds has already been lost: we are painfully aware of the world's great cruelties, and cannot claim ignorance of sin. As to the former meaning of innocence, the nation has committed unforgivable sins, the foremost two being the genocide of Native Americans and the enslavement of Africans. Therefore, the same innocence that has so influenced the history of the United States has always been no more obtainable for this nation than for a naturalist, a professional, or a Christian.
The latter definition of innocence has been the source of consternation for one simple reason: it is impossible for any man to attain it for himself. He can see innocence in others, an even recognize it in himself in retrospect, but any innocence he possesses in invisible until he learns of the unknown evil and thereby loses his innocence at that moment. Even so, history has made it clear that despite the frustration it has caused, this unreachable condition has been the source of philosophical advance, theological progress, and the American pioneer spirit.
The core of the innocence dilemma is revealed in a quip from Oscar Wilde: "I can resist everything except temptation." this statement truthfully describes all mankind; every person chooses the course of action which, based on his knowledge and experience, will bring himself the greatest benefit, or the least harm. If a thing can be resisted, then it is not tempting.
If it is accepted that all deeds, examined with the proper perspective and context in mind, are understandable, then it becomes tempting to assume that every act is done with innocent intentions, even if not innocent in itself. Unfortunately, history shows that every civilization has created an idea of sin to maintain its own peace and prosperity, and that a system of judgment has always been necessary to enforce these laws of morality. It can therefore be concluded that humans have attached the label of sin to behaviors that would otherwise be entirely natural. Animals, for instance, hunt and kill each other without remorse, and even those humans who do not acknowledge the harmonious beauty of this practice accept it as a necessary evil. The same understanding is not typically extended to rabbits that invade country gardens, but the idea of trying to stop this practice by instilling morality in rodents is laughable. Humans, on the other hand, have strict rules forbidding murder, theft of property, and a number of other behaviors viewed as acceptable in wild creatures. As Mark Twain said, "Man is the only animal that blushes. Or needs to."
Malice would appear to be an exception to this universal absolution of human decisions, but even actions born of cruelty deserve sympathy. A man can commit murder out of vengeance or wickedness, which on the surface in indefensible or certainly not innocent. However, malice is a combination of anger at wrongs suffered and frustration at crime's unpleasant consequences, both of which are products of humanity's artificial creations of sinfulness and virtue. It is because man knows innocence and guilt that malice is produced, not the other way around.
This is not to say that these rules of morality are undesirable. After all, it is because of these that safe and habitable society is possible. The laws of government elevate man above barbarism and allow him to explore literature, philosophy, and aesthetics. A morality which outlaws natural behavior does mean, however, that Nature becomes a for of "evil," the source of damnable wants and needs in eternal conflict with man's longing for innocence. Civilization becomes an endless cycle of impulse and redemption.
Society usually requires that a percentage of its citizens give money in the form of taxation, or accept unexciting government jobs to support a national administration, but the one thing that ever sane member of a moral society must sacrifice is the innocence that civilization simultaneously creates and destroys.
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