'Exterminate All the Brutes', by Sven Lindqvist - Book Report/Review Example

Kurtz had gone mad and slaughtered everybody in his path. Kurtz had a scorched earth policy toward the natives of the Congo. Discipline and order, and production of raw materials, were the measurements of Kurtz’s success. A killing field and mass graves were a small inconvenience and cost of doing business. Imperialism leads to death and poverty. Lindqvist admonishes the intelligent who ignore reality in favor of comfort by claiming this to be the modern enactment of the Heart of Darkness. The Lindqvist novel is set in the modern era though.

Lindqvist admonishes current day people for not speaking out against current forms of imperialism. Nationalism leads to imperialism in the Lindqvist vision. By accepting the arrogant notion that a nation is either chosen by God or favorably suited to rule the world in a warping of Darwinian theory, that acceptance leads to the responsibility to conquer other countries and people in order to introduce proper religion and life management techniques into the inferior land. Of course, inferiority is a judgment, not a law.

The conquered during imperialism were generally functioning well within their own territories. They were not looking for Western influence to organize them into countries or governmental boundaries. They were not looking to exploit natural resources nor have others do it. Nationalism provides the factual basis for the belief that one group is inferior in their approach to life while the superior group has an obligation to fix the problem. And if the inferior resisted, then exterminating all the brutes made perfect sense.

Darwin’s theory played an important role in convincing the intelligent population that the survival of the fittest applied to imperialism. It was a natural imperative to conquer inferior people. Of course Darwin thought no such thing; his theory concerned species adapting to natural events. The modern era does not seek cotton and farm land as much as raw energy materials ,