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Heart of Darkness
Themes:   post Christian explanations of human aggression and a malevolent Nature;   imperial idealism and imperial rule; Conrad foresees large scale aggression and violence in the 20th century; modern civilization and institutions corrupt high ideals of improvement and reform
Question:   What is an honest account of human aggression?
Imperialism as a model of aggression as well as nationalist competition among Europe’s countries will introduce us to the circumstances of the outbreak and character of the war from 1914 to 1918 that mobilized over 70 million soldiers, 60 million of them European, and claimed 9 million dead, 7 million permanently disabled, and 15 million seriously injured.
We’ll look briefly over a compelling explanation based on our biologically nature in the English naturalist Charles Darwin; and then we’ll turn to the vehemently anti-Christian celebrations of aggression as the heart of creativity in the German linguist and philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche

Then we turn to Conrad.   What does his novelette tell us of his interpretation of European beliefs about empire and the actual practice of imperial occupation and development of colonies?   How does this story suggest his general claims about human motivation, human action, and violence?

The opening: a historical capsule (4-7)
Marlow a suspect narrator (5)
“Dark Places” (4-7):   the human heart as well as forests, jungles, cultures
Why Africa? (11 and elsewhere)
Empire—soldiers and clerks (15)
Civilization and Africa (18)
What is Conrad’s claim about the human ability to be decent, civilized and moral?
Who is Kurtz? (59-63)
What had happened to him in the Congo? (58)
The words and meaning (58-9)
Abbas Amanat: Discuses why the system of government can’t be similar in all nations.

Friedrich Nietzsche: The most fearful and fundamental desire in man, his drive for power- this drive is called freedom. The overman grasps the central reality for...