Politics, Policy, and Culture by Dennis J Coyle & Richard J Ellis

Author:Dennis J Coyle & Richard J Ellis [Coyle, Dennis J & Ellis, Richard J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Public Policy, Cultural Policy, Developing & Emerging Countries, Social Science, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9781000307566
Google: gXDKDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-06-04T12:39:44+00:00

Brer Rabbit and Amoral Individualism 29

Nowhere is the atomized aspect of slave culture more clearly revealed than in the Brer Rabbit stories. Those who have given an egalitarian or communitarian construction to slave culture have often interpreted these as tales of resistance, a form of wish fulfillment in which weakness overcomes strength, slave defeats master.30 That this explains something of the slaves’ fascination with the Brer Rabbit stories seems plausible. But to leave the analysis at this point is woefully inadequate, for it misses the amoral, atomized world depicted in these folktales.

The recurring motif in these stories, as Michael Flusche documents, is less that the weak triumph over the strong than that survival in this world necessitates distrust and deceit. Cunning and deception triumph not over strength and oppression but over gullibility and trust. It is not “the theme of the ultimate victory, of the Lord delivering Daniel” that one finds in these tales. Rather the tales are “a humorous statement of the treacherous ways of society. They point to the fate of the man who trusts his neighbor exceedingly.” “Most of the stories,” Flusche explains, “took for granted that deep hostility existed between the characters, however they might disguise it.” The relationship between the animals in the stories is invariably portrayed as adversarial. There is no friendship, no cooperation, no pooling of resources, and no collective action. “The perpetual struggle constantly prevented the animals from working together, in spite of the supposed geniality. Attempts at co-operation for parties, for farming, or for storing food, constantly fell apart because someone sabotaged the efforts for his own advantage—typically to eat the butter.” Brer Rabbit’s world was one in which “alliances were illusory and each man had to figt his battles alone; every other man was a potential enemy or rival in spite of his smiles and grins, and only the fool was unwary.”31

Those animals who place their trust in the word of another animal invariably end up meeting a sticky end. Brer Rabbit usually comes out ahead because he discerns and exploits the other animals’ weaknesses and presumes that no one means him any good. “His completely cynical view of manners and social relations,” Flusche explains, “enabled him always to get the better of his opponents; repeatedly they presumed good will on his part when he provided a facade of consideration and altruism.” When, for instance, Brer Wolf begs Brer Rabbit to shelter him from pursuing dogs, Brer Rabbit offers the wolf a chest in which to hide. Locking the wolf in the chest, Brer Rabbit then scalds his victim to death by pouring boiling water through a hole in the top, all the while assuring Brer Wolf that the pain is only fleas biting him.32

When Brer Rabbit temporarily drops his guard and trusts another to play by the rules he, too, ends up a loser. Brer Tarrypin bests Brer Rabbit in a race by positioning members of his family at regular intervals along the course to be there when the rabbit passes.

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