The point that resonated with me most this week was when we discussed Gulliver’s placelessness and how that simultaneously allowed him to be placed in or participate in the Circum-Atlantic. Gulliver’s Travels makes sense in the Irish context, particularly with the lens of colonialism. In the past, when analysing this book, my class placed a lot of emphasis on text itself within the narrative and the relevance of language to the Irish, whose cultural identity is largely predicated on the preservation of their language. What we didn’t consider as fully was Swift’s identity as Anglo-Irish, rather than monolithically Irish. This nuance of his identity, and the way we conceptualized it in class, makes some of the more complicated or seemingly contradictory elements of Gulliver work for the text. Is he truly the colonizer or the colonized, victimized or victim or rather is he some placeless in-between? These questions of identity drive his constant movement within the text and his inability to reconcile whether he is superior or subservient to the peoples he interacts with. Thinking about our readings last week, I wonder if placelessness isn’t also a facet of Irish-American identity.
I was also amused by our discussion in class of production and productivity being good for society. I’m equally as uncomfortable as the rest of us seemed to be with the idea of a wholly unproductive society like that of the Houynhmns, sitting in seeming judgement of all others while doing nothing worthwhile themselves — I don’t think idleness leads to bliss, particularly when that idleness isn’t a break from productive tasks. Our discomfort with an unproductive society, however, demonstrates the lingering power of the ideas Swift was activating and working with. We can’t conceptualize of a different societal structure because our structure and judgement of what is societally good is so formed by the universal progress ideologies of the Enlightenment. For many in that period, the industrial revolution and the changes it brought were threatening to established ways of life, to folk cultures, and to those who didn’t have access to the intellectual elite. Swift’s concern about burgeoning modernity and the dangers of a society built on progress for the sake of progress are represented in the Houynhmns’ culture and our inherent discomfort at Gulliver’s adherence to it.
Are there societies that sit around doing nothing? It seems as though if a society decided that the best way to live was just to sit around all day, it would not last that long. In my mind, people behaving in such a manner would ultimately lead to their demise by way of nature or conquerers. While the Houyhnhnms are perhaps meant to be a great piece of satire that one can get lost in, they do offer the reader much to think about beyond how they could possibly sit around all day. A “productive” society is all that we have known and the idea that this type of society is inferior is very uncomfortable for us. While I do not believe that Swift is trying to make the argument that an idle society is the answer to the problems of the world, I do think that he is asking us to take a step back and ask ourselves what other accepted aspects of our society could be improved or looked at in totally different ways. We should not just accept what has been considered the norms, but instead should actively challenge our ways of thinking. It is very interesting to see how the messages he wrote into the satire were not only topical to England but remain relevant to the whole world today.