재독 - [ 초반 부 는 미국 문학가 들 의 천박 스러움 등 을 이야기 하 고 , 후반부 는 영국 에 도 그런 작가 들 이 많이 있 다는 이야기 로 이어진다 . 전체 적 으로 식민지 를 소재 로 한 이 국풍 의 이야기 를 직접 적 으로 비판 하 는 것 이 라고 못 박 을 수 는 없 을 듯 하나 , 영문학 의 전통 에서 벗어난 속 된 작품 , decivilized 된 작품 들 에 대한 비판 이 주된 내용 인 듯 하 다 . 콘래드 는 이 글 에 대해서 비판 을 하 고 있 다 . ] decivilize ( third - person singular simple present decivilizes , present participle decivilizing , simple past and past participle decivilized ) ( transitive ) To make less civilized . quotations ▼ 2005 , Marilynne Robinson , The Death of Adam : Essays on Modern Thought ‎[ 1 ] , → ISBN , page 74 : Are we not in fact dicivilizing ourselves as we decivilize them ? Why is there no outcry ? Is it because we have cast off the delusion of human sanctity ? ( intransitive ) To become less civilized . quotations ▼ 2003 , David Weber , Empire from the ashes ‎[ 2 ] , → ISBN : Or how beings such as ourselves — such as you now are — with lifespans measured in centuries and strength and endurance far beyond that of Terra - born humans , could decivilize so utterly ? - decivilised man - He writes , and recites , poems about ranches and canyons ; they are designed to betray the recklessness of his nature and to reveal the good that lurks in the lawless ways of a young society . He is there to explain himself , voluble , with a glossary for his own artless slang . But his colonialism is only provincialism very articulate . - Whereas there is no beginning for her , but instead a continuity which only a constant care can guide into sustained refinement and can save from decivilisation . - The decivilised have every grace as the antecedent of their vulgarities , every distinction as the precedent of their mediocrities . - Nothing can look duller than the future of this second - hand and multiplying world . - it is before this prospect that the provincial overseas lifts up his voice in a boast or a promise common enough among the incapable young , but pardonable only in senility . - He promises the world a literature , an art , that shall be new because his forest is untracked and his town just built . But what the newness is to be he cannot tell . [ 생각 보다 글 이 어렵 다 . 다시 한 번 읽 어 볼 것 ] [ Essays on Conrad ] - she objects to colonial literature because it ignores the value of continuity , and argues that , though we cannot select our posterity , ' we may give our thoughts noble forefathers ' and ' follow theri ways to the best well - heads of the ars '. Decivilized art , on the other hand , presents the ' mentally inexpensive ', and is ' designed to . . . reveal the good that lurks in the lawless ways of a young society '. ( 37 ) - 강조 : the ' savage surroundings ' serve only to throw the basic similarities of man in sharp relief , / Borneo of AF essentially mirrors man ' s metaphysical , not his physical , condition . ( 38 ) - deeply concerned with the relationship between subject - matter , authorial vision , and the general role of the artist . Could you not say something about being a " civilizes story in savage surroundings ? " ( L 1 199 ) [ 전문 ] The difficulty of dealing – in the course of any critical duty – with decivilized man lies in this : when you accuse him of vulgarity – sparing him no doubt the word – he defends himself against the charge of barbarism . Especially from new soil – remote , colonial – he faces you , bronzed , with a half conviction of savagery , partly persuaded of his own youthfulness of race . He writes , and recites , poems about ranches and canyons ; they are designed to betray the recklessness of his nature and to reveal the good that lurks in the lawless ways of a young society . He is there to explain himself , voluble , with a glossary for his own artless slang . But his colonialism is only provincialism very articulate . The new air does but make old decadences seem more stale ; the young soil does but set into fresh conditions the ready - made , the uncostly , the refuse feeling of a race decivilizing . He who played long this pattering part of youth , hastened to assure you with so self - denying a face he did not wear war - paint and feathers , that it became doubly difficult to communicate to him that you had suspected him of nothing wilder than a second - hand ( figurative ) dress coat . And when it was a question not of rebuke , but of praise , even the American was ill - content with the word of the judicious who lauded him for some delicate successes in continuing something of the literature of England , something of the art of France ; he was more eager for the applause that stimulated him to write poems in prose form and to paint panoramic landscape , after brief training in academies of native inspiration . Even now English voices are constantly calling upon America to begin – to begin , for the world is expectant . Whereas there is no beginning for her , but instead a fine and admirable continuity which only a constant care can guide into sustained advance . But decivilized man is not peculiar to new soil . The English town , too , knows him in all his dailiness . In England , too , he has a literature , an art , a music , all his own – derived from many and various things of price . Trash , in the fullness of its insimplicity and cheapness , is impossible without a beautiful past . Its chief characteristic – which is futility , not failure – could not be achieved but by the long abuse , the rotatory reproduction , the quotidian disgrace , of the utterances of Art , especially the utterance by words . Gaiety , vigour , vitality , the organic quality , purity , simplicity , precision – all these are among the antecedents of trash . It is after them ; it is also , alas , because of them . And nothing can be much sadder that such a proof of what may possibly be the failure of derivation . Evidently we cannot choose our posterity . Reversing the steps of time , we may , indeed choose backwards . We may give our thoughts noble forefathers . Well begotten , well born our fancies must be ; they shall be also well derived . We have a voice in decreeing our inheritance , and not our inheritance only , but our heredity . Our minds may trace upwards and follow their ways to the best well - heads of the arts . The very habit of our thoughts may be persuaded one way unawares by their antenatal history . Their companions must be lovely , but need be no lovelier than their ancestors ; and being so fathered and so husbanded , our thoughts may be intrusted to keep the counsels of literature . Such is our confidence in a descent we know . But , of a sequel which of us is sure ? Which of us is secured against the dangers of subsequent depreciation ? And , moreover , which of us shall trace the contemporary tendencies , the one towards honour , the other towards dishonour ? Or who shall discover why derivation becomes degeneration , and where and when and how the bastardy befalls ? The decivilized have every grace as the antecedent of their vulgarities , every distinction as the precedent of their mediocrities . No ballad - concert song , feign it sigh , frolic , or laugh , but has the excuse that the feint was suggested , was made easy , by some living sweetness once . Nor are the decivilized to blame as having in their own persons possessed civilization and marred it . They did not possess it ; they were born into some tendency to derogation , into an inclination for things mentally inexpensive . And the tendency can hardly do other than continue . Nothing can look duller than the future of this second - hand and multiplying world . Men need not be common merely because they are many ; but the infection of commonness once begun in the many , what dullness in their future ! To the eye that has reluctantly discovered this truth – that the vulgarized are not un - civilized , and that there is no growth for them – it does not look like a future at all . More ballad - concerts , more quaint English , more robustious barytone songs , more piecemeal pictures , more colonial poetry , more young nations with withered traditions . Yet it is before this prospect that the provincial overseas lifts up his voice in a boast or a promise common enough among the incapable young , but pardonable only in senility . He promises the world a literature , an art , that shall be new because his forest is untracked and his town just built . But what the newness is to be he cannot tell . Certain words were dreadful once in the mouth of desperate old age . Dreadful and pitiable as the threat of an impotent king , what shall we name them when they are the promise of an impotent people ? “ I will do such things : what they are yet I know not . ”