#and it's like. what is the thing that cracks someone's worldview open? witnessing atrocities sure but conrad witnessed the same things!

[chamerionwrites]

Because I am back on some very specific bullshit I am ofc also thinking about how Joseph Conrad and Roger Casement met (were very briefly roommates in fact) in the Congo, and seem to have really liked each other. Conrad wrote glowingly of Casement in his diary ("Made the acquaintance of Mr. Roger Casement, which I should consider as a great pleasure under any circumstances and now it becomes a positive piece of luck. Thinks, speaks well, most intelligent and very sympathetic"). Six years later Casement made a point of looking him up in London and they apparently talked until three in the morning.

And then two decades later Casement was hanged for treason because he tried to run guns from Germany to the Easter Rising, whereas Conrad prominently refused to sign the petition for clemency.

#contrast conan doyle who was at least as ardent a british imperialist as conrad but very loudly on team pardon #idk ultimately casement fascinates me *because* he was not an uncomplicatedly heroic figure #(he was also a man of his time and v much complicit in british imperialism) #but because he was capable of taking that step beyond cognitive dissonance and into anti-imperialism #and it's like. what is the thing that cracks someone's worldview open? witnessing atrocities sure but conrad witnessed the same things! #is it because he was irish is it because he was gay can we meaningfully answer such questions about ourselves let alone historical figures? #is it even useful to try? identity is not political destiny. we have so many examples of it not being that. #Ability To Open One's Goddamned Eyeballs is really kind of a wild thing to celebrate anyone for and yet. and yet. #if there was some secret foolproof formula for getting people to do it my god we could get so much done #roger casement #my posts #sorry i swear i will shut up now