A review by thomasgoddard
Benito Cereno by Herman Melville

4.0

Little audiobook I listened to whilst sailing on a game called Sea of Thieves.

Another fantastic book from Melville. Ahead of his time in so many ways. Here he uses a racist narrator to highlight the grossness of paternalistic racism.

That whole 'aren't they doing well despite their disadvantages' sort of racism. Here manifest as 'they are too stupid to be cunning, too weak to be a threat'

Basically modern racism. Congratulations humanity, we managed to allow racism to spread far and wide and stretch to other groups beyond race. All because everyone believes their own self-delusional protestations of altruism and that you can't be racist if you're doing nice things for those people.

Grinds my gears.

Anyway the book...

Fantastic book. Really tight writing. Loved the tension built up along the way. Ending was a little flat.

True equality is realising that all people are 'capable' of evil as well as good. They are 'capable' because it is a universal of human nature. No group of people has a monopoly on good or evil. No group lacks certain qualities that allow for it. We are just responding to the hand dealt. Morality is judgement after the event and usually it holds its own degrees of prejudice. That knowledge does nothing to soothe history's injustices. It should just bring a little perspective in the here and now. You know, the place where it matters.