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The Confidence-Man Chapter 26 Summary

Containing the Metaphysics of Indian-Hating, According to the Views of One Evidently Not So Prepossessed as Rousseau in Favor of Savages

  • The new guy talks about Judge James Hall, a friend of his father, and his viewpoints on backwoodsmen and American Indians.
  • According to Judge Hall, backwoodsmen are "Indian-haters par excellence" with a complicated history as to why.
  • At one point, James Hall has a mock Q&A with a fictional backwoodsman and another fictional neutral party to assess why such hatred persists.
  • Hall argues that there's a deep-seated distrust among these people. It begins when hatred is passed down through mothers' milk during nursing and is then solidified through community hatred. This is some dark stuff.
  • Ultimately, Hall describes two kinds of backwoodsmen: 1) those who are committed to being loners and 2) those who visit towns and cities on occasion.
  • Committed loners, Hall claims, often "break" and find a limited kind of friendship with American Indians.
  • Non-committed loners get their fix of society, so they remain "Indian-haters par excellence" their whole lives.
  • The new guy notes that since we only ever meet the non-committed kind of loners, they're our only example of what committed backwoodsmen might be like, thus our evidence is always flawed.
  • Here the cosmopolitan interrupts him: Just a moment please; need to refill my drink.