Martin Luther King Jr. & Hegel, Nietzsche, Kant

I just came across an article I originally saw when it appeared, and it mentions me:

"How Martin Luther King, Jr. Used Nietzsche, Hegel & Kant to Overturn Segregation in America" by Josh Jones, Open Culture, February 11, 2015

I have been familiar with King's remarks about Hegel for many years. I think that the author is exaggerating about Hegel;s influence, and that the author's title is an embarrassing exaggeration. I am more impressed by the influence that various philosophers and theologians had in overturning MLK's fundamentalist indoctrination. It should also be known that MLK not only rejected fundamentalism but was an advocate of the separation of church and state, something the ignorant people I interact with in the city in which I live cannot fathom.

Here there are two links to my web site:

As King scholar John Ansbro discovered, King “stated in a January 19, 1956 interview with The Montgomery Adviser that Hegel was his favorite philosopher.” Later that year, King gave an address to the First Annual Institute on Nonviolence and Social Change in which he used Hegelian terms to characterize the Civil Rights struggle: “Long ago, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus argued that justice emerges from the strife of opposites, and Hegel, in modern philosophy, preached a doctrine of growth through struggle.”

Independent scholar Ralph Dumain has further catalogued King’s many approving references to Hegel, including a paper he wrote entitled “An Exposition of the First Triad of Categories of the Hegelian Logic—Being, Non-Being, Becoming,” the “last of six essays that King wrote” for his two-semester course on the philosopher.

The author also mentions the Du Bois - Hegel connection and Susan Buck-Morss's work that argues for the influence of the Haitian Revolution on Hegel. He even mentions the little-known 1925 study The Logical Influence of Hegel on Marx by Rebecca Cooper. Among the other interesting links in this article I will mention just this one:

Martin Luther King Jr. and Continental Philosophy, Ethicist for Hire, February 7, 2015

William R. Jones, Jr. on Black liberation theology: Mao, Martin, or Malcolm?

This is an old essay. I see no indication of an earlier publication, so perhaps this is the first time it appeared; on the other hand, the subject matter suggests it was written at least a decade earlier:

Jones, William R. "Liberation Strategies in Black Theology: Mao, Martin, or Malcolm?", in Philosophy Born of Struggle: Anthology of Afro-American Philosophy from 1917, edited by Leonard Harris (Dubuque, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt Publishing Company, 1983). pp. 229-241.

This concern belongs to an earlier era, but given the key role that Jones played in countering black liberation theology from within and furthering black participation in the philosophy profession, this is worth revisiting if only for the limitations of Jones's perspective, which Stephen Ferguson correctly characterized as Feuerbachian.

Jones triangulates the three key figures on their attitude to violence. Mao and Martin Luther King, Jr. are polar opposites: Mao claims that power grows out of the barrel of a gun and thus violence is the only means to fundamental change, while King categorically eschews violence as counter-productive. Malcolm X's formulation "by any means necessary" avoids either of these extremes: Malcolm advocates violence for self-defense or when all other means are exhausted, but not as a first principle.

Jones finds that black liberation theology has gravitated away from both King and Mao and has veered closer to Malcolm X. But he doesn't say anything further about black theology, as the real purpose of this article is to criticize King.

It is obvious to the average person, I would think, that all other things being equal, Malcolm's position would be the most rational and aligned with the real world. If a philosophical position on violence were the only thing that distinguished these three figures, Jones would have a good argument. But their overall political positions and relation to their own traditions differ in several ways, such that Jones's comparison ends up being superficial. We don't even learn what differentiates King's orientation from the asceticism and social backwardness of Gandhi, or Mao's vulgar nationalistic version of class struggle from the intellectual depth of Marx. Nor do we gain any knowledge about the rest of Malcolm X's politics and what he learned once he separated himself from Elijah Muhammed's petit bourgeois fascist religious cult.

A deeper analysis of King's politics might also give additional insight into what differentiates King's universalist radical Christianity from the parochial vision of the black liberation theology of James Cone et al ideologically aligned with the black power movement. King's ideological illusions aside, there is one key aspect of King's political strategy overlooked here. Once the initial legislation was passed putting an end to legal Jim Crow in the South, King turned to the intractable problems of de facto institutional racism in the rest of the country, also implicated in the perpetuation of poverty. King realized that he had to tackle the entire institutional structure of American society, rather than to carve out a petit bourgeois enclave within the black ghetto. King took a bullet for black garbagemen; at the same time King was in the process of organizing a pan-racial Poor People's Campaign

To overlook this superior aspect of King's social vision over the parochialism of black nationalism (which should not be equated with "black power" as an abstract concept) is to do a major injustice to any evaluation of political actors of the 1960s. If one wishes to pursue a critique of King's politics, the proper focal point would not be his religiously-inflected pacifism, but the perspectives for the Poor People's Campaign and what it could or could not lead to.  But now back to Jones.

Jones quotes from King's Gandhi-inspired philosophy of nonviolence, for example, by allowing violence to be inflicted on oneself refusing to strike back, one eventually shames the perpetrator. Jones convincingly demonstrates that this is nonsense, as well as the argument that a violent defensive response to violence can only perpetuate a cycle of violence. There is another aspect of a nonviolent strategy that Jones fails to consider, which is not the effect of nonviolence on one's direct oppressors, but on public opinion. (A historical fact once forgotten but recently brought to public attention in at least one new book: that many of the very same people involved in nonviolent public demonstrations had their guns ready at home to defend themselves against racist assaults.) If the public also has no conscience, then of course the situation becomes even more difficult.

The substance of Jones's case against the philosophy (call it metaphysics) of nonviolence begins on page 236. The ridiculousness of Gandhi's argument becomes evident, for example, in its practical refutation by the example of Nazi Germany. The Gandhian perspective ignores the fact that when the oppressor has classified different groups into the human and the subhuman, no appeal to conscience is possible (237). Another crucial defect of Gandhianism is its focus on the psychological, which overlooks the material imbalance of power. Violence can only be understood when contextualized, which involves configurations of power (238). Jones also points out the selective reception of King's views and the rejection of King's philosophy when it came to criticizing the Vietnam War (239). Jones also points out that King failed where Gandhi succeeded because black Americans constitute a minority, the reverse of the situation in India (235).

The black theologians' reaction against King is related to King's notion of Christian self-sacrificing love connected with his philosophy of nonviolence, which by the late 1960s was seen as ineffective.
In this essay Jones stops here, rather than proceeding onward to reject all theology as obscurantist. Elsewhere in Jones's work we learn that he is a religious humanist rather than an atheist per se, and his war against the (liberation) theology of revealed religion takes the form of an immanent critique using theodicy, or the problem of evil, as a linchpin, hence the key question embodied in the title of his book, Is God a White Racist?. It is also worth noting that Jones treats "white society" as a concept, rather than developing a social theory that would root white supremacy as a ruling class formation having grown out of the institutionalization of slavery as a foundation of the power and wealth of the emerging bourgeoisie. Again, Stephen Ferguson is the only aficionado of Jones who has recognized Jones's position as essentially Feuerbachian, opposing ideology within the realm of ideology without grounding it in a social theory.

Jones to his credit does take into account the other aspect of King's political philosophy: King acknowledges the validity of the exercise of power; nonviolent resistance does not appeal to conscience alone; it succeeds by making existing society ungovernable (234-235). In the footnotes (240-241), Jones quotes King emphasizing the exercise of power beyond the tactics of moral suasion. While some look at this as a later alteration of King's initial position, Jones rejects this interpretation. Quoting Vincent Harding, Jones maintains that King never fully incorporated an analysis of power into his thought, hence never crossed over into the terrain of "black power". Perhaps, but one might question to what extent the advocates of black power were able to craft an effective political strategy given the constraints of being a minority basing themselves in the ghetto facing the overwhelming might of police state violence. Ultimately, who had the more realistic and more profound political vision?

Eddie Glaude Jr. in person, where music trumps philosophy

I blogged here twice about philosopher Eddie Glaude, Jr. after trashing him as philosopher on my Studies in a Dying Culture blog:

Tavis Smiley meets Eddie Glaude: Black pragmatism in action

As I mentioned in my second post here, Glaude re-posted my first post on this blog, without comment, on his own blog on BlackPlanet.com. 3 comments followed.

Given the way I blasted Glaude in writing, it is only fair that I balance my account of him by recounting an agreeable personal encounter.

The stage for this encounter was an event that took place on the 50th anniversary of the historic March on Washington. The event was held on August 28, 2013 at George Washington University: Soundtrack of a Movement: Freedom Songs in Perspective. The moderator of the event was Eddie Glaude, Jr.

Julian Bond was a featured speaker. I positioned myself to shake his hand after the event, but as he was coming down the aisle of the auditorium, just before he got to me, his attention was diverted by a pretty girl and I lost my chance.

There were also various artistic performances, among the artists my esteemed colleague harmonica virtuoso Frédéric Yonnet. Here are two videos of student performances: Soundtrack of a Movement 1; Soundtrack of a Movement 2.

It was an inspiring event, and Glaude did a great job. After schmoozing with various acquaintances and strangers afterward, I ran into Glaude as we exited the building. We two were among the last to leave. I did not identify myself as the person who trashed his philosophy. Rather I discussed music with him. When I mentioned the Spirituals, he melted. We shared a moment. I know my conversation made him happier than he was already and vice versa. Such moments of inspiration are what we live for.

So there, my two contrasting takes on Glaude. There is a difference between sensibility and concepts, between literature and philosophy, between theory and cultural expression. I find it tragic that in their eagerness to find an outlet for a certain sensibility and reaction to their world, people like Cornel West and Glaude do such a terrible job as philosophers. How is it that Richard Wright did so much better, working in a literary rather than philosophical genre? This is a vital topic to conceptualize and discuss. 

Philosophy is not cultural expression, even while it reflects social realities and ideological biases. If some philosophy is an expression of a given cultural formation, that might be the very reason NOT to celebrate it as an organic cultural expression but to criticize it as an ideological expression. It may well be that a foreign tradition reveals more about society X than society X's own predominant philosophy. See my post:

Pragmatism Blues

Even given the historical prevalence of a certain type of philosophy in a nation or region, e.g. pragmatism in the USA, empiricism in the UK, rationalism in France, etc., while the prevalence of these philosophies is in some sense an expression, better to say a product, of given social circumstances, that is not to say that said philosophical schools are essentially national or ethnic in character except insofar as they deal with cultural/social/specifics. There is a philosophical spectrum in every major civilization and no single philosophy that expresses its essence. (Also: I deem ontology, epistemology and logic to be the heart of philosophy, and all the rest mere commentary.) Hence there is a richness to be found in the philosophical spread of the major civilizations--Greek, Indian, Chinese, Islamic, etc. Whereas something like African philosophy, which grows out of an identity crisis, is anemic in comparison. And the notion of "black philosophy" is to me an absurdity, though there indeed are black philosophers, some or most of whom have dealt with the "black experience".

To translate sensibility into a non-mystical, non-metaphysical formulation is an endeavor yet to be undertaken. It was a major concern of mine when African American humanism finally surfaced in organizational form at the end of the 1980s. I was hoping to overcome the tedium of the atheist/humanist milieu. This was before the universal availability of the Internet. Well, we are a generation past and now in the fully interactive online era, in which the black atheist/humanist/skeptics movement suddenly blossomed just a few years ago and in which the atheist/etc. movement flourishes throughout cyberspace. A plethora of social and cultural interests are to be found, but not much philosophical progress. One aspect of confronting religious obfuscation is engaging cultural expression, confronting the seductive dimension of artistic expression as a vehicle of religiosity.

Eddie, wherever you are, I like you as a person, even if not as a philosopher.

Hubert Harrison's 130th birthday

I can't believe that, with the exception of a passing mention, I haven't blogged about the great autodidact, freethinker, radical, polymath Hubert Harrison (April 27, 1883 - December 17, 1927), the 'father of Harlem radicalism'.

Many years ago, in 1993 I believe, I was introduced to the Harrison scholar Jeff Perry by my late friend and colleague Jim Murray. I had long been interested in Harrison as a neglected figure but important to me because of his atheism and autodidacticism. As librarian/archivist of the C.L.R. James Institute, I created a web presence for Harrison and Jeff's work:

The Hubert Harrison Center

We hosted Jeff and Harrison's granddaughter for a book talk when A Hubert Harrison Reader appeared:

The C.L.R. James Institute Presents: Researching Hubert Harrison: An Evening with Jeff Perry

Since then, Jeff has developed his own web site: Jeffrey B. Perry. The first volume of his Harrison autobiography has been published:

Hubert Harrison: The Voice of Harlem Radicalism, 1883-1918

Recently, Jeff gave a talk in Washington, DC on Harrison and Theodore W. Allen's On "The Invention of the 'White' Race". It was a masterful presentation and not dumbed down as the general culture has become. It is important to know that Allen was a serious autodidactic scholar whose research into the origins of racial slavery is different from the silly stuff that goes under the rubric of "Whiteness Studies" today, and the notion of "white skin privilege" as a means of ruling class social control could not be more different from today's self-serving cant about "white male privilege."

But today let us toast to the 130th birthday of Hubert Harrison. Here's to the resurrection of historical memory!

See also, on my web site:

Black / African-American / African Atheism

African American / Black autodidacticism, intellectual life, education: bibliography

Civil Rights Movement Concert at the White House (2010)

Written February 11, 2010 at 9:14 pm 

Just watched the White House musical tribute to the Civil Rights movement. The musical performances were quite uneven, and here I'm referring not to musical technique, but to emotional authenticity. The absolute worst offender was Yolanda Adams, who was consistently and absolutely emotionally fraudulent. Natalie Cole also messed up with lack of emotional backing for the song she sang. And this was true of some of Jennifer Hudson's singing. Just as bad was much of the musical accompaniment. I can't stand smooth jazz, or airy electric piano, or lightweight contrived panty music. If you're going to sing about civil rights, or anything with substance, sing it and play like you're actually feeling the message of the song. Or shut the fuck up.

---

Addendum:



Here's the whole awful event, courtesy of PBS:

In Performance at The White House A Celebration of Music From the Civil Rights Movement

Malcolm X vs. James Baldwin

In Part 3 of this three-party discussion James Baldwin offers a superior perspective to that of Malcolm X's Nation of Islam nonsense, and in the process firmly rejects all religion, all theology, all myth, while showing no mercy concerning the moral bankruptcy of American society. How sad that the imbeciles who comment on this and other YouTube videos single out Malcolm X for praise, when Baldwin's world view is so much more sophisticated.

Profiles in Humanism: A. Philip Randolph

Profiles in Humanism: A. Philip Randolph by Bill Daehler, for the Humanist Network News.

Randolph, a black freethinker as well as a major figure in the history of labor organizing and the civil rights movement, is here honored. Randolph was selected 1970 Humanist of the Year.

The sleeping car porters that Randolph unionized played a key role in black history, in leveraging access to education and the middle class. See Rising from the Rails: Pullman Porters and the Making of the Black Middle Class by Larry Tye.

Josh White's "Free & Equal Blues"

If you know your history, you've got giants to stand on and then you can stretch yourself to see farther than the smallness of your environment would have ever permitted you to do. Long before there were occultist Afrocentric crackpots compounding the already lethal mental pollution of the ideological atmosphere, there were clear and rational voices singing out for human dignity and equality. One of those voices was a pioneer of socially conscious folk and blues music, the magnificent Josh White.

Here's a brief biographical recap, courtesy of Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_White

As I no longer own a turntable, I can't play my old Josh White LPs I collected in the '70s. I'll have to get some CDs, since I haven't yet reached the stage of iPod. Anyway, many years ago, reflecting on a landmark Josh White song, I attempted to transcribe it from the recording, which was not easy given the quality of my stereo, my album, and maybe even the recording itself. Actually, the song can be found in the Josh White Songbook, which is buried who-knows-where in my library. I was impressed by this song because of White's summoning of science to combat racial prejudice. Nowadays you can find almost anything on the Internet. Here's a magnificent essay on Josh White's work including song lyrics, from White biographer Elijah Wald:

"Josh White and the Protest Blues" by Elijah Wald
http://www.elijahwald.com/joshprotest.html

The title of the song is "Free and Equal Blues".

See also Wald's main page on White: Elijah Wald – Josh White: Society Blues.

Another blog that features this song is No Notes, and here is the entry:

Josh White’s "Free and Equal Blues"
http://nonotes.wordpress.com/2006/03/31/josh-whites-free-and-equal-...

See also Markin's American Left History blog:

Free And Equal Blues- The Work Of Josh White
http://markinbookreview.blogspot.com/2009/02/free-and-equal-blues-w...

And don't forget Josh White, Jr.: http://www.joshwhitejr.com/.

What the hell, while I'm at I might as well reproduce the lyrics. But remember, much of it is a talking blues. A few phrases are sung, but most is talking, some decades before rap and even before Oscar Brown Jr.

Free and Equal Blues

I went down to that St. James Infirmary, and I saw some plasma there,
I ups and asks the doctor man, "Say was the donor dark or fair?"
The doctor laughed a great big laugh, and he puffed it right in my face,
He said, "A molecule is a molecule, son, and the damn thing has no race."

And that was news, yes that was news,
That was very, very, very special news.
'Cause ever since that day we’ve had those free and equal blues.

"You mean you heard that doc declare
That the plasma in that test tube there could be
White man, black man, yellow man, red?"
"That’s just what that doctor said."
The doc put down his doctor book and gave me a very scientific look
And he spoke out plain and clear and rational,
He said, "Metabolism is international."

(Chorus)

Then the doc rigged up his microscope with some Berlin blue blood,
And, by gosh, it was the same as Chun King, Quebechef, Chattanooga, Timbuktoo blood
Why, those men who think they’re noble
Don’t even know that the corpuscle is global
Trying to disunite us with their racial supremacy,
And flying in the face of old man chemistry,
Taking all the facts and trying to twist 'em,
But you can’t overthrow the circulatory system.

(Chorus)

So I stayed at that St. James Infirmary.
(I couldn’t leave that place, it was too interesting)
But I said to the doctor, "Give me some more of that scientific talk talk," and he did:
He said, "Melt yourself down into a crucible
Pour yourself out into a test tube and what have you got?
Thirty-five hundred cubic feet of gas,
The same for the upper and lower class."
Well, I let that pass . . .
"Carbon, 22 pounds, 10 ounces"
"You mean that goes for princes, dukeses and countses?"
"Whatever you are, that’s what the amounts is:
Carbon, 22 pounds, 10 ounces; iron, 57 grains."
Not enough to keep a man in chains.
"50 ounces of phosophorus, that’s whether you’re poor or prosperous."
"Say buddy, can you spare a match?"
"Sugar, 60 ordinary lumps, free and equal rations for all nations.
Then you take 20 teaspoons of sodium chloride (that’s salt), and you add 38 quarts of H2O (that’s water), mix two ounces of lime, a pinch of chloride of potash, a drop of magnesium, a bit of sulfur, and a soupÁon of hydrochloric acid, and you stir it all up, and what are you?"
"You’re a walking drugstore."
"It’s an international, metabolistic cartel."

And that was news, yes that was news,
So listen, you African and Indian and Mexican, Mongolian, Tyrolean and Tartar,
The doctor’s right behind the Atlantic Charter.
The doc’s behind the new brotherhood of man,
As prescribed at San Francisco and Yalta, Dumbarton Oaks, and at Potsdam:
Every man, everywhere is the same, when he’s got his skin off.
And that’s news, yes that’s news,
That’s the free and equal blues!

Ralph Ellison & black preachers

Many veterans of the black left of the 1940s were taken by surprise by the upsurge of civil rights activism in the mid-'50s.

Here's a hilarious example from Ralph Ellison. The Montgomery Bus Boycott brought Martin Luther King Jr. to the fore. Ellison was ambivalent. He was proud of the leadership shown by black ministers, but he was also rather cynical, referring to them as:

" . . .the old steady, mush-mouthed chicken hawk variety, real wrinkle headed bible pounders [who had just] caught some son of a bitch not only stealing the money, but sleeping with all their own private sisters!"

Nevertheless, Ellison was pleased with their success:

"I'm supposed to know Negroes, being one myself, but these moses [slang for black men--RD] are revealing just a little bit more of their complexity. Leader is a young cat [who is] not only a preacher but a lawyer too, probably also a[n] undertaker and an atomic scientist. And they're standing their ground in spite of threats, assassinations, economic reprisal, & destruction of property."

SOURCE: Rampersad, Arnold. Ralph Ellison: A Biography (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007), p. 324.