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?
Showing posts with label black nationalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label black nationalism. Show all posts
Saturday, October 4, 2014
Monday, January 21, 2013
Norm Allen on humanism, politics, Malcolm X
"On Conceptions of Humanism, Freethought, Atheism, Rationalism, Skepticism, etc."
By Norm R. Allen Jr., December 21, 2012
Although Norm's argument that there is no necessary correlation between nontheism & political positions is correct, there are further implications, in that "humanism" too is almost politically meaningless though it promises more, in a strictly definitional sense, than "atheism". This is true for "secular humanism", all of its manifestos and affirmations notwithstanding, and a fortiori for religious humanism, which stretches the meaning to unlimited flexibility and hence virtual meaninglessness.
Norm recognizes the entire political spectrum that nontheists occupy. Among black atheists, he singles out the group of nationalist bigots (my designation) Black Atheists of Atlanta. He did not mention other black nontheists who do not only advocate a tie to social justice issues but demagogically presume they represent black atheism as a whole in contraposition to white atheism. But black atheists, however the percentages may be skewed, also span the spectrum of political philosophies.
Back to Norm: Groups that couple a primary interest in atheism (or any of its synonyms) with a specific political philosophy should label themselves clearly reflecting their position. But also, there are nontheists who engage their social justice issues in other organizations and don't wish to narrow the common agenda of nontheists & secularists by tying down that movement to a specific political orientation.
The term "humanism' brings with it a source of confusion not found in the other terms:
The problem is that the intellectual basis of the humanist movement is basically identical to that of any of the other labels used, and is so threadbare that it can't nail down anything more specific than general abstract principles, or platitudes. As a rule, humanism articulates certain general principles of liberal democracy, which are compatible with a range of political positions from capitalist libertarianism to Marxist humanism. (And this is not to take into account hypocrisy whatever the position taken.) This flexibility allows "humanism" to be a strategic focal point for organization and agitation in a variety of contexts, and for strategic alliances. But this does not make "humanism" a complete philosophy or world view. Not to see this is to fail to recognize that "humanism" essentially functions ideologically in the pejorative sense, that its proponents do not understand the deep structure of their own ideas. For historical amplification, consult my podcast Atheism & Humanism as Bourgeois Ideology (11/17/12).
So whatever your conviction is as to what constitutes a true humanism, whether it be Barry Seidman's anarchosyndalism, which is as analytically vacuous and platitudinous as humanist liberalism, or something else, your efforts at hijacking the concept of humanism in general will be futile.
The threadbare intellectual character of the humanist movement in the USA can be seen in another essay:
MALCOLM X FROM A BLACK HUMANIST VIEW By Norm R. Allen Jr., September 10, 2011
. . . which contains this preposterous assertion: "As far as Black leaders of national renown go, Malcolm seems to have been the leading critical thinker."
This is not only nonsense with respect to the entire history of black American political thought, but also with respect to Malcolm's contemporaries. I am reminded of a remark C.L.R. James once made when questioned about Malcolm X, responding that the person who really matters is Paul Robeson. This remark implies a whole lot more than it says, for it points to a larger historical perspective lacking among Americans, black Americans included, as James asserted in another speech.
Malcolm X emerged in a political vacuum created by the silencing of the infinitely more sophisticated black left in the McCarthy era. Malcolm trashed mainstream American liberalism not from the left but from the right. One can focus on the more intelligent components of his speeches, but his defamation of the civil rights movement coupled with his alternative separatist fantasy bespeaks a decidedly inferior politics. A disciple of Elijah Muhammed's fascist religious cult, Malcolm could only be considered a critical thinker in a limited sense. Malcolm's world view could only be considered compatible with humanism in the last year of Malcolm's life when he renounced the Nation of Islam and refused to make authoritarianism and racialism the basis of his political world view (though he became an orthodox Muslim).
Norm to be sure is no blind hero-worshipper. Yet a critical evaluation of Malcolm demands more than a criticism of his sexism, the blandest, easiest, and most politically correct criticism to make. As for critical thinking, I've argued elsewhere that there is only critical thinking in particular, not critical thinking in general, and that "critical thinking" is selective and content-driven. See my bibliography Thinking Critically About Critical Thinking: A Guide.
Philosophically, "humanism" has always been quite feeble though its platitudes are salutary. Here we have further confirmation of this philosophical anemia.
By Norm R. Allen Jr., December 21, 2012
Although Norm's argument that there is no necessary correlation between nontheism & political positions is correct, there are further implications, in that "humanism" too is almost politically meaningless though it promises more, in a strictly definitional sense, than "atheism". This is true for "secular humanism", all of its manifestos and affirmations notwithstanding, and a fortiori for religious humanism, which stretches the meaning to unlimited flexibility and hence virtual meaninglessness.
Norm recognizes the entire political spectrum that nontheists occupy. Among black atheists, he singles out the group of nationalist bigots (my designation) Black Atheists of Atlanta. He did not mention other black nontheists who do not only advocate a tie to social justice issues but demagogically presume they represent black atheism as a whole in contraposition to white atheism. But black atheists, however the percentages may be skewed, also span the spectrum of political philosophies.
Back to Norm: Groups that couple a primary interest in atheism (or any of its synonyms) with a specific political philosophy should label themselves clearly reflecting their position. But also, there are nontheists who engage their social justice issues in other organizations and don't wish to narrow the common agenda of nontheists & secularists by tying down that movement to a specific political orientation.
The term "humanism' brings with it a source of confusion not found in the other terms:
Many humanists focus primarily on atheism, freethought, and rationalism. However, politically, they rend to be liberal or progressive. This causes much consternation among conservatives, libertarians and others that attend humanist gatherings. Yet unlike most of the other terms that non-theists use to describe themselves, humanism means a belief in humanity, and implies caring and concern for human beings, which usually translates into support for progressive social, political and economic programs. Conservatives, libertarians, and others might want to exercise caution when considering becoming involved with a humanist organization.Perhaps a statistically oriented survey will bear out this generalization. However, many nontheists are not very discriminating about the labels or organizations they affiliate with or consider themselves humanists no matter how reactionary their politics. And the good liberals are not necessarily so discriminating either when choosing their heroes.
The problem is that the intellectual basis of the humanist movement is basically identical to that of any of the other labels used, and is so threadbare that it can't nail down anything more specific than general abstract principles, or platitudes. As a rule, humanism articulates certain general principles of liberal democracy, which are compatible with a range of political positions from capitalist libertarianism to Marxist humanism. (And this is not to take into account hypocrisy whatever the position taken.) This flexibility allows "humanism" to be a strategic focal point for organization and agitation in a variety of contexts, and for strategic alliances. But this does not make "humanism" a complete philosophy or world view. Not to see this is to fail to recognize that "humanism" essentially functions ideologically in the pejorative sense, that its proponents do not understand the deep structure of their own ideas. For historical amplification, consult my podcast Atheism & Humanism as Bourgeois Ideology (11/17/12).
So whatever your conviction is as to what constitutes a true humanism, whether it be Barry Seidman's anarchosyndalism, which is as analytically vacuous and platitudinous as humanist liberalism, or something else, your efforts at hijacking the concept of humanism in general will be futile.
The threadbare intellectual character of the humanist movement in the USA can be seen in another essay:
MALCOLM X FROM A BLACK HUMANIST VIEW By Norm R. Allen Jr., September 10, 2011
. . . which contains this preposterous assertion: "As far as Black leaders of national renown go, Malcolm seems to have been the leading critical thinker."
This is not only nonsense with respect to the entire history of black American political thought, but also with respect to Malcolm's contemporaries. I am reminded of a remark C.L.R. James once made when questioned about Malcolm X, responding that the person who really matters is Paul Robeson. This remark implies a whole lot more than it says, for it points to a larger historical perspective lacking among Americans, black Americans included, as James asserted in another speech.
Malcolm X emerged in a political vacuum created by the silencing of the infinitely more sophisticated black left in the McCarthy era. Malcolm trashed mainstream American liberalism not from the left but from the right. One can focus on the more intelligent components of his speeches, but his defamation of the civil rights movement coupled with his alternative separatist fantasy bespeaks a decidedly inferior politics. A disciple of Elijah Muhammed's fascist religious cult, Malcolm could only be considered a critical thinker in a limited sense. Malcolm's world view could only be considered compatible with humanism in the last year of Malcolm's life when he renounced the Nation of Islam and refused to make authoritarianism and racialism the basis of his political world view (though he became an orthodox Muslim).
Norm to be sure is no blind hero-worshipper. Yet a critical evaluation of Malcolm demands more than a criticism of his sexism, the blandest, easiest, and most politically correct criticism to make. As for critical thinking, I've argued elsewhere that there is only critical thinking in particular, not critical thinking in general, and that "critical thinking" is selective and content-driven. See my bibliography Thinking Critically About Critical Thinking: A Guide.
Philosophically, "humanism" has always been quite feeble though its platitudes are salutary. Here we have further confirmation of this philosophical anemia.
Thursday, November 22, 2012
Atheism & Humanism as Bourgeois Ideology (3)
Those who follow the atheist / humanist / skeptics blogosphere are probably aware of controversies that have erupted over the past few years, mostly in connection with accusations of sexism and the role of women within the movement, but also to some extent the priorities of black atheists in relation to established national organizations. I have no intention of questioning the validity of such concerns, but I do question the ideological basis from which many of the dissidents operate.
In my podcast Atheism & Humanism as Bourgeois Ideology I vaguely alluded to the mechanical combination of ideological labels coming from progressive movements and the atheist/etc. movement. Atheism Plus is a particularly noxious ahistorical, intellectually dishonest, demagogic, and ultimately vacuous attempt to brand a new division of the movement, or a new movement altogether. The insipidity of such gestures mirrors the insipidity of the mainstream from which the dissidents purport to distance themselves.
Such liberal or left-liberal developments are symptoms of the lack of a vigorous mass movement in the USA, more centrally, the lack of class politics. The sins of the hard left stem from the same condition. When you have a subculture of professional middle class people who are essentially spectator-tourists in the world of human suffering, bad politics and superficial accusations of self and others become the political watchwords. Thirdworldism is one such manifestation of bad politics, which, however bankrupt, would have at least made sense in the context of the global anti-colonial anti-imperialist thrust of the '60s & '70s, but is worse than worthless now. But just as disgusting is the politics of "privilege", perpetrated of course by the privileged, with no constituency or substantive program, against whomever is deemed more privileged, the white male being at the top of the heap, of course. But 'white male' (or female) is not a class category. This is what left bourgeois politics gets you, and in the smattering of cases in which one finds alleged radicals participating in the organized atheist/etc. movement, this is what you get.
Naturally, given the historical and structural conditions of American society (and several others), white males are going to be at the top of the heap, and prevailing perspectives and priorities at that class level are likely to prevail, accompanied by dollops of tokenism as a gesture of balancing things out. But focusing on the obvious obscures the essentially bourgeois nature of the movement, and thus the slim chances of any anti-bourgeois perspective--wherever it might come from--of gaining the prominence, leadership role, or influence that it might merit.
While the next logical step would be to name names, I'll let you use your imagination. Instead, I want to probe the blogosphere of the hard left and see what they have to say. Left--and specifically Marxist--takes on atheism and religion vary tremendously, and thus cannot be summed up as one generality. What is wrong with various Marxist takes on religion needs to be covered in separate posts. But now I'm searching the blogs for "bourgeois atheism", and here are a few finds.
Boobquake Revisited by EDB, The Fivefold Path, 24 August 2012
While the blogger is certainly justified in adverse reactions to the atheist movement, though feeling at least in part a part of it, he is too uncritical of the demagogic propaganda stemming from certain dissidents.
Much worse is a Maoist blog. I met my first Maoist in high school at the end of the '60s. My first impulse was to punch him in the mouth--I didn't, but he would have deserved it--and my regard for Maoists has not altered since.
"Atheism and Theism" is not a Class Contradiction, M-L-M Mayhem!, 30 August 2012
Aside from the sectarian bankruptcy of the entire politics of this group, and of its take on religion, there are unqualified and unrestricted generalizations such as this:
" . . . it is a club primarily for privileged pro-imperialist petty bourgeois males who imagine that they're subversive for rejecting God while, at the same time, accepting everything capitalist-imperialist society has socialized them into believing is holy."
This characterization certainly fits a number of petty-bourgeois white men . . . also white women, black people, South Asians, and others in the movement, but as a blanket characterization, and by implication a blanket exoneration of others, it is dishonest and demagogic. But of course such voices exist within the atheist/etc. movement as well.
Various debates are no better. Here are a couple of examples:
Bourgeois Atheism, Revleft, 8 June 2010
A Proletarian critique of 'New' Atheists, rationalia.com, 2 July 2012
We have here utter incoherence. The leftists are as confused as the "mainstream" atheists.
I'm not saying no insightful perspective can be found, but those who rise above the prevailing superficiality are going to find that whatever they choose to call themselves, they won't have as many people on their wavelength as labels might suggest.
In my podcast Atheism & Humanism as Bourgeois Ideology I vaguely alluded to the mechanical combination of ideological labels coming from progressive movements and the atheist/etc. movement. Atheism Plus is a particularly noxious ahistorical, intellectually dishonest, demagogic, and ultimately vacuous attempt to brand a new division of the movement, or a new movement altogether. The insipidity of such gestures mirrors the insipidity of the mainstream from which the dissidents purport to distance themselves.
Such liberal or left-liberal developments are symptoms of the lack of a vigorous mass movement in the USA, more centrally, the lack of class politics. The sins of the hard left stem from the same condition. When you have a subculture of professional middle class people who are essentially spectator-tourists in the world of human suffering, bad politics and superficial accusations of self and others become the political watchwords. Thirdworldism is one such manifestation of bad politics, which, however bankrupt, would have at least made sense in the context of the global anti-colonial anti-imperialist thrust of the '60s & '70s, but is worse than worthless now. But just as disgusting is the politics of "privilege", perpetrated of course by the privileged, with no constituency or substantive program, against whomever is deemed more privileged, the white male being at the top of the heap, of course. But 'white male' (or female) is not a class category. This is what left bourgeois politics gets you, and in the smattering of cases in which one finds alleged radicals participating in the organized atheist/etc. movement, this is what you get.
Naturally, given the historical and structural conditions of American society (and several others), white males are going to be at the top of the heap, and prevailing perspectives and priorities at that class level are likely to prevail, accompanied by dollops of tokenism as a gesture of balancing things out. But focusing on the obvious obscures the essentially bourgeois nature of the movement, and thus the slim chances of any anti-bourgeois perspective--wherever it might come from--of gaining the prominence, leadership role, or influence that it might merit.
While the next logical step would be to name names, I'll let you use your imagination. Instead, I want to probe the blogosphere of the hard left and see what they have to say. Left--and specifically Marxist--takes on atheism and religion vary tremendously, and thus cannot be summed up as one generality. What is wrong with various Marxist takes on religion needs to be covered in separate posts. But now I'm searching the blogs for "bourgeois atheism", and here are a few finds.
Boobquake Revisited by EDB, The Fivefold Path, 24 August 2012
While the blogger is certainly justified in adverse reactions to the atheist movement, though feeling at least in part a part of it, he is too uncritical of the demagogic propaganda stemming from certain dissidents.
Much worse is a Maoist blog. I met my first Maoist in high school at the end of the '60s. My first impulse was to punch him in the mouth--I didn't, but he would have deserved it--and my regard for Maoists has not altered since.
"Atheism and Theism" is not a Class Contradiction, M-L-M Mayhem!, 30 August 2012
Aside from the sectarian bankruptcy of the entire politics of this group, and of its take on religion, there are unqualified and unrestricted generalizations such as this:
" . . . it is a club primarily for privileged pro-imperialist petty bourgeois males who imagine that they're subversive for rejecting God while, at the same time, accepting everything capitalist-imperialist society has socialized them into believing is holy."
This characterization certainly fits a number of petty-bourgeois white men . . . also white women, black people, South Asians, and others in the movement, but as a blanket characterization, and by implication a blanket exoneration of others, it is dishonest and demagogic. But of course such voices exist within the atheist/etc. movement as well.
Various debates are no better. Here are a couple of examples:
Bourgeois Atheism, Revleft, 8 June 2010
A Proletarian critique of 'New' Atheists, rationalia.com, 2 July 2012
We have here utter incoherence. The leftists are as confused as the "mainstream" atheists.
I'm not saying no insightful perspective can be found, but those who rise above the prevailing superficiality are going to find that whatever they choose to call themselves, they won't have as many people on their wavelength as labels might suggest.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
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.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Douglass' Women, Douglass' secular humanism, Douglass' politics
My discovery of this novel this morning perked up what otherwise started out as a rotten day:
Douglass' Women: A Novel
by Jewell Parker
There was a real-life intellectual and romantic liaison between Frederick Douglass and German-Jewish emigré Ottilie Assing. She even lived with the Douglass family on Cedar Hill, something you won't learn when you visit the Douglass house today. Naturally, Douglass' wife was not thrilled at this arrangement, but there you go.
Assing claimed in a letter to Ludwig Feuerbach that Douglass was an atheist, but she was likely exaggerating. You can read the letter for yourself on my web site:
Letter to Ludwig Feuerbach from Ottilie Assing about Frederick Douglass
We shall see how Parker handles the freethought aspect of their relationship.
This liaison is actually in the news, connected to the question of Douglass as freethinker. Here is a recent news story:
Douglass a Secular Humanist? by Hector Avalos, Ames Tribune, Saturday, February 5, 2011.
The Douglass-Assing relationship is the linchpin of Avalos' article. Avalos puts Douglass in the company of Dawkins and Hitchens. It's hardly a stretch to identify Douglass with secular humanism; this does not prove Douglass to be an atheist, Avalos admits such as assertion to be an exaggeration, but it would still be more accurate to specify what is knowable about the degree of overlap between Douglass' undeniable secularism and humanism, and the hardcore atheism of Dawkins and Hitchens.
This rather insufferable Christian rebuttal is ridiculous in rendering Douglass' 1883 "It Moves" speech consistent with Christianity, but the blogger is correct that Douglass' statements in themselves do not prove a disavowal of theism per se.
Deeper historical contextualization is mandated, if not in an occasional newspaper piece, then in further investigation of the subject.
I have always had doubts as to where Wilson Moses is coming from, but he has authored several books engaged in in-depth historical analysis of 19th century black nationalism. Note his treatment of Douglass here:
Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History by Wilson Jeremiah Moses
Moses addresses the tensions within Douglass' politics, principally between his advocacy of the black cause and his integrationism. "His hostility to the traditionalism and institutional structure of organized religion was part and parcel of the extreme progressive liberalism that he embraced." Moses analyzes Douglass' moral perfectionism and aversion to relativism, a joint product of Enlightenment thought, liberalism, Victorian rationalism, and Christian perfectionism.
Here is another take by Moses on Douglass and other iconic black political intellectuals:
Creative Conflict in African American Thought by Wilson Jeremiah Moses
Here you can read an excerpt:
I. Introduction. Reality and Contradiction
Among other things you will find here an analysis of the ideological differences between Douglass and Alexander Crummell, the uneasy relationship between moralism and power politics, and the tension in Douglass between individualism and racial loyalty.
Finally, note the quotation from Douglass in Evolutionary Writings by Charles Darwin, edited by James A. Secord (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
Douglass' Women: A Novel
by Jewell Parker
There was a real-life intellectual and romantic liaison between Frederick Douglass and German-Jewish emigré Ottilie Assing. She even lived with the Douglass family on Cedar Hill, something you won't learn when you visit the Douglass house today. Naturally, Douglass' wife was not thrilled at this arrangement, but there you go.
Assing claimed in a letter to Ludwig Feuerbach that Douglass was an atheist, but she was likely exaggerating. You can read the letter for yourself on my web site:
Letter to Ludwig Feuerbach from Ottilie Assing about Frederick Douglass
We shall see how Parker handles the freethought aspect of their relationship.
This liaison is actually in the news, connected to the question of Douglass as freethinker. Here is a recent news story:
Douglass a Secular Humanist? by Hector Avalos, Ames Tribune, Saturday, February 5, 2011.
The Douglass-Assing relationship is the linchpin of Avalos' article. Avalos puts Douglass in the company of Dawkins and Hitchens. It's hardly a stretch to identify Douglass with secular humanism; this does not prove Douglass to be an atheist, Avalos admits such as assertion to be an exaggeration, but it would still be more accurate to specify what is knowable about the degree of overlap between Douglass' undeniable secularism and humanism, and the hardcore atheism of Dawkins and Hitchens.
This rather insufferable Christian rebuttal is ridiculous in rendering Douglass' 1883 "It Moves" speech consistent with Christianity, but the blogger is correct that Douglass' statements in themselves do not prove a disavowal of theism per se.
Deeper historical contextualization is mandated, if not in an occasional newspaper piece, then in further investigation of the subject.
I have always had doubts as to where Wilson Moses is coming from, but he has authored several books engaged in in-depth historical analysis of 19th century black nationalism. Note his treatment of Douglass here:
Afrotopia: The Roots of African American Popular History by Wilson Jeremiah Moses
Moses addresses the tensions within Douglass' politics, principally between his advocacy of the black cause and his integrationism. "His hostility to the traditionalism and institutional structure of organized religion was part and parcel of the extreme progressive liberalism that he embraced." Moses analyzes Douglass' moral perfectionism and aversion to relativism, a joint product of Enlightenment thought, liberalism, Victorian rationalism, and Christian perfectionism.
Here is another take by Moses on Douglass and other iconic black political intellectuals:
Creative Conflict in African American Thought by Wilson Jeremiah Moses
Here you can read an excerpt:
I. Introduction. Reality and Contradiction
Among other things you will find here an analysis of the ideological differences between Douglass and Alexander Crummell, the uneasy relationship between moralism and power politics, and the tension in Douglass between individualism and racial loyalty.
Finally, note the quotation from Douglass in Evolutionary Writings by Charles Darwin, edited by James A. Secord (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Christ the Vampire & other ghoulish goodies
Let's begin with the publisher in question, III Publishing. This site maintains a blog. There are several categories of essays on the site, for example, Religion: A Guide for the Perplexed (further subcategorized). This outfit maintains a booklist, but one might as well go directly to the book descriptions, with links to sample texts.
The press itself appears to be an anarchist press, but my disrespect for anarchism notwithstanding, there is amusing material here.
The first book I read from this publisher and from this author (several years ago) was:
The Last Days of Christ the Vampire by J. G. Eccarius.
This novel "is set in Providence, Rhode Island, where a small group of people discovers that Jesus really Lives, he rose from the dead and controls the Catholic Church and Protestant sects as well. It's an action-packed battle against the ancient vampire."
I don't remember much about this, but it was highly entertaining. See the sample.
By the same author, I also have:
Resurrection 2027. Sample.
"J.G. Eccarius is back with this science-fiction look at a theocracy governing what's left of the human race. God is a woman, her representatives are women, and yet Ann Swanson, a teenage woman, begins to feel plenty oppressed in Resurrection City. Is she really a resurrected nurse from the late 20th century? Or is the entire society a fabric of lies?"
As you can see, J. G. Eccarius and III Publishing have some offbeat material to offer.
I also have a dystopian novel that is out of print:
A.D. by Saab Lofton
Review of A.D. by Darius James
Practical Anarchy review
Given the topic, this is of greater significance than the other two, which may be why it's sold out.
I see some other books with religious, mythological, or cosmological themes have appeared since I last checked out this publisher:
Pyrexia by Michel Mery
Vampires or Gods? by William Meyers
The press itself appears to be an anarchist press, but my disrespect for anarchism notwithstanding, there is amusing material here.
The first book I read from this publisher and from this author (several years ago) was:
The Last Days of Christ the Vampire by J. G. Eccarius.
This novel "is set in Providence, Rhode Island, where a small group of people discovers that Jesus really Lives, he rose from the dead and controls the Catholic Church and Protestant sects as well. It's an action-packed battle against the ancient vampire."
I don't remember much about this, but it was highly entertaining. See the sample.
By the same author, I also have:
Resurrection 2027. Sample.
"J.G. Eccarius is back with this science-fiction look at a theocracy governing what's left of the human race. God is a woman, her representatives are women, and yet Ann Swanson, a teenage woman, begins to feel plenty oppressed in Resurrection City. Is she really a resurrected nurse from the late 20th century? Or is the entire society a fabric of lies?"
As you can see, J. G. Eccarius and III Publishing have some offbeat material to offer.
I also have a dystopian novel that is out of print:
A.D. by Saab Lofton
"In a few years the White Aryan Resistance and the Nation of Islam will divide America into racist regimes. Saab Lofton's A.D. starts with a look at one man's life under Farrakhan's regime, then dives centuries into the future to look at a Libertarian Socialist Democracy, Saab's vision of Utopia."
sample from A.D.Review of A.D. by Darius James
Practical Anarchy review
Given the topic, this is of greater significance than the other two, which may be why it's sold out.
I see some other books with religious, mythological, or cosmological themes have appeared since I last checked out this publisher:
Pyrexia by Michel Mery
Vampires or Gods? by William Meyers
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