The historical past of philosophy is usually the historical past of varied faculties arguing with one another about what’s good or true. The Epicureans, the Empiricists, the Stoics, the Skeptics, the Positivists, the Pragmatists — you get the purpose.
I’m not an official member of any of those golf equipment, however if you happen to requested me to choose one, I’d go along with the Existentialists. For me, existentialism was the final nice philosophical motion. A part of the explanation for that’s purely historic. Existentialism emerged within the early- to mid-Twentieth century, towards the backdrop of two devastating world wars, and lots of the existentialists have been responding to that.
Another excuse for the motion’s attraction is that its main proponents didn’t simply write arcane educational treatises; they wrote novels and performs and widespread essays, and their concepts crossed over into the tradition. In addition they engaged with concrete questions on freedom and accountability and authenticity, and people concepts will at all times resonate as a result of the human situation hasn’t actually modified.
However each historic second is exclusive and so the query is at all times how does this custom handle the world we inhabit immediately?
Nathalie Etoke is a professor on the CUNY Graduate Heart and the writer of the guide Black Existential Freedom. It’s an exploration of Black existence by the lens of existentialist thought, and it in the end makes a case for one thing like tragic optimism. It’s each a critique of “Afro-pessimism” — extra on this concept beneath — and an affirmation of political realism, and that makes it a particular contribution to the discourse.
I invited Etoke on The Grey Space to speak concerning the guide and the distinctive perspective she brings to this dialog. As at all times, there’s far more within the full podcast, so hear and comply with The Grey Space on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever you discover podcasts. New episodes drop each Monday.
This dialog has been edited for size and readability.
Earlier than we get to the story you wish to inform on this guide, I might love to do just a bit philosophical table-setting for the viewers. What does existentialism imply to you? How do you strategy this custom of thought?
Properly, I come from a Francophone education background, so I used to be uncovered to philosophy in highschool. Straight away, I discovered the questions that philosophers have been asking very attention-grabbing.
I learn Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness. I learn some Kierkegaard; I learn Camus. Questions of existence have been at all times a part of my pondering course of, however there’s one thing about current as a Black individual within the context of white supremacist capitalist society and the entire thought of the dehumanization of Black individuals, which thinkers like Du Bois, Fanon, Ralph Ellison additionally helped me take into consideration.
So you’ve got the normal existentialist faculty when you consider the white thinkers, however truthfully when you consider African writers and diasporic African writers who didn’t current themselves as philosophers, you repeatedly have them partaking the query of current as a Black individual. These writers do not must label themselves existentialists.
Is there one thing concerning the historic Black expertise that informs or expands existentialist philosophy?
Sure. The query that I ask is: What does it imply to be human if you’ve been traditionally dehumanized? And no matter the place you end up on this globe, you will notice that individuals with darker pores and skin are on the backside. So there’s one thing about this legacy of dehumanization that creates an existential stress. In fact, it manifests in another way relying on the place you end up.
I used to be born in Paris, France, however I used to be raised in Cameroon, Central Africa, and I grew up there. I by no means considered myself as being non-human or as being Black.
However as soon as you progress to an area the place the bulk inhabitants is white and the interactions you’ve got with individuals make you understand that you’re “the opposite,” though you by no means actually see your self as being “the opposite,” you understand that though race is a assemble, it is a lived expertise. For no matter purpose, even on this nation, citizenship is just not sufficient to be a part of the nation. As soon as you’ve got been outlined as non-human, what are you able to inform those that assume that they are human what it means to be human?
As a result of what they do not understand is that they too have completed one thing to their humanity. [Frantz] Fanon wrote about it, the query of dehumanization/being human continues to be on the core of Black existential thought.
Once I first began your guide, I used to be pondering, as a result of existentialism is concerning the common human expertise, what does it even imply to say Black existentialism?
However then your guide in a short time drives residence the reminder that we have now this custom of Western thought, and a part of the historical past of that custom is the devaluing of Black humanity, and that dehumanization is a part of the historic Black expertise, that sense of exile is a part of the expertise within the West, and so there’s simply no solution to have interaction with a convention like this one with out additionally coping with that historical past.
Precisely. Even within the African context, we’re conditioned to consider the query of the human and racism solely in racial phrases. Cameroon, the best way we spell it immediately got here from “camaroes” as a result of the Portuguese have been the primary to point out up there, and so they noticed a whole lot of huge shrimps.
To me, that is the start of dehumanization: Individuals declare a land and so they act as if the individuals they discover on that land are of no worth. They rename the place, they balkanize it, and we’re nonetheless attempting to make sense of these areas.
There is a time period you employ within the guide: “Afro-pessimism.” What does that confer with? And is the argument you make on this guide against this, or is the connection extra difficult?
Afro-pessimism says that there’s a steady and ongoing means of dehumanization that individuals of African descent undergo. And in some ways, there is no manner we might be totally human as a result of we make all people else human. In different phrases, it’s the dehumanization of individuals of African descent that makes different individuals human.
I give attention to the continuing wrestle for freedom. I am not dismissing the fact of white supremacy. I am not dismissing the fact of the dehumanization of Black individuals. I am not dismissing the fabric situations of our lives. However I am taking a look at it from the angle of those that, for a really very long time, needed to battle so as to exist.
On the very starting of the guide, you say explicitly that Blackness is just not synonymous with victimhood. Why was it necessary to state that so clearly?
Properly, as a result of I believe traditionally, individuals of African descent have been victimized, so that they’re victims. However on the identical time, the opposite facet of the story is that they at all times attempt to discover a solution to free themselves. I can not separate the 2, in order that’s the place I draw the road between being traditionally victimized and being a sufferer and the state of victimhood. And it isn’t even simply within the US or in France.
In Sub-Saharan Africa, the dictatorships and the various methods during which neocolonialism and the establishing of an influence construction that also oppresses Africans is occurring in the intervening time. Individuals are nonetheless attempting to be free. And to me, I am not being pessimistic. It is simply the info of Black life. It is the way you cope with it and the way repeatedly you’re nonetheless attempting to enhance the situations of your lives. Whereas the Afro-pessimists will say that there is no level speaking concerning the wrestle as a result of why must you even be struggling within the first place?
There’s a sure pessimism, to only follow that phrase, that I really feel in a lot of the race discourse in America, and I simply do not know what to do with it. So I am a white man who grew up within the deep South. That is only a truth about me. And I am not saying that in some performative manner. I am simply acknowledging that that is my expertise.
I additionally imagine within the universality of the human situation and the ability of language and concepts to bridge variations. And when the pessimism goes too far or once we change into trapped in our given identities, we sacrifice our company on some degree. We sacrifice our skill to outline ourselves within the right here and now and undertaking ourselves into a greater future. However on the identical time, we’re merchandise of fabric and historic forces. How will we settle for the all too actual constraints imposed on us by historical past with out, on the identical time, decreasing ourselves to historic props?
I at all times return to the lived expertise as a result of African individuals or individuals of African descent usually are not ideas. I truthfully imagine that day by day when somebody wakes up, they fight to determine what they must do, go about it. It isn’t an instructional matter. It’s totally concrete. It doesn’t suggest that you just’re not going to be dealing with difficulties, challenges, issues, however you continue to go about your life as a result of that is the life you got to dwell.
However I additionally assume, to paraphrase Gramsci, that it’s worthwhile to strike a stability between the pessimism of the mind and the optimism of the need. You want to have the ability to cope with actuality; in any other case it is a flight from accountability. When you’re in a position to have a look at a scenario for what it’s and you do not deceive your self, you’ll be able to cope with it.
And this isn’t some grandiose philosophical assertion. I see that each time I am going again to Cameroon. Coming from a perspective of any person who has lived most of her life abroad, you possibly can come and be like, “Oh my God, these persons are struggling. They do not have this. They do not have that.” You’ll be able to take a look at their day by day lives from a perspective of lack and deficiency, however that isn’t how they’re residing their lives. They’re nonetheless attempting to work no matter job they will do. They’re nonetheless having kids, they’re nonetheless having a sure form of pleasure. Horrible issues occur to them, however they do not sit in a state of pessimism and paralysis.
I can not afford to be pessimistic as a result of all of the individuals who got here earlier than me needed to endure and battle when it appeared like every part was darkish and there was no hope. Had these individuals not believed, and had they not fought, the place would I be immediately? In order that’s the place I additionally discover a sure hope.
A few of this will get on the ambivalence I felt studying somebody like Ta-Nehisi Coates, who writes fantastically and in a manner that helped me perceive his expertise. What I wrestled with was the philosophy of hopelessness that appeared to undergird his work. I believe it yields an excessive amount of to the forces of oppression. Do you assume I am misunderstanding the purpose there?
Properly, sure and no. Keep in mind that individuals of African descent in the US, and — I am paraphrasing Baldwin right here — they’re the one individuals who by no means needed to come back right here. In order that they did not come right here as a result of they’d a dream or they tried to enhance their residing situations. They have been by hell and so they’re nonetheless going by hell. We’re speaking about no less than 250 years of free labor. We’re speaking about Jim Crow legal guidelines. We’re speaking about lynching. So I can not say that Ta-Nehisi Coates is a preacher of hopelessness per se, as a result of in the US, there’s additionally this obsession with hope and joyful endings, which I shouldn’t have as a result of I come from a French background.
That is why I really like the blues, as a result of the blues is an African-American artwork type that helps you cope with the dissonance of your existence. And also you can’t be in denial of your actuality, however it’s important to be accountable about it. You might be humorous about it. You’ll be able to have a way of irony. And if you take heed to some blue songs, you possibly can see that the lyrics might be unhappy or tragic, however the melody is upbeat. What’s the blues singer expressing? Pleasure, happiness, hope? He is expressing an existential wrestle.
I’m wondering what you assume is the principal wrestle immediately, and the place freedom is to be present in that, for Black individuals on this nation?
When you consider the ’60s and the ’70s, the Black wrestle was not only for Black individuals. It was common. Most of these Black leaders have been Marxist or leftist. They have been additionally anti-capitalist. It wasn’t simply anti-racism.
I believe the problem immediately is just not essentially only a query of freedom, it is the truth that leftist politics is split. You’ve got the cultural left after which you’ve got the left that focuses on class, but in addition there may be this neoliberalization of id discourse.
The query I’ve is, are we framing freedom when it comes to turning into a part of a system, which by definition will produce inequality? If that is what we’re claiming, you are going to create a minority elite class after which they are going to be a part of this world as it’s. Or do you wish to create a world that’s tough to truly create as a result of all of us must lose and threat every part, and that features the Black bourgeois?
