The University of the West Indies at Mona, Jamaica: UWI Journals
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Unholy Alliance: Africa and Marxism
Full text linkThere have been many ways in which progressive, liberal, populist or socially sensitive ideologies have been described, to link these ideologies with a humanist and humane approaches to socio-economic organization of society. Some of these tortuously fangled nomenclatures are communism, socialism, Marxism, welfarism, secularism, communalism, democracy, communitarianism or leftism. But what I have found is that many of these labels are misnomers and incongruous appellations clouding transparency of understanding, cloaking hubris, purveying carefully disguised oppression and transferring ideas from disparate socio-cultural historiographic circumstances to confound proper annotation of understanding in Global African (Africana) traditions of governance and social engineering.
In this essay, I suggest that the search by “leftist” Africana intellectuals for levers for founding discourses that will be sensitive to the welfare of the masses of the African peoples and societies have floundered on the altar of intellectual laziness reminiscent of intellectual smuggling which was engaged by African theologian scholars in the search for equivalences for Abrahamic disoriented and emotionally unstable desert deities. The laziness has engendered the unholy alliance between Africa and Marxism, such that the historicity of human struggles which led Marx to Das Kapital (1867) and The Communist Manifesto (1848) have been uniformized, homogenized, pasteurized, universalized and transfixed on Africana societies without sensitivity to the incommensurabilities of European and Africana traditions that the scholars have sought to understand. To show these weaknesses in the theory and practice of leftism in global Africa, I examine two critical elements of any socio-economic and cultural analysis of the ontologies of being in indigenous Africa before the misadventure of Europe on the continent in the modern times: land and labour. I conclude that the unholy alliance between Africa and Marxism has been responsible for the inevitable failure of communist/socialist/Marxist ideologies, orientations, and intellectualisms in Africana societies. I suggest that the path to progress in Africa will have to be forged from endogenous tools, using indigenous cultural traditions and values
Las Casas’ Articulation of the Indians’ Moral Agency: Looking Back at Las Casas Through Fichte
Full text linkAccording to Levi-Strauss, in Race and History, “…the barbarian is first and foremost the man who believes in barbarism” . This is a good point to begin our discussion in this essay aimed at understanding how pre-Columbian societies in the New World related socially and culturally before Europeans arrived.
Much has been written on Bartolomé de Las Casas’ contribution to the notion of universal human rights. Liberation theology thinkers like the assassinated Bishop Oscar Romero, Gustavo Gutiérrez, and philosopher Enrique Dussell, have thought of him as the central spokesperson and defender of the Amerindians: firstly, in the great debate with Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda in 1651, and secondly, as a voice that continues to speak for the oppressed and marginalized indigenous peoples of Latin America (in the age of globalization). For someone like Dussell, for instance, Las Casas represents the embodiment of a proto-Marxian Christian ethics.
What seems understudied, however, is Las Casa’s conception of Christianity and religion in general—a view of religion, which anticipates an eighteenth-century German enlightenment concept of religion, or what Kant called “the religion of reason.” Interestingly, for the Spanish philosopher, Christianity was conceived more as a rational system of ethics than as a doctrine of faith. The Indians, argued Las Casas, were members of the same community of rational human beings as Europeans. He believed, like Fichte after him that all humans belong to the same universal community of rational beings, which is why Fichte will help us shed some light on Las Casas’s anticipatory notions of moral agency, formal freedom, rational religion, and the rights of a free people against the use of coercion—regardless of their race, religion, or culture. This, I believe, is what underpins Las Casas’ notion of universal human rights (Paulist and Thomist in nature), and his of ethics of the Other, who “is just like me”: a rational, feeling human being, deserving of equal justice and rights
Caribbean Philosophy and Metaphysical Strictures
Full text linkA culture with no evident signs of philosophy is a non-existent one. Thus, it is illogical to argue that the Caribbean is devoid of philosophical thinking and exploration. In an effort to hold meaningful discussions on Caribbean philosophy, it is important to establish what Caribbean philosophy is not. I suggest that Caribbean philosophy is not a pastime. It is not a worthless preoccupation. It is not devoid of values and religious and metaphysical truths. Nor is it a pseudo discourse void of the causal history, metaphysical traditions, and logical intellectual ideologies.
I explore metaphysics as one key area of Caribbean philosophy, by showing its uniqueness in being pragmatic in its approach. This uniqueness probably sets Caribbean metaphysics apart from unmoored abstract textbook metaphysics. The difference in the nature and scope of Caribbean metaphysics do not imply a weakness, as no philosophy is superior to the other in terms of worth and merit. The key ingredient to a metaphysics is its people, so if all metaphysics were the same, all people would be the same. No two people are the same; therefore, the metaphysics of each culture are built on different templates. I show the uniqueness of Caribbean Metaphysics by arguing that, since all cultures are different in many respects, it is absurd to expect a universal metaphysical discourse and ideology. I propose a pragmatic approach to the understanding of the metaphysical traditions in the Caribbean, with specific reference to Jamaica by investigating certain metaphysical socio-cultural practices and ideologies in areas such as religion, sports, and the ontology of life of the Caribbean people
The Question of Method in Philosophy
Full text linkIn this paper, we have elected to reflect on the method of doing philosophy. This reflection proceeds from a preliminary discourse on the various methods that have been deployed in doing philosophy in the past to a discourse on the lessons from Josef Maria Bochenski’s thought. In our investigation, we found out that such methods as the phenomenological, analytical, dialectical, hermeneutical methods have been used in doing philosophy. We argued that there is no single universally accepted method of doing philosophy. Arising from our analysis of Bochenski’s thought and insights from an intercultural perspective, we conclude that an authentic philosophical method is that which rests on phenomenological analysis and is guided by logic.
Keywords: Philosophy, Method, Methodology, Complementarity, Logi
Las Casas’ Articulation of the Indians’ Moral Agency: Looking Back at Las Casas Through Fichte
Full text linkAccording to Levi-Strauss, in Race and History, “…the barbarian is first and foremost the man who believes in barbarism” . This is a good point to begin our discussion in this essay aimed at understanding how pre-Columbian societies in the New World related socially and culturally before Europeans arrived.
Much has been written on Bartolomé de Las Casas’ contribution to the notion of universal human rights. Liberation theology thinkers like the assassinated Bishop Oscar Romero, Gustavo Gutiérrez, and philosopher Enrique Dussell, have thought of him as the central spokesperson and defender of the Amerindians: firstly in the great debate with Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda in 1651, and secondly, as a voice that continues to speak for the oppressed and marginalized indigenous peoples of Latin America (in the age of globalization). For someone like Dussell, for instance, Las Casas represents the embodiment of a proto-Marxian Christian ethics.
What seems understudied, however, is Las Casa’s conception of Christianity and religion in general—a view of religion, which anticipates an eighteenth century German enlightenment concept of religion, or what Kant called “the religion of reason.” Interestingly, for the Spanish philosopher, Christianity was conceived more as a rational system of ethics than as a doctrine of faith. The Indians, argued Las Casas, were members of the same community of rational human beings as Europeans. He believed, like Fichte after him that all humans belong to the same universal community of rational beings, which is why Fichte will help us shed some light on Las Casas’s anticipatory notions of moral agency, formal freedom, rational religion, and the rights of a free people against the use of coercion—regardless of their race, religion, or culture. This, I believe, is what underpins Las Casas’ notion of universal human rights (Paulist and Thomist in nature), and his of ethics of the Other, who “is just like me”: a rational, feeling human being, deserving of equal justice and rights
Nigerian Literature and the Postmodern Turn: Plurimediality and Interarts Aesthetics in Modern Nigerian Poetry in English
Full text linkThis essay explores the plurimedial practice of incorporating visual illustration in contemporary Nigerian poetry in English as a postmodern aesthetic practice. An aspect of intermedial studies, Plurimediality studies the relations between verbal/word-text and visual arts as used within the same presentation. Described in this paper as “Interarts Aesthetics”, the incorporation of visual illustration in modern Nigerian poetry is seen as a postmodern practice and a shift from the aesthetics of orature which trademarks postcolonial writings and discourses in African and Nigerian literature. While both critical and creative activities in this area of research have been on for a long time in other national literatures, a review of postcolonial Nigerian literary works in English reveals that the practice is recent. Before this time, it was associated with Children’s Literature which dates back to the 1950s. Evidence of this creative practice in Nigerian adult literary works in English dates back to the late twentieth century and exists in only a few texts including very few Modern Nigerian poetry collections in English. Similarly, there is hardly any significant critical interest in this aspect of Nigerian literary critical studies. Using theories of “Intermediality”, this study explores the practice of incorporating verbal text and visual arts and the relationship between these as multimodal means of knowledge creation and aesthetics communication in modern Nigerian poetry in English
Achieving Global Justice through Decolonizing Human Dignity
Full text linkHuman dignity is, or should be, at the heart of global justice. This is because dignity underpins conceptions of human nature and is simultaneously a fundamental foundation and an intrinsic end of human rights. However, conceptions of human dignity vary significantly in western and non-western societies, with important implications both for the theory and practice of human rights and global justice. This is because in major international declarations, conventions and agreements about human rights and international justice, human dignity is articulated using a repertoire of linguistic/philosophical resources originating in the west to the exclusion of the non-west. This phenomenon is what I refer to as the coloniality of human dignity, arguing that an acceptable theory of global justice ought to be preceded by a decolonial articulation of human dignity, a notion of dignity that eschews the parochialism of nativist essentialism and disavows the oppression of civilisationalist universalism masquerading as cosmopolitanism
Word, sound and power: Evaluating Dancehall hypocrisy or sincerity in its critique of Babylon
Full text linkThe peculiar history of Jamaica, the Caribbean and the Americas make for historical clashes that has manifested in diverse ways and through the agency of various mechanisms. When the indigenous peoples of the various New World European adventures were decimated with genocidal policies of deliberate overwork and killings upon disobedience, captured Africans were shipped into these locations to work on plantations as enslaved chattels with no human rights, human dignity and human historical connections to their past. Numerous wars were fought by the indigenous populations, albeit mostly loosing ones and by the enslaved Africans who were not used to such dehumanization. In many instances, these wars led to liberation, as in the case of the Maroons of Jamaica and Haiti, the first liberated republic in the Western Hemisphere. Many insurgences, rebellions and acts of sabotage were engaged in to make the local and absentee European plantation owners suffer losses and feel similar anxieties to the enslaved.
It is the cultural and artistic rebellions, revolutions and repulsion of enslavement, domination and dehumanization that is the subject of this discussion. And for a proper understanding of the issues at stake, we will use the lens of Dancehall, the popular musical genre that evolved in Jamaica, as a mechanism of critique of Babylon, the Biblical symbol of oppression, domination, expropriation and dehumanization of Jews as incorporated in Rastafari religions and scholarship.
The essay will proceed along the following sections, after this Introduction, which is Section 1. Section 2a will examine the “Word, Sound and Power” iconography, with a view to introducing the revolutionary foundations of Jamaican artistic traditions, in historical perspective; while Section 2b will examine “Word, Sound and Power” within the context of Jamaican musical performance. The Third section will examine the genre of Dancehall, its emergence and the place it has occupied in Jamaican culture of resistance and economic empowerment of artistes. The Fourth section will examine the traditions of resistance which have been the basis of art – dance, music, performance, cartoon, etc., primarily using “Blood Money” by Protoje as case study. The fifth section will evaluate the nature of the current Dancehall relative to socio-economic, religious, cultural and international representation. The final section will be a summary or conclusion derived from the discussion.
The methodology employed is critical interrogation of extant literature relating to issues treated, teasing out the philosophical and cultural foundations of relationship between the intersections of Reggae Music, as pioneered by the Wailing Wailers, Peter Tosh, Bunny Wailer and Bob Marley. The explication of the connections enable us to examine the extent to which contemporary Dance Hall has stayed true and sincere to the founding cultural traditions of protest, consciousness and the extent to which a Peter Tosh could have jettisoned the lucre of money to stand against the gale of oppression, thereby forming their own “Word, Sound, Power” foundational organizations to stand with the people against the forces of human inhumanity to other human beings which racism, plantation slavery, colonialism and oppression constituted in the annals of black humanity.
Key words: Dancehall, word, sound, power, sincerity, hypocrisy, blood money, elite, Babylon
A Critical Assessment of Thomas Kuhn’s Understanding of Scientific Progress
Full text linkThomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolution, distinguishes between two types of sciences – one, normal; the other, revolutionary. However, the transition from normal to revolutionary science (what he calls paradigm-shift) is initiated by anomaly. This anomaly arises when the paradigm guiding a particular community of scientists malfunctions, thus resisting all efforts to reposition it. Hence, science for Kuhn, grows through the paradigm-shift initiated by tension. However, Kuhn argues that the process of choosing another paradigm that will guild scientific practices requires a thorough debate among a community of scientists. In this debate, a new paradigm is selected out of numerous competing others by the method of elimination. This selection is based on their ability to solve problems and to guide research work without developing further faults. Nevertheless, in this understanding of scientific growth, in our view, inheres some contradictions. In the first places, Kuhn attributes growth to paradigm-shift through tension and anomaly but argues that a new paradigm must be selected based on its ability not to develop fault. It is not, however clear how paradigm-shift can occur if there is no fault, tension or anomaly in research. Secondly, he bases the selection of a new paradigm on the inarticulate aesthetic sentiments, faith and destiny, which contradicts the initial argument that it must be selected based on its observed inherent problem-solving ability out of the numerous others. We shall discuss these notable flaws in Kuhn’s view of scientific growth, using the method of critical argumentation and conceptual clarification
Techniculture
Full text linkThe incursions of philosophers have reached into the sociological fields, but more rarely into the technological realm which has indeed emerged as the new God of the 21st Century. This monograph attempts to fill this gap in a small way.
Modern Technology, with its efficiency and power (technocracy), has come to stay. The comforts and conveniences that it has offered to humanity are unimaginable and undeniable.
Traditional cultures, on the other hand, have a very conflicted view toward it, desiring the material blessings of technological civilization while also perceiving how it creates alienation, deracination, and powerlessness.
Furthermore, the interaction of technological culture with other cultures has resulted in a "conflict of cosmologies.” The technocratic worldview's priorities, values, and vision are neither neutral nor universal, and they appear to be really at odds with traditional civilizations' vitalistic cosmologies, particularly in the understanding of matter, life, space, time, well-being, and so on.
There is also a growing recognition that neither of the two extremes — improving and humanising technology or completely destroying it – is viable. At the same time, there is a need for the traditional cultures to simultaneously turn towards the spirit of humanity's new situation, and assist, integrate, and effect transformation within in ways that are both needed and possible. What could then be a way forward both for technology and traditional cultures?
There may not be a way out. Perhaps, there could be a way in, as there has arisen in our new cross-cultural human situation, a great opportunity for mutual fecundation and transformation between the old and the new in the encounter of modern technology and traditional cultures. Techniculture, as this monograph will elaborate, indeed represents an effort in this direction and may well be an interlude for this mutational moment and cultural innovation