blake 3:17
12th February 2012, 08:00
The question of violence and tactics has come up a lot lately in various threads. I found the following piece excerpt interesting -- not sure what I make of it.
Both left and right had failed to recognise the Algerian claims to independence. And both left and right had sought to justify their stance in the received language of humanism. From Fanon, they received the obvious reply: if that is your humanism, you can keep it. Fanon’s book The Wretched of the Earth had an electrifying effect on France, as it continues to compel readers throughout the West. Jean-Paul Sartre, who wrote an introduction, said that it was ‘a classic of anti-colonialism in which the Third World finds itself and speaks to itself though his voice’. Clearly the FLN were delighted to have found as pungent a polemicist as Fanon, a valuable editor for El Moudjhadid and trusted comrade (named FLN ambassador to Ghana before his death). Fanon was not, though, a part of the ‘Wretched of the Earth’ by upbringing, though, but by identification. Born in the French colony of Martinique, and trained in psychiatric medicine in France, Fanon came to Algeria as part of the staff of a French-run hospital — all of which makes his identification with the Algerian cause the more impressive. But generationally, Fanon was closer to the Commandant of the Army of National Liberation who knew Voltaire, Sartre and Camus, than he was to those uneducated Fellaheen that he spoke for. Indeed, Fanon formulates his idea of race discrimination with reference to Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason.[29] What Fanon takes from Sartre is an idea of the irreconcilability of colonialism and the natives, ‘the union of all against the natives’, as Sartre has it, or ‘the principle “it’s them or us"’ in Fanon’s version. As we have seen (in chapter three) Fanon applies Sartre’s anti-Hegelian logic of otherness to the relation between Algeria and France. ‘The two zones are opposed, but not in the service of a higher unity [as would be the case in Hegelian dialectics]. Obedient to the rules of pure Aristotelian [i.e. non-Hegelian] logic, they both follow the principle of reciprocal exclusivity.’[30] Here Sartre’s theory takes up into itself the empirical content of the Algerian revolution, as articulated by Fanon, for its verification. In the face of the spurious unity proposed by the French right, a ‘universalism’ in which one party has no rights, or the ‘Union française’ that the PCF wishes to negotiate (with whom, exactly?), the ‘Aristotelian’ opposition appears to make sense. Between European and Algerian, Sartre’s ‘reef of solipsism’ is a more compelling reality than it is embodied in a sulky couple in a Left Bank cafe.
Furthermore, in his introduction, Sartre recognises his own themes in Fanon’s work. His embrace of Fanon is — ironically, given its substance — the mutual recognition of a fellow proponent of the critique of humanism. ‘Chatter, chatter, chatter: liberty, equality, fraternity’, Sartre writes in his introduction, ‘all this did not prevent us from making speeches about dirty niggers, dirty Jews and dirty Arabs’.[31] Sartre understands that on the solid ground of Fanon’s exposure of the pretensions of French democracy, he can say those things that in other circumstances would be over the top. ‘In the notion of the human race we found an abstract assumption of universality which served as a cover for the most realistic practices,’ he wrote, parodying Western humanism: ‘On the other side of the ocean there was a race of less-than-humans ... in short we mistook the elite for the genus’. Armed with this exposure of the lie of humanism, Sartre can be bold: ‘With us there is nothing more consistent than a racist humanism since the European has only been able to become a man through creating slaves and monsters’. Here, thirty years before Phillipe Lacoue-Labarthe wrote it, is the basic argument that ‘Nazism is a humanism’. The point is that France only achieved its humanity, by denying the humanity of the Arab.
In the consideration of the Algerian war, reality is stood on its head. Oppression takes on the cloak of universalist humanism, and liberation is made into a polemic against such humanism. This angry polemic against humanism is what fascinates Sartre. The war is compelling precisely because it illustrates the exhaustion of humanism, its reduction to an ideological cover. Sartre is drawn to the way that the war corrodes the claim of universal humanity. Sartre did not only write an introduction to The Wretched of the Earth in 1961, but also a long review of Henri Alleg’s account of his tortures, The Question in L’Express, in 1958. In that essay, too, we can see Sartre picking away at humanism and its claims. Of the torture he writes: ‘if patriotism has to precipitate us into dishonour, if there is no precipice of inhumanity over which nations and men will not throw themselves, then, why, in fact do we go to so much trouble to become, or to remain, men? Inhumanity is what we really want.’[32] In the struggle between the torturer and his victim, Sartre suggests that a new situation has emerged, in which common humanity is impossible. ‘Man has always struggled for his collective or individual interests. But in the case of torture, this strange contest of will, the ends seem to me to be radically different: the torturer pits himself against the tortured for his “manhood” and the duel is fought as if it were not possible for both sides to belong to the human race.’[33] Having discussed in academic terms the dialectic between master and slave, Sartre is here confronted with a real-life equivalent. And, in this version, the Hegelian resolution of mutual recognition and respect is unimaginable. The abstraction ‘humanity’ cannot contain both Alleg and Massu. In the conflict between native and Frenchman, Sartre recognises the force that challenges the most cherished values of European humanism. ‘They asked for integration and assimilation into our society and we refused ... When despair drove them to rebellion, these sub-men had the choice of starvation or of re-affirming their manhood against ours. They will reject all our values, our culture, which we believed to be so much superior’.[34] Three years later in Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, Sartre found the rejection of ‘all our values, our culture’ poignantly expressed. Jean Christianson, though, remembers that Sartre was not always so drawn to the purifying violence of the oppressed. Around 1955 ‘he always used to say to me: “Oh, your Algerians are violent people, they’re violent!"’[35] Cornelius Castoriadis describes Sartre’s relationship to Fanon perceptively: ‘What was specific to Fanon, and what Sartre emphasised in his preface to The Wretched of the Earth, was obviously not the anti-imperialist struggle but Third World messianism and the virtual obliteration of political and social problems, over there as well as over here.’[36]
It's part of a larger work on French Humanism.
Link here: http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/defeat-french-humanism.htm
Both left and right had failed to recognise the Algerian claims to independence. And both left and right had sought to justify their stance in the received language of humanism. From Fanon, they received the obvious reply: if that is your humanism, you can keep it. Fanon’s book The Wretched of the Earth had an electrifying effect on France, as it continues to compel readers throughout the West. Jean-Paul Sartre, who wrote an introduction, said that it was ‘a classic of anti-colonialism in which the Third World finds itself and speaks to itself though his voice’. Clearly the FLN were delighted to have found as pungent a polemicist as Fanon, a valuable editor for El Moudjhadid and trusted comrade (named FLN ambassador to Ghana before his death). Fanon was not, though, a part of the ‘Wretched of the Earth’ by upbringing, though, but by identification. Born in the French colony of Martinique, and trained in psychiatric medicine in France, Fanon came to Algeria as part of the staff of a French-run hospital — all of which makes his identification with the Algerian cause the more impressive. But generationally, Fanon was closer to the Commandant of the Army of National Liberation who knew Voltaire, Sartre and Camus, than he was to those uneducated Fellaheen that he spoke for. Indeed, Fanon formulates his idea of race discrimination with reference to Sartre’s Critique of Dialectical Reason.[29] What Fanon takes from Sartre is an idea of the irreconcilability of colonialism and the natives, ‘the union of all against the natives’, as Sartre has it, or ‘the principle “it’s them or us"’ in Fanon’s version. As we have seen (in chapter three) Fanon applies Sartre’s anti-Hegelian logic of otherness to the relation between Algeria and France. ‘The two zones are opposed, but not in the service of a higher unity [as would be the case in Hegelian dialectics]. Obedient to the rules of pure Aristotelian [i.e. non-Hegelian] logic, they both follow the principle of reciprocal exclusivity.’[30] Here Sartre’s theory takes up into itself the empirical content of the Algerian revolution, as articulated by Fanon, for its verification. In the face of the spurious unity proposed by the French right, a ‘universalism’ in which one party has no rights, or the ‘Union française’ that the PCF wishes to negotiate (with whom, exactly?), the ‘Aristotelian’ opposition appears to make sense. Between European and Algerian, Sartre’s ‘reef of solipsism’ is a more compelling reality than it is embodied in a sulky couple in a Left Bank cafe.
Furthermore, in his introduction, Sartre recognises his own themes in Fanon’s work. His embrace of Fanon is — ironically, given its substance — the mutual recognition of a fellow proponent of the critique of humanism. ‘Chatter, chatter, chatter: liberty, equality, fraternity’, Sartre writes in his introduction, ‘all this did not prevent us from making speeches about dirty niggers, dirty Jews and dirty Arabs’.[31] Sartre understands that on the solid ground of Fanon’s exposure of the pretensions of French democracy, he can say those things that in other circumstances would be over the top. ‘In the notion of the human race we found an abstract assumption of universality which served as a cover for the most realistic practices,’ he wrote, parodying Western humanism: ‘On the other side of the ocean there was a race of less-than-humans ... in short we mistook the elite for the genus’. Armed with this exposure of the lie of humanism, Sartre can be bold: ‘With us there is nothing more consistent than a racist humanism since the European has only been able to become a man through creating slaves and monsters’. Here, thirty years before Phillipe Lacoue-Labarthe wrote it, is the basic argument that ‘Nazism is a humanism’. The point is that France only achieved its humanity, by denying the humanity of the Arab.
In the consideration of the Algerian war, reality is stood on its head. Oppression takes on the cloak of universalist humanism, and liberation is made into a polemic against such humanism. This angry polemic against humanism is what fascinates Sartre. The war is compelling precisely because it illustrates the exhaustion of humanism, its reduction to an ideological cover. Sartre is drawn to the way that the war corrodes the claim of universal humanity. Sartre did not only write an introduction to The Wretched of the Earth in 1961, but also a long review of Henri Alleg’s account of his tortures, The Question in L’Express, in 1958. In that essay, too, we can see Sartre picking away at humanism and its claims. Of the torture he writes: ‘if patriotism has to precipitate us into dishonour, if there is no precipice of inhumanity over which nations and men will not throw themselves, then, why, in fact do we go to so much trouble to become, or to remain, men? Inhumanity is what we really want.’[32] In the struggle between the torturer and his victim, Sartre suggests that a new situation has emerged, in which common humanity is impossible. ‘Man has always struggled for his collective or individual interests. But in the case of torture, this strange contest of will, the ends seem to me to be radically different: the torturer pits himself against the tortured for his “manhood” and the duel is fought as if it were not possible for both sides to belong to the human race.’[33] Having discussed in academic terms the dialectic between master and slave, Sartre is here confronted with a real-life equivalent. And, in this version, the Hegelian resolution of mutual recognition and respect is unimaginable. The abstraction ‘humanity’ cannot contain both Alleg and Massu. In the conflict between native and Frenchman, Sartre recognises the force that challenges the most cherished values of European humanism. ‘They asked for integration and assimilation into our society and we refused ... When despair drove them to rebellion, these sub-men had the choice of starvation or of re-affirming their manhood against ours. They will reject all our values, our culture, which we believed to be so much superior’.[34] Three years later in Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth, Sartre found the rejection of ‘all our values, our culture’ poignantly expressed. Jean Christianson, though, remembers that Sartre was not always so drawn to the purifying violence of the oppressed. Around 1955 ‘he always used to say to me: “Oh, your Algerians are violent people, they’re violent!"’[35] Cornelius Castoriadis describes Sartre’s relationship to Fanon perceptively: ‘What was specific to Fanon, and what Sartre emphasised in his preface to The Wretched of the Earth, was obviously not the anti-imperialist struggle but Third World messianism and the virtual obliteration of political and social problems, over there as well as over here.’[36]
It's part of a larger work on French Humanism.
Link here: http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/fr/defeat-french-humanism.htm