{"id":1524,"date":"2021-10-14T15:16:47","date_gmt":"2021-10-14T19:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/?p=1524"},"modified":"2021-10-14T15:16:47","modified_gmt":"2021-10-14T19:16:47","slug":"bernard-e-harcourt-comments-on-adom-getachews-intervention","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.law.columbia.edu\/revolution1313\/bernard-e-harcourt-comments-on-adom-getachews-intervention\/","title":{"rendered":"Bernard E. Harcourt | Comments on Adom Getachew’s Intervention"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bernard E. Harcourt<\/h2>\n

Adom Getachew makes several key points in her intervention and essay<\/a>. The first point concerns the distinctive writing and publishing practices of the worldly philosophers we are discussing at Revolution 2\/13<\/a>. For the most part and with some notable exceptions\u2014for instance, CLR James\u2019s The Black Jacobins <\/em>(1938) or as Getachew mentions, Eric Eustace Williams\u2019s Capitalism and Slavery<\/em><\/a> (1944)\u2014rather than publishing monographs or research papers, they tended to publish editorials, articles, and pamphlets in politically engaged newspapers that were, at times, banned (such as The World Negro<\/em>) by the imperial powers. This had several effects: the writings read as somewhat more improvised and politically engaged; the writings were part of a collective conversation. As Getachew said, \u201cthese forms often make clear that they are part of a community of critique. They are contributions to debates and on-going conversations.\u201d\u00a0As a result, the style and manner of their interventions are unique: more oriented toward being read by the public, more in conversation with ongoing debates, more attuned to what the people are thinking and doing. As Getachew suggests, \u201cThey stake out positions, seek to persuade an audience. In this regard, they require an attunement not only to the content of their ideas, but to their rhetoric, genre, and style. They also require us to reconstruct the audience.\u201d This leads to a unique attention to situation and persuasion\u2014what Getachew calls \u201ca self-conscious awareness of the circumstances, the present stakes, of their writing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The second point concerns the relationship to Western critical theory. Getachew suggests that these worldly philosophers were both embedded in a Western tradition of critical thought\u2014especially insofar as many of them were close readers of Marx\u2014but at the same time weary of Western influence. They expressed concern that, in the words of Getachew, \u201cinherited conceptual categories inhibit rather than enable critique.\u201d To combat that, Getachew suggests, James, and possibly Nkrumah, engaged in Fanonian \u201cstretching\u201d of the categories.<\/p>\n

The third point relates to the distinction between praxis, strategy, and tactic. In her essay, Getachew suggested that the worldly philosophers tend to flow more freely between the three and are less concerned about differences, but that readers of their writings often pay special attention to their discussion of strategy and tactic. One of the fascinating implications Getachew drew is that this may actually enrich our reading of critical theorists: the way that we read worldly philosophers\u2014paying special attention to their discussion of strategy and tactics\u2014could help us in our interpretation of more academic critical theory by focusing our attention on their<\/em> use of strategy and tactics.<\/p>\n

A fourth and final point that Getachew makes is very provocative. It has to do with the difference between those thinkers who enter the halls of power and those who remain outside critics: \u201cOne difference to consider as this year\u2019s conversations continue is that between the worldly philosophers turned statesmen (Nkrumah, Williams, Senghor, Nehru, Mao etc.) versus the worldly philosopher who remain gadflies (James for instance)? How does the aspiration to state power and its demands transform the theory\/praxis nexus?\u201d We will pursue this question in future seminars.<\/p>\n

Adom Getachew and Karuna Mantena on Decolonizing Political Theory<\/h1>\n

One way to test the possible differences is to read closely Adom Getachew and Karuna Mantena\u2019s forthcoming article in Critical Times<\/em>, \u201cAnticolonialism and the Decolonization of Political Theory<\/a>.\u201d Their essay provides almost a natural experiment because in their discussion, which they structure in three parts, they engage separately (1) the writings of two worldly philosophers (Fanon and Gandhi) on their critique of colonialism, (2) the writings of three western academic critical theorists (Susan Buck-Morss, Amy Allen, and James Tully) on their critique of the eurocentrism of critical theory, and (3) the writings of three non-western postcolonial theorists (Sudipta Kaviraj, Partha Chatterjee, and Mahmood Mamdani) on their reconstructive ambitions for anticolonial thought.[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

Getachew and Mantena argue, in brief, that too many recent attempts at decolonizing political theory fall back on a critique of the eurocentrism of western political thought that unintentionally reauthorizes the western writings and western models of universality; and that, instead, we could decenter western political thought more radically, and successfully, by focusing on the more positive, constructive agenda of anticolonial worldly philosophers and of postcolonial thinkers today.<\/p>\n

In making this argument, Getachew and Mantena emphasize the dual nature of anticolonial and postcolonial critiques: both have a critical project and a reconstructive project. As they explain, \u201cWe also hope to correct the one-sided reception of anticolonialism as simply a critique of the west. Indeed it might be useful to think of anticolonial thought as having two connected aims\u2014one critical and another reconstructive.\u201d[ii]<\/a> This duality is important in their analysis.<\/p>\n

Now there are surely certain idiosyncrasies associated with the particular authors that Getachew and Mantena discuss. There are also important historical dimensions regarding the different authors. Getachew and Mantena emphasize that the first set (Fanon and Gandhi) were writing at a time of yet-unrealized political ambition, whereas today\u2019s \u201ctheorists write in the context of its eclipse.\u201d[iii]<\/a> So, we may not be able to generalize.<\/p>\n

But what is distinctive is that Getachew and Mantena associate each of the three groups with certain adjectives and qualifiers\u2014and these are telling, I would argue.<\/p>\n

The first set of worldly philosophers located at mid-twentieth century (Fanon and Gandhi) succeeded in developing constructive critiques of colonialism that turned the world\u2019s attention toward their reconstructive critical praxes. In this sense, they succeeded in realizing what Getachew and Mantena call \u201cthe aspiration of anticolonial argument: an attempt to reconstruct viable political futures in the aftermath of European domination.\u201d[iv]<\/a> While they had both a critique of colonialism and of the internalized privileging of eurocentric values even within the anticolonial movements, they remain important today for their reconstructive projects\u2014and this, because their reconstructive projects were grounded in a situated <\/em>position of the colonized world. \u201cTo arrive at their respective concrete universals,\u201d they write, \u201cGandhi and Fanon each situate their critical and reconstructive projects in the specific locations of the colonized world.\u201d[v]<\/a> The most operative term in their analysis, I believe, is \u201csituated\u201d:<\/p>\n