Apology of voodoo (Conclusion to the political anthropology of Prince-Mars)

It should be clear that the understanding of African culture is distorted by Western philosophical prejudice; whose political repercussions would be corrected, but not the hermeneutical ones, which are the important ones here. This is because these corrections are not focused on its ontological efficiency, where its hermeneutical scope comes from; but as part of that other process of Western entropy, which then participates in the structural crisis determining it.

In fact, this greater ontological efficiency would not be proper or exclusively African, but of every culture; even that western, whose entropy is only a process accelerated by the crisis distorting it, as Modernity. The value here of African culture is then relative to this entropic process, as an adequation of western excesses; and by which that west culture could overcome its crisis, with a contraction to its functional principles, in its restructuring.

Hence the importance of organizing this understanding of that culture as a phenomenon, allowing that adequation; even in the renewal of their substructures, so that they can be functionally related to each other. In this regard, and as the basis of this organization, there would be its religious substructure, in its determination; since this what would provide the given understanding of reality, as an existential practice, from the punctuality of the individual; whose social projection —in the economy— would be that produced by the political, as an expression then of this existential praxis.

It would be also clear that, as a critic of extreme positivism, Prince-Mars is not extra-positivist but only moderate; that is why he starts from a relative error, in the criticism of the concept of fetishism, with which African religiosity is distorted. Prince-Mars's moderation would be an intuition —not conceptually developed— about this defect of positivism; adequating —rather than denying— it, conditioning it by the inmano-transcendence condition of reality —as a nature of the real—.

This would have been the point of Hegel's absolutism, only dependent on the hermeneutics of the idealist tradition; so it does not manage to overcome its intrinsic transcendentalism, to which it subordinates the immanence of the real. Mars goes to the origin of the term, defined as "artificial" and linked to the Portuguese word for "spell" (feitiço); and by which Africans would attribute supernatural powers to objects of nature, which would thus animate them, in animism.

The mistake is that the phenomenon is treated as an attribution of powers, rather than a representation of these; which is how totemism works, in the symbolization of the extrapositive phenomena in which the real is determined. In this sense, the term is not erroneous —although its application is— alluding to the establishment of a reality; which would be culture, as a reality as human and not as in itself, responding to the concrete needs of the human.

Mars's critique —of moderate positivism instead of extra-positivist— goes to the conceptual sufficiency of the religious; not to this function of redetermination of the real, in which it becomes of human value —distinct from as in itself— as culture. The principle to which Mars refers to, is the resolution of the religious in singular forms, determined by the environment; which is valid within that moderate positivism, but without denying the extra-positivity of this function of the religious.

This false contradiction would be what Mars alludes to, criticizing that concept of fetishism and religion by extension; when it states that "... it is not shells, nor stones, nor the idol of carved wood, nor even animals, that the African worships”. The understanding of the real that resolves the religious then has this other consistency of culture, which is singular; and again, this is what would have been denied with modern rational positivism, but keeping its efficiency outside this hermeneutical framework.

This distinction is important, because from here Mars will develop a kind of apology for that religiosity; that by reducing it to the political, it will also respond to its apparent (political) need, as a social phenomenon; rather than to its epistemological consistency, for which it can effectively correct the onto-hermeneutical excesses of Western philosophy. For this it is necessary to address this sufficiency directly, even in the archaeology of their traditional practices; which —as an update of those of their African origin— are ultimately the effective way in which this adequation occurs.

So spoke the uncle, introductory review to the book

The subtitle of this catauro by Jean Prince-Mars is Memories of the Inkwell, explaining its synthesizing function; by which, even with political value, it is in truth an understanding of politics in its anthropological, not ideological, value. This already establishes it as the updating and adaptation of all the references in this regard, from Antenor Firmín, who establishes them as the very principles of humanism, but which Mars applies to Haitian singularity.

At both extremes is the development of that understanding of blackness as a nature, in Blackness as a possibility; which as typical of the West culture, adequate its idealistic excesses, with the realistic practicality of African cosmology. We must be careful with this, because there are many meanings of Realism, most of them of a materialist nature; but here the notion of realism refers to reality —or the real— as the object of reflection, distinct from its transcendent determination. It is from this that this black cosmology is understood as a new pragmatism, but already practical in realism; not idealistic, like that one —lacking the Dasein— of the tradition it opposes, as Western Idealism in general.

Mars begins his treatise asking —without rhetoric— whether the body of Haitian traditions are their own or assimilated; this allows him to establish the measure of consistency and uniqueness of this culture, and therefore its value, if any. The book then proposes an inquiry, which allows this probabilistic development of realism, in its pragmatic approach; avoiding the errors of extreme positivism, which does not differentiate between appearance and reality, or in fact dissolves one into the other.

Of course, none of this is possible ignoring that dense extension of the Haitian enlightenment, crowned by Mars; especially if it is based on a conditioned approach such as that of René Depestre, who precisely says goodbye to Negritude. But that does not have the fatality of the oracle either, since Depestre is only an ideological and not a philosophical wall; beyond him, the rainbow of communism dissolves his optical illusion into Haitian reality, and this is narrated by Mars, not by him.

Mars's analysis is acute, he uses a principle of discrimination instead of infinite sum to organize this body; starting from a demand for idealist rationality (Leibniz), which guarantees him the right understanding of reality. This is the kind of subtleties that culturalism resolves as a practical realism, in its reflexive pragmatism; Mars's contribution is thus philosophical, with the adequacy of transcendental pragmatism (Peirce) in Du Bois; which is here immanentialist, and thus more efficient in its probabilism, as the realistic basis of black thought.

By rationalizing this body of traditions as folklore, Mars distinguishes the analysis of the masses from that of the elites; obviously opting for the popular, which in its pragmatism extracts the desideratum from all traditions, even those of others; appropriate in their practicality and not because of their apparent necessity, in a function that is then existential rather than political. Blackness is important here, because it is that African cosmology —not western philosophy— what allows this realism; which survives in tradition, and not —Mars clarifies— as a vestige of the past, but actualizing the functional principles of the social structure, as a culture.

The Western defect is to ignore this cultural nature, solving its structure in its political expression as a determination; thus provoking the crisis of modern humanism, from its origin in medieval Christianity, which inverted that order. The Haitian enlightenment —as of blackness— is the effort to reverse this disorder, which is the entropy of the West culture; renewing its structure, with that contraction to the functional principles in which it organizes, through the reflexivity of African cosmology.

The dove of intellectual flight

Lydia Cabrera ethnologist prided herself on the fact that black Cubans were different, citing testimonies from them; it called nobody’s attention that she was white, and therefore these testimonies could respond to her interests. This is due to the fraud of Cuban miscegenation, preceding the revolution in Cuban culture, as its dove of intellectual flight; and that explains that ethnographic fatality of our anthropology, in which blacks are only a passive object of curiosity.

This type of misunderstanding could be due to the historical solitude of black Cubans, which is truly political; which them tends to protest, without however doing anything to effectively change that circumstance. It is not that the ideological trap is not true, but also that this disagreement needs two parties in collaboration; because just one is not enough, and the one making the move should be the one that needs it most.

Of course, for that we would have to develop that identity awareness, from which to make ourselves heard; recognizing ourselves in them and them in us, for the common problems and not for those of others, which divide us. That would mean, however, that we do not see ourselves as different from them, and that is something quite different; because the truth is that we black Cubans like this difference, which lies in not believing ourselves to be as black as they are.

That is why the distancing is as logical as it is mutual, based on the fact that we do not recognize ourselves as black; but that we only react as non-white, in a negative definition, as the inconsistency that makes us untrustworthy. We have always prided ourselves on that distinction, even if under the table so as not to be rude; in another example of the same duplicity, which thus makes us doubly suspicious and again untrustworthy.

Even our anthropology is actually ethnology, with the black person as the passive object of that culture; to which he brings the same clichés for which he protests, reduced to music, dance and poetry. In times of superficiality, no one delves into the semiological depths of that contribution, which transcend form. We prefer to justify —hiding the resentment— the vulgarity to which we are reduced, as a false popular simplicity; playing into the hands of the ethnologist who tells us that we are different, more intelligent, refined and tamed.

The blackness is still there, however, beyond the white babalaos and the light mestizos owning the botanics; and in that blackness, the mother of the world keeps her arms open, waiting for our existential catharsis.  That catharsis would fulfill the terror of the Delmontinos, throwing us into the center of the Haitian enlightenment, for example; but harmonizing the entire country in a real miscegenation, and not the intellectual fiction that now constrains it.

Cuba is as white as it is black, but also the other way around, not in one direction of that fallacy of miscegenation; in which, as in Nicolás Guillén's dove of intellectual flight, being black only means not being white. It is an old syndrome, the so-called Bovarism, from Jules Gaultier to Arnold van Gennep and Jean Prince-Mars; so it is also time to overcome it, with a maturity that is not only intellectual —that is the trap— but above all existential. Black people are black, even if we are Western, with that wonderful and non-schizoid duality described by Du Bois; and those of us from Cuba have the wonderful power to arrive fresh and last to the dance, marking the rhythm by which the world dances.

Haiti and Du Bois, in the New Black Thought

The Haitian Enlightenment is one of the most splendid phenomena of the nineteenth century, but ignored somehow; in spite of which it is still there, as if waiting for the occasion that will resurrect it historically, due to its importance and scope. What makes this intellectual phenomenon unique is that it reproduces that of W.E.B. Du Bois, but already as a country and culture; so that its difficulty is not a structure in which it participates, but its own structurality, and for which it is always sufficient.

Du Bois —the Hegel of the black world— is contradictory, because of his excellent assimilation of Western thought; which it modifies, providing it with its existential experience, like the elusive Dasein it naturally lacks. Haiti is the same phenomenon, but without the pressure of the context, so its contradiction is not political; on the contrary, if the contradiction in Du Bois has two stages, that of Haiti has only one, and in this it becomes exponential. The two stages of the contradiction in Du Bois are his own blackness as a western, and then his westernity as a black; but Haiti only have the first one, because this one becomes a new positivity as potential, and not a contradiction.

Du Bois's existential experience is then that of culture in Haiti, translated into a lack of political contradiction; not because Haitian culture is harmonious, but because its contradictions are internal and characteristic of its development. Therefore, the Haitian contradiction is one of the functions with which its substructures are related in a singularity; with the same referential value as that of Du Bois, but at the country level, as a self-reference, in its own determination.

This is what makes Haiti so amenable to the reflective function of its African ancestry, with its existential value; contrary to Du Bois —following the example—, who lacks this reflexive ascendancy, due to his political circumstance. What is interesting here would be the confluence of these two singularities, proving the existential quality of the Haitian; which resides in the practical realism of the two, although Du Bois's is more relative, conditioned by the Westernism in which he participates.

Of course, as relative, somehow this is also the case of Haiti, organized as a country in a typical European structure; just less susceptible —and this is important— to this conditioning, lacking this difficulty suffered by Du Bois. Nor was this lack absolute, but its contradiction was weaker, because of the sufficiency of Haitian culture; that when resolved as a nation, even institutionally, it was a diplomatic, not social as an immediate difficulty.

Thus, Du Bois resorts to complex theoretical circumambulations, such as his discourse A Nation Within the Nation; unnecessary and even incomprehensible in Haiti, where the concept of nation doesn’t require a reconciliation of this duality. That does not mean that Haiti didn’t have —or still has— racial conflicts, such as those between mestizos and blacks; it is just that this is not legislable in a culture, as in the United States or Cuba, with a lower political density.

Hence, an intelligence like Jean Prince-Mars does not have to resort to conventional philosophy to reflect on politics; but that it resorts to folklore, resurrecting the typically romantic cognitive function, with its greatest efficiency. It should be remembered that Romanticism is not strictly but figuratively an idealization of the past; updating it as a reflexive referent for a determination of the present, which is possible in the trans-historical nature of its structure.

This understanding of reality differs from that of the idealistic, because it is not an abstract concept or Idea (Eidos); but an effective reality, abstracted in its representation, but with its own historical value and consistency. As a tradition, Idealism redounds to this function proper to culture, but artificially, by its specialized elites; which thus make these determinations of political and not cultural nature, distorting the functions in which the structure organizes itself.

That is why Du Bois cannot afford the luxury of romanticism, responding to the political convention of his environment; and he has to resort to the idealist tradition —the only one available— in adaptations such as Peirce's more efficient pragmatism. This would be what relates both phenomena, in a complementary and symbiotic function due to their parallelism; with an exchange of resources, which results in greater efficiency of the two, with this confluence.

Welcome Back to Blackness

The conflict that Captain General O'Donnell faced in Cuba was not one of effective rebellion, but of cultural blackening; as a danger emanating from the recent Haitian republic, providing a paradigm political for black Cubans. This does not translate into dangerous uprisings, which the geography of the country would have allowed to control easily; but the formation of an enlightened focus in Santiago de Cuba, which would hinder the primacy of the white sacrocracy.

It is no coincidence that the Independents of Color rose up in Santiago, nor the Haitian ascendancy of their leaders; nor that this was also the ascendancy of Rómulo Lachatañeré, the black anthropologist who questioned Ortiz. Santiago de Cuba was undoubtedly a focus of new hermeneutics, arising from the conflicts between Haitians and Dominicans; who landed there with their problems, even of identity, immersed themselves in their discussions, foreign to Havana.

The reference is strong, with an Antenor Firmin who challenges the founder of French anthropology in France; and a Joseph Janvier who rescues the discipline to its own value on humanity, from its ethnological reductions. Black tension is strong in Cuba, with the West threatened on two fronts, not only the one at the East; there is also that of the trade with Louisiana, to where fled Haitians and French, mixed in their disagreements.

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Meanwhile in Cuba, the most that can be done is to launch that dove of intellectual flight of miscegenation; which is postulated as pure logical necessity, but of difficult reality in this fiction of political syncretism. In short, miscegenation is not only an abstract and conventional category, but also conditioned by its subordination; while people behave like blacks or whites —no emulates— relatively but also firmly.

Mestizaje cannot access the intricacies of politics, which reacts angrily every time the rule is broken; that is what the bourgeoisie did not forgive Batista, justifying the violence against him as revolutionary. Behind Batista was the broad wing of black conservatism, which had bourgeois aspirations in its proletarian character; and that was unthinkable, like that constant threat emanating from the Caribbean, until the revolution was able to control it.

That is what René Depestre's work consists of, with a title as illustrative as Welcome and Goodbye to Negritude; but so meticulous that it collects and organizes even his own political shortcomings, with which he dissolves the movement. This book by Depestre emulates the dissolution of the Niagara Movement, by W.E.B. Du Bois, in North America; subordinating all possible American blackness to the political strategy of liberalism, which is ideological and white.

Depestre's critique focuses on the culturalism of the movement, as a futile effort to establish a new ontology; not seeing that it was a matter of recovering the original ontology of black ancestry, adequating the defects of the Western one. He could not understand it —as it cannot yet be understood— because the problem is not only ontological; it is in fact hermeneutical, because that dependence of Marxism on the Idealist tradition from which it evolves, even as its expression; and whose transcendentalism derives to the historical, trying to resolve some immanentism for its lacks, but unsuccessfully.

Blackness still offers that capacity for renewal for the whole of the West, which stubbornly refuses to do so; not because it is perverse but childish in its stubbornness, given that insufficiency in which it cannot understand its shortcoming. The New Black Thought, by reorganizing the phenomenon, can make up for this lack, which is hermeneutical; and that due to the enlightened excess of modernity, has precipitated its entire civilization into entropy; which is not serious, if after all there is Haiti, ready with its own enlightenment, welcoming Negritude again.