"AFRICAN PERSONALITY?" PLEASE!
If perversion is incidental to prior inversion, then their reversion is also incidental to their subversion.
Stated otherwise:
When norms are overturned, their corrections must clear accretions that have mediated former norms. That is more easily said than done!
If that seeming play on words aids understanding allow me to say that this thought occurred to me while I was reading an essay in AFRICAN CULTURE THE RHYTHMS OF UNITY by Molefe Kete Asante and Kariamu Welsh Asante (1990). The essay, written by Mwenge S. Tembo, is titled, "The Concept of African Personality." It states, in part:
"In an article published in 'Presence Africaine' , N'daw explains: 'The concept of man is different [among Africans] and, unlike that of Cartesian Europe, is never dualistic or dichotomic. There is never the separation between body and soul found elsewhere.' These quotations constitute only a small fraction of the numerous black and African definitions of what can be conceived as the 'African personality.'
"Certain themes prevail in these works. For example, one fundamental assumption is that Africans live in communities with little or no emphasis on the individualism prevalent in Western society. Another is that the African lives by natural rhythms, hence establishing a primordial attachment to the universe and the cosmos. Because the African is immersed in the totality of the social life and because of his strong belief in nature and the ancestral spirits, the African finds it difficult to tear social phenomenon into small bits for purposes of abstract analysis and philosophy. This is, for example, what Kaunda implies when he describes the African as having a 'situation experiencing mind' , and the Westerner as having a "problem solving mind.'
"The argument about the African personality arises mainly from two schools of thought. One is the Western and Western-oriented scholars who express the view that the African needs to exhibit Western traits of thought and culture in order to be considered advanced. This position is argued by European and some African writers with a Western orientation. It is of interest that no African American has taken this position. The other school of thought maintains that the African behaves, thinks, and lives as he does, because he is unique. It holds that Western education and culture should be used by the African so as to further enhance his uniqueness. A few of the views of these two opposing schools of thought will be briefly reviewed. The former will be termed the anti-African personality, the latter the pro-African personality."
P. 194-195
Man is man. Woman is woman . As an African American writer, my view of the author's own dichotomy of the black man into two camps of "African personality" is a puerile exercise, a juvenile adjuration, that is built on false premises and fails!
In effect, it strives to replicate the very so-called Western "problem solving" methodology implicitly decried in its contrast with the so-called "situation experiencing mind" posited by Kaunda to isolated Africans: i.e. , those "assumed to live in communities with little or no individualism". This "isolated African" (my term)--who nowhere now exists--if the type ever has existed in the last 10,000 years--is in turn contrasted with those who have been exposed to the "individualism prevalent in Western society." Further delineation of critical flaws in the underlying premises, hence the entire essay based on such, does yet offer the possibility of virtue.
As opposed to useless striations in the concept of "man" more might be gained by ruminating on divine mankind as a whole, which is more holistic experience and exercise than the psychological dissecting of a hypothesized, nonexistent lab specimen called "African Personality," by some Africans who are indigenous to Africa, that does no more than to reprise the "noble savage" literary genre that was extolled by some 18th-19th century European writers on the rapidly disappearing Indian and African!
This perversion is the assumption that the inversion of African sovereignty by Asia and Europe is somehow unknown, unnatural. History, cosmology beg to differ as ancient Africans had shaped, built , and filled both of its planetary, continental neighbors, including the Americas and the sea islands. Thus, for there to be a reversion to African sovereignty, there must also need be an account made of benefits to Africa of its subversion. One such benefit is the evolution or devolution of African Americans, African Caribbeans, and all others !
Wednesday, September 5, 2018
'AFRICAN' PERSONALITY?
"AFRICAN PERSONALITY?" PLEASE!
If perversion is incidental to prior inversion, then their reversion is also incidental to their subversion.
Stated otherwise:
When norms are overturned, their corrections must clear accretions that have mediated former norms. That is more easily said than done!
If that seeming play on words aids understanding allow me to say that this thought occurred to me while I was reading an essay in AFRICAN CULTURE THE RHYTHMS OF UNITY by Molefe Kete Asante and Kariamu Welsh Asante (1990). The essay, written by Mwenge S. Tembo, is titled, "The Concept of African Personality." It states, in part:
"In an article published in 'Presence Africaine' , N'daw explains: 'The concept of man is different [among Africans] and, unlike that of Cartesian Europe, is never dualistic or dichotomic. There is never the separation between body and soul found elsewhere.' These quotations constitute only a small fraction of the numerous black and African definitions of what can be conceived as the 'African personality.'
"Certain themes prevail in these works. For example, one fundamental assumption is that Africans live in communities with little or no emphasis on the individualism prevalent in Western society. Another is that the African lives by natural rhythms, hence establishing a primordial attachment to the universe and the cosmos. Because the African is immersed in the totality of the social life and because of his strong belief in nature and the ancestral spirits, the African finds it difficult to tear social phenomenon into small bits for purposes of abstract analysis and philosophy. This is, for example, what Kaunda implies when he describes the African as having a 'situation experiencing mind' , and the Westerner as having a "problem solving mind.'
"The argument about the African personality arises mainly from two schools of thought. One is the Western and Western-oriented scholars who express the view that the African needs to exhibit Western traits of thought and culture in order to be considered advanced. This position is argued by European and some African writers with a Western orientation. It is of interest that no African American has taken this position. The other school of thought maintains that the African behaves, thinks, and lives as he does, because he is unique. It holds that Western education and culture should be used by the African so as to further enhance his uniqueness. A few of the views of these two opposing schools of thought will be briefly reviewed. The former will be termed the anti-African personality, the latter the pro-African personality."
P. 194-195
Man is man. Woman is woman . As an African American writer, my view of the author's own dichotomy of the black man into two camps of "African personality" is a puerile exercise, a juvenile adjuration, that is built on false premises and fails!
In effect, it strives to replicate the very so-called Western "problem solving" methodology implicitly decried in its contrast with the so-called "situation experiencing mind" posited by Kaunda to isolated Africans: i.e. , those "assumed to live in communities with little or no individualism". This "isolated African" (my term)--who nowhere now exists--if the type ever has existed in the last 10,000 years--is in turn contrasted with those who have been exposed to the "individualism prevalent in Western society." Further delineation of critical flaws in the underlying premises, hence the entire essay based on such, does yet offer the possibility of virtue.
As opposed to useless striations in the concept of "man" more might be gained by ruminating on divine mankind as a whole, which is more holistic experience and exercise than the psychological dissecting of a hypothesized, nonexistent lab specimen called "African Personality," by some Africans who are indigenous to Africa, that does no more than to reprise the "noble savage" literary genre that was extolled by some 18th-19th century European writers on the rapidly disappearing Indian and African!
This perversion is the assumption that the inversion of African sovereignty by Asia and Europe is somehow unknown, unnatural. History, cosmology beg to differ as ancient Africans had shaped, built , and filled both of its planetary, continental neighbors, including the Americas and the sea islands. Thus, for there to be a reversion to African sovereignty, there must also need be an account made of benefits to Africa of its subversion. One such benefit is the evolution or devolution of African Americans, African Caribbeans, and all others !