WHAT IS SOUL?
"For Leonard Barrett, 'soul signifies the moral and emotional fiber of the black man.' The potency of this quality makes it a 'force' which, he says, demonstrates 'strength , power, intense effort, and the will to live.' :
"'Soul-force is that power of the Black man which turns sorrow into joy, crying into laughter, defeat into victory. It is patience while suffering, determination while frustrated, and hope while in despair. It derives its impetus from the ancestral heritage of Africa, its refinement from the bondage of slavery, and its continuing vitality from the conflict of the present.'
"'Soul-force' is the basic ingredient of black survival.
"On a philosophical level , 'soul' indicates a conception of human nature in opposition to that generated by the Western worldview . This conception is at the bedrock of African American musical response. The rationalistic epistemology of the Western metaphysic necessitates a particular view of the essential nature of man. The essence of man's being becomes thought in isolation from other functions, sensations, and responses .
"As Western society, through the centuries, became more and more rationalized and rationalistic , its theorists valued the mode of objectification more and more. This value spilled over into the culture as a whole. Emotional response, identification and involvement of less and less value, until these tendencies generated by a scientific world view, affected people's abilities to feel and to express feelings. It is precisely that quality of human response to which the concept 'soul' refers. Moreover, it is that ability of the human being to feel which is, according to the African worldview essentially human. But that ability is not set in contradiction to thought; rather the two--thought and feeling--are understood to be inextricable and to be necessary for an accurate perception of reality. African epistemology and its attendant view of the essence of man, brings us closer to a phenomenological approach to learning. It therefore defies the doctrinaire and ideological rationalism of the West."
P.224-225, "African American Spirituality," by Marimba Ani nee Dona Richards, in AFRICAN CULTURE THE RHYTHMS OF UNITY (1990) by Molefe Kete Asante and Kariamu Welsh Asante
I SAY: "Soul" is the spiritual accretion of Africans in America.
Saturday, September 8, 2018
WHAT IS SOUL?
WHAT IS SOUL?
"For Leonard Barrett, 'soul signifies the moral and emotional fiber of the black man.' The potency of this quality makes it a 'force' which, he says, demonstrates 'strength , power, intense effort, and the will to live.' :
"'Soul-force is that power of the Black man which turns sorrow into joy, crying into laughter, defeat into victory. It is patience while suffering, determination while frustrated, and hope while in despair. It derives its impetus from the ancestral heritage of Africa, its refinement from the bondage of slavery, and its continuing vitality from the conflict of the present.'
"'Soul-force' is the basic ingredient of black survival.
"On a philosophical level , 'soul' indicates a conception of human nature in opposition to that generated by the Western worldview . This conception is at the bedrock of African American musical response. The rationalistic epistemology of the Western metaphysic necessitates a particular view of the essential nature of man. The essence of man's being becomes thought in isolation from other functions, sensations, and responses .
"As Western society, through the centuries, became more and more rationalized and rationalistic , its theorists valued the mode of objectification more and more. This value spilled over into the culture as a whole. Emotional response, identification and involvement of less and less value, until these tendencies generated by a scientific world view, affected people's abilities to feel and to express feelings. It is precisely that quality of human response to which the concept 'soul' refers. Moreover, it is that ability of the human being to feel which is, according to the African worldview essentially human. But that ability is not set in contradiction to thought; rather the two--thought and feeling--are understood to be inextricable and to be necessary for an accurate perception of reality. African epistemology and its attendant view of the essence of man, brings us closer to a phenomenological approach to learning. It therefore defies the doctrinaire and ideological rationalism of the West."
P.224-225, "African American Spirituality," by Marimba Ani nee Dona Richards, in AFRICAN CULTURE THE RHYTHMS OF UNITY (1990) by Molefe Kete Asante and Kariamu Welsh Asante
I SAY: "Soul" is the spiritual accretion of Africans in America.
