GLOBAL AMERICA 1960’S

It is hard to understand the birth of political struggle using the existentialist concept.  With regard to the concern of its members, politics is secondary.  This tradition has only embraced politics in one perspective if at all, a moralistic perspective.   Baldwin’s essays are strongly founded on moralism, frequently echoing, the appeal, syncopation and the rhythm of a good sermon.  The outstanding principles are inner freedom, grace, mercy and love. 

The Fire Next Time is a moving personal view of the nature of turbulence in the lives of African Americans during the period of the civil rights movements in the early 1960s.  Baldwin (1962) gets right into the matter in his carefully crafted book, arguing that whites have always operated under the misapprehension that black people have always had something that Negroes should strive to obtain[1].   In reality, Baldwin suggests that the violent and elaborate apartheid maintained by whites against whites has only played to show how inhuman whites really are.  There does not exist anything that whites would require from blacks.  On the contrary, whites who would be interested in returning to their initial human nature need to look into themselves and identify ways to change.  Baldwin holds that the choices that individuals make in the course of their lives determine who they are.

In his essay, The Fire Next Time (1964)[2], he looks at the Negro problem as one that originates primarily from truncated personal relationship issues, from the repudiation of whites and Negroes to face each other as humans.  He has an opinion that blacks view themselves through the eyes of white people.  Consequently, they have no idea who they really are.  On the other hand, whites are uncomfortable of being judged by blacks.  They do not want to be seen as their real selves.  Baldwin uses his heated essay to communicate social change through a deep moral fiber which communicates to individuals rather than to the entire community which is in a quest to hold political action.

In his work, Discourse on Colonialism, Aime Cesaire[3] draws on poetry to clarify on the cultural inconsistency of the education system.  In this system, maximum assimilation is demanded and colonial segregation demanded.  His main concern is the political anthropology that demands him to act like black people.  That a chain of economic and cultural relations was involved with the body that brought about the question of unjust relations that were supported by such erasure.  Cesaire adopted the question in his work, there by placing himself amongst a group of African writers on civilization philosophy. 

Cesaire is of the opinion that dehumanizing other people turns one into an animal.  Cesaire brings his text to a close with a display of intellectual rationalizations of colonial dealings whose impact is, according to the ideals held today, the cultural paradigm of power authority and knowledge.  Moreover, he offered a series of philosophical anthropologies.  First, he argued that man was an invention of the former times.  By focusing on man as an invention, Cesaire was able to problematize transcendental anthropology theories.  In this formulation of man, man becomes one of the potentials of existence.  While Cesaire concludes his text in a mainly Marxist oriented petition to the colonizers, as rising above another invention of the nation, the argument in itself dwells mainly in existential framework.  Cesaire reflects on his existential framework when he argues that Europe cannot be saved by changing methods.

One feature of Discourse on Colonialism is the style that Cesaire uses.  While the works is by all means an essay, the author adds a poetic significance to it to challenge the values of reason.  Cesaire is concerned not only of the principles he shares, but also by the way he shares them.  Through his method, he associated his works with the works of other authors like Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Du Bois.  By doing this, he also used the method used by the whites to communicate and which is rather detached.

Albert Camus got involved in various activities that got him labeled as an existentialist.  First, he had a high affinity for other existentialists like Satre and Kierkegaard.  He also held with the philosophy of many existential writers by holding the opinion that the human psyche should be active.  He, like the other writers he imitates, aims at a candid, thorough exegesis of the condition of humans and displays a philosophical attraction to self determination, personal responsibility, authenticity, inner strength, free choice and individualism.

One aspect of Camus stands out, he strongly denied any involvement in existentialism.  One would question his denial of existentialism.  Was it a genuine denial?  On the one hand, his denial at least qualifies him as a closet existentialist and one who was not after being labeled but after achieving progress in the field of existentialism.  On the other hand, it is notable that he was not specifically intent at ontological and metaphysical questions.  On the contrary, Camus was averted to technical philosophical discussion which evidently shows one way in which he distanced himself from existentialism.  Secondly, Camus held that existentialism was a doctrine to which individuals who want to orient themselves with wee expected to be loyal.  Camus was unwilling to do this and therefore authored a variety of other forms of works.

In the Cat’s Cradle[4], the narrator says that his second wife deserted him for being too optimistic.  He now hopes that the beautiful woman named Mona can come into his life and make meaning out of it.  This feeling of futility is shared by other characters like Newt Hoenniker the ugly picture painter and Julian who looks at a picture drawn by Newt and feels that the picture depicts the meaninglessness of life.  Julian feels that man has no role whatsoever in making changes to his life or to the society at large.  At one point, he looks at a pile of corpses and laughs, amazed at how little he could have done in curing the bubonic plague.

In this regard, the book is largely opposed to the existential framework that is suggested by other authors.  While the other authors hold that man is almost all able and is responsible for the life he is living, Vonnegut depicts his characters as a hopeless lot[5].  This way, rather than complement The Cat’s Cradle, the other authors place a barrier on the creation of the book.  Unlike them, the author depicts life as unfair in itself.  Vonnegut’s works is not existential in any manner.  In an existential society, men would have more power in their hands to conjure a living out of the nothingness they hold.

Bibliography

Baldwin, James.  The Fire Next Time.  New York: The Dial Press, 1963.

Césaire, Aimé, and Robin D.  G Kelley.  Discourse On Colonialism.  New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000.

Vonnegut, Kurt.  Cat’s Cradle.  New York, N.Y.: Delta Trade Paperbacks, 1998.

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[1] James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time (New York: The Dial Press, 1963).

[2] Baldwin

[3] Aimé Césaire and Robin D. G Kelley, Discourse On Colonialism (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000).

[4] Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle (New York, N.Y.: Delta Trade Paperbacks, 1998).

[5] Kurt Vonnegut, Cat’s Cradle (New York, N.Y.: Delta Trade Paperbacks, 1998).