{"id":1264,"date":"2020-08-18T20:39:05","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T20:39:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kant-online.ru\/en\/?p=1264"},"modified":"2020-08-18T20:39:05","modified_gmt":"2020-08-18T20:39:05","slug":"immanuel-kant-racist-and-colonialist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kant-online.ru\/en\/immanuel-kant-racist-and-colonialist\/","title":{"rendered":"IMMANUEL KANT \u2014 RACIST AND COLONIALIST?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Prof. Dr Vadim A. Chaly, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University (IKBFU), Kaliningrad, Russian Federation<\/p><\/div>\n

A murder of an Afro-American detainee by a policeman at the end of May 2020 caused a public outrage in the United States,\u00a0 which\u00a0 led\u00a0 to\u00a0 a\u00a0 campaign\u00a0 against\u00a0 the\u00a0 monuments to\u00a0 historical\u00a0 figures\u00a0 whose\u00a0 reputation,\u00a0 according\u00a0 to\u00a0 the protesters, was marred by racism. Some German publicists, impressed by the campaign, initiated an analogous search for racists among the national thinkers and politicians of the\u00a0 past.\u00a0 Suddenly\u00a0 Kant\u00a0 emerged\u00a0 as\u00a0 a\u00a0 \u2018scapegoat\u2019.\u00a0 This statement is an attempt to assess such reactions from the perspective of Russia\u2019s experience.<\/em><\/p>\n

In November 2018 Kant\u2019s monument in Kaliningrad was attacked with pink paint and strewn with leaflets calling Kant an enemy and urging students to protest against the local university\u2019s use of Kant\u2019s name. The global media eagerly absorbed the photos of \u2018pink Kant\u2019. By the time the news reached its audience, the monument was restored to its normal condition in which it has since safely remained, but the deed was done and the global public unequivocally condemned the act of vandalism in Russia. The Russian public did so, too, but they differed in opinion whether this was a genuine act of spontaneous vandalism, or a special propaganda operation.<\/p>\n

Over a year passed and the situation changed. Now the progressive public are the attackers of the monuments \u2014\u00a0 of\u00a0 both\u00a0 those\u00a0 in\u00a0 bronze\u00a0 and\u00a0 those printed on paper. In the USA the confederates and Jefferson\u00a0 fell\u00a0 victims\u00a0 to\u00a0 the\u00a0 statue-toppling\u00a0 campaign as did Cervantes, while in the German press Kant is again accused of racism. What brings together the Western critics, blending Kant with confederate generals and colonial moguls, and the Russian paint-throwers proclaiming him an enemy?<\/p>\n

First\u00a0 there\u00a0 is\u00a0 ressentiment<\/em>,\u00a0 insensitive\u00a0 to\u00a0 arguments\u00a0 and\u00a0 directed\u00a0 at\u00a0 anything\u00a0 that\u00a0 scratches against the sore consciousness. It can seem spontaneous and \u201cauthentic\u201d when expressed by a crowd toppling\u00a0 a\u00a0 monument,\u00a0 or\u00a0 mostly\u00a0 feigned\u00a0 when adopted by a certain admiral, obliged by his position to transmit a particular complex of emotions from above (Kant would have excused the admiral\u2019s salvo as a private use of what could be called reason). But this is still the same phenomenon described by Nietzsche and Scheler and again rearing its head. It is imaginary revenge for the long lasting injustice, the real elimination of which requires much thought, endurance and calm confidence in one\u2019s rightness. Throwing paint at a monument or its toppling by an emotional crowd is not a solution to the problem, but a symptom of wounded impotence, a recognition of one\u2019s own inability to solve the\u00a0 problem\u00a0 by\u00a0 taking\u00a0 it\u00a0 to\u00a0 court,\u00a0 creating\u00a0 one\u00a0 if necessary.<\/p>\n

Second is the unabashed immediacy with which current\u00a0 standards\u00a0 and\u00a0 conventions\u00a0 are\u00a0 applied\u00a0 to historical figures. To the admiral, Kant was a \u201ctraitor of his motherland\u201d because in 1758 he assumed Russian\u00a0 citizenship\u00a0 instead\u00a0 of\u00a0 calling\u00a0 to\u00a0 arms\u00a0 or starting a resistance, and he \u201cgrovelled to obtain a chair\u201d in his letter to the Russian empress. The fact that the forms of loyalties and identities, as well as the norms of writing and courtesy, were vastly different in the eighteenth century than they are today did not occur to the speaker, because his performative\u00a0 act\u00a0 pursued\u00a0 agendas\u00a0 beyond\u00a0 accuracy\u00a0 and truth. Although far more nuanced and careful, some of the present attacks on Kant follow the same template. The ideas of the eighteenth century are judged by current standards which themselves were made possible\u00a0 by\u00a0 the\u00a0 development\u00a0 of\u00a0 these\u00a0 very\u00a0 ideas. This either signifies the neglect of thoroughness in argumentation\u00a0 or\u00a0 reveals\u00a0 that\u00a0 the\u00a0 purpose\u00a0 of\u00a0 the critics, just as that of the admiral, is not truth but the consolidation and channelling of ressentiment<\/em> to fuel this or that political agenda, served by this or that newspaper editorial.<\/p>\n

To\u00a0 the\u00a0 readers\u00a0 who\u00a0 do\u00a0 not\u00a0 judge\u00a0 Kant\u00a0 by\u00a0 the newspapers\u00a0 his\u00a0 racism\u00a0 is\u00a0 old\u00a0 news.\u00a0 It\u00a0 has\u00a0 been discussed in the philosophical literature for decades and\u00a0 does\u00a0 indeed\u00a0 present\u00a0 a\u00a0 serious\u00a0 challenge.\u00a0 For Kant\u2019s racism is, arguably, not a remnant peripheral prejudice in the worldview of the otherwise brilliant thinker,\u00a0 but\u00a0 a\u00a0 systematic\u00a0 part\u00a0 of\u00a0 his\u00a0 theoretical statement\u00a0 regarding\u00a0 the\u00a0 natural\u00a0 development\u00a0 of humanity. Criticising and overcoming this statement, not\u00a0 least\u00a0 from\u00a0 the\u00a0 platform\u00a0 of\u00a0 Kant\u2019s\u00a0 own\u00a0 moral philosophy, is an important theoretical task carrying practical\u00a0 implications.\u00a0 But\u00a0 this\u00a0 task\u00a0 has\u00a0 nothing\u00a0 to do\u00a0 with\u00a0 the\u00a0 anti-monument\u00a0 campaign\u00a0 and\u00a0 cannot be\u00a0 accomplished\u00a0 by\u00a0 its\u00a0 means.\u00a0 On\u00a0 the\u00a0 contrary, such\u00a0 campaigns\u00a0 inhibit\u00a0 progress\u00a0 by\u00a0 inviting\u00a0 those infected\u00a0 with\u00a0 ressentiment<\/em>\u00a0 to\u00a0 \u2018enrich\u2019\u00a0 the\u00a0 discussion with\u00a0 their\u00a0 methods.\u00a0 Granted,\u00a0 some\u00a0 good\u00a0 can\u00a0 be made from bringing at least a portion of the public\u2019s attention to the impressive conceptual work already accomplished by scholars criticising racist tendencies in Kant and the Enlightenment in general. But this is overshadowed by the harm done by the immediate and\u00a0 simplistic\u00a0 association\u00a0 of\u00a0 Kant\u00a0 with\u00a0 racism\u00a0 in the eyes of the general public. If one of the greatest Western thinkers is little more than a racist who also happened\u00a0 to\u00a0 write\u00a0 \u201cincomprehensible\u00a0 books\u201d\u00a0 on other utterly boring subjects, what can save Western philosophy?<\/p>\n

Ressentiment<\/em>\u00a0 and\u00a0 primitivism\u00a0 aside,\u00a0 there \u00a0are conceptual similarities between the two positions that seem\u00a0 especially\u00a0 vivid\u00a0 from\u00a0 a\u00a0 Russian\u00a0 perspective. Russian\u00a0 philosophy\u00a0 long\u00a0 before\u00a0 critical\u00a0 theory, postcolonialism\u00a0 and\u00a0 decolonization\u00a0 noticed\u00a0 the colonial\u00a0 component\u00a0 of\u00a0 Western\u00a0 Enlightenment.\u00a0 To some Russian thinkers this constituted the essence of Western modern philosophy as such, and particularly that\u00a0 of\u00a0 Kant.\u00a0 Western\u00a0 reason,\u00a0 colonising\u00a0 Russian being,\u00a0 subjugating\u00a0 it\u00a0 to\u00a0 an\u00a0 alien\u00a0 form,\u00a0 replacing Russian communitarianism and religiosity (whether real\u00a0 or\u00a0 imaginary)\u00a0 with\u00a0 the\u00a0 autonomy\u00a0 of\u00a0 rational individualism and the industrial capitalist order, was the target of criticism in Russia at least since the early nineteenth century. The most radical of the Slavophiles went as far as seeing the Russian modern state itself as the chief instrument of Western colonisation. The epoch initiated by Peter the Great, and still ongoing, divided the Russians into a westernised minority of the exploiters, a \u201ccomprador elite\u201d, and the exploited people\u00a0 subsisting\u00a0 on\u00a0 the\u00a0 shrinking\u00a0 remains\u00a0 of traditional ways of life. The artificial barrier between the two proved comparable to that between races, and the position of Russian peasant serfs was not much different from that of the African slaves of the West. On such a view, the catch-up modernisation of Russia was in fact double colonisation, external and internal, and\u00a0 German\u00a0 philosophy\u00a0 was\u00a0 essentially\u00a0 a\u00a0 tool\u00a0 of oppression. Kant provided not only for the Western guns\u00a0 of\u00a0 Krupp\u00a0 but\u00a0 also\u00a0 for\u00a0 the\u00a0 batons\u00a0 of\u00a0 Russian police and the shape of Russian jails. Thus, the pink paint on Kant\u2019s monument was not an accident but an echo of a long standing debate.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0 objections\u00a0 to\u00a0 this\u00a0 view\u00a0 in\u00a0 Russia\u00a0 are\u00a0 as\u00a0 old and\u00a0 will\u00a0 certainly\u00a0 sound\u00a0 familiar.\u00a0 They\u00a0 state\u00a0 that humanity\u00a0 has\u00a0 a\u00a0 common\u00a0 cosmic\u00a0 destiny,\u00a0 that\u00a0 we are\u00a0 subject\u00a0 to\u00a0 the\u00a0 same\u00a0 normative\u00a0 ideas\u00a0 and\u00a0 that these\u00a0 universal\u00a0 ideas\u00a0 acquire\u00a0 being\u00a0 only\u00a0 through the\u00a0 variety\u00a0 of\u00a0 particular\u00a0 races,\u00a0 nations\u00a0 and \u00a0human personalities.\u00a0 However,\u00a0 such\u00a0 particularism\u00a0 has\u00a0 to rely on universalism to secure the basis for a peaceful proliferation\u00a0 of\u00a0 plurality.\u00a0 And\u00a0 this\u00a0 universalism\u00a0 is drawn\u00a0 from\u00a0 the\u00a0 universality\u00a0 of\u00a0 human\u00a0 reason\u00a0 and the\u00a0 capacity\u00a0 for\u00a0 compassion\u00a0 and\u00a0 love.\u00a0 Admittedly, Kant\u00a0 was\u00a0 not\u00a0 a\u00a0 champion\u00a0 of\u00a0 love,\u00a0 but\u00a0 he\u00a0 certainly was the champion of reason. The alternative to reason is\u00a0 obscurantism,\u00a0 the\u00a0 intellectual\u00a0 poverty\u00a0 of\u00a0 which forces its adherents to immerse themselves into two states. One is the state of riot, in which resentful and thoughtless mobs crush whatever they have failed to understand and overcome. The Russian revolution of 1917 and the Stalinist reaction offer an example of this path, and Russia\u2019s present is still carrying the burden of\u00a0 this\u00a0 historical\u00a0 choice.\u00a0 The\u00a0 other\u00a0 is\u00a0 the\u00a0 state\u00a0 of acceptance and glorification of whatever negligence one happens to possess and whatever contradictory and bloodthirsty ideology is offered by one\u2019s \u201cown\u201d and \u201ctrue\u201d state, party, ethnic group, or religious sect. Acceptance and glorification of whatever we already are\u00a0 and\u00a0 vehement\u00a0 criticism\u00a0 of\u00a0 enlightenment\u00a0 and education as attempts at colonisation or oppression of one\u2019s identity doom us to smugness and degradation in self-incurred immaturity. This path was also well-travelled\u00a0 in\u00a0 Russian\u00a0 philosophy\u00a0 throughout\u00a0 the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n

Russian\u00a0 experiences\u00a0 show\u00a0 that\u00a0 today\u2019s\u00a0 Western radicals,\u00a0 discarding\u00a0 the\u00a0 \u201cphilosophy\u00a0 of\u00a0 dead\u00a0 white males\u201d\u00a0 and\u00a0 its\u00a0 universalist\u00a0 reason\u00a0 from\u00a0 what\u00a0 they take to be moral perspectives, foredoom themselves to these conditions of riot and smugness. However, the refined public causes far more surprise when it opts for the policy of appeasement, or is overtaken by empathy towards the protesters, or gets carried away by what it mistakes for a fun game of statue-toppling or\u00a0 takes\u00a0 for\u00a0 a\u00a0 career\u00a0 opportunity,\u00a0 or,\u00a0 conversely, accepts the guilt and kneels in front of a mob. From an outsider\u2019s point of view this seems like a capitulation to\u00a0 ressentiment<\/em>\u00a0 and\u00a0 has\u00a0 nothing\u00a0 to\u00a0 do\u00a0 with\u00a0 the elimination\u00a0 of\u00a0 evil\u00a0 done\u00a0 by\u00a0 racism\u00a0 and\u00a0 racists.\u00a0 On the\u00a0 contrary,\u00a0 this\u00a0 capitulation\u00a0 to\u00a0 immaturity\u00a0 means abandoning one of the very few positions from which it\u00a0 is\u00a0 possible\u00a0 today\u00a0 to\u00a0 forcefully\u00a0 argue,\u00a0 lawfully demand and practically organise the consistent and thorough eradication of racism. If we wish to climb on the shoulders of giants like Kant and see further than they did, it makes sense not to overthrow them or spray their monuments with bright paint, not to detest or worship them, but try to understand them, paying\u00a0 due\u00a0 respect\u00a0 to\u00a0 their\u00a0 discoveries\u00a0 as\u00a0 well\u00a0 as overcoming their errors.<\/p>\n

To cite this article:<\/strong><\/p>\n

Chaly,\u00a0 V.A.,\u00a0 2020.\u00a0 Immanuel\u00a0 Kant\u00a0 \u2014\u00a0 Racist\u00a0 and Colonialist?<\/a>\u00a0 Kantian\u00a0 Journal,\u00a0 39(2),\u00a0 pp.\u00a0 94-98.\u00a0 http:\/\/dx.doi:10.5922\/0207-6918-2020-2-5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A murder of an Afro-American detainee by a policeman at the end of May 2020 caused a public outrage in the United States,\u00a0 which\u00a0 led\u00a0 to\u00a0 a\u00a0 campaign\u00a0 against\u00a0 the\u00a0 monuments to\u00a0 historical\u00a0 figures\u00a0 whose\u00a0 reputation,\u00a0 according\u00a0 to\u00a0 the protesters, was marred by racism. Some German publicists, impressed by the campaign, initiated an analogous search […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1265,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kant-online.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kant-online.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kant-online.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kant-online.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kant-online.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1264"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kant-online.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1266,"href":"https:\/\/kant-online.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1264\/revisions\/1266"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kant-online.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kant-online.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1264"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kant-online.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1264"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kant-online.ru\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1264"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}