theory – African deep thought

The Long Proud March of Ignorance

As you probably already know, I read. In fact I read a lot about many different subjects. I read not only because of my profession, but for my own growth and learning. Reading was a habit that I acquired when I was very young that I have sustained over the years. What’s more, I try to place myself in contact with people who will inspire me to read more due to the depth and breadth of their own knowledge. These tend to be my most enjoyable interlocutors.

I offer the foregoing as a preface to the video below, which I consider an insightful treatment of what for many of us is an urgent topic. I have long been concerned that too many people lack the requisite knowledge to grapple with the profoundly complex challenges that we face as a species. The penchant towards increasingly simplistic ways of knowing and understanding reality have contributed to rampant ignorance, susceptibility to conspiracy theories, and even a deep-seated anti-intellectualism.

Lastly, like the great Amadou Hampâté Bâ, I do consider orality as a form of literacy, and recognize its historical import as both a form of knowledge and a mode of social practice. I fear that much was lost in the decline of the great oral traditions of our ancestors. Thus, more than literacy’s decline itself, my fear is already being realized–the widespread celebration of ignorance and its elevation as a way of being in society and the world. This is captured quite beautifully in a Yorùbá proverb which states, “Ọgbọ́n ní ńpẹ́ kó tó ran ẹni; wèrè kì í gbèé ran èèyàn; wèrè Ìbàdàn ló ran ará Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́,” that is, “Only wisdom takes a long time to rub off on others; imbecility does not take long to affect others; it is the imbecility plaguing Ibadan people that rubbed off on the people of Ògbómọ̀ṣọ́.” We are, I have long suspected, living in a time where the ascendance of idiocy will increasingly imperil our lives.

The rise of the post-literate society | DW News https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6t-BBQ8fUQ

Sailing on the high seas of irrationality

One cannot debunk conspiracy theories with logic or evidence. Logical arguments only demonstrate one’s conformity to the mode of thinking that the conspiracy theory seeks to unseat. All evidence contrary to the conspiracy theory is perceived as evidence of the conspiracy’s existence. The durability of conspiracy theories is predicated upon such circular reasoning.

Critical theories

One of the implicit points that emerges from Dr. Jacob H. Carruthers’ work The Irritated Genie regarding the Haitian Revolution and the resistance which preceded it, is that Africans were not sitting on their hands waiting for the light of Marxism to show them the way to freedom. They were seizing their freedom and in the process developing modalities of resistance and formulating conceptual frameworks to explain the predation of their adversary. It is a sad commentary on our present state of consciousness that lately arrived critical theories are more resonant with many a Black intellectual, while those forged in the fires of an audacious and truly African liberation struggle lie neglected.

Universalist assumptions and social theory

When Marx declared that class struggle was the central element in all of human history, he made an ontological claim. This claim has been repeated in other discourses, some substituting gender for class. However, such claims are vulnerable due to their reliance on Eurocentric assumptions about the nature of reality.

When we examine, for instance, the social organization of many traditional societies, say the Igbo or the Ewe, we find that class and class antagonisms were absent. This is not to say that status differences did not exist. They did. But there was no such thing as a “proletariat” or “bourgeoisie” as self-interested classes.

Also, when we study the oral tradition of the Yorùbá or the Akan, we find conceptions of gender that reflect what some African-centered scholars have called complementarity. This is especially evident in the cosmology of the Yorùbá wherein women are a noted as a necessary and fundamental element to the creation of good in the world–not women apart from men, but the work and lives of men and women in concert.

Thus, it behooves African intellectuals to engage in a deep study of African traditions, rather than relying on Eurocentric paradigms which are ill-fitting to both describe African history or to provide frameworks for future possibility. All ideas are, inevitably, weighted by the ontological assumptions of the cultures that fostered them. As our ancestor Jacob H. Carruthers has taught us, “We cannot move our people by borrowing our foundations from other people.”