Reviewed by Philip Cunliffe Philip Cunliffe
lectures in Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent (P.Cunliffe@kent.ac.uk) Cunliffe, Philip. "Hegel,
Haiti and Universal History." Marx and Philosphy
Society (2010): n. pag. Web. 23 Aug 2010.
<http://www.marxandphilosophy.org.uk/reviewofbooks/reviews/2010/160>. Review The premise of Susan Buck-Morss’s Hegel, Haiti and Universal History is the
arresting claim that Hegel’s renowned ‘master-slave dialectic’ was directly
inspired by the contemporaneous Haitian Revolution. Commencing with a slave
uprising on the French colony of Saint Domingue in
1791, the victorious former slaves declared Haiti’s independence from
Napoleon’s France in 1804, three years before Hegel published his Phenomenology
of Spirit, which contained the earliest published (and still the
best known) rendition of the master-slave dialectic. Buck-Morss’
claim is an intensely tantalising one – so tantalising, indeed, that one wills it to be true while
reading her short and captivating book. Before considering the evidence that
Buck-Morss presents for her claim, it is worth
considering what is at stake in this discussion – particularly given, as we
shall see, that Buck-Morss herself never
satisfactorily resolves this question. More accurately translated as lord
(Herr) and servant (Knecht),
the master-slave dialectic still exerts immense influence over contemporary
philosophy. The category of ‘the Other’ (commonly used to designate any
identity defined by its subordination to that of the privileged and powerful)
is as ubiquitous as to be mundane in fields and disciplines such as
philosophy, sociology, social theory, psychoanalysis, political theory,
cultural and literary studies. The origins of the concept lie in Hegel’s
exposition of the dynamics unleashed by the struggle for recognition between
master and slave. For Hegel, this struggle ultimately results in mutual
reconciliation and equal recognition, forming a balanced civil society
crowned by a constitutional monarchy. In Hegel’s original formulation, the
Other was merely a transitory shape assumed by the historic development of
consciousness. Contemporary thinkers still draw on
Hegel in so far as they believe that the identity of the privileged is
dependent on the identity of the oppressed. But today’s more urbane theorists
are not as naïve as to believe in the idea of any ultimate reconciliation
between the strong and the weak, let alone of the superseding of inequalities
of power. The ubiquity of the category of ‘the Other’ in contemporary
philosophy is an historic rebuke to Hegel – a rebuke to his optimism from the
viewpoint of a later, ostensibly more sophisticated society more accustomed
to the variety and enduring character of oppressed identities, whether these
be sexual, racial, cultural or gender-based. However, if Buck-Morss is right to claim that Hegel was alluding to the
Haitian Revolution when writing his master-slave dialectic, then Hegel’s
seemingly callow optimism was not mere fancy but drew directly on lived
historical experience: the achievement of Haitian slaves not only in
overthrowing a savage and comprehensive tyranny but also in establishing
their own modern state. Buck-Morss only hints at
this possibility, however. Her aim, she says, is different: she wants to
ensure that the great German philosopher is forever linked to the greatest of
Caribbean revolutions (16). Astonishing enough in itself for the political and
military odds surmounted by the former slaves (who defeated British, Spanish
and French armies), the Haitian Revolution is
crucial to understanding broader political dynamics of the nineteenth century
– not least the eventual extirpation of slavery. Haiti being the
first state in the Americas to grant civic freedoms to all its inhabitants,
the Revolution was closely observed by slave-owners and abolitionists around
the world. The Haitian Revolution was also critical to wider regional
politics, precipitating the eclipse of French colonial power in the
Caribbean, the restructuring of Atlantic trade as well as boosting the
struggle for independence from Spain in South America. Buck-Morss makes a compelling argument for placing the Haitian
experience at the core of political and social modernity: ‘Scholars of modern
philosophies of freedom are hobbled in attempting to do their work in
ignorance of Haitian history. Historical
context permeates modern philosophy – that was indeed Hegel’s modernist,
self-conscious intent’ (16). This goal is a welcome one. The
reason that Buck-Morss fails is, as we shall see,
due to the diffidence with which she treats Hegel himself. Buck-Morss is willing to make the case for Haiti, but less so
for Hegel. Hegel is only known to have mentioned Haiti once, in the Philosophy
of Subjective Spirit, when he credited the ‘Negroes’ of Haiti with having
formed ‘a state on Christian principles’ (62 n. 199). To be sure, there is no
direct evidence that Hegel was thinking of Haiti when he penned the Phenomenology.
Buck-Morss however produces a welter of compelling
circumstantial evidence to suggest that Haiti was indeed uppermost in the
philosopher’s mind when he was forming his thoughts regarding his dialectics
of recognition. Among Buck-Morss’ primary
historical exhibits is that Hegel is known to have been regularly reading the Edinburgh Review and Minerva
periodicals in this period. Both of these covered the tumultuous events
in Haiti in depth. Despite Hegel’s often maddeningly
elliptical language and abstract categories, it is well established that the thrust of his project was an attempt
to absorb the impact of modernity by offering a philosophical response to the
French Revolution and the unfolding of the modern division
of labour. Given that he was so allusive and elliptical about these
events, why not also presume, Buck-Morss reasonably
asks, that Hegel was being equally allusive and current in his
treatment of colonial slavery and the Haitian Revolution? Buck-Morss
is sensitive enough to the nuances of the relevant passages in the Phenomenology
to point to two aspects of Hegel’s
dialectic to support her case. First, Hegel insists that the two individuals initially confront
each other in a ‘life-and-death struggle’ in which ‘it is only through
staking one’s life that freedom is won’ (Hegel 1977, p. 114). The servant’s
failure to risk his life leads to his subordination to the lord. Second, Hegel
famously gives priority to the slave in his dialectic, as the servant
transforms himself from the passive, obedient extension of his master’s will
into an active, self-aware agent. The initially bold and decisive lord
meanwhile slides into slothful self-absorption through his dependence on the labour of the bondsman. Both of these points, Buck-Morss claims, resonate with the Haitian experience, from
the banner of ‘Liberty or Death’ under which the Saint-Dominguans
finally defeated Napoleon’s army (39), to the fact that the slaves emancipated themselves through their own efforts, without
simply relying on the magnanimity of others or merely formal recognition:
‘Those who once acquiesced to slavery
demonstrate their humanity when they are willing to risk death rather than
remain subjugated’ (55). If Buck-Morss
is right, then the Haitian Revolution could be seen as exemplifying the power
of Hegel’s intellectual accomplishment. Prior to Hegel, the problem of
freedom in modern political thought was defined by being counterposed
to slavery: ‘slavery [was] the root
metaphor of Western political philosophy, connoting everything that was evil
about power relations. Freedom, its conceptual antithesis, was considered by
Enlightenment thinkers as the highest and universal political value’ (21).
Yet as Buck-Morss
reminds us, the philosophes preferred to castigate slavery everywhere
except where it actually existed. One could go further: it was not
merely a moral failing on the part of individual thinkers, but a deeper
failure in that the political theorists of the time simply did not generate
the intellectual resources to envisage how it might be possible to transcend
the practice of slavery. Hobbes
brusquely accepted slavery as part of the web of power relations. Even
Rousseau simply ignored Le Code Noir, the barbaric regulations that
covered the rights of private ownership over black people in French colonies
(32-34). Whatever Rousseau’s
failing on this score, he did not in any case believe that genuine political
freedom could much extend beyond the small political communities embodied in
sovereign city states. It is with Hegel that this dichotomy of freedom and slavery
is overthrown, and the logical possibility of transcending slavery entirely
arises. For Hegel shows that the logic of the master-slave relationship
necessarily transforms its constituent terms (that is, the individuals who
comprise the relationship). Each moment in Hegel’s dialectic occurs
independently of any disposition or goodwill on the part of its subjects. The
reconciliation of the master with the slave results not from any magnanimity
towards the master, but because Hegel maintains that freedom built on the
subjugation of others eventually implodes – autonomous individuals need the
recognition of equals to be truly free. But Buck-Morss
is not much interested in what Hegel brings to Haiti, or indeed how and why
Haiti may make Hegel an even more impressive figure. There is no exegesis of
the master-slave dialectic, or expansive understanding of its possibilities.
Indeed, for Buck-Morss metaphorical understandings
of the master-slave dialectic are problematic in so far as they take us away
from the historical context of the Haitian Revolution. Buck-Morss even goes as far as to suggest that the tendency to
read the master-slave dialectic metaphorically is responsible for blinding us
to the link with Haiti. She blames this on the Marxist appropriation of
Hegel, which is often presumed to see the dialectic as an idealised
vision of the proletariat gaining political self-awareness through its labour. This view itself is fallacious (albeit common,
see Arthur, 1983). Marx’s concerns properly begin where Hegel’s end (that is,
after the resolution of the master-slave dialectic and the achievement
of formally recognised equality within civil
society.) But more importantly as regards
the Hegel-Haiti connection, Buck-Morss’ suspicion
of metaphorical readings and her turn towards the ‘literal’ character of
Hegel’s exposition (56) tends to strip away the suppleness and subtlety of
Hegel’s thinking. Buck-Morss thus undercuts the
possibility of translating the founding of Haiti into the categories of
philosophical modernity. Instead of
seeing the multiple perspectives from which Hegel’s dialectic can, should and
has been read as an affirmation of the vast depths of the Haitian
revolutionary experience, these perspectives are reduced to garbled echoes of
the founding of Haiti. Buck-Morss’
attitude towards Hegel is essentially instrumental. Hegel is the
philosophical winch for hoisting the Haitian Revolution into place as a
bulwark of political modernity. Buck-Morss does not
attempt to show us why Hegel is still among the foremost political
philosophers of modern individuality and freedom. Instead she prefers to
dwell on the intrinsic ‘racism’ of treating history in a teleological
fashion, the impossibility of totalising thought,
and recalling Hegel’s notorious racist views of Africa in his Philosophy
of History and the Christian roots of his secular universalism. The scope
of Hegel’s insight is reduced to a brief glimpse into a particular historical
moment (155). Having lashed Hegel and Haiti so
tightly together, Buck-Morss’ scepticism
towards Hegel inevitably ends up expressing itself as scepticism
towards Haiti. The foundation of a
sovereign, modern state by former slaves against the most fearsome of odds is
seen to be too paltry and particularistic an accomplishment. For Buck-Morss, the founding of Haiti is limited for occurring ‘within
the context of European civilization’, (146-147, original emphasis).
Unable to mediate between universal ideas and concrete achievements,
or to offer us any historical schema, Buck-Morss
concludes that ‘no clear historical narrative emerges of any kind’ (144). As
a result, she fails to elevate Haiti to the height of philosophical modernity
while simultaneously draining Hegel’s philosophy of its profundity. Buck-Morss’ scepticism towards the
philosopher pushes her to turn to other means to demonstrate the centrality
of Haiti to modernity. The latter part of book is taken up with a discussion
of the links between vodou and nineteenth century freemasonry, and between
the political economy and sociology of
Caribbean plantation slavery and early industrial wage labour.
Buck-Morss’ discussion here is fascinating and
intriguing by turns, but her image of vodou as a kind of insurgent multicultural fusion
feels forced after what came previously. Despite this, it would be churlish
to see Buck-Morss’ book as another mechanistic
disavowal of European modernity, falling readymade off the postmodern
production line. For whatever Buck-Morss’ ambivalence
about the legacy of modernity and Hegel, she explicitly does want to make the
case for universal history and what she calls a ‘new humanism’: ‘rather than
giving multiple, distinct cultures equal due … human universality emerges
at the point of rupture’ and ‘Common humanity exists in spite of culture
and its differences’ (133). Buck-Morss gives the
example of the Polish soldiers in
Napoleon’s army sent to re-establish slavery on Saint-Domingue,
who began to identify the struggle of the Saint-Domiguans
with their own struggle for overthrowing national oppression and Polish
serfdom back in Europe. Some of the Poles even joined the former slaves as
the ‘white negroes of Europe’ in the words of Jean-Jacques Dessalines,
who led the Haitians to their final victory over Napoleon’s forces (75).
Here, Buck-Morss suggests, universality emerges
through the forging of common links amongst the oppressed when they fight
against a common enemy. Few books as short as Buck-Morss’ contain as much fascinating material, new interpretations,
intriguing possibilities and intellectual stimulation. At the very least she
is right to say that after this work, we should no longer think of Hegel
without thinking of Haiti. 16 July 2010 References
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