12 October 1998, 2548 words
After my first reading of Kirk Meighoo's article, "Nihilism and the politics of the weak" (T&T Review, August 1998) I found myself in the curious position of agreeing with many of his conclusions while disagreeing with nearly all of his premises. Clearly, something was amiss, either with me or with him. After I read the article a second time, I decided it was him.
These are Meighoo's assertions which I found myself in general agreement with:-
However, as happens so often these days, people commit the very sins they accuse others of. Meighoo correctly criticizes such people as cultural nationalists, trade unionists, Afrocentrists, and socialists for lacking intellectual rigor, then proceeds to demonstrate the same lack in himself. For an academic to write an entire article without quoting one solid fact - just plenty opinion - to support his position is a rather amazing feat. But Meighoo starts from metaphysics, which is always a bad idea.
The first part of his article was taken up with describing Nietzche's concept of "slave morality" vs. "aristocratic morality". The political ethic of "slave morality" where the strong are hated and the weak are praised, according to Meighoo, is the root of all our political problems here in the Caribbean. But I cannot understand why Meighoo quotes Nietzche as though the latter's statements carry some absolute authority. Nietzche is an Idealist philosopher (although it could be argued that his philosophy became Realist when adopted by the Nazis), but these days no serious intellectual quotes Idealist ideas as though they are evidence. Philosophies are generally classified by their methods - empirical or a priori - or their results - Idealist or Realist. Idealist and Realist philosophies may be used to prove historical or aesthetic points, but nothing else, since both start from untestable premises. Modern philosophers have largely abandoned Idealist and even a priori positions, and now lime with physicists, biologists, psychologists and cognitive scientists in order to adduce philosophical positions from hard research. Nietzche is useful mainly for his role in the history of ideas and his vigorous prose style. But not as an authority on anything.
Since Meighoo seems to believe otherwise, though, it is not surprising to find that he is rather sloppy about his theoretical formulations. Thus, he writes, "The general idea is that the last groups brought into the steady orbit of continuous world civilization resist the idea and discipline of civilization the most", defining these last groups as Africans, Amerindians, Malays and Pacific Islanders. Meighoo says he is sure that many will call him racist for saying this. Of course he is sure: "racist" is the usual description of anyone who defines entire groups of people as inferior.
Meighoo's concept of "civilization" is the root of this issue. In the first place, if civilization is indeed a universal value, as he says (and I think he is right in this) then there cannot be resistance to it on the part of any cultural group. In the second place, Meighoo defines civilization by technology, cultural complexity, and sheer size. But every culture has technology: all foraging people manufacture cutters, pounders, containers, cordage, nets, baskets, levers, weapons, gluetraps, gill nets, baited lines, snares, corrals and so on. Every culture also has social order: the anthropologist Donald Brown has assembled the following list of traits found in all cultures: prestige and status; inequality of wealth and power; property; inheritance; reciprocity; sexual modesty; punishment; sexual regulations; sexual jealousy; hostility to other groups and conflict within the group, including violence, murder and rape. Cultures differ because they are formed in different environments, and those forms are usually best adapted for survival in that particular environment. This is why, even if civilization is a universal value, cultural groups would resist the imposition of alien forms of civilization. So we end up with "size" (but Meighoo really means "complexity") being the definitive criteria of an advanced civilization.
I have no problem with this per se, but surely civilization, by definition, must be judged qualitatively as well as quantitatively. A more fundamental value - a match between social mores and individual contentment, say - does not even occur to Meighoo. I mention this alternative particularly, because by this standard the Pacific Islanders and the Tainos apparently had a higher civilization than, say, modern Indians. (An induction from the objective facts of India's grinding poverty, 50 percent illiteracy rate, high rates of domestic abuse and infant mortality, to a subjective judgment of discontent is, I think, legitimate.) This is not relativism - in fact, it is exactly the opposite because my premise is that "the greatest good for the greatest number" is the fundamental measure of the universal value called civilization. But, of course, my measure is a moral one and therefore cannot be proven either empirically or by logical argument.
Meighoo goes on to assert that "more important is the historical achievement of social orders which have achieved high levels of civilization." The form of this sentence suggests that Meighoo thinks "social orders" are the cause of "high levels of civilization." Maybe it is just careless writing, though, and therefore only a reflection of his lack of intellectual precision. It must be this, because the idea that social orders precede civilization is obviously nonsensical. Both, surely, are synonymous (and, I would argue, universal.) In any case, the reason some social orders have coincided with more advanced levels of civilization is not due to the "idea and discipline" of civilization, as Meighoo believes. That concept is at best hypothetical and at worst racist. Jared Diamond, arguing against such perspectives, suggests in his book "Guns, germs and steel" that biogeographical factors are what have determined which civilizations, especially that of Western Europe, became dominant. Briefly, Diamond points out that the shift from nomadism to settlement in human culture meant that agriculture became the defining factor in civilization-building. The Mediterranean's fertile crescent had significant advantages: the most continuous climate in the world favouring early forms of cultivation; 32 of the world's 56 types of large seeded grasses (cereals); and 13 of the 14 big domesticated mammals descended from wild species found only in Eurasia and North Africa; domestication in turn was a major factor in ensuring Europeans carried diseases fatal to everyone but themselves when they went exploring in the 15th century. The point is, the material demands of civilization preceded the "idea and discipline" of it. Even Greek philosophy did not make its great leap until after the Athenians started fully exploiting the silver mines of the Laurium hills, nor did Christianity have any real influence until Constantine threw the power of the Roman Empire behind it.
Weirdest of all, however, is Meighoo's assertion that "...as civilizations grew, previously isolated people were brought into their orbits- the problem of their incorporation is a recurring theme in history...and it was always done so by the civilized..." From this perspective, the extermination strategy of Shaka in conquering Natal, the genocide by forced labour of the Tainos or the colonization of India were motivated, not by plunder, but by a desire to "incorporate" the conquered peoples into the "civilized orbit."
This sloppiness of theory is matched by Meighoo's carelessness about facts. After excluding certain groups from "world civilization" - itself a dicey concept - he goes on to criticize advocacy in the United States and Malaysia for not having brought Afro-Americans and Malays respectively up to mainstream levels. But, according to figures cited in Orlando Patterson's The Ordeal of Integration the United States' underclass constitutes about 900,000 African-Americans - specifically, only ten percent of the quarter of blacks who are poor. So while there is still a problem of minority poverty in the U.S., the fact is that about 75 percent of African-Americans are neither poor nor even close to it. There is little doubt that affirmative action has made a significant contribution to this state of affairs (or that this same state is a strong argument for now dismantling advocacy.) But Meighoo buys into the very propaganda he is so critical about, at least insofar as that propaganda implies that black Americans are basically inferior.
As for the Malays, V.S. Naipaul has this to say in Beyond Belief: "In 1979, Shafi...had spoken of Malays as pastoral, tropical people...They were not commercially minded; they were without the energy of the Chinese, who came from a 'four-seasoned' country. He had worked these ideas - which were curiously colonial ones - into his overall religious view. They were not ideas that Malays liked now...The government had done all that it could to bring Malays into business, and over the last two generations it had succeeded...What they had been looking to religion to do for them in 1979, simple power, simple authority, had done for them later."
This last sentence, in particular, stabs at the heart of Meighoo's perspective. The nature of power is the foundation of his article, but almost everything he says about power is vague and contradictory. For example, he writes that "Power is a characteristic." A characteristic of what, exactly? Power does not exist in a vacuum. It must emanate from something more basic - physical strength or skill; intellectual or technical ability; interpersonal skills or social position. Then, even while asserting that heredity is no guarantee of power, he writes that "Mentorship and tutelage are very important in passing these qualities on....there is no one as powerful as a true leader who comes from a long line of leaders." But one might equally argue that power, of whatever sort, usually has some appropriate background because such an environment is a practical condition needed for these qualities to be expressed. (In fact, studies on the heritability of IQ and personality traits imply that this is exactly the case.)
Foucault, whom Meighoo cites as one of his mentors, has argued that power would not have the influence it does if its only commandment was Thou Shalt Not. Power must be productive in order to command loyalty, he asserts, and I think this is correct. But, if Foucault is right, Nietzche is wrong because Nietzche defines power by attitude, rather than by its works. "Seeing power as merely repressive misses the point," writes Meighoo, even as he dodges it himself. The revolutions of history have almost always been directed at a power that was merely repressive: the Romans became inefficient by 300 AD; power was thus transferred to their heirs, the Catholic Church, which became corrupt by Middle Ages, allowing Luther to begin the Protestant movement; the Caribbean slave system ended because it was not economically viable; and the Fascist and Communist movements fell when they became so repressive that they were self-destructive. So it seems fair to conclude that power structures do not collapse until their creative, productive or useful aspects degenerate. The assumption that "slave morality" always resents power is an error: scientists and athletes are not generally resented by ordinary persons, because their power is clearly meritocratic.
Meighoo's lack of rigor on this basic point is reflected in his Lawrentian phrases about "The rich, the powerful, noble and strong- those whose instincts were sharpest, who lived life to the fullest...". Meighoo writes as though these terms are synonymous - that the rich, for example, are automatically the noble. He also makes general statements like: "Indian Ugandans created wealth FROM NOTHING", "Royalty seems to instinctively recognize each other", and "Power enables and it must be generated". All of this is just twaddle.
Worst of all, though, is that even if Nietzche's philosophy was right, Meighoo would still be wrong in applying it to the Caribbean situation. Basically, Meighoo argues that the problems of Caribbean politics are rooted in our adherence to Nietzche's "slave morality" - a perspective that tries to bring down those who are "natural aristocrats." But, if we did indeed adhere to slave morality, then the Cult of Personality and what Lloyd Best has called "Doctor politics" should be passé. But it existed even before Eric Williams, and it continues with Basdeo Panday. Indeed, it is so prevalent that even the ineffectual Patrick Manning still commands considerable support within the PNM. Even in the private sector, the power wielded by Anthony Sabga, and the long reign of Sydney Knox, is not that of business rules but that of an individual whom Nietzche would call an aristocrat because of his will-to-power and lack of "slave morality." This being so, Meighoo's central thesis is inapplicable and his entire argument collapses.
The danger in this kind of sloppy thinking is that it provides an additional opening for repressive systems to flourish in our society. Meighoo considers Khmer Rouge an example of the "slave ethic", but not Nazism and Stalinism as examples of Nietzsche's "noble ethic." In any case, he's wrong even within his own logic: surely Pol Pot was able to do what he did precisely because he was an example of the "strong" as defined by Nietzche, who wrote that "A morality of the rulers is...that towards beings of a lower rank...one may act as one wishes."
My primary concern in this article is the creeping fascism which I see trying to take root in this society. It is most virulent at the political level, as it always has been, but the seed has been getting water (and considerable manure) because of the authoritarian tendencies of the UNC leaders and their financial backers. Naturally, this has affected the unthinking "grassroots" people on every side of the political divide. Even so, fascism cannot succeed in a society unless it is supported in some form or fashion by the elites, including the academic elites. The articles of Burton Sankeralli - whom Meighoo ironically disapproves of - are the most accurate reflection of this. In previous articles written by Meighoo, I have been impressed by what I perceived as his mental energy and his unwillingness to swallow shibboleths. These qualities are all too rare nowadays, and I now find myself wondering if Meighoo has been corrupted by an academic culture which gives respect to Sankeralli's pseudo-intellectual drivel.
Honest criticism and acute self-examination are the best palliatives for this disease. "Those who can, produce," Meighoo concludes. Indeed. But if he refers to the Non Sequitur comic strip accompanying this article, and if he counts how many times he used the term "derived" in his article, he might want to reconsider pelting stones. Me, I keep that strip pasted on the wall above the desk where I write my novels, articles and newspaper columns.
Copyright ©1998 Kevin Baldeosingh