Susan Buck-Morss at UMN

"From Hegel and Haiti to Universal History": A presentation by Susan Buck-Morss
Sponsored By: Institute for Advanced Study
Additional Sponsors: Institute for Global Studies
Series: Thursdays at Four

Hegel *and* Haiti

Hegel began using the term "revolution" in earnest after reading an 1804 issue of the journal Minerva which carried analysis of the Haitian Revolution. Can we go beyond the treatment he gave to revolution? Can we develop a true and morally righteous, universal opposition to capitalist exploitation? A radical new anti-slavery? In a politically charged call for empathy and syncretism in the teaching of history, Professor Buck-Morss proved her mettle as an intellectual historian to contend with.

There is no "other"

I think of the lecture as a plea for a broader perspective of mankind that does not demonize any single group of beings as "other." By focusing on the history of Haiti, but implying a deeper connection to European history than is generally acknowledged, Buck-Morss hopes to illustrate a great historical truth behind Haiti's insurrection: that it began with a religious ritual, that it banded together the slaves, slaves that capitalist countries had themselves forced together in a never-ending pursuit for the most efficient way to control labor. The deeply spiritual, perhaps irrational, experience of liberty and resistance that Buck-Morss reads in the character of the leader of the Haitian insurrection, a "big black man," literate in the language of Islam, calling forth eloquently for liberty in a Voodoo initiation rite that ignited full-scale insurrection is the real legacy of that event. Professor Buck-Morss would have us inherit this deep need for the liberty of all humanity, from paid factory workers to indentured servants to African slaves on plantations, and apply to the contemporary globalized world. She implies that coalition politics, linking groups of different race, gender, or identity markers of any kind, must rise up based on common need.

Living in the Truth is Still Hard

Clearly, Buck-Morss hopes to use her universal history to start a new dialogue about contemporary global politics. But when questioned about the new terms of this political debate, Buck-Morss still prefers to demur. She is neither for violence of any kind, nor a pacifist. She will dare to criticize Obama, but she admits a surge of hope in modern coalition politics. She is not proud to be an American, but calls to us to see how similar the "liberty" language that is the legacy of the founding fathers "and all that crap" is worth learning from as much as Haiti. The audience posed challenges aimed at showing the possible limits of her "empathy"-based approach to history: it's anarchist, it's all an act, it's a Foucaultian fantasy of power continuously in play. The room went flush with engagement, but it was a skeptical engagement. I wish I could have asked the professor whether Obama is right to keep risking innocent Pakistani lives in the name of our military objectives against Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Or whether Hilary Clinton was right to leave the term "human rights" out of any of her recent dialogues with China's leaders. I have a feeling she would be as ambivalent on these questions as any of us. I can't decide if thinking that should be heartening, or make me even more gloomy about the future of the humanities in America.