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In My Father's House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture

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Modern Africans find themselves at the juncture of several worlds: As Basil Davidson might have noted, revolution, episodic nationalism, and postcolonial debacles have cast a pall of chaos onto an already historically chaotic field of peoples. The philosophies of Europe, the roots of tradition, African nationalism, Pan-Africanism, racial, tribal and ethnic solidarity, and a modernity which seeks to unleash individualism all come into conflict when Africans attempt to assess the problems they face, and detail solutions for these problems. Kwame Antony Appiah calls African thinkers to take up this important work, and he offers several assessments of these problems and possible solutions in his book. He believes that a better basis for solidarity in Africa is needed to replace decaying philosophies of negritude, and he discredits Pan Africanism's ability to fulfill this role. He addresses the question of what African philosophers should be preoccupied with, and whether, in their seeking to establish, unify, or recreate cultures, African philosophers can really draw upon philosophies and identities unique to Africa. The importance of an "African" identity has emerged since colonialism, and Appiah questions what such an identity should be founded upon, using Wole Soyinka and his own father Joseph Appiah as examples of intellectuals at work on the question.

After a reading of Appiah's book, I question whether an African solidarity can be usefully articulated. Can inclusive, constructive and accessible modern culture be derived in a continent-wide scale, with some collective experience as its sourcebook? Perhaps the question rides on whether tradition is truly expendable, although so far it has apparently not been expendable (although it has proven malleable). Appiah's arguments in favor of reexamining what it means to be African, while he has labored to disassociate them from the Pan-Africanist agenda, seem unsure on the issue of Pan Africanist hopes. Pan Africanism, whether informal or economic, seems more than mired in implied racialism - it seems to ignore the idea that there is a need for modern African nations to promote overture to the world, rather than aggrandized protectionism, which invariable carries with it repressive nationalist agendas. The reality is that Africa is dependent upon its ties to the rest of the world. I believe that Appiah would argue that any "Africanism" is not useful as a method of affirming culture, either, precisely because to be simply "an African" implies such a tremendous negation of one's own past.

I still want to know if Soyinka has also successfully divorced himself from a bogus Pan-Africanist and unianimist use of an "African" culture in his metaphors and references. Does he somehow successfully escape from the confines of this label with his individual-focused explorations (which are thus really Nigerian, or Yoruban?)

Also, how usefully can a philosophical agenda be furthered by an intellectual class focused on bipolarity? The implied bipolarity of African philosophers, working to justify themselves to the world while preserving the value of traditional discourse, seems in danger of trying too hard to mold tradition, and thus lose useful contact with traditional people.

Appiah questions "...the evaluative assumption that recovery of tradition is worthwhile," implying that it is not (95). This comment seems like an important and perhaps controversial one: is it really good for philosophers in Africa, if working to establish an agenda for future clarity and intelligibility for Africans, to be ready to dismiss recovering tradition in their countries and societies? The negative effects of tradition are many, but its benefits seem easily slighted.

Appiah's critique of the ethno philosophical response to modernity seems to leaves out the important fact that a new citizen of the world, as African citizen, is rapidly, and permanently, emerging - and that as people grow up separating themselves from tradition, tribalism and rural politics, they are reassessing their traditional background while trying to create an identity. Perhaps the ethno philosophy he criticizes is in fact an attempt at an honest reappraisal of tradition, for certainly all summaries of the condition of African traditions will end up preferentially consolidating these traditions.

The question is where in the African intellectual consciousness should fit the multi-lingual, multi-national views of tradition. I think to roundly press African intellectuals to serve the highest ideals of "their people" and guide them into a modernity that is not based on European models and yet also not based upon African tradition should be recognized as especially dangerous, as such a plan may well leave its chosen flock behind.

This book, for the density and complexity as well as honesty of its inquiry, should be seen as a sold introudction to what makes Africa so problematic on the level of identity and solidarity. The existence of an "african" identity can no longer be ignored. Appiah finds all the roots of this identity and gives them rigorous criticism in light of his own personal view of Africa as well as a solid reading of African philosophy, social science and history.

Appiah's book is insightful and powerful. His mastery of language allows for a philosophical chef d'oeuvre that reads with fluency comparable to a fine novel. Appiah's unique perspective as a quintessentially modern academic whose own life has bridged gaps between three continents imbues his writing with a freshness that will captivate any fine intellect. Truly a remarkable work.

Kwame Anthony Appiah (born 1955) is a Ghanaian philosopher, cultural theorist, and novelist who is currently Professor of Philosophy at Princeton University. He is also author of books such as The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen, Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers (Issues of Our Time), The Ethics of Identity, Necessary Questions: An Introduction to Philosophy, and Thinking It Through: An Introduction to Contemporary Philosophy.

He states in the Preface to this 1992 book, "in thinking about culture, which is the subject of this book, one is bound to be formed---morally, aesthetically, politically, religiously---by the range of lives one has known... this is especially important because the book is about issues that are bound to be deeply personally important for anyone with my history; for its theme is the question how we are to think about Africa's contemporary cultures in the light both of the two main external determinants of her recent cultural history---European and Afro-New World conceptions of Africa---and of her own endogenous cultural traditions."

Here are some quotations from the book:

"The African-Americans whose work I discussed in Chapters 1 and 2 conceived their relation to Africa through the mediating concept of race, a concept they acquired from a Euro-American cultural matrix. As a result... it was inevitable that their answer to the question of African identity should have been rooted in the romantic racisms that have been so central to the European and American nationalisms of the past century and a half; and their thinking provided the starting point for those Africans who took up the banner of a Pan-Africanist black nationalism in the period since the Second World War." (Pg. 73)
"I have already said that there is no reason to think that the folk philosophies of Africa are uniform." (Pg. 92)
"Yet there is no doubt now, a century later, an African identity is coming into being. I have argued throughout these essays that this identity is a new thing; that it is the product of a history, some of whose moments I have sketched; and that the bases through which so far it has largely been theorized---race, a common historical experience, a shared metaphysics---presuppose falsehoods too serious for us to ignore." (Pg. 174)

The problem with K. Anthony Appiah is that he is, like HL Gates, full of hot air. It's not entirely their fault; they are caught between a rock and a hard place. They strive to be legitimate historians and thus become the black voice for their white peers. When they agree with bias scholarship of European academia, it becomes obvious truth, "because they are black". Yet they, like most blacks who are from the upper middle class and educated at the top European and American schools, are only black in theory. They have no more insight into the commoner's black experience either in the states or in Africa than any other Harvard student.

The point is that Appiah writes for fame and not truth. He lacks balanced scholarship and masks it as philosophy, yet to call him an "Uncle Tom" would be inane and too easy. He is a victim. A victim of his relentless desire to be validated in a world where he feels he has no power but the power to be rejected or agree.

This is evident in his absurd claims that nations like Mali should not try to prevent archeaological works from being stolen. He argues that they should try to spend their money on getting art from other places in order to be cosmopolitan, because that is more important than national works since the concept of Mali or Nigeria were not around when the artist made them thus they belong to everybody. He is so absurd one has to know that he knows it but his paychecks fill his pillow like feathers so he can sleep well.

To say such ridiculous things! Non of the Pharoah's artists made art for an Islamic state that speaks Arabic called Egypt! Nor did the Greeks, living in their small city states make art for modern Greece. Nor did the Ajanta artists envision India or even early Colonial American artist make art for the modern United States. Surely the made art and wanted it to be for their closest descendants, whatever they may become. Be they Djenne to Mali or Nok to Nigeria, or Kemet to Egypt, or Gaul to France. States change but heritage remains the same even in the mist of foreign intermixture. Anthony Appiah knows this, but he is paid to combat any sense of African identity in favor of "world" identity. True the world is becoming closer, but regions like identity, and need it. Or there would be no such thing as the EU if this wasnt true. Identity creates foundation.