Unit 5: W.E.B. Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (1868–1963), the American author, professor, and activist known as W.E.B. Du Bois, was among the most influential Black leaders of the 20th century. While many do not think of him as an existential philosopher, he wrote during a time when people of color struggled throughout the world to achieve liberation. Authors such as Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and W.E.B. Du Bois explored themes related to freedom, existence, and hardship attributable to living in America as a person of color. In 1996, Lewis Gordon, an American philosopher who teaches at the University of Connecticut, wrote:
At least four Africana theorists, W.E.B. Du Bois, Alain Locke, Ralph Ellison, and Frantz Fanon, have theorized dimensions of anti-Black racism in a way that is so clearly indicative of an existential phenomenological turn…[w]hat these figures have in common are a passion to understand human beings and passion to articulate a liberation project that does not lead to the estrangement of humanity from itself.
Philosophers of the Black experience engaged in philosophical reflection about the lived experience of racism and its intersections with other oppressions, including sexism and classism.
Completing this unit should take you approximately 3 hours.
Upon successful completion of this unit, you will be able to:
- explain the main existential themes in Du Bois' philosophy;
- analyze Du Bois' theory of double consciousness;
- explain Du Bois' social construction of race;
- identify Du Bois' notion of freedom; and
- summarize Du Bois' views about nihilism and pessimism.
5.1: Du Bois' Existential Themes
Most well-known existential thinkers focused on challenges relating to predominantly White, male, Christian, and Western culture and experiences. People of color and women were less frequently examined in existential contexts and were typically left out of serious analyses. We can read Du Bois' life and work through an existential lens, although he was not renowned as an existentialist. For centuries, his views inspired Africana and Afro-Caribbean thought and American philosophies. He famously said that "the problem of the 20th century is the problem of the color line". From this, he seeks to elucidate the existential strivings of people who endure oppression. Du Bois sought to raise questions related to the human predicament and empowerment.
Du Bois exposed the problem of Black suffering in American society as the concept of "double consciousness" – a philosophical, principally existential issue. Du Bois wanted people to recognize that people of color are victims of structural oppression, not perpetrators, as the dominant racist ideology of the day claimed. Throughout his life, he examined authenticity, alienation, and agency following enslavement, apartheid, and colonialism.
As you read this article, consider the many different roles Du Bois played in his life. How do you think they informed his existential perspectives? Can you perceive how his legacy affects people today?
5.2: Double Consciousness
In his autoethnographic novel The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Du Bois said, "It is a particular sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity". He sought to understand the internal conflict and suffering of human beings, particularly those subordinated within society.
In The Souls of Black Folk, he explores "the strange meaning of being Black" by describing the "spiritual world" and the "spiritual strivings" of "the American Negro". It is this suffering, deep down in one's soul, that leads people of color to face double standards in their ability to achieve equity in post-slavery America. As a result, Black people feel a sort of "twoness" in their identity, the experience of being Black and American, which society dictates as incongruent. The struggle between one's first-person narrative and the narrative of how others see us are in tension and create alienation.
The duality of being relates to being "seen" through the veil of White supremacy and racism while attempting to live as an American citizen or, as Du Bois describes it, "being an outcast and stranger in mine own house." Double consciousness also entails recognizing the injustice of the social system that limits opportunities for some while privileging others, all the while expecting both to perform equally.
Read this excerpt from the book The Souls of Black Folk. How can you apply Du Bois' thoughts to contemporary existential issues in the 21st century? What does Du Bois mean when he says African-Americans are born with a "veil" that forces them to see themselves through the "revelations of the other world... through the eyes of others"? What does it mean to have a "double consciousness" that "yields... no true self-consciousness"?
5.3: Social Construction of Race
Du Bois said racial inferiority is the existential foundation for the self in relation to others. The American concept of race as a biological essence was especially fraught. He challenged the dominant view of race as an amalgamation of biological and sociohistorical concepts. During his speech to the American Negro Academy in 1897, Du Bois defined race as a "vast family of human beings, generally of common blood and language, always of common history, traditions, and impulses, who are both voluntarily and involuntarily striving together for the accomplishment of certain more or less vividly conceived ideals of life".
Eventually, Du Bois moved away from any determination of distinct racial categories and considered the sociohistorical grouping of people. He aspired to unite those who have been oppressed by essentialist concepts of identity to find commonality, justice, and liberation.
An oppressive society's inability to accept one's humanity or contributions to the historical record exacerbates feelings of alienation. White society not only considers Black people to be the "other" and "a problem", but it also considers Black cultural heritage a problem that is not meaningfully connected to history. Socially-mediated events that ignore and discount Black history promote one's double consciousness, causing one's self to feel distorted and contingent on White privilege's historical domination.
Read this speech Du Bois delivered at a meeting of the American Negro Academy. How does believing there is a biological and sociohistorical basis for racial categorization influence existential theory? How does Du Bois' philosophy of race transform into an enduring historical, social, philosophical, and political rallying cry to oppressed people worldwide?
5.4: Freedom
Du Bois' concept of freedom is multifaceted and includes aspects of social and individual freedom. He hoped individuals could be free from oppression, as he wanted their souls to be self-determining as they pursue self-development. He believed one of the finest ways people could liberate themselves from misery, humiliation, and self-loathing was to express themselves through art and writing. Du Bois exercised his freedom when writing The Souls of Black Folk, where he revised history by providing a much-needed cultural critique. He hoped his writing would broaden society's empathy for and understanding of Black American suffering.
Another way to free one's soul and achieve wholeness in an alienating environment is to embrace one's double consciousness. Du Bois wonders, "How do you demonstrate your humanity if, in the eyes of another, it is perceived as lacking self-evidential qualities?" People should not abandon their double self through assimilation or separatism, but they should merge these activities into a "better and truer self" – one that does not deny history but builds upon it.
He says:
This "living in two worlds at once" enhances one's ability to perceive what others miss, freeing one to explore the horizons of thought and human fulfillment. Black Americans are gifted with a "second sight" due to their dual consciousness and therefore have much to teach White Americans....the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, – a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.
– The Souls of Black Folk, pages 10-11Take another look at this excerpt for The Souls of Black Folk and consider whether Du Bois wants us to regard double consciousness as a superpower. Is it a blessing or a curse? Could it be a combination of the two? What does Du Bois mean when he says African-Americans strive to retain the unique characteristics of their "double selves" while they "merge" their two halves into "a better and truer self" that reflects a state of "self-conscious manhood"? How can they attain this self-realization?
Read this summary of the life and work of W.E.B. Dubois. This reading includes several excerpts from his book The Souls of Black Folk. Why do you think Dubois wasn't previously recognized as an important existential philosopher? How did Booker T. Washington influence Dubois' understanding of history, despair, and social progress?
Du Bois' question "what does it feel like to be a problem?" drives to the core of meaninglessness, hopelessness, and despair. Like many existentialists before him, Du Bois dabbled with the issue of nihilism, but he focused on the existential crisis Blackness presents in an anti-Black culture. Nihilism is the view that life is meaningless and potentially not worth living. Like Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer, who came before him, Du Bois understood that nihilism and pessimism were a natural part of human existence. Like his contemporaries, he believed aesthetic art produces value and meaning for people. In the same way, we can mediate feelings of nihilism and pessimism concerning life, perhaps we can also completely overcome them through aesthetic appreciation.
The American author James Baldwin (1924–1987) was influenced by Du Bois' work. He was also a contemporary of the other existentialists we will discuss later in the course (Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, and Jean-Paul Sartre) and wanted to understand nihilism. In Letter from a Region in My Mind (1963), Baldwin explains how he perceives human beings as those who die and those who are aware they will die. What it means to be human relies on our collective experience of death, along with our collective experience of love. Racism, which causes suffering and death, makes people of color more acutely aware of this fact. Baldwin is not fueling nihilism by mentioning death. Rather, he is thinking about how difficult truths help humans discover their true selves.
Read this overview of the life and works of James Baldwin. How much do you think living abroad in Europe influenced his existential philosophy? What role does religion play in Baldwin's work?
As you read this article, try to apply the insights Dostoevsky addresses in his 19th-century Russian novels to the experience of being Black in America during the 20th century. How does the experience of living in an anti-Black culture create feelings of pessimism and nihilism? What are some parallels that Dostoevsky and Black writers, such as Baldwin, experience during their existential musings?
Unit 5 Assessment
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