II. “Self,” “Other,” and Marginalization in Society

The conception of “the Other” and its role as a category in Western philosophy has deep roots in G. W. F. Hegel's dialectical phenomenology –- particularly in the section of his Phenomenology of Spirit generally referred to as “Lordship and Bondage” or “the Master-Slave dialectic”.[1] To summarize, Hegel's conception, presented as a parable involving the meeting of two pre-societal humans, develops roughly as follows: a “Being-for-itself” has subjective knowledge of its own existence: it is able to exclude from its “selfness” everything that is “other” than itself, since “what is other for it exists as an object without essential reality, as an object marked with the character of a negative-entity” (Kojeve 10) -– that is, as a “not-I.” For this self-conception to be a “truth,” however –- that is, for it to be “the revelation of a reality” (Kojeve 12) –- the Consciousness requires validation and recognition by another, autonomous Consciousness. Thus, in Hegel's story, the meeting of two pre-societal Consciousnesses results in “a fight to the death for pure prestige” –- that is, in a mortal struggle for something not truly necessary to sustain animal life, namely, for recognition, by another Consciousness, of human dignity and actual existence of Being-for-itself.

However, in this fight to the death, as soon as one of the parties dies, the victor is basically back to where he started: that is, with no recognition by an external, autonomous consciousness. Therefore, the end of this struggle must be something other than death: the victor must overcome the Other dialectically: that is, he must overcome without the destruction of the Other -– the Other is, rather, “sublimated in and by that overcoming which preserves or that preservation which overcomes” (Kojeve 15). This is the first sublation: that the (now) Master preserves the consciousness of the (now) Slave in order to maintain external recognition of his Self-ness.[2]

This conception of the dialectical overcoming of the Other has been explored and developed by various philosophers and theorists, and has been brought to bear on the subject of marginalized/minoritarian groups in a number of profitable ways – probably most famously by Marx, throughout the course of his work, in his examination of class relations. However, we can also see the methodology at work, for example, in Jean-Paul Sartre's examination of antisemitism, Anti-Semite and Jew,[3] in which he expounds on the idea that “the anti-Semite creates the Jew” (xi), dialectically, in order to create (the illusion of) a stable, verifiable “self”: Jews exist, certainly, but, in the first sublation, the (anti-Semite) European creates, discursively and situationally, this category of “the Jew” –- a category, essentially, that is “not-I.” In the second sublation -– that is, when the (anti-Semite) European acknowledges that, as a Self, he is “not-'the Jew'” -– the idea of “the European” as a category is created. The “Self” emerges thus out of a negation of the negation –- it is a negative value. To take further examples, in The Wretched of the Earth,[4] Frantz Fanon argues that, in a similar way, the colonist creates the category of “the native” in order to create for himself a stable identity; in The Second Sex,[5] Simone de Beauvoir argues that “men” create the category of “woman”; and in ,[6] Edward Said argues that the European creates the category of “the oriental.” Furthermore, with some variation (which will be explored in more detail later), in Madness and Civilization and Discipline and Punish,[7] Michel Foucault argues that society creates the category of “the insane” and “the criminal,” respectively.

Societal categories, which create binary striations of priority and marginalization, are specific configurations of power which are designed to perpetuate the status quo. They are often presented as self-evident, or the need for them is explained through some sort of story which presents a “before” and an “after,” and which is designed to show the obvious necessity for their existence -– as Judith Butler explains in Gender Trouble,[8] the story of origins is “a strategic tactic within a narrative that, by telling a single, authoritative account about an irrevocable past, makes the constitution of the law appear as a historical inevitability” (46). They are often so highly ingrained within the fabric of society that sometimes even individuals who fall into marginalized categories are not aware of the injustice, exploitation, and violence being perpetrated on them (a la the Marxist conception of “false consciousness”).[8]

Taking this idea of dialectical overcoming and the creation of self-identity as my basis, then, we can explore in more concrete terms -– through the medium of Southern literature –- just how the cultural identity of the South creates and maintains its own marginalized categories, and for what reasons. We will may attempt to uncover any “stories of origin” which may persist in legitimizing the sustaining of such categories. Finally, we can consider the emancipatory possibilities inherent in literature and examine alternatives to the dialectic and the power configurations it engenders in society.

Notes

[1] The section is, specifically, section IV part A of The Phenomenology of Spirit, “Independence and dependence of self-consciousness: Lordship and Bondage.” Quotes here are from the section of Alexandre Kojeve's Introduction to the Reading of Hegel entitled “In Place of an Introduction,” which juxtaposes Kojeve's commentary alongside Hegel's text.

[2] As a side note, it is perhaps important to understand that, for Hegel, neither the Master nor the Slave ever fully reaches true Self-Consciousness: the Master's attitude is “an existential impasse” (Kojeve 19), insofar as he is not recognized by another Self-Consciousness because of his own human dignity (as he had hoped -– and as is necessary for Self-Consciousness), but, rather, merely by a Slave, and only because of the Slave's fear of death; the Slave is not recognized in himself by another true Self-Consciousness because he has put himself in bondage to the Master. For true Self-Consciousness to be achieved, according to Hegel, such an institution of Slavery must itself be sublated –- there must be another negation of the negation, the entire system must transcend into a higher unity. The movement toward this is the movement of History.

[3] Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate. Trans. George J. Becker. New York: Shocken Books, 1976.

[4] Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth. Trans. Richard Philcox. New York: Grove Press, 2004.

[5] Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex. Trans. H. M. Parshley. New York: Vintage, 1989.

[6] Edward Said, Orientalism. New York: Vintage, 1979.

[7] Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Trans. Richard Howard. New York: Vintage, 1973.

---, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Vintage, 1979.

[8] Judith Butler, Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1999.

[9] Georg Lukacs notes that repressive categories of power in society reify over time into something that “appears, on the one hand, as something which is subjectively justified in the social and historical situation, as something which can and should be understood, i.e., as 'right.' At the same time, objectively, it by-passes the essence of the evolution of society and fails to pinpoint it and express it adequately. That is to say, objectively, it appears as a 'false consciousness'” (History and Class Consciousness. Trans. Rodney Livingstone. London: Merlin Press, Ltd., 1971. 50). In other words, because these categories are self-legitimizing, and because or their hegemony in society, even individuals in marginalized categories are unable to see the “truth” of their exploitation and marginalization. Louis Althusser expands on this idea in “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses,” (in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Trans. Ben Brewster. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971. 127-188), demonstrating the role of such societal institutions as schools, the family, and organized religion in perpetuating the myth of such categories. This instrumentality of ideological institutions in society will be examined in more detail later.