J. D. Steens (Author of Philosophical Travels with Carl)

J. D. rated a book liked it Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis by J.D. Vance	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This is a good book. It’s an interesting account of being born and raised in hillbilly America. Its first half covers Vance’s upbringing, with a focus on his broken family, with drugs, divorce, multiple parenting figures, and alcohol being particular ...more
Sep 26, 2024 11:28AM · 1 like · like · see review
J. D. rated a book liked it The Great Questions of Philosophy and Physics by Steven Gimbel	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The course goes through the centuries of tension among thinkers about what is real in an ultimate way. Explanations along that line were once the domain of philosophy and religion (Plato), though Aristotle was pretty good about portraying the world i ...more
Sep 26, 2024 11:06AM · like · see review
J. D. rated a book really liked it Rolling Stone: The Photographs by Laurie Kratochvil	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Though, it’s another book off the library sales rack, this - great cover photos and photo shoots of, mainly, USA cultural personages from the 1960s-80s - is probably a collectors’ item. A lot of effort went into taking these shots - photo shoots - to ...more
Sep 08, 2024 10:04AM · like · see review
J. D. rated a book really liked it Regionalism and national unity in Nepal by Frederick H. Gaige	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Nepal is known for its mountains (foothills, Himalayas). Most outsiders who know about that Nepal know little about the long (500 mile) and narrow (20 mile, average) strip of land along the country’s border with India to the south, called the Tarai (a ...more
Sep 08, 2024 09:13AM · 2 likes · like · see review
J. D. rated a book it was ok The Meaning of Relativity by Albert Einstein	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
In this book, the lay reader pulls out what one can and moves on. References to “inertia” have been confusing, but maybe this book clarifies it somewhat. Are there three different meanings to this single word - as a reference system, as a resisting fo ...more
Sep 03, 2024 10:28AM · like · see review
J. D. made a comment on Xander’s review of Over de vooruitgang van de menselijke geest " Excellent review. Couple of prompted thoughts: Re "The general thought of Enlightenment philosophers and intellectuals was the reason is the royal road ...more "
Aug 25, 2024 12:25PM · see review
J. D. made a comment on Xander’s review of Burmese Days " Thanks. I've got the book noted - for some lighter reading. ...more "
Aug 22, 2024 11:08AM · see review
J. D. rated a book it was ok The Foundations of Africanite or Negritude and Arabite by Léopold Sédar Senghor	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The book pulls in the evidence, current at the time (1967), of the African origins of Homo sapiens, and its subsequent emergence out of Africa into the Middle East and Europe (and beyond, which Senghor does not get into). Given this history, it's pla ...more
Aug 18, 2024 01:40PM · 1 like · like · see review
J. D. rated a book it was ok The Foundations of Africanite or Negritude and Arabite by Léopold Sédar Senghor	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
The book pulls in the evidence, current at the time (1967), of the African origins of Homo sapiens, and its subsequent emergence out of Africa into the Middle East and Europe (and beyond, which Senghor does not get into). Given this history, it's pla ...more
Aug 18, 2024 07:38AM · 1 like · like · see review
J. D. made a comment on his review of Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging " Hey thanks for the feedback. I put a lot of work into them, and glad they are appreciated. "
Aug 11, 2024 08:56AM · see review

J. D. rated a book liked it

Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis
by J.D. Vance

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This is a good book. It’s an interesting account of being born and raised in hillbilly America. Its first half covers Vance’s upbringing, with a focus on his broken family, with drugs, divorce, multiple parenting figures, and alcohol being particular This is a good book. It’s an interesting account of being born and raised in hillbilly America. Its first half covers Vance’s upbringing, with a focus on his broken family, with drugs, divorce, multiple parenting figures, and alcohol being particularly prominent. Except for the loyalty felt toward family and community, it is a depressing picture.

Midway through the book, Vance goes into the Marines, and then to Ohio State and to Yale law school (in large part because of the financial package he got from Yale). I didn’t get anything from the book, though, that shows how this transition from a bad upbringing and indifferent student performance to Ohio State and Yale occurred, other than a few references regarding the importance of education.

In this book, Vance is a good guy who makes it. So, now we see him, after two years in the U.S. Senate, as a U.S. Vice President candidate who blatantly lies, makes offensive comments about this and that and, who, generally radiates unappealing qualities. What happened?

We don’t know, but we can speculate. A clue comes from his time at Yale law school where he learns about what it takes to succeed. It’s about networking and the art of presentation (Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People, for elites). The challenge for Vance was his need to shed his bumpkin background to adopt the ways of his newfound peers. With the help of his wife, he learned to do what he had to do. His dilemma, though, was that he had to sell his soul (hence, the “elegy” in the book’s title?) and he resented it for he was a proud country boy at heart, with an inherent sense of dignity where loyalty to family and community reigned supreme.

Vance was understandably flummoxed since he overtly met the criteria for success. “I lived among newly christened members of what folks back home called pejoratively the ‘elites,’” he writes, “and by every objective standard I was one of them: I am a tall, white, straight, male.” Later, he refers to his wife-to-be in similar terms, as a badge that verified his own elite status: “She was “a combination of every positive quality a human being should have: “bright, hardworking, tall, and beautiful.” But Vance’s insight was that this objective criteria was not determinative in regard to what he experienced at Yale. Rather, it was upper middle-class or higher status, defined by wealth, that set him apart. They were a class apart with “a different set of norms and mores.”

Why, then, did Vance cater to Trump and adopt his ways? There’s the Yale ambition to do what it takes to succeed. So shameless lies and self-serving fabrications were just an extension of “the art of presentation.” One becomes what one needs to be. We see this type all around us. For Vance, it’s the raw ambition to succeed - to get to the upper class or, at least, to a higher one.

But I’d argue there’s more to this story about Vance. By adopting Trump’s M.O., Vance is saying, “hell yeah,” and now he is sticking it to those who didn’t show him the proper respect. It’s country boy pride. It’s the country boy coming home, and it's payback time. Such is the strength of pride and the price for disdain. Vance’s hillbilly community had to endure the disdain from the elites, much as Vance had to do at Yale. Getting the Trump nod was not only the way to success (the Yale network extended so to say). It was also a way to stick it to the wealthy who, almost inherently, looked down at the Vances of the world. Save for the financial package Yale provided, Vance would never have been in their midst.

Left there. Vance arguably could still be seen as a sympathetic character. But in his alignment with Trump, he’s abandoned all principles but one: to succeed (win) at any cost. In a way, it’s a natural evolution from presenting ourselves nicely that we all do, to “looking good” for effect, and then to the networking and wholesale cultivation of the “art” of making an presentation he learned at Yale. In other words, being fake is a virtue and being untruthful becomes more and more acceptable as the path to success. In following that path, did Vance in the end jettison the sense of honor and integrity that, rough edges and all, he grew up with in small town America and, instead, opt for the norms and mores of the elites that he so despised?

By the book’s account, Vance’s wife Usha was a gem who kept Vance centered and smoothed out his rough edges. If so, where is she now? ...more

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The Great Questions of Philosophy and Physics
by Steven Gimbel

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The course goes through the centuries of tension among thinkers about what is real in an ultimate way. Explanations along that line were once the domain of philosophy and religion (Plato), though Aristotle was pretty good about portraying the world i The course goes through the centuries of tension among thinkers about what is real in an ultimate way. Explanations along that line were once the domain of philosophy and religion (Plato), though Aristotle was pretty good about portraying the world in a naturalistic way. Later, maybe starting with Descartes, scientific accounts begin the separation from philosophy to look at the world in terms of material entities and the causal relationships between them. Ironically, given his intent to affirm God’s place in the cosmos, Newton’s theories had the opposite effect and set in motion a view of the cosmos that minimized God’s role. By the early 20th century with the flourishing of cosmological speculation based on Einstein and others, the separation between philosophy and science was complete, save for the logical positivists who affirmed their alliance with science by dismissing non-material inquiry as meaningless.

A major part of these Gimbel lectures highlight the ultimate uncertainties surrounding scientific portrayals of the cosmos. There are just too many loose ends - the famous debate between Bohr and Einstein over determinism being one - for science not to be humble about what it knows and doesn’t know regarding many of the fundamentals. Though Gimbel doesn’t address this directly, it strikes me that there is a hefty amount of thinking within prevailing paradigms that skew an openness to contrary explanations or prevents a revisiting of old ideas that, though not correct in the way originally presented, were not wrong either as they had more than a tinge of truth about them, like they were onto something.

In this regard, the Newtonian emphasis is not on movement per se, but rather on the deviation of movement, such as gravity’s role as an external force that causes a change in motion. What gets lost in this picture is the other half of causation, which is an internal source of movement. We know from Hubble that the universe is expanding and we look at that from the perspective of gravity - will it pull the cosmos back to its big bang beginnings or will outward movement escape gravity’s clutches? As to what causes this increased expansion, we get only some type of inflationary explosion from the big bang. But isn’t this the origin of inertial movement (Newton’s first law - a body wants to go straight were it not for gravity), and it's the two together that create orbital systems: Gravity “attracts” (with the Einstein caveat that attraction is about moving along geometric lines toward a gravitational center), but inertial movement resists that pulling because a body wants to go straight. The compromise is an orbit of one body around another (Newton's first law again: an inertial body wants to remain at rest if at rest, which is an equilibrium state). If one body is sufficiently massive, only then does it overcome inertia and attract a lesser body to the gravitational center as in the case for example of a black hole.

Significantly, this discounting of inertial movement in contemporary discussions of cosmology is seen when it comes to future scenarios of the cosmos, which bumps into the heart of metaphysical questions. If the big bang creates inertial movement (and spin-rotation at the macro scale, and might this inertial movement be filled with mysterious dark energy?), it is a movement away from a gravitational center, the effects of which are progressively less prominent per the inverse square law. Doesn’t this curve the inertial movement outward over the cosmic space-time scales that dissipate gravity’s effect?

What then? If not a stasis point - an equilibrium point between outward-push and inward-pull - wouldn’t the inertial movement under gravitational curvature not contract as the image of a deflating balloon conveys, but continue onward, with inertial movement now, temporarily free from gravity’s effects, continuing its curved movement to return back to the gravitational center (and possibly, for another big bang scenario)? In other words, it’s not an out and back linear cosmos, but a cyclical, spherical one. Is it something like a combo of the expansion-steady state-contraction scenarios that are often referenced as the three main cosmic scenarios? Is then the primal cosmic force not gravity, but inertia per Newton’s first law that gravity deviates?

Seen this way, Aristotle’s teleology takes on a new life. Energy and matter “wants” to move in a straight line and “wants” to remain at rest if at rest. This suggests a self-propelled version of movement: Matter-energy pushes outward as its natural state of motion. In doing so, it also interacts with other matter-energy, and in effect, pushes it. So there’s internal pushing with external pushing effects. But matter-energy in the end wants its own inertial movement to continue and therefore its straight line motion constitutes at the same time a resisting force to the accelerating (gravitational) effects of another body. (Per Einstein’s equivalence principle, a body resists gravitational effects and itself has gravitational effects, with the effects being proportionate to its relative mass). In the end, the tension between inertial and gravity is resolved by one overcoming the other (gravity, as in a black hole scenario), by one escaping the effects of the other (kinetic mass prevails over gravitational mass), or by a mutual balance (an orbital system) when outward movement is balanced by the inward pull of gravity.

Now, to put this into philosophical terms, isn’t this Schopenhauer’s Will at work? And, isn’t it possible to argue that dialectical interaction is built into cosmology at the largest scale? Cosmic energy and its fundamental patterns are in essence, dialectical. Inertial movement is thesis-in-the-world. Resistance to deviation is antithesis-in-the-world. Resolution of tension is a movement of energy toward its balance point between one and the other. This is the synthesis state, and isn’t there a bit of Aristotle here - a cosmic teleology where energy needs to be one with itself, by moving toward equilibrium states, that remain so (again Newton’s first law - a state of rest), until new matter-energy disrupts the balance?

Gimbel pretty much sticks to what others have said on the key topics (and it’s more about science than philosophy), but he doesn’t use this as a springboard to engage that much in the philosophical implications drawn from modern cosmology. He concludes his lectures by saying it’s not philosophy or science that gives us the picture we need, but both. Philosophy without physics, he says, is naive, but physics without philosophy is shallow. I agree, but I think that he held back way too much in explaining the integral tie between the two: Philosophy can build itself on a scientific foundation to offer narratives that are not inconsistent with what science tells us. ...more

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Rolling Stone: The Photographs
by Laurie Kratochvil

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Though, it’s another book off the library sales rack, this - great cover photos and photo shoots of, mainly, USA cultural personages from the 1960s-80s - is probably a collectors’ item.

A lot of effort went into taking these shots - photo shoots - to ...more

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Regionalism and national unity in Nepal
by Frederick H. Gaige

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Nepal is known for its mountains (foothills, Himalayas).

Most outsiders who know about that Nepal know little about the long (500 mile) and narrow (20 mile, average) strip of land along the country’s border with India to the south, called the Tarai (a Nepal is known for its mountains (foothills, Himalayas).

Most outsiders who know about that Nepal know little about the long (500 mile) and narrow (20 mile, average) strip of land along the country’s border with India to the south, called the Tarai (also spelled "Terai". This book is about Nepal’s Tarai and its lack of integration with the country of Nepal.

According to Gaige, those who live in Nepal’s mountains have significant prejudices about the Tarai. Those who live in the Tarai are culturally (language, religion, dress, and customs) aligned with northern India. Yet, politically they live in Nepal, not India, so there is a disconnect with the south as well. The Tarai - “the plains people” - have a highly ambiguous standing. It is neither Nepal, nor India, though it is integrally tied to both in ways that affect, powerfully, the day-to-day life of those who live there. Historically and currently, It’s pretty much an autonomous region, with its separateness enhanced by the malarial infested forests (“jungles”) that kept the hill people from moving south (and kept Indian-aligned people from moving north).

While this book is an excellent study of “regionalism and national unity” in Nepal, it has broader lessons for political integration in general and the problem that tribalism poses for that to occur. By “regionalism” and “tribalism,” is meant a geographic area (regional) that is defined by an overall cultural identity (tribal). It’s important to make this clarification for, while generally aligned linguistically and culturally with India, the Tarai itself has considerable diversity itself (subgroups, including language, mores and caste divisions).

To some extent, the hill-plains culture divide was broken down by hill country elites who moved south to take possession of the rich agricultural lands there and, at the time this book was written, by policies that encouraged the movement of hill peoples to clear the forests and settle there. But this was a one-way, not two-way, integration. It was for the advantage of the hill people without any reciprocal integration, and that has resulted in chronic levels of frustration and resentment.

Tribalism exists as a cultural expression both of the dominant hill country toward the plains, and as the resentment felt from the latter toward the former. The one-way view extends beyond economics and political power, and the obvious self-interest that goes with this. “One-way” means a sense of superiority as the dominant hill elites view the plains people with some degree of disdain. It is about cultural subjugation, similar to the tribalism seen around the globe: a lack of regard for those who are, simply, different in their language, in their dress, in their looks, and in their cultural practices. It is no different, fundamentally, from the way coastal elites in the USA view those in “fly over country” and the way the north looks at the south, and probably, vice versa.

The only way these barriers are broken down to achieve economic, cultural and political unity is for enlightened political leadership that believes E Pluribus Unum means not just reciprocity in the social, economic, and political spheres, but respect, and an end to the enlightened disdain. ...more

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The Meaning of Relativity
by Albert Einstein

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In this book, the lay reader pulls out what one can and moves on.

References to “inertia” have been confusing, but maybe this book clarifies it somewhat. Are there three different meanings to this single word - as a reference system, as a resisting fo In this book, the lay reader pulls out what one can and moves on.

References to “inertia” have been confusing, but maybe this book clarifies it somewhat. Are there three different meanings to this single word - as a reference system, as a resisting force, and as an accelerating force. There’s an inertial frame of reference. Since everything is in motion, and there’s no absolute reference point like Newton’s space and time (General Relativity he says “frees physics from inertial systems” that “singles out certain coordinate systems among all conceivable ones”), then for purposes of observation and measurement an observer’s frame of reference must be specified. Then there’s a body’s inertial property that, per Newton’s first law, wants to remain at rest if at rest, or in motion if in motion (Einstein refers to this as an “inertial force” - a resistance to being moved).

And there’s the equivalence principle whereby inertial mass and gravitational mass are the same thing (“the unity of inertia and gravitation”):* the mass (energy concentration and, thereby, weight?) of a body determines the force necessary to move it (larger the mass, the more force necessary) from its inertial state, and the mass of a body determines the accelerating force it exerts on another body. Seen this way, a mass (of concentrated energy) both resists acceleration, which is its inertial property, and accelerates (pushes or pulls**, which is a body’s gravitational force), and the force of its resistance and acceleration is in proportion to its relative mass. Interestingly, in Newton’s world, the emphasis is on gravity, as it is the cause for movement, not inertia, which is resistance to movement. Inertia is the default position, the natural state of a body were it not for gravity, but this also tends to put inertia into a subsidiary role whereas, with Einstein, and the equivalence principle, you cannot have one without the other: any body has both an accelerating and resisting property.***

This leads to Einstein’s emphasis in this book about what is perhaps his central concept: the gravitational field. The theory of relativity he writes “can be conceived only as a field theory” that “presupposes the independence of the field concept.” Relationships between bodies in space (and time) involve the constancy of the ebbs and flows between bodies of mass influencing each other - in proportion to their respective masses, a body both accelerates (exerts gravitational force) on another body which, in turn, resists (exerts inertial force) gravitational effects. But “field” presupposes what? What lies between the bodies in space (and time), especially when that space is referred to as a “fabric” that is shaped, per Einstein (and Wheeler) by gravitational masses. Is this dark matter and is dark matter just a concentrated (relatively) form of dark energy (with both lying at the poles of matter-energy that doesn’t reveal itself because of its severely dissipated state)?

The field concept in turn leads to Einstein’s overall view of the cosmos. Everything lies in a gravitational field - of varying strengths per the inverse square law - and the so-called “fabric” of space might be conceptualized as “wavy” - concentrated here and there, and stretched out here and there, creating the movement from low to high concentrations of energy (formerly, Newton’s conception of gravity as an attractive force). But, overall, the field concept leads to the notion of a bounded, closed universe (in contrast with what seems to be the prevailing theory today of an unbounded, infinite cosmos), governed by an overall gravitational field that in the end leads to an overall curvature?**** Given the Hubble findings on cosmological expansion and, its reverse conceptualization, which is a tracing backward to a starting point (the big bang origins), if there’s an overall curvature, would this mean that the outward expansion continues around, back to a starting point, and would curvature also mean, that movement is possibly cyclical: movement back to the beginning (big crunch) is but the starting point for another outward expansion (big bang)?*****

*Einstein refers to the equality of “inert mass” and “gravitational mass.” By a common definition, inert means the lack of internal power to move, in contrast to the accelerating movement caused by gravitational mass. But that notion of “inert” is confusing, the so-called explosive power of the BB is an outward movement (in effect, internal movement) that is consistent with Newton’s law that a body in motion stays in motion (or stays in rest if at rest via it’s resisting, inertial motion) unless an accelerating force acts on it to deviate from its motion. As Einstein describes it: “A material particle upon which no force acts moves, according to the principle of inertia, uniformly in a straight-line.”

**Commonly, gravity is characterized as an attractive force, which is a “pulling” effect of a large gravitational mass. But such a mass traveling through space also, sometimes, collides with other bodies, thereby exerting an accelerating effect that comes from “pushing,” not pulling. So does that mean that gravity is more than an attractive force. And, while on the topic of “pushing,” doesn’t that mean a “pushing away” as the resisting component of an inertial mass that doesn’t want to deviate from its natural, straight-line motion? Pushing then has a dual meaning - this resistance of an inertial mass, plus the pushing effect of a gravitational mass?

***Does this alter the way we understand force? Physicists commonly state that there are four forces - gravity, electromagnetic, and the strong and weak nuclear force. Gravity is also commonly stated as an attractive force, with the implication that there is no resisting (inertial) force, and there’s some confusion about what is meant by forces that push or pull, since gravity only attracts (pulls) but doesn’t resist (push away) With Einstein’s equivalence principle and understanding of gravity, isn’t a body both a gravitational force that accelerates (pushes or pulls other bodies in proportion to its relative mass) and an inertial force that resists (being pulled or pushes itself away) acceleration?

****In countering what he refers to as “quasi-Euclidean” view of the universe, Einstein states that “it is improbable that the mean density of matter in the universe is actually zero,” and hence, he argues “against the conception of a space-infinite, and for the conception of a space-bounded, or closed, universe,” adding that “From the standpoint of relativity, to postulate a closed universe is very much simpler than to postulate the corresponding boundary condition at infinity of the quasi-Euclidean structure of the universe.” But Einstein also writes that “there are finite regions, where, with respect to a suitably chosen space of reference, material particles move freely without acceleration….” How this matches up with his overall cosmic curvature conception is a question, for, if there is overall curvature due to gravitation, wouldn’t there be acceleration?

*****Again, is the way force has been defined, muddling. On the cosmic scale, are there not just two forces at work - an outward, expansion that creates movement via the dissipation of heat from high to low, and an inward movement toward a gravitational center, and that both of these forces work within Einstein’s concept of curvature: outward expansion moving in a curvature continues around to become an inward movement toward the gravitational center? ...more

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Over de vooruitgang van de menselijke geest by Nicolas de Condorcet

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Re "The general thought of Enlightenment philosophers and intellectuals was the reason is the royal road ...more "

J. D. made a comment on Xander’s review of Burmese Days

" Thanks. I've got the book noted - for some lighter reading. ...more "

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The Foundations of Africanite or Negritude and Arabite
by Léopold Sédar Senghor

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The book pulls in the evidence, current at the time (1967), of the African origins of Homo sapiens, and its subsequent emergence out of Africa into the Middle East and Europe (and beyond, which Senghor does not get into). Given this history, it's pla The book pulls in the evidence, current at the time (1967), of the African origins of Homo sapiens, and its subsequent emergence out of Africa into the Middle East and Europe (and beyond, which Senghor does not get into). Given this history, it's plausible to argue that Africa is "the cradle of civilization," which I suppose is the argument that Senghor is putting forward - just move back in time from the Middle East, and one gets earlier versions of Homo sapiens culture. The problem I had with this book is that, though brief (it was from a lecture), I found it challenging to grasp what I think his main point must be: Africa has it's own distinct history (if Africa can be generalized that way*), and it need not defer in this regard to Europe and its colonial presence in Africa.

Senghor sees black Africa's oneness with nature ("natural mysticism" or merger with "his natural African habitat"), which is an "African paradise," in which it "is a joy to live, for all things are close by and easy, even all beings: air, water and wind, tree and bird, fish and animal....all things are abundant, confident, friendly." Then drawing on Jung, he says the self merges with the object. He proceeds "into the object to which he abandons himself."

With the emergence out of Africa, Senghor then draws from Leo Frobenius's history of African civilization to say that while Cro-Magnon men, the first ancestors of the Arab-Bergers (Hamites), retained "many traits of the primitive character of the first Homo sapiens, they encountered a deforested environment in which "poverty had replaced abundance," which required moving "about at the mercy of the seasons and climatic disturbances....One must scrounge around for game...and one must protect oneself against wild animals that the scarcity has rendered more aggressive. Nomadism gets organized with transhumance and the art of combat. Combat has become the condition of life, even the meaning and sometimes the joy of life. For one must not only triumph over the animal, but also defend one's pasturage and hunting ground against other clans....men have been led to cultivate warlike virtues."

From here I may have lost the trail. Senghor now brings in the distinction between mysticism from the African heritage, the living in the merged presence of nature, with the magic of those that emerged from Africa, with the emphasis, out of necessity, of looking for the control over nature to satisfy need and want and to protect threats and harm, that, in turn, leads to science? And is Senghor saying that the latter rests upon the former, consistent with his argument that diversity rests upon unity? In other words, unity, with its mystical merger with nature, is a human universal that originated in Africa, whereas, humanity's diversification due to geographic and climatic changes, resulted in the control over and domination of nature.

Senghor's attempt to tie human diversity together under a common theme makes it possible for him to write without what one might expect to be the antipathies toward white colonialism. On the other hand, he might be taking some liberties with what is limited evidence regarding what pre-emergent black Africa was all about and the origin of war-like virtues and systems of domination over nature.

*"The unity of African civilization is so strong that the cleavages within it follow not the racial frontiers but more often, those of geography: of the milieu....Having thus recalled the unity of our continental civilization, we shall try to explain its diversities, the dialectical complementarities." ...more

J. D. rated a book it was ok

The Foundations of Africanite or Negritude and Arabite
by Léopold Sédar Senghor

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The book pulls in the evidence, current at the time (1967), of the African origins of Homo sapiens, and its subsequent emergence out of Africa into the Middle East and Europe (and beyond, which Senghor does not get into). Given this history, it's pla The book pulls in the evidence, current at the time (1967), of the African origins of Homo sapiens, and its subsequent emergence out of Africa into the Middle East and Europe (and beyond, which Senghor does not get into). Given this history, it's plausible to argue that Africa is "the cradle of civilization," which I suppose is the argument that Senghor is putting forward - just move back in time from the Middle East, and one gets earlier versions of Homo sapiens culture. The problem I had with this book is that, though brief (it was from a lecture), I found it challenging to grasp what I think his main point must be: Africa has it's own distinct history (if Africa can be generalized that way*), and it need not defer in this regard to Europe and its colonial presence in Africa.

Senghor sees black Africa's oneness with nature ("natural mysticism" or merger with "his natural African habitat"), which is an "African paradise," in which it "is a joy to live, for all things are close by and easy, even all beings: air, water and wind, tree and bird, fish and animal....all things are abundant, confident, friendly." Then drawing on Jung, he says the self merges with the object. He proceeds "into the object to which he abandons himself."

With the emergence out of Africa, Senghor then draws from Leo Frobenius's history of African civilization to say that while Cro-Magnon men, the first ancestors of the Arab-Bergers (Hamites), retained "many traits of the primitive character of the first Homo sapiens, they encountered a deforested environment in which "poverty had replaced abundance," which required moving "about at the mercy of the seasons and climatic disturbances....One must scrounge around for game...and one must protect oneself against wild animals that the scarcity has rendered more aggressive. Nomadism gets organized with transhumance and the art of combat. Combat has become the condition of life, even the meaning and sometimes the joy of life. For one must not only triumph over the animal, but also defend one's pasturage and hunting ground against other clans....men have been led to cultivate warlike virtues."

From here I may have lost the trail. Senghor now brings in the distinction between mysticism from the African heritage, the living in the merged presence of nature, with the magic of those that emerged from Africa, with the emphasis, out of necessity, of looking for the control over nature to satisfy need and want and to protect threats and harm, that, in turn, leads to science? And is Senghor saying that the latter rests upon the former, consistent with his argument that diversity rests upon unity? In other words, unity, with its mystical merger with nature, is a human universal that originated in Africa, whereas, humanity's diversification due to geographic and climatic changes, resulted in the control over and domination of nature.

Senghor's attempt to tie human diversity together under a common theme makes it possible for him to write without what one might expect to be the antipathies toward white colonialism. On the other hand, he might be taking some liberties with what is limited evidence regarding what pre-emergent black Africa was all about and the origin of war-like virtues and systems of domination over nature.

*"The unity of African civilization is so strong that the cleavages within it follow not the racial frontiers but more often, those of geography: of the milieu....Having thus recalled the unity of our continental civilization, we shall try to explain its diversities, the dialectical complementarities." ...more

J. D. made a comment on his review of Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging

" Hey thanks for the feedback. I put a lot of work into them, and glad they are appreciated. "

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