Date: Thu, 2 Nov 1995 21:27:19 -0500
Subject: Re: Fanon's narcissism


Similar to piers from kuniv.edu, I believe that Fanon is quite in line with
Western, logocentric discourse by writing, what I believe is the key sentence
of this section: "I believe that the individual SHOULD tend to take on the
universality inherent in the human condition."
The perverse, narcissistic (or, as Debbie says, schizophrenic and alienated
[although, in my view, hardly the Marxist version of the latter]) dimension
of Dasein for the black person is that he/she first has to reconstruct, then
revalidate and accept, and finally promote a new concept of "blackness", as
an equal to whiteness/civilization, to reach to that next higher stage in the
historical development of humanity (given that there actually is something
like progress in human development - see Lukacs' "Ontology of Societal
Existence"), i.e. the acceptance that - in all our difference, "specialness",
black beauty etc. - we are all just as good AND bad as everybody else.  In
other words, in my mind it is a historical precondition for any people to
have a keen sense of peoplehood to be able to develop an "interstanding" (to
use E.K. Brathwaite's term) of/with people different from themselves.  Only
if and when this stage is attained, the duality of the hegemonic discourse
about "self" and "other" will begin to break down and the equivalidity of
different human beings be acknowledged.
For white's the journey towards this aim kind of goes into the opposite
direction.  It entails the refutation of their narcissistic claim to be the
keeper of the Grail of Civilization etc.

Kind regards,

Holger


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