“Social Theory: Its Uses and Pleasures”

1. “Social Theory: Its Uses and Pleasures” Charles Lemert, in Social Theory: The Multicultural and Classic Readings (2010)

2. What is social theory? • Social theory is basic survival skill • Social theory is something done necessarily, and often well, by people with no particular professional credential • When it’s done well, by whomever, it can be an uncommon source of pleasure

3. Social theory is about the mundane & concealed • David Bradley says it’s about "those hidden aspects of social life we sometimes encounter in the ordinary course of daily life" but are largely unseen, because: • powers-that-be want them concealed • both empowered and weak find them too threatening to talk about • it's difficult and time consuming to put social reality into words That's what makes the theory of "social theorists" different from our everyday theories, they've taken the time to write out their theories, in a coherent way – writing brings coherence

4. Origins of social theory • Social theory is fairly new, only dates back to 18th century, Enlightenment, it started with modernity • the key transformation brought by the Enlightenment, according to Kant: people would "dare to know" • The change from pre-modern to modern is what the founders of sociological theory were trying to explain, the changes in society/social relations • foundational categories of discipline based on modern-traditional dichotomy

5. All the major early theorists thought about the modern world in relation to the traditional • But classical theorists worked from the European, Western case, assuming it was a universal ideal • Non-European societies were judged based on how well they conformed to this ideal • “Progress” and “development” meant movement toward the (Western) ideal • Marx, Weber and Durkheim assumed this • However, when colonialism began to lose its grip, theory started changing too

6. The two great periods of social theory • “The most creative moments in the history of social theory were when fewer and fewer of the privileged could relax, as more and more of the disadvantaged could speak” • "Social theories require the energy and vision that come from those less comfortable in society" • 1st: mid-19thcentury, the “classical period” • 2nd: 1960s • Today? • Are conditions ripe for another one? • Or are we still living through the period of rapid social change that began in the 60s? • Are we still fighting the same battles, which have now gone global?

7. Franz Fanon The Wretched of the Earth “Concerning Violence,” and “On National Culture,” The Wretched of the Earth (1961)

8. Franz Fanon (1925-1961) • Fanon was born in Martinique, studied medicine in France, became a psychiatrist • During French-Algierian war, Fanon served in a hospital in Algeria • The experience deepened his native sympathy for and understanding of those subject to colonial oppressions • Died of cancer at age 36 • Both Black Skin, White Masks (1952) and The Wretched (1961) were among the most widely read books in Europe and the US in the 60s, as well as early classics of late- and post-colonial literature

9. Influences and key themes • Fanon uses Marxist theory psychology, critical race theory, and global political economy in order to give an account of the colonized subject, the problem of nationalism, and the path to liberation • Shows how colonized peoples also experience double consciousness (DuBois) • double consciousness: howblacks must view themselves through white perspectives while maintaining their own self-definitions • Similarity of double consciousness between people of color in US & colonized people historically suggests connections between racism in US & colonialism internationally • DuBois makes same argument in “Souls of White Folk”

10. Postcolonial theory • Postcolonial theory refers to a set of theories in social science and literature that address the legacy of colonial rule and the struggle for political and cultural independence of peoples formerly subjugated in colonial empires • Besides Fanon’s work, Edward Saïd'sOrientalism(1978) is seminal book in the field • Saïd analyzed the works of the Western canon, exploring how they both absorbed and helped to shape a societal fantasy of European racial superiority • Inspired by Foucault, postcolonial theory emphasizes discourse, which joins power and knowledge

11. Orientalism • Said took term Orientalism, used in the West neutrally to describe the study and artistic depiction of the Orient, and subverted it to mean a constructed binary division of the world into the Orient and the Occident • East/West binary is key in postcolonial theory • Said argued that the Occident could not exist without the Orient, and vice versa • Occident & Orient, East & West, are mutually constitutive • Concept of the ‘East’ was created by the ‘West,’ suppressing the ability of the ‘Orient’ to express themselves • Western depictions of ‘Orient’ construct an inferior world, of backwardness, irrationality, and wildness • The ‘West’ identify themselves as the opposite: a superior world, that’s progressive, rational, and civil

12. The Wretched of the Earth • Fanon defines and explains colonialism and decolonization from a political, philosophical, historical, and socio-cultural perspective • Defines colonialism and its constructs, the psychology of colonialism and its subtle effects on the colonized • Colonization is a creation of two conflicting societies, one of the colonizer and one of the colonized • Colonizer & colonized, settler & native, mutually constitutive • Colonization barbarizes the colonized so that the colonizer can, in good conscience, take everything from the oppressed

13. Colonialism • Colonialism is the establishment, maintenance, acquisition and expansion of colonies in one territory by people from another territory • core/metropoleclaims sovereignty over the colony, andsocial structure, gov’t, and economics of the colony are changed by colonizers from the core • Colonialism represents systematic underdevelopment of peripheryto benefit of core • Ideological basis of colonialism is racism/white supremacy • The “white man’s burden,” in its 19th-century version, involved extraordinary violence, approximating genocide, against its supposed beneficiaries • A major component of this violence was the collection of cultural images and themes by which colonized people came to be known by the colonial power • The status of colonial subject, of being “known” by the colonizer, simultaneously enforced &rationalized the colonial power’s dominance of indigenous populations, giving imperialism a fundamental racial dimension

14. Decolonization • The Wretched of the Earthserved asthehandbook for political leaders faced with decolonization • Decolonization is not simply the removal of colonial structures, but especially, the deconstruction of colonial legacies in the mindset of formerly colonized peoples • Fanon explores the psychological dimensions of colonialism, how colonization creates a racist system that can go as far as convincing the colonized that they are what the colonists tell them they are • The colonized strive to be like the colonizer, to become him, to be white even. "...The total result looked for by colonial domination was indeed to convince the natives that colonialism came to lighten their darkness," writes Fanon (210) • To end colonization, first the colonized must see the myth that has been placed on him

15. “Concerning Violence” • Fanon  offers a raw depiction of both the colonizer and the colonized, describing colonialism as a source of violence rather than reacting violently against resistors which had been the common view • Describing how the two mutually constitute each other, Fanon shows how the violence of colonization both breeds and constrains violence within the colonized, simultaneously enabling their colonization and providing the very power through which the colonized might liberate themselves • Such liberation is only possible, he claims, through revolutionary violence

16. Colonialism is built onforce • Barracks &police stations mark the frontiers of the divided colonial world • In the colonies, thepoliceman and the soldier are the official, instituted go-betweens, the spokesmen of the settler and his rule of oppression • In capitalist societies, institutions such as the educational system serve to create around the exploited an atmosphere of submission and of inhibition which lightens task of policing considerably • In the colonial countries, by contrast, policeman and soldier, by their immediate presence and their frequent and direct action maintain contact with the native, using the language of pure force • “The intermediary does not lighten the oppression, nor seek to hide the domination; he shows them up and puts them into practice with the clear conscience of an upholder of the peace; yet he is the bringer of violence into the home and into the mind of the native….”

17. “On National Culture” • Fanon’s critique of nationalism and imperialism also develops to cover areas such as mental health and the role of intellectuals in revolutionary situations • Fanon explains in great detail that revolutionary groups should look to the lumpenproletariat for the force needed to expel colonists • The lumpenproletariat in traditional Marxist theories are considered the lowest, most degraded stratum of the proletariat, especially criminals, vagrants, and the unemployed, who lacked class consciousness • Fanon uses the term to refer to those inhabitants of colonized countries who are not involved in industrial production, particularly peasants living outside the cities • He argues that only this group, unlike the industrial proletariat, has sufficient independence from the colonists to successfully make a revolution against them