The most striking point of the workshop is for me the prefix de- or the attempt of

Transcription

1 Chunjie Zhang 1 Indigenous Thinking, Western Canon, or An- other Kind of Commemoration: Reflections on the Workshop Education, Development, Freedom, 2/2010, Duke University The most striking point of the workshop is for me the prefix de- or the attempt of negating the reality in which our education is situated. If the purpose of western education is to impose the principle of development, then our workshop pointed out its inefficiency. If the goal of development is to reach freedom, our workshop reminded us that it is un-freedom that proves the result of the doctrine of capitalist development in the socalled developing countries. What we have in mind is not merely a critical spectator; rather, through the institution of education, we aim to dis-entangle the ideological and colonial yoke of our way of learning and knowing, in order to reach a stage from which we can rebuild and reorganize our view of the world and our being. In short, decolonization is not only a theoretical concept, but it also demands action and practice in writing and teaching. In this spirit, I deem it important to reform the western canon standardized teaching materials so that an-other way of commemorating the colonial past could become possible. To achieve the goal of learn to unlearn in order to relearn, it is indispensable to restructure the western canon as the carrier of colonial knowledge and enhance the visibility of transmodernity in the formation and transformation of today s human condition. This task does not only include reading Kant or Hegel decolonially but also necessitates reading non-canonical works by canonical and non-canonical thinkers from all parts of the world. Then the firmly established concepts of liberal arts education would gradually alter, our knowledge about the past would be reconstructed, our historiography would take a different look, the concept of world literature would reflect a more profound pluri-versality, and our decisions toward the future could be

2 Chunjie Zhang 2 readjusted and reformulated. In brief, the standards in our globalized society would become radically different. Let me elaborate with two examples. One striking aspect of the workshop is the emphasis on the attempt pioneered and exemplified by Amawtay Wasi in Ecuador. Due to linguistic barrier, I am not able to read much about Amawtay Wasi s program and statements online. Reading Rodolfo Kusch s Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América, however, helps me understand an alternative or the indigenous way of life rooted in Américan context, which is opposed to the dominating pattern of western thinking and living. Kusch points out the insufficiency of western causal thinking and endeavors to enhance the indigenous sensual thinking. Offering a vivid account of the indigenous way of life, in the heyday of Lévi-Strauss s structuralist anthropology and C. G. Jung s psychoanalysis, Kusch sees his task in understanding the Américan problem from the indigenous perspective and mapping out a distinctive path to overcome the crisis and revitalize América and the world. Different to Lévi-Strauss, who strived to extract a universal pattern out of both European and indigenous worlds, Kusch makes strident differences between these two worlds. Furthermore, Kusch points out the deficit of urban thinking and the neglected benefit of indigenous thinking in América. By opposing affective implications to reasoning, the unnameable plain to causal lucidity, and salvation to solution, Kusch is able to claim: Whether we like or not, man is half filled with things and half with gods, even in the twentieth century, and especially in América. This is the most fecund possibility provided to us by indigenous and popular thinking. 1 1 Rodolfo Kusch, Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América, trans. María Lugones and Joshua M. Price (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2010),

3 Chunjie Zhang 3 Yet Kusch is not merely interested in getting rid of causal thinking; rather he strives to add indigenous thinking as the indispensable part to human existence. In other words, Kusch intends to break up the hierarchy and contempt which western tradition holds toward indigenous thinking, but he still keeps causal thinking as a valid part of human life. Therefore, in addition to negation, Kusch presents a way of deconstruction and transformation. Kusch elaborates that both the philosophy in the street and the philosophy with European problematic taught in the university are important. We should see the philosophy at the university from the perspective of the street and reform or decolonize it to the needs of the street. In this spirit, the case of the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder offers us an example of recanonization. According to established intellectual history, Herder is known for his philosophy of history and aesthetics. There has been little attention given to his concept of perpetual peace based on a story of the American-Indian tribe Iroquois. Furthermore, Herder s enthusiasm for and usage of the Iroquois story reminds me of Kusch s method. Herder s vision of perpetual peace is richly informed by colonial realities and discloses the enormous impact of non-european culture and knowledge on his thinking through the Iroquois story. Moreover, Herder s project of perpetual peace endeavors to reach beyond the geographical borders of Europe and incorporate the whole world; in other words, its primary interest is not only a European peace, as Kant is primarily concerned in his treatise, but also a peaceful relation between Europe and the non-european world, between the colonizers and the colonized. Here is the story that inspires Herder s vision of perpetual peace: As the result of constant conflicts induced by the strong tribe Delaware among other tribes, the weak tribe Iroquois makes

4 Chunjie Zhang 4 a suggestion to the stronger tribes in order to keep peace: one tribe should be the woman, around whom the warring tribes live as men. No one should harm and attack the woman. If one tribe does so, then all other tribes together should punish the lawbreaker. The woman, however, should not get involved in war, but should endeavor to maintain peace. If the men tribes fight against each other, the woman tribe should warn them that their women and children may be killed and in the end the whole tribe will be extinguished. The Delaware agrees to be the woman tribe. The Iroquois thus perform a ceremony and hang oil and medicine on the arm of the woman. Oil and medicine symbolize two functions of the woman of peace: she should tell good things to all the tribes, represented by oil, and persuades warring tribes to maintain the peaceful state and thus cure their decease, symbolized by medicine. The Delaware should solely devote themselves to agriculture. Herder laments that European colonizers destroy the peaceful state created through the Iroquois wisdom. 2 Inspired by the Iroquois story, Herder maps out his own vision of perpetual peace to maintain peace and curb warfare and colonialism. At a more abstract level, Herder postulates that his woman of peace is universal equity (allgemeine Billigkeit), humanity (Menschlichkeit), and practical reason (tätige Vernunft). Herder supports these three theorems through seven doctrines (Gesinnung). As the first three doctrines, Herder proposes revulsion against war (Abscheu gegen den Krieg), reduced respect for heroism (Verminderte Achtung gegen den Heldentum), and revulsion against false statecraft (Abscheu der falschen Staatskunst). Herder argues that warfare poisons the well of history and human rights. 2 Als die Europäer näher drangen, sollte auf Erfordern der Männer selbst die Frau an der Gegenwehr mit Anteil nehmen. [...] Eine fremde unvorhergesehene Übergewalt störte das schöne Project der Wilden zum Frieden unter einander; und dies wird jedesmal der Fall sein, solange der Baum des Friedens nicht mit festen, unausreißbaren Wurzeln von Innen heraus den Nationen blühet. Johann Gottfried Herder, Briefe zu Beförderung der Humanität, ed. Hans Dieter Irmscher, vol. 7 (Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1991), 716.

5 Chunjie Zhang 5 In the 117 th letter, He contends: Gewalt und Willkür mögen gebieten, worüber sie Macht haben, nur nicht über Grundsätze des Rechts und Unrechts in der Menschengeschichte. 3 There is a similarity and a difference between Herder and Kusch. It is similar that they both cherish the indigenous way of life and endeavor to make sense of it. The difference is: Kusch recognizes the indigenous thinking as an equal-valued alternative to western causal thinking whereas Herder attempts to wrest forth universal principles for the human kind within the scope of western thinking. Clearly, Herder is not a decolonial thinker as Kusch exemplifies. Yet if we read Herder with Kusch, we would appreciate that Kusch enables us to recognize the value of this neglected piece in Herder s oeuvre and we could identify Herder s perpetual peace as a negotiation between indigenous challenge and European Enlightenment dominance. If we read Kusch with Herder, we could learn how to emancipate from the implanted mechanism of universalization and value the breach that Herder s non-canonical writing causes within western thinking itself. In brief, the reformation of western canon is a two-fold task: we need to read canonical and non-canonical works by western thinkers and decolonial works of non-european writers side by side so that we can see the similarities, the differences, and the path of a new reading, thinking, and commemoration. Works Cited: Herder, Johann Gottfried. Briefe zu Beförderung der Humanität. Edited by Hans Dieter Irmscher. Vol. 7. Frankfurt am Main: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, Kusch, Rodolfo. Indigenous and Popular Thinking in América. Translated by María Lugones and Joshua M. Price. Durham and London: Duke University Press, Ibid., 708.