Think Dialectically, Not Biologically
By James Boggs
Political Science Seminar, Atlanta University, February 17, 1974
This is the first opportunity I have had to speak to an audience in Atlanta, a
city which in the last few years has become the center for many tendencies in
intellectual and political thinking by Blacks. Many black groups from all over
the country have held conferences here, and in this process you have had an
opportunity to evaluate the movement of the black indigenous forces which
erupted in the 1960s and within a few years brought this whole country into its
present state of social upheaval.
Here in the, South, which gave birth to the movement all over the country, we
should be especially able to see the difference between the present movement and
past movements. For although there have been many revolts and rebellions in
other sections of the United States - revolts and rebellions which have led to
some social and economic reforms - the present movement which started out in the
South was unique. It was unique because at its inception it raised the human
question in its most fundamental form. What is the appropriate relationship
between human beings, between one man and another? The movement began as a
quest for a higher form of human relationships between people, relations not yet
shared and not even believed in by most people, but which those who launched the
movement believed could or should be shared by people in the United States.
In raising the question of human relations so fundamentally, this movement
touched every person in the United States, North and South, and for a period of
time it seemed that the country - despite the obvious divisions and opposition
of many - would be lifted to a new level of human relationships. Instead,
today, nearly twenty years after the movement began in the 1950s, we are
experiencing the most dehumanized, blackmailing relationships between blacks and
whites, and between blacks and blacks. In terms of material conditions, most
blacks are much off than they were twenty years ago at the beginning of the
black movement. But in terms of relations among ourselves as human beings, we
are all worse off. This is the reality which we must be willing to face
squarely.
I shall not attempt to review the many struggles and confrontations which
created the movement. You know and have experienced these either directly or
indirectly. What I want to emphasize instead is that this kind of struggle
could only have been unleashed in the South. This is not just because the South
was more racist or more impoverished - which it surely was. Rather it is
because in the South the tradition of viewing blacks as inferior had been
rationalized and given legitimacy by a philosophy. All over the country, the
philosophy that one set of human beings is inferior to another on the basis of
race was practiced. But in the South this philosophy was not only practiced; it
was preached. Therefore the movement which was organized to struggle against
racism in the South also had to develop a philosophy as the basis for struggle;
the philosophy of the essential dignity of every human being, regardless of
race, sex or national origin. That is why the movement began to draw everybody
into it - either pro or con - because it put forward a philosophy with which
everybody, regardless of race, color or sex, had to grapple.
In our lifetime we have also witnessed how no social upheaval in any one part of
this country can be isolated indefinitely from social upheaval in the rest of
this
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country. Therefore what started out in the South as a movement whose aim was
chiefly to reform the South quickly spread all over the country. Everybody,
oppressed and oppressor, was drawn into the confrontation.
But when everyone is drawn into a conflict which is as deeply rooted in the
history of a society as racism is rooted in this society, there is no telling
how far the struggle will have to go. You begin to open up contradictions which
most people in the society have been evading or tolerating - for various
reasons. Some because they benefit from them - as many do; others because they
believe these are beyond their power to challenge or negate - as blacks used to
think; and still others because they think that to confront these contradictions
will create too much antagonism and upheaval.
Once the struggle began to extend out of the South, it became clear that every
institution of this country, economic, social, political, cultural, was based
upon keeping blacks at the bottom. The whole development of this country had
been based upon treating blacks as scavengers, to take the leavings of
whatev6r'whites considered beneath them--whether these were jobs or houses,
churches or whole neighborhoods. In this process of treating blacks as
scavengers, United States capitalism had been able to develop more rapidly than
any other country in the world because it has had the wherewithal to exploit on
a double basis. Not only was it able to exploit wage labor in production and
the consumer in the market, as every capitalist society does. But when
factories and machinery became obsolete for the exploitation of whites,
capitalism could always use them for the exploitation of blacks. Used plants,
used houses, used churches, used clothing, used anything and everything, could
be recycled. After being discarded by whites, they could always be used or
re-used, to exploit blacks both in production and consumption. Thus all whites
in this country could get to the top faster because blacks were kept at the
bottom.
In providing this opportunity for rapid upward mobility to whites, the system of
American capitalism has developed very differently from other capitalisms.
First of all, this country, from the very beginning, had to import labor, either
by force or by promises. Secondly, every ethnic group which came to this
country voluntarily came in order to get to the top as quickly as it could.-
Therefore these groups closed their eyes to the obvious fact that they were able
to rise as rapidly only because the indigenous labor force of the blacks was
being excluded from the same opportunities. In this way the system of American
racism - or the institutionalized exclusion of blacks from equal opportunity -
was inseparably interconnected with American capitalism - or the system of
upward mobility for special ethnic and special interest groups at the expense of
others. Whites could not see this because they were the beneficiaries of the
system. The eruption of the black movement exposed the historical connection
between racism and capitalism in the U.S.. and also made it clear that it is not
possible to get rid of racism in this country without getting rid of American
capitalism; any more than it was possible to carry on a struggle to reform the
South without carrying on a struggle to change this entire nation. How is it
possible to get rid of racism without getting rid of the method of thinking
which has become ingrained in the American people as a result of the special
historical development of this country, namely, that special groups should
advance at the expense of others?
There is a very important dialectical principle here which every student of
political science needs to understand. A struggle may start out with the aim of
resolving one contradiction. But in the course of the struggle, if the
contradiction which it sets out to negate is fundamental enough, the main
contradiction may change; it may become enlarged or expanded. Struggle is
social practice and when you engage in social practice, you gain new insights.
-You find out that there was much more
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involved than you had originally perceived to be the case when you began your
struggle. Therefore you are faced with the need to raise your level of
understanding, your level of conceptual knowledge. If you do not raise your
level of understanding as the strug2le expands and develops. then what began as
a progressive struggle can turn into its opposite.
When the struggle which began in the South exploded all over the country, the
question of racism became no longer just a regional but a national question - a
question of transforming this whole nation. It has been a national question
ever since; national in the sense that it involves this whole country; and
national also in the sense that it embraces all the aspects of this nation. We
now face the question of the Second Reconstruction of the United States. What
kind of nation should the United States be? What kind, of society should we
build in the United States? On what kind of philosophy concerning relations
between people should we base ourselves - because no movement can ever develop
momentum without a philosophy.
Note that I used the word "we." I mean "we." The strength of the movement that
began in the South stemmed from the fact that those who led and participated in
it understood that blacks had to change this society - this country. They had
many illusions about the possibilities of reforming this society, but at least
they did not have the romantic and escapist notions about leaving this country
to make the revolution in Africa which nationalists of today have. However,
once the movement came North and the tremendous complexity of the struggle that
would be necessary to transform this whole society began to dawn on blacks, all
kinds of romantic and escapist notions began to develop within the black
movement. These romantic and escapist notions are now crippling the minds of
many of our black young people.
All kinds of black militants call themselves black revolutionists these days.
But few of them have yet been willing to come face to face with the
contradiction that, just as it has been on the backs of the black masses that
this society has advanced economically at such tremendous speed, so it is only
under the revolutionary political leadership of black people that this country
will be able to get out of its contradictions. We are hesitant to face up to
this truth because it is too challenging. We have the fears which always haunt
the revolutionary social forces, the fear of not knowing whether we can win; the
fear that if we set our sights too high we may provoke the enemy to
counterattack; the lack of confidence in ourselves and in our ability to
struggle to create a better society.
This is not a fear that is unique to blacks. All revolutionary social forces
have this fear as they come face to face with their real conditions of life and
the growing realization that they must assume revolutionary responsibility for
changing the whole society - so that their lives as well as those of others in
this society can be fundamentally changed. Because the fear is so great, it
becomes much easier to evade the tremendous challenge and responsibility for
disciplined scientific thinking and disciplined political organization which are
necessary to lead revolutionary struggles.
Confronted with this political challenge many of those who have been frustrated
by the failure of the civil rights movement and the succeeding rebellions to
solve all our problems have begun to put forward all kinds of fantastic ideas as
to what we should now do. Some say we should separate and return to Africa.
Some say we should separate but remain here and try to build a new black
capitalist economy from scratch inside the most advanced and powerful capitalist
economy in the world. Some say we should join the Pan-African movement of the
African people in Africa and build a military base in Africa from which we will
eventually be able to attack the United States.
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others say we should just struggle for survival from day to day, doing whatever
has to be done for survival. They have just given up struggling for anything at
all and have turned to astrology or drugs or religion - in the old-time belief
that some metaphysical force out there in the twilight zone will rescue us from
our dilemma.
And finally most black militants of the 1960s, even while they are still talking
their nationalist rhetoric, have today just become a part of the system. They
are doing their best to get to the top in one form or another, regardless of
whom they have to step on to get there, just as every other ethnic group has
always done in @s country.
THE AMERICAN SYSTEM: INCORPORATION OF ETHNIC GROUPS
Those who have given a great deal to a particular struggle in the past always
find it hard to realize that what began as a struggle for equal justice, equal
representation or equal rights, can, precisely because it gains momentum, become
just another factor in the development of the system. A system doesn't have any
color. It is a way of social functioning which not only has institutions and
structure but also has an ideology and the tendency to perpetuate itself. In
the United States the capitalist system functions not only by exploitation of
different groups but also by incorporation of successive ethnic groups into the
system. This is the way that it has historically transformed what might become
antagonistic social forces into non-antagonistic social forces. Already we have
seen how American labor has been incorporated into the system in the wake of the
militant labor struggles of the 1930s. Instead of being a threat to the system
as it used to be, labor now helps the system to function. Labor keeps demanding
more for itself in the way of more wages, pensions and other benefits and
doesn't give a damn if this "more" is extracted out of the superexploitation of
people in other parts of the world or passed on to the consumer. In this way
the labor organizations which came out of the great social struggles of the
1930s and 1940s are today just mainstays of capitalism it self. They not only
act as obstacles to its overthrow; they actively keep the system going.
The black movement is now running a parallel course. Gradually blacks are being
incorporated into the structures, the institutions and the ideology of U.S.
capitalism. This is happening because, in the wake of the black rebellions of
the 1960s, the black movement has made no serious effort to repudiate the
bourgeois method of thought on which U..S. capitalism is based which involves
each individual or group just getting more for itself. It has made no serious
effort to create a movement based on a more advanced method of thinking and
which aims to transform the whole of society for the benefit of the majority of
the population.
It would be childish to blame U.S. capitalism for incorporating blacks into the
system. In doing this, the system is only doing what it is supposed to do in
order to maintain itself. In this respect U.S. capitalism is doing and has done
very well. From the time of the Johnson administration tens of thousands of
black militants, who might have become revolutionists, have been incorporated
into various pacification programs. Scholarships were made available on a mass
basis to blacks so that they could go to college and become part of that huge
apparatus of social workers and teachers which keeps the system going. Now we
have blacks in every sphere of capitalist society--junior executives of
corporations, local and national politicians, mayors and judges, sheriffs and
policemen. Blacks have acquired the same entourage of officials which every
other ethnic group has. In this sense blacks have risen in the sliding scale of
upward mobility just as the Kerner Commission proposed. They have not
supplanted or replaced whites. But as whites have been elevated upwards, blacks
have replaced them on the levels which they vacated. Hence today blacks are
taking over the cities in the traditional pattern of other ethnic groups. In
the past, as we pointed out in THE CITY IS THE BLACK MAN'S LAND, this upward
mobility in the politics of the city had
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stopped at blacks. But after the rebellions U.S. capitalism was ready to make
this concession. just as it incorporated labor after the class struggles of the
30s, it has now incorporated blacks in the wake of the racial struggles of the
60s.
Today blacks are inheriting the old cities which are more poverty-stricken and
crime-ridden than they have ever been. Technology has made it possible for
capitalism not to depend on the city any more as the main base for its
production facilities. So industry is abandoning the cities for the rural areas
with the same ease that in the 19th century it abandoned the rural areas for the
cities. It is in the rural areas that U.S. capitalism is developing the new
technical industries, leaving behind the cities to be fought over by
petty-bourgeois careerists, whites and blacks. These blacks and whites can't do
anything to restore the cities which have become little more than urban
reservations. All that is happening is that thousands of careerist blacks are
getting plush jobs for themselves and living high on the hog. But the cities
continue to deteriorate.
THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN 'IWO ROADS
In THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION I pointed out that there are two sides to every
question -but only one side is right. There are many ways that we can look at
what is happening in this country today. But in the end we are going to have to
recognize that we now have only the choice between two roads for the movement -
only two directions of thought and action.
Will the United States continue to be a society based on the bourgeois system of
upward mobility, with each rebellious group becoming incorporated into the
system through its careerist or opportunist members, while the mass at the
bottom sinks deeper into despair? Or can we build a society in this country
based upon social responsibility between individuals and between groups in which
everyone tries to make decisions based on the interests of the whole rather than
on the special interest of his or her ethnic group?
The black movement started out in the belief that racism was the only
contradiction in this society and that if it could only win equal opportunity
for blacks to advance in the system, blacks and whites would end up equal. In
the course of two decades of struggle, i.e. in the course of social practice, it
has become clear that racism is not the sole contradiction and that it is
inseparable from the capitalist contradictions which arise from each group
advancing at the expense of others and individuals within each group using the
group to advance themselves..
The more nationalistic the black movement has become, the easier it has been for
U.S. capitalism to incorporate blacks into the system. Not only has it been
easy for the system to identify the individuals to be incorporated. But the
more nationalistic blacks became, the more they began to fool themselves and
allow themselves to be fooled by black opportunist leaders into believing that
everything black is beautiful and everything non-black is ugly or worthless or a
threat to blacks. More and more blacks began to think and insist that "all we
care about are blacks - and the hell with everybody else." Thus step by step
they have taken on the dehumanized ideology of U.S. capitalism.
Thus, in the course of only twenty years, both the integrationists, who only
wanted to reform the system so that blacks could be included in capitalist
exploitation, and the nationalists, who claimed to be against the system, have
each gradually been brought into the system and are assuming responsibility for
it and the chaos which has been created as a result of the system.
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The nationalists ended up by going into the system because they made the mistake
of thinking that nationalism in and of itself is a revolutionary ideology, when
in fact nationalism is only a stage in the development of a struggle by an
oppressed people. , It is the stage when all layers of an oppressed group - the
petty-bourgeoisie, workers, peasants, farmers- come to the conclusion that they
have shared a common oppression and have a common history.
In the United States nationalism was an inevitable stage in the development of
black struggle because throughout the history of this country, blacks have been
kept at the bottom of this society as blacks, i.e. on a racial basis. But ever
since the black power movement erupted in the late 1960s, the question facing
the black movement has been not the past but the future. The question has
become "What are we going to do about the future of this country, this society?
What kind of society must we create here in this country for our children and
our children's children?"
In other words, from the time that the nationalist or black power stage erupted
in this country, the need has been for blacks to develop a revolutionary
ideology for this country. But instead of doing this, black militants began to
look towards Africa and towards the past; in other words, to a world that they
really couldn't do anything about. Instead of grappling with the tremendous
challenge of transforming the conditions and relations in this country, they
began to idealize the past. Instead of examining the changes that would have to
be made in this country - which would inevitably benefit not only blacks but
everybody else in this country - they began to think of themselves as living in
some metaphysical space totally separate and apart from everybody else and what
was happening in this country. They began to insist that blacks in this country
are Third World people. They refused to face the reality that black GIs were
raping and massacring the people of Vietnam just like white GIs. Or that blacks
are an integral part of that 5% of the world's population living in the United
States and using up 40% of the world's energy resources for their big cars and
their new appliances, just as whites are doing.
Unwilling to face their actual conditions of life inside this country and the
challenge of bringing about fundamental changes in this country, blacks have
drifted steadily into bourgeois methods of thinking and bourgeois practices.
The result is that today blacks are no different from whites in seeking
individual advancement based upon the capitalist principle that every individual
can "make it" in the system, if only they are ready to use others to get there,
exploiting even those closest to them in the most degrading ways, from the pimp
on the street to the politician seeking office. Meanwhile, instead of
confronting this growing criminal mentality among black people, black militants
have been making excuses for it -- thus helping this criminal mentality to
become even more widespread among black children and youth.
Today, in the year 1974, blacks all over the country are bragging about how many
black mayors have been elected, while practically every black who can get
together a few hundred dollars is running for one office or another. In terms
of numbers this looks like progress for black people. But in terms of grappling
with the fundamental issues that confront this country and everyone inside it,
including blacks, (crime, the energy crisis, the corruption at all levels of
government) this rush of black politicians only means that more blacks are now
caught up in the system of bourgeois politics. Just like white politicians they
cannot raise any of the real questions which confront this country and force the
American people and those who might elect them to office, i.e. their own
constituents, to discuss and clarify their positions on them. If they did this,
they might not get elected to office, which is their main aim. So black
politicians are now making deals to please the most voters - just as white
politicians have been doing for the last hundred years. Thus the elevation of
blacks into the
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system has weakened the black movement and the overall struggle for real change
in this country - even tho on the surface it may seem to have strengthened it.
In this sense, even if we took the process to the logical conclusion of electing
a black president and vice-president, all it would mean would be trapping more
blacks in the position of defending and projecting the practices and ideology of
the system.
LEARNING FROM SOCIAL PRACTICE
There is no use wondering what might have happened differently. Now we must try
to learn from what has happened. There is a good side to this. Now that blacks
have been incorporated into the bourgeois practices of this country, the
fundamental issue facing blacks is much clearer than it could possibly have been
twenty years ago. It is easier for young people to see now that blacks, like
everybody else in this country, now only have the choice between two roads
Either you can join those blacks who are now rushing in to defend and expand a
system which is based upon the exploitation of the many for the benefit of a
few. Or you can take the socialist direction which has as its aim to create a
society based on advancing the many and all Mankind, above the interests of a
few.
In making this choice, those who are ready to take responsibility for changing
society in the direction of a socialist society can't start by taking a poll of
the masses. Nor can they just wait for the masses to rebel and then rush in to
become their spokesman, which is what most of the black militants of the 60s
did.-,Like all masses the black masses are full of internal contradictions.
They can only acquire the strength to fight against the external enemy by first
struggling against their own internal contradictions and limitations. No
potential revolutionary social force has ever become an actual revolutionary
social force except through struggle to overcome its limitations and weaknesses.
Through past struggles blacks have rid themselves of physical fears standing in
the way of struggles against oppression. This is the first obstacle which any
oppressed group has to overcome - an obstacle which is usually overcome through
mass rebellions. Now the great need is for blacks to rid themselves of the fear
of theoretical and political struggles against their own limitations. This
requires a different kind of courage and boldness. It also requires discipline
and patience and a readiness to struggle to acquire an appreciation of the
dialectical process by which development takes place.
Our first need now is to look critically at the past of the black movement of
the 50s and 60s, not in order to blame black leaders for what they did not do or
to dream about what might have been if somebody had done differently - but
rather to prepare for the next stage of struggle.
Black intellectuals especially must be ready to look very critically at how
quick they were to accept the idea that there is such a thing as "black
thought," i.e. that thought is based on color or biology rather than on the
creative use of the mind to analyze historical and social developments and to
project new directions for an actual society. By accepting the idea that
biology is the basis for thinking, black intellectuals have not only crippled
their own minds but also the minds of millions of young people -- until today
few blacks know how to think historically or to make social judgments based on
anything else but color. With every day the thinking among black youth becomes
more anti-historical, more metaphysical and more superstitious and therefore
more vulnerable to manipulation by unscrupulous demagogues and the mass media.
The reality, the very sad reality today is that most of our young people have no
basis for making decisions except their own momentary feelings, their own
immediate
selfish interest or their desire not to be unpopular with their peers. Every
day black youth are becoming more individualistic, more pleasure-seeking, more
unable to tell the difference between correct and incorrect ideas and
principles.
That is why the responsibility of black intellectuals, and especially those of
you who are in the field of political science, is so great. You have the
responsibility to acquire, to develop a method of thought that is based upon the
historical developments and contradictions of this society in this country. You
now have the tremendous advantage of the experiences of the last 20 years - both
good and bad - to evaluate. In this sense you are very fortunate.
Not all black intellectuals are going to be ready to accept this responsibility.
Many, perhaps most of them, will continue to be prisoners of bourgeois thought,
i.e. they will be concerned only with advancing their own careers and the
careers of their cronies, just as white intellectuals have been. More and more
black politicians are going to win elections in the next few years; therefore it
will seem to most of you foolish not to jump on their bandwagons or create a
bandwagon of your own. But in thinking and acting this way, you will only
become like so many black prime ministers in the West Indies and in the tiny
African nations of our time - enjoying their own pomp and circumstance and
begging whites to come to your city to spend their tourist dollars, so that you
can entertain them with African dances as the native Americans entertain
tourists with Indian dances.
My hope, however, is that some of you will be ready to accept the challenge I
put to you - to be ready to struggle to think dialectically. That is, we must
be ready to recognize that as reality changes, our ideas have to change so that
we can project new, more advanced aspirations worth striving for. This is the
only way to avoid becoming prisoners of ideas which were once progressive but
have become reactionary, i.e. have been turned into their opposite. The only
struggles worth pursuing are those which advance the whole society and enable
all human beings to evolve to a new and higher stage of their human potential.
Knowledge must move from perception to conception,; in other words, knowledge
and struggle begin by perceiving your own reality. But it must have the aim of
developing beyond what you yourself or your own group can perceive, to wider
conceptions that are based upon the experiences of the whole history of Mankind.
The only way that anyone can take this big step of moving beyond perception to
conception is by recognizing and struggling against your own internal
contradictions and weaknesses. Of these weaknesses, the most fundamental and
most difficult to overcome, as a result of the specific history of United States
society, is the tendency not to think at all but simply to react in terms of
individual or ethnic self-interest.