Preproceedings 2006 - Austrian Ludwig Wittgenstein Society

Recognising Beauty : On The Intercultural Dialogue In Philosophy - Mahlete-Tsige Getachew
unrecognised. Continental philosophy has received more
attention but has been similarly sectioned off; a typical
undergraduate course on metaphysics will include Lewis
but not Heidegger, say, implying that Continental
philosophy is not relevant to the aims of analytic
philosophy, and so undeserving of a particular recognition.
Thus the exclusion of non-Western philosophy is different
only in scale, but not in kind, to the exclusion of other
philosophical cultures that possess an alternative beauty
to the prevalent aesthetic of analytic philosophy.
2. The loss of beauty
In a climate like this, I argue that we must be deeply
sceptical about the possibility of an intercultural dialogue; if
cultures are not first in a relation of mutual recognition,
then I fail to see how genuine dialogue can take place. It
might be argued that intercultural dialogue is intended to
bring about recognition, but I think this mistakes the proper
order of events, and risks conferring the status of
"dialogue" on any assortment of monologues and diatribes.
The pragmatic theories of language tell us that successful
conversation requires participants to assume certain
equivalencies between them: what sort of dialogue can
occur if the interlocutors are not beginning with the
premise of equality? At worst there will simply be a
reiteration of prejudices, at best the slow disclosure of
pernicious but dearly-held preconceptions. I identify three
ways in which the absence of mutual recognition between
cultures has resulted in an artificial and unconstructive
"dialogue".
In The Bluest Eye, we see that Claudia is so
preoccupied with defying the standard paradigm of beauty,
and so preoccupied with asserting her own beauty, that
she consistently fails to recognise the beauty of other
marginalised girls; Claudia even fails to acknowledge the
beauty of her friend Pecola, another black girl, who is
tragically convinced of her own ugliness. In being deprived
of recognition, Claudia loses the ability to recognise
others. Similarly, we can see a disappointing lack of
dialogue between philosophy's "marginal" cultures
precisely because, I suggest, the cultures are still
individually struggling to achieve recognition. If there are
comparatively few scholars working on African philosophy
or feminist epistemology, then there are even fewer who
are applying African philosophy to feminist epistemology
and vice versa; their beauty is lost to each other. For
"intercultural dialogue" to be a real phenomenon, cultures
should have equal recognition and the dialogue must be
between all and any cultures within philosophy.
The second way in which a lack of mutual
recognition can result in an intercultural dialogue where
beauty is lost is if a culture's beauty is exaggerated or
misrepresented in order to justify the dialogue. Nussbaum
calls the former "romanticism" (Nussbaum 1997: 123-126)
and Said calls the latter "Orientalism" (Said 1978). The
danger with romanticism is that by exaggerating another's
beauty, one is failing to see what is really there and so one
is self-deluded; moreover, in over-stating another's beauty,
one can very easily be suppressing or refusing to
acknowledge one's own. Nussbaum uses as an example
those Western scholars who eagerly and extravagantly
praise "the East" for its spiritual culture and in doing so
usually fail to discern the equivalent spirituality of the West.
Here the motive is almost as much a misguided rejection
of the West as it is a misguided interest in the East.
Consequently, dialogue between the cultures is warped
because the participants are surrounded through
obscuring veils of prejudice. Said gives us another view of
how misguided scholarship can hinder genuine
intercultural dialogue: writing on the perception and
portrayal of the Middle East in Western scholarship, Said
describes a certain predilection to equate "the Orient" with
its history – usually its glamorous antiquity – and to simply
ignore or dismiss its contemporary manifestations. So
"Chinese Philosophy" becomes Confucius and not modern
Chinese neo-Marxism; "South American Philosophy"
becomes the astrology of the Incas and not recent Latin
American political thought. I argue that this insistence on a
historical conception of a culture is another way of refusing
to see the culture's beauty for what it is. Consequently, any
"intercultural dialogue" in philosophy that treats one
interlocutor as living and dynamic and the other as an
exhumed and wonderfully-arrayed corpse must involve, I
suggest, a loss of beauty, an inability to recognise the
other's present beauty.
The third way in which a lack of mutual recognition
can result in an intercultural dialogue where beauty is lost
is if the aim of the dialogue is to obtain or confer
recognition on the basis that the "weaker" culture gives up
some of its differences so that its beauty is less alien, so
that it can join the dominant language-game. In "The
Bluest Eye", this is the strategy Pecola chooses, trying, as
best she can, to surrender or abandon her blackness so
that she can be deemed more valuable. The problem with
this strategy is that it is ultimately an act of self-loathing, a
reiteration of an injustice, a violation and not just a
dismissal of beauty. Morrison writes:
A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white
girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is
exceeded only by the evil of fulfilment. (Morrison 1970:
162)
Morrison illustrates this "evil of fulfilment" with the
character of Geraldine, a black woman who has already
made the decision Pecola makes and who has
successfully transformed her beauty, as best she can, to
resemble the white paradigm of beauty. Geraldine explains
to her son, who is Pecola's age, that there is a difference
between "coloured people" and "niggers", and that "he
belonged to the former group: he wore white shirts and
blue trousers; his hair was cut as close to his scalp as
possible to avoid any suggestion of wool, the parting was
etched into his hair by the barber … The line between
coloured and nigger was not always clear; subtle and
telltale signs threatened to erode it, and the watch had to
be constant." (Morrison 1970: 67-68). Geraldine has won a
sort of recognition from white people by emulating them
and distancing herself from other black people.
Consequently, Geraldine treats Pecola with a honed and
ardent contempt that is far worse, far more hateful, than
the indifference Pecola encounters from white people.
Because the recognition that Geraldine has won was not
predicated on equality, or on a recognition of her own
beauty, she has to reconcile herself with this loss by
refusing, passionately, to acknowledge a similar beauty in
other black people. In terms of the intercultural dialogue in
philosophy, we can see a similar loss of beauty occurring
when scholars from a marginalised culture achieve wider
recognition by themselves marginalising, partially or totally,
their original culture. Most non-Western universities
predominantly teach courses in Western philosophy – very
often neglecting their own tradition of philosophy as they
do so; many women philosophers do not allow feminist
scholarship to influence the non-political philosophy that
they do. A marvellous richness of beauty is seeping away
as talented philosophers choose to make themselves more
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