RACE, DISCOURSE, AND THE ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAS A NEW WORLD VIEW EDITED BY VERA LAWRENCE HYATT AND REX NETTLEFORD1 SYLVIA WYNTER 1492: A New World View ‘Theslspute over 1492 isin fll spate. We are overwhelmed by an avalanche of argubuens between the celebrans and the dsidents The celehrants ne wauecs tual of Wester European and Euroamerican descent, and the desdene are chs lesials mainly of indigenous or Native American descent, joined by Eoracnnny such a Hans Koning, the vier, nd Kirkpatick Sul, the envionmonedinn deed” of ciscovery and exploration, a triumph for the Chistian West that wa we [berate the indigenous peoples fiom theie Stone Age, deprived existence wathors the wheel (Hart 1991)?" Or, ist to be seen from the dissident perspective es one of “history's monumental crimes,” a brutal invasion and conquest that led oo a Gewree of genocidal extinction and of sill ongoing ecological disaster unprece dented in human history?” Amid the rising clamor, one of the most impressive attempts to reconcile these opposing views has been put forward in a 1991 special issue of Newnvesk thee Nis prepated jointly by the magazine’ editors and by the staff of the Smithsoning Ipserutios Museum of Natural History forthe Columbian quineentenary eshibi, tion Seeds of Change, together with its accompanying publication. The inuoduction to the issue concluded: The toe story of Christopher Columbus i not the encounter of the Old World With the New: itis the story of how two old worlds were linked and made one Columbus voyages changed the ethnic composition of two continents sola, ionized the Worlds diet and altered the global environment His lepsey i he “Columbian exchang:” the crcl intermingling of peopl, animals, pans nd6 1 s4gee A New Hild Vw eases between Europe, Affica and the Americas, This the theme of seeds of change. which) we thik holds the key tothe meaning of Cobas page (Nassar, Fall/Winter 1991)" ‘The central question that remains unresolved, however, is wil: meaning, fOr what ‘group, and fiom hick perspective—celebrant or dissident? Some, like Gregory Cerio (1991), are concemed with deconstructing the “black legend” (la leyenda negra) of Spanish atrocities against the indigenous peoples that the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Protestant states of northwestern Europe had used for propa ganda purposes in their competitive struggle to establish colonies and slave plants tions in the Caribbean and the Americas. The principal “meaning” that Cerio attributes to the event and its aftermath therefore reflects this concern, which is ‘one that springs from an essentially Euroamerican historieal-existental perspective: (Whilst there no season to print up “I Love the Congues stickers, and while the Spanish did commie "hornfjing awociis” if one looks atthe wl, a the ‘Spanish di ive fitecu com, they acted by tir standards, with moderation ‘Consequendy, whilst when the Engish and French served a the Americas, they systematically drove the natives fom thee Land, che Spanish accepted the Indians imo thie sociery—howeverradely—and cough to provide a philoso cal and worl foundation for ther actions in the New World, (Emphasis added) ‘As a result, whereas in Latin America “the marriage of blood and cultures created Li Raze, the new Mesiizo peoples who contpose most of today’s Latin Americans.” North America, "where the natives were excluded, driven off their land, and even ‘wally hunted down.” remained white. In this context, Cerio continues, sixteenth-century Spaniards “appear no worse than the nations who castigated them for their sins.” Even if Spain “committed terrible deeds in bringing the ‘light of Christianity" to the New World, "history offers no shortage of acts perforined in the service of religious, social and polii- cal ideals” From the historico-existential perspective, however, itis irrelevant whether the ‘ongoing subjugation experienced by Native Americans is imposed by white North America or by mestize Latin America. Rather, as Susan Shown Harjo (1991) argues, for the native peoples of Americas what needs to be brought to an end is the tentite history ofthese past five hundred years, Harjo, who is herself Cheyenne and ‘Muskogee, and is also the national coordinator ofthe 1992 Alliance (a coalition of Native American groups), outlines the dissident perspective on 1492. The history that it ushered in, she writes, “led to a feeding frenzy chat has let native peoples, and this ted quarter of Mother Earth in a state of emergency.” For native people, “this half millennium of land-grabs and one-cent ereaty sale has bees nv bargain” AAs she further implies, he effects of the original severe imbalance of the terms of extliange—which formed the basis of the “seeds of change” and set it in dynamic Syloie Wyter | ‘motion—can be seen today inthe empirically possessed and marginalized sicua- tion of the contemporary descendants of one of the partners to that exchange, In the United States, for example, the cerms ofthat exchange have led to 1 stetion that is far from equal. Only about rwo million indigenous peoples have survived, and even now they only barely manage todo so, despite che sumounding abun "Most of us" Harjo writes, “are in an economic survival mode on a daly basis and many of us ate bobbing about in the middle ofthe mainstream just treading ‘ater” From this perspective, 1492 was the prelude to a mode of exchange in Which "genocide and ecocide” were traded off for “the benefits of horses, cut. tise beads, pickup tucks and microwave ovens." The only posible rexpomse to such an event, Harjo suggests, sro bring an end tothe initial terms of the exe hange and tothe history to which these terms led, by joining together in order “to begin an era of respect an rediscovery, to find a new world beyond 1402"" But can there be, besides these two, a third perspective? Is it posible to go beyond what Gregery Bateson (1969) call “the old conflict and the old premises, in which we just go round and round without resolution:” that is, beyond the premises ofboth celbrants and dissents? Can there emerge a new and ecuments cally human view tat places the event of 1493 within a new Game of meaning, ‘not only of natal history, but also ofa newly conceived cml history specific to ane unique to our species, because the history of those “forms ofife" gives expres, sion :o a third level of hybrdly organic, and—in the terms of the Chilean biolo- ‘ists Maturana and Varela (1987)—ianguaging existence? ‘Michel Foucault (1973) has argued that history ofthe specifically human needs to take ts point of departure from the difesing ways in which each individual and the human group te which he or she belongs represent to himself or here, and fo themselves, the lfe that they liv. The linguist Philip Lieberman (1991) has recently provided us with the outlines ofhow such anew history could be concep ‘walized. Lieberman points out thatthe biologieal evolution in easly humans of the moder supralaryngeal vocal tract, together with the brain mechanisms necessary {© produce human speech and syntax. generated a new type of evolution: we de~ veloped a cognitive capacity related t0 our new ability fo consteuct linguistically encoded moral or ehico-behavioral systems. These developments enabled ts to Jnduce the modes of altruism that bond us together as groups. In consequence, ss 1 propose here, in pce of the genetic programs that eegulate the behaviors ofall organic species, we developed our own culture-epecific programs by which our human behaviors— otc iepeeneom that ere curly dierent hom Our now-hegemoniy techn cil ow, “Toannwer hi quesion, Ihave borrowed the concept of “akjecive undead ing” hom the arc meligence theo ane Catbonne).Carbomel uggess tha bees uma vay Know and perenve cei every wor nro terpeic bcavor evening suprordinste goals hr ses ofsubgoas og arSSpus of ther prepa copntor process can be sulted by computer, rejatthar ae thes orient abou sch ones) These gas therfore rans ur isto be peeved and wit not peseve, within efrence Ste angle cnterion tat of cir own reabation ar such gol Given that Shoe or hawt behavior ae Invaably ened in the fom ofthe speci SER, pn cogative processes by which we kw oor eat, then the behaviors Sybia Wymer | 13 that we normally display, as well as the empirical social affectivities to which our behaviors, taken collectively lead, can “give” us access to the specific mode of “subjective understanding” in terms of which we normally, even when dissidently, perceive our contemporary sociasystemic teality as well as conceive the past that led to it. Such isthe case with our present liberal Positivist conception that what Columbus did in 1492 was to “discover” America, This formulation is the basis of my proposed human view of 1492. This view is that both the undoubted “glorious achievement” of the processes that led up to Columbus's realization of his long dreamed-of voyage and the equally undoubted horrors that were inflicted by the Spanish conquistadores and setdlers upon the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean and the Americas, as well as upon the African-descended Middle Passages and substitute slave labor force, are to be seen as the effects of Western Europe's epochal shift. That shift—out of the primarily supernaturally guaranteed modes of "subjective understanding” (and, therefore, of their correlated symbolic-representational and ethico-behavioral system) that had been common to all human cultures and their millennial traditional “forms of life" ‘was a product of the intellectual revolution of humanism, Elaborated by humanists 28 well as by monarchical jurists and theologians, this revolution opened the way toward an increasingly secularized, that is, degodded. mode of “subjective under- standing” In the context of the latter's gradually hegemonic politica! ethic, not only ‘would the earlier religio-moral ethic then common to all cultures be displaced, but a reversal would take place in which the Christan church, of which the earlier feudal states of Latin Europe had been the temporal and military arm, would now bbe made inco the spiriral arm of these newly emergent absolute states. It was to bee the global expansion of those states chat would bring into being our present single world order and single world history. If the symbolic representational system of Judaeo-Christianity has continued to provide the “ultimate reference point” for Western societies, whatever the trans- formations of their modes of production (see Mudimbe 1988:142) and therefore of their historical “system-ensembles” (Hubner 1983252), the political historian JG. A. Pocock provides us with the key to che process by which Western Europe ‘was to effect its shift from the founding religious form of the “ultimate reference poine” of the Judaeo-Christian symbolic representational or culeural system to its Tater secular variants. And where he refers to the first variant as a““Christian heresy.” itis in the terms of the second as 2 now purely biologized form of this “heresy” in whose global hegemonic forms, conceptual-cognitive categories, and modes of “subjective understanding” that we al, s humans, would now come to live. Pocock (1973) points out that the Wests epachal shift was to be based on the ‘transfer of the central behavior-regulating “redemptive process” formerly central~ ized in the church under the dicection of the celibate clergy. That process had been ‘oriented about the other-wordly supraordinate (or metaphysical) goal of attaining to the eternal salvation of the Augustinian civtas dei and was prescribed to be effected through a life primarily aimed at securing one’s spiritual redemption from4 [sages A New Wild View dhe negative legacy of Adanic Original Sin, a ised inthe Founding oxi rrrske ofthe tba Genes, twas tis proces that was now transfered so- tbr earer goal tha ofthe new dhol goal ofthe growth, span~ repr and peli sabi ofeach European sae in competitive vary with flow European sites "Phe caer supradiate gl 2: encoded by the origin naratve and como- ons chess ofthe Jadaco.Chsianyrton ofthe orignal Hebrew Genesis had BNMd a the eico-ochaiord sehen of the feuds-Chrsian and pre= FRonabsance onder of Europe the later had therefore oriented ts systemic en- tea otcolecuve Behais in tems ofthe mode of "subjecuve understanding” Tih chem In convo, he new behavior onenting gol ofthe sate, that of the nis concep anwar sword arnt of he inl era Chiean galas well sof i encoding cosmogonic schema. In seetdormadon the GenesisnanavecTnnkind’enaverent to Oxignal Sin vrs olongrineprced pinay in sem and ehertore binary opposed spt! lk en asthe been inte dl onde tad tems of mankind’ Elege element tothe atonal or senor pets of human mats, hat ‘heater sopeordnue goa ef primal redemption and ctemalavtion of the fend oder was replaced by tt of aon redemption erough the ae 2 ter~ teed, Then goal eso be achieved pry hough the individ = Prana nen, cnerng he bli, rw, and competitive cxpan- seine asi thetefre cll for ane Bebanororenting ethic. Thi new sane ofeenone sate, arteunted by the course of eve haman se Penne of pla bolus tht woud take Be place ofthe eater theo reg clueum om which the feudal ode, 9 tl saperacaraly guaranteed spon emer, bad been Bed Traat aye were both the "glorious achievsnent” and he nerhuman ato ies ofthe aerath of 1492 tbe the Jan-ed effects ofthe new mode of “Subjective understanding” and peordnate goal of rational redemption of the softs new ode of pltcal ona? In answer to that spesion, | rope ‘Rac ceumenely wal meaning st be found as an imperative guide fr oor anno nts penne the contents ws wih a dineion of change even more Br vehi han the one elected in he consent of Wester Europe's epochal a= (erate oterswolly gol ofthe it: eto the dhs goal ofthe sia sea Rational Redemption/The Flow of Life, Supraordinate Goals, and Realm beyond Reason ‘The Latin American scholar Miguel Leén-Portilla has devoted his life to the stody of the pre-Columbian civilizations of Mesoamerica in their own culture-centic terms rather than in ours, His work has enabled us to see the way in which both Sylvia Wynter a5 the brilliance and extraordinarily creative innovations of the Aztec Empire (which stunned and amazed the incoming Spaniards, and therefore in effect dheir“glorious achievements,” as well asthe ritual acts of paysial sacrifice that were central to ‘heir statal polytheistic religions (in effect, theiratrocities), were both the effects of the same (in our terms adapted from Carbonnel) supraordinate goal, and of the ‘mode of “subjective understanding” to which that goal rule-governedly gave rise. ‘This goal, he writes, was to maintain "the flow of life” within the logic of a cosmogonic schema and origia narrative that was ss instituting of Mesoamerica (Leén-Portla 1990) +2 our present purely secularted variant of the Judaeo- Christian narrative of evolution is of ours (Isies 1983:509~32). Within this cos mogony, the “world had been established four times during four ages” (Ledn- Portilla 1990). Because each time it had been only by the sl-sacrifice ofthe gods, who had done it for the first time in primeval Teotihuacan, thatthe “sun, moon, earth and man” had been reestablished, a debt had been imposed on the Aztecs that had to be repaid. The debt from the sacred origin therefore prescribed rules for the collective behavior of the Aztecs that were based upon an “essential rela- tion” that, as human beings, they had with the Divine; and, therefore, in effect, with a stil-divinized nature. This founding symbolic contract then imposed the ‘obligation that because man had been “deserved” by the gods’ selF-sactifice, he ‘would have to pay his debt by his rigorous “performance” of Tlamacehuditzi, that is, penance, or the act of deserving through saczifice, including the bloody safe of suman beings.” Tt was only by the Aztec’s performance of these penitent acts— by reenacting the primeval actions of the gods and giving back what he owed through sacrifice—that “the flow of life on earth, in the heavens and inthe shadows of the underworld could be mainisined” (Leén-Portlla 1990:9).* ‘This act of sacrifice, seen by the incoming Judaeo-Christian Spaniards with gen- sine horror as “atrocities,” was therefore a central part of the same symbolic repre sentation system and mode of “subjective understanding” in whose logic and re- gime of truth the profusion of the varieties and excess of domesticated agricultural products, as the seeds of change that were to change the dietary habits ofall hi~ ‘mans were to be provided by the people whom Jack Weatherford (1988) has re- cently renamed the “Indian-Givers” ‘The central parallel here with 1492 is that Columbus was to be no less governed inhis actions by a mode of “subjective understanding” than were the Aztecs, Con- sequently, the sequence, on the one hand, of admirable behaviors that led him to persevere over many long years in putting forward the intellectual rationale, in spite of the mockery and derision of the learned scholars of his time, and that led him eventually to carry out his successful voyage “against” as he later wrote, “the ‘pinion of all the world”? and the sequence, on the other hand, of ruthless behav iors that followed his landfall were both motivated by the same countermode of “subjective understanding” oriented about the then-emerging staal-mercantile and this-worldly goal of rational redemption." The new ethico-behavioral system of “reasons-of-the-state” and its new mode of political rationality led him, on16. | 24p0eA New Hild View aniving, nt only © ake immediate poion ofthe new lands inthe name of Span borat deal wth the people of these lands population group that Chie aly nde tore tenn repr One ofthe pS Ws Sand te power ofthe Spanish tae that ha backed is voyage. The second ws Ry enc backers wel co erie nse a his Sy woth al the gland bute he could extn fom the mdignovs peoples, ven fom mak- shee it az dens yds (heads of indian en and women), who etd esol psc in onder sopport the segired able sau hat ws part fhe oma he had dawn up withthe Crown before he voyage (8 psjcho- socal sone drive Ht wa to als impel is ehavon) is id purpose was 1 telpaclerte the spread of Christian ll ovr dhe world in me forthe Second Coins of Chas, which he fren Bleed be nent Convery, Columbus’ behaviors were not ule the ritual ats of srifice ofthe Aner Their beh oe, were nell by an thic-behavoe system Shed onsccodng what seemed to them to be she imperative gal of “ensuring the fund of he Conmomoestne” and vo do this by mainening, a thei founding Spuordinste gel presebed tha hey should do, "the ew of if” Colombuss Shay jouclced eho were so be no les preseibed by the emergent ‘digi stelr pote and mereanile gol of these, which Columbus would ‘Sine tove a he while Da fo the spread ofthe fit and for he avancernent of un sts So the Ate "erste wo Become fo Co Inbursa he Spain (the Auecshomor and soishment) the imperative GFominesnings ow of gol” nan inextsbly tangled web of motes, for im the ow woul serve nr oly 0 secure the god f the sate and his own peso torent, bat finance de recongues fea rm isan oc fiom in onder to prepare the world forthe imminent Second Contng of Christ. Fears coming a uhich mary members ofthe ew socaly mobile merchant” Sdunccommapmakeretgor Ga word in which ee nabity was ll hep tron) fervent believed. Ths ashe entegory to which Columbus belonged “The paradox here ws dha te current of mullenaran bebe eonnig erough rope the ime, whose protest was directed atte Scholae ontodoxy of the Chusdh, war tobe am slo the emerging stat. Bodh fired anaes he hres goal ofan eventual caning tothe Augustinian City of Gad goal that the new cous caren now st mpteniy as cenain dt and Sane 3 one t be rend ery soon on earh—to the sate own hwo gol of aang toca rl hay Seely City, expeaed nthe say, grow, sind expusion ofthe moder and exently posigiows sae Ge Pocock 1973), Nek ths ces ofa, te wth a aan the igiusspracdinte goals regulating hither all man behaviors, was i nlftcaedwahin the rms othe “gener phx” of ie al evel Geom bod of humanism proper and ofr pecur, he movement of Christian Hansa The spocalype mlnasin mavements were inge-component of ths romani, reese Spleia Wynter | x7 In the context of this “general upheaval” (and therefore of the transformation of the divinely ordsined feudal order into the new one of the modern state), Eu. rope, by means of its return to its hitherto stigmatized pagan Greco-Roman sys tems of knowledge and learning, was to remake itself anew in all the forms of i ‘existence, Through the synergistic interaction of a new group of lay (that is, non clergy, nonmainstream) intellectuals, including “men of the sea” like Colutnibus, it ‘was also to bring in, forall humans, a new image of the earth and conception of the cosmos (see Obenga 1987; figure 1-2). I shall propose here that this new image ‘would gradually displace the culture-systemic mode of cognition by which the subjects fall human orders had known their physical enviconment only in the terms prescribed by their modes of “subjective understanding.” In consequence, cach culture’ representation of its physical environment, like that of the feudal. Christian order, had been made into a function of the ethico-bchavioral schemas bby which all humans regulated theie collective ensembles of behaviors, until the revolution of humanism made it possible for these representations to be replaced ith scent and tanscolrlyverable image ofthe eh and conception oF Because of the specific terms on which the state transferred to its new, esen- Uially mercantilist-political goal, the energies that had formerly been attached to the other-worldly goal of the church—thereby changing the earlier imperative 0” «eternal salvation into that of securing above all else the good of the state in compet- itive rivalry with all other European states—all non-Christian peoples and cultures (Pocock 1971) became perceivable only in terms of their useflness to the Euro- ‘pean states in securing their this-worldly goal of power and wealth. Consequently the collective behavior of Columbus and his crew, a5 well a ofall the later Sparish setlets who poured in after 1492 to seek their own personal enrichment and new landed status, would—within the Spanish state's overall goal of expansion —give ‘expression to this new goal in exactly the same way as the Aztecs had given expres- sion to their equally metaphysical goal of maintaining the “Bow of life” ‘The Aztecs had been governed by the supernaturally ordained goal, prescribed by their indigenous cosmogonic schema, of maintaining the “flow of life” within a stil-divinized conception of Nature:That conception had once been common to all humans, until the priests ofthe exiled and dominated Jews in Babylon, had, 35 4 central intellectual challenge to their conquest and subordination by the mighty ‘Babylonians and their divinized nature God, Marduk, counterposed the new cos ‘mogonic schema of Genesis, whose Creator-God—represented 2s having created all the forces of Nature, in the wake of Egypt's Akhenaton’s fist briliant but «eventually aborted monothcism—had led to the epochal “degodding” of Nature (Hyers 1987); a degodding that had logically pur an end to the sacrifice of humans, and to which the invading Judaeo-Christians of Europe had fallen hei. However, in spite of their degodding of nature, che Judaco-Christians had continued to be ro Tess regulated in their behaviors by the new surparodinate goal set by their ‘monotheistic religion, than had the polytheistic Babylonians by those set by the18. | 1492: A New Wold View Figure 1-2 Columbus’ our voyages. Map reproduced from William D. Philips, J. and (Catia Ralin Philips, The Hod of Clair Columbus (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992) divnzed maura forces ht were thee gos. In ple manner, che invading ropeom were o continue to be argued inthe behaviors by their sata Enuet nopordiate mpertvecf munntaning the ow of gold and wed, both forthe “goed ofthe sate” and for thr own penal envichment a he imperial tus, whom they defaed and ple, ba been repulsed by Hat of ah taining the sl-divsized "flow of ife™ However the mescansle nperative that dove Columbus cannot be den tung! om fe apocalyptic maleanan belt n th niminene Second Coming oF Chr which ed im to thc countertsn of teoing that was to break with Schlacian’ binary model of dine ceason a nod n which te feudal fs Around omen fan ones Gd who ol bin terre chong eles govening the everyday fore of mata, oss ot Mee (een fo “westre Virgie afer they have een rsined”) (menberg ToStep. and to pein ts pce anew regovered model of divine cation ‘Pos new del mould enable him cl nt queon the ctegral modes of feadalChenean geowaphy--eaegoral model in whose # pon easifatory te tc nh ofthe Westen Horisphere (the nonexiten anipoes ro 42 wc cat ngined a0 Sland nan enciling ces) bad tobe enely sub mneged under wate Syivia Wynter | 9 In his novel Zos and te Ar of Motorycle Maintenance, Ec, Robert Peis (1974) broke with the notion thar what Columbus did in 1492 was to “discover” America He argued instead that notwithstanding the schoolbook stereotype Columbus has ‘been made into, we must be aware that whereas today’s moon exploration is now “usta branch of what Columbus did” since “existing forms of thought” ae "ade uate to handle it” Columbus fst voyage could only have been effected on the bass ofa “root expansion of thought.” It was this “soot expansion” that enabled him to move outside the limits of the conventional reason of his sime, and there- fore in Foucault’ tems, outside the “ground” of the fevdal-Chistian episteme or ‘order of knowledge, of, in our tems, outside the feudal order's symbolic epresen- ‘atonal system and its mode of “subjective undersanding” Pirsig, in Farther pro- Posing that we, too, are now confronted with the vxk of effecting an analogous “root expansion of thought” then argued that “any really new exploration” com- parsble to Columbus’ that would be undertaken today ta tine when our “con- ‘ventional reason has become less and les adequate” to hanale our mounting prob Jems, would have “to be made in an entirely new direction,” would have "to move into realms beyond reason.” ‘Asmarom Legesse (1973:290~91) has pointed out, that because of the “teckno~ cultural illacy of our present order of knowledge” we fil “to distinguish the par posive aspects of human behavior (as reflected most clealy in revitalization for nillenarian] movements) and the unconscious seuctuce in human culture (as te- flected in the language and cognitive basis of social if) fom the noncnscious emp «al process that link man diel to animal sceies and to ecosystems.” So whereas science and technology are mainly relevant to the later, “they are not to the formes” In this context, both Obenga and Pirsig’ intepretations of the “glorious achievement” aspects of 1492, not only contradict the Positivists’ purely “echno- logical” imerpretation, but als coincide largely, if pu forward in more secular and rodern terms, with the “epistemological conception’ that Columbus hinmsef had ‘of a voyage whose navigational feat for him was inseparable from the councertain of reasoning with which he had challenged the paradigms of mainsteam geoges~ phy. In the logic of that geography —as he himself quoted his scholarly antagonists as afirming—"God could not have placed land there that i, inthe nonexistent antipodes ofthe Wester Hemisphere, where, according tothe rules ofrepresenta- tion of that geography, the land there would had to have been submerged, a the heavier element in its Aristotelian “actual ple” under the sea and the lighter element of water (Thomdike 1934:4:166) How did Columbus come to “move beyond the reason" of his time and t think contrary truths (@s the major Spanish dramatist Lope de Vega's portrayal of him in his 1614 play, The New World Dixoered by Chitopher Columb, would dramatize his hero-igure as doing) to those perntted by the sil largely hege- ‘monic, and divinely guaranteed, Scholastic order of knowledge? Here, the percep ‘ve analysis given by the historian Paulo Fernando Moras-Taris (1980:115-31),20 | 1ygat A New Wield View ae eee Serer ren ees report hte St epee ae eet nee (On Categorial Models: Notions of Order, the Earth Intended for “Life and the (Ceestion of Souls,” and the First Poetics of the Propter Nos “The analysis of Moraes Fats (1980) mentioned shove is bed on Dane! Sperber canal doictionbeeween two ype of an cogson. Sperber defines the fi ofthese nowledge ofthe wodd st Beene ts popose seni, trinut cr ou to make lial representations ofempincal ey in soch 2 Way th they canbe independently vee. The second type ie he "knowledge of Categories purest st make ae of emp ety a wl tl dat conn he ely Gata thac are metic and igoronlysecated), in ordr 0 athe a prise dstiestory schema on whove bas exh ode mode of “fabjecuve undestning is ected a the ode of pereepon and ogaion ‘hare bye algecs. Its onthe bas ofthat mode tat he subjects ofeach aman order ae cabled experience themselves symbolic ino nears Conequey, becuse the medial nic accounts fhe ands ad people o nomic black Aes span fom the lic of thi second type of cogaion the opentiond states their dcourse fntoned scoring ores of pte scot thea forthe then crent names of ome of he ndgenus peoples Sblack Abs suche Zan, Hala, tobe made int interchangeable mobi Chaifewory be. These libel then served co detach the peoples and nsf “rapt ndgenew Aen fom thei “mooring neat” oder to convent them nt steeped images able to anction nthe du descrip (wt the and behave psc (eon) modes tat Jean-Fangis Lyotard (1984) hides bong cheese of a cmt orate mado oh gee "sereonped mgs thet primary fenton wast inde the spec trade of perception neded by culespeie ode, a 0 thereby oct be Pcie tehnon needed by Hat onder Inch way, che eles fac Ain were made to pad inton within the noe of sbjecave understanding” of medieval am, As stereonpe mages, Lr ven dose sea comer olan coud be legimately ened, bu a, Spleia Wyser | 24 corrclatedly, as the group that served, within the “triadic formal model” of the order’ auto-insfituting clasificatory schema, as the extreme term that embodied the absolute lack of the optimal criterion of being as well as of rationality that defined the medieval Ishamic way of ie. In sum, these "stereotyped images” or labels served as boundary markers that represented the transgressive chaos that ostensibly awaited those who either acted ‘outside the limits of the behavioral norms of the order or thought (or perceived) outside the parameters ofits mode of “subjective understanding." Thus, theit central systemic function of representing, through their total negation, the medieval Is- lamic way of life and mode of subjective understanding 28 being the only possible divinely sanctioned manner of behaving luumanly, knowing rationally, and perceiv- ing according to an ostensible absolute standard of right perception meant that what Moraes-Parias cals che categorial models in which they were encoded as interchangeable labels and stereotyped images were necessarily, in Wittgensteins fine phrase, “impervious to philosophical stack” (see Wheeler 1984). Because the mainstream accounts of the earth’s geography of Columbus's era also still functioned, in spite of the Portuguese voyages, mainly within the same ““knowledge-of-categories” mode of cognition as did that of medieval Islam's ac- counts of black Aftica’s geography, their rules of representation and operational strategies followed a similar logic. The transgressive chaos in medieval Islam's trad ing and monotheistic way of lfe and "mode of subjective understanding” had been signified by a binary opposition berween (asthe exteeme ends of a triadic model) people who traded like Muslims and peoples who—unlike either the Muslims or the intermecliate category of other peoples who traded in a rudimentary manner— id not trade at all and necessarily lived like "beasts" chat is, conceptually other peoples like the Za, the Habashe. These latter were paralleled in the geographic account of the earth by feudal-Christian geogeaphy and its rules of representation, by a binary opposition that abo functioned as the extreme terms of a triadic formal ‘model. This phenomenon was specific to the a prioristic classficatory schema, on whose basis the mode of “subjective understanding.” integrating the feudal- Christian way of life, had also been generated. This binary opposition was then inscribed in an ostensibly unbridgeable separation between the habitable arcas of the earth (which were within the redemptive grace of the Scholastics’ God and His only “partial providence for mankind”), and the uninhabitable areas of the earth (which were outside His grace). Both the torrid zones (such as the lands that lay beyond the bulge of Cape Bojador) and the Western Hemisphere (the allegedly. nonexistent site of today’s America and the Caribbean) were therefore discutsively ‘made into mobile labels, s0 as to detach them from their “imoorings in reality” and to convett them into the “stereotyped images” whose function was exactly the same as that of the Zanj, and the Habasha in nuedieval Isamic geography. These Images indeed served as the boundary markers or the nee plus ult sign of the trans- gressive chaos that awaited outside the mode of rationahty of the behavioral norms and therefore of “subjective understanding” of the feudal-Christian order—in the22 | 922A Now Wild View same way as, incidentally, the Aztecs’ “abode-ofthe-dead” abel attached to the ‘ocean ao served the same function (ce Kandel 1988-76-77) “The two boundary watkers, Cape Bojador forthe torsd zone) and the Stats ‘of Gibraltar (or the Pillas of Hercules), had been deployed to represent being ‘outside of God’ redemptive grace and ouside the behavioral norms of the feudal ‘order itself. Thus, in Dante’ great pocr Odysseus and his erew are punished with shipwreck for having tansgresed che ee plus ul habitable/ uninhabitable sgn of the Pillars of Hercules: and for sailing out into the open ocean, spurred on by a vain cuciosity. That curiosity drew them away from the only tue other-worldly goal of eternal salvation and spiritual redemption, in reckless disregard of the limits ofthe Scholastics’ omnipotent God’ “only partial providence for mankind” (Blu- rmenberg 1983:239). As a providence, therefor, it was limited to the habitable temperate 2one and the "Eastern" Hemisphere of an earth whose center, both physical and symbolic, was Jerusalem, and whose outside limits were the limits of the feudal order and its syrnbolic representational system ite. “The theoretical physicist David Bohm (1987) has pointed out that each aman ‘order bases itself on a specific notion of order. The ancient Grecks, for example, held that one progressed from the earth at the lowest point of the structure © higher and higher Teves of perfection. Simsilly, the feudal order had mapped is hierarchy of spviual degrees of perfection onto the physical universe. The ion of perfection in this case arose fiom an ontological division between the clergy asthe bearers of the new "Ife" of the sprit, effected through baptism, and lay men and women a the beares of the pozt-Adamie legacy of Original Sin, who therefore perpetuated the “Ellen! and “degraded life of “natural man.” Such a lie was therefore constantly in need ofthe "redemptive proces" presided over by the category ofthe clergy, who were also the onthodox guardians of a mainstream order of knowledge of which theology (ike economics in ours today) was the waster discipline and “queen ofthe sciences” [Av the lay level of che oxder, the status-organizing principle of a represented Lillerence of ontological easte substance between noble and nonnobl (ke that be- tween dygy ad lity) was encoded in an a priorsic chssificatory schema, This schema gave expression to che physico-piitual notion of order consisting of the “wereotypea” images ofthe torrid zone (as an area ofthe earth in which life was impossible because ofthe excessive heat) and the Western Hemisphere (as an area ia which not only had Se. Augustine said thatthe waters of the Flood had been gathered up, but also in which, inthe terms of Chrstian-Arstoelian physics, the ‘more spiritually degraded and heavier element of earth, had to be submerged in its ronal plae under the element of the lighter clement of water). It was only by the itervention of God, thatthe earth of the temperate zone and Fastern Hemisphere, whose center was Jerusalem, was tel held up by an Aristotelian “unnatural” and Christan “miraculous” motion, asthe widespread current belief had i, above its “ataal place” below the water (Thorndike 1934:166). In this way, it was made into that pat of a nonhomogeneous earth that aloue was providentally habitable for mankind Spleie Wyaer | ay Ac the end of his Gist letter back to Spain after his landfill, Columbus wrote that his voyage had been one of those “things which appear impossible” yet over which “the Eternal God, our Lord can give victoty to all those who wall in his wax" “For although;” he then concluded, “men have talked or written of these Jands, all was conjecture, without getting a look at this but amounted only to this, ‘hat those who heard it forthe most par listened and judged it more ofa file thaw there was anything init, however small” (see Morrison 19$7:14-15) In his ply, Lope de Vega laid great emphasis on the mockery and derision that Columbus received from all, especially from the king and is experts at the court of Portugal. But it is the Portuguese court chronicler Barros, whose account of Columbus's dismissal by the Portuguese enables us to see the challenge that Co- umbus’ religious apocalyptic millenarianism would enable him to make to the premise of 2 nonhomogeneous and arbitrarily divided habitable/uninhabitable tarth—and therefore to the rules of representation ta which this premise gave rise ‘As Barros wrote, reporting on Columbus's countertrain of reasoning, Fe came to the conchasion hat it was possible to sil acroxs the western Ocean to the island of Cipangu and other unknown lands. For since the time of Prince Henry, when the Azores were discovered, it was held that there must be other i lands and lands tothe west, for Nature could not have set things on eatth so out ‘of proportion th there should be more water than land, which was intended fr life and the creation of souls. [Alnd all... found that Cristoveo Colom's words were empty, for they were bred on tanta, or on such things as Marco Polo island of Cipangu, (Cited in Landsrom 196731) Columbus’ readings of Marco Polo’s famous account of the East had helped convince him that Asia was only a short distance away fom Spain sailing west, and hut the voyage was therefore feasible, (Thus, the Caribbean would always be for ‘him the Indias Orcidemtles, the West Indies, and the island of Japan just around the comer fiom one or another of the islands} However, the principal “fantasy” with which the would challenge the categorial models of feudal-Christian geographic accounts came from two other driving forces. One was his messianic apocalyptic fervor, The other, allied to the first, was his psychosocial motivation as a lowly born cartographer and occasional merchant to better his social status in the rela- tively more democratizing order of the posefeudal and monatchieal stat, ‘The mode of vit based on warlike prowess had served asthe status-organizing criterion that had enabled the nobility of the feudal to legitimate its socially exclu sive and hegemonic role."* However, the rise of the monarchical state had opened "up new avenues of social prestige based on more inclusive mode of vin, One of these avenues was tenned, in the contracts handed out by the sovereigns, “discover-and-gain deeds" (that is, deeds and entexprises by which the sovereigns could commission an sspiring applicant to find and expropriate, in the name of the state, any territories occupied by non-Christians that could be militarily con24 | s4pe: 4 Now Weld Vi {quered), Such discover-and-gain deeds had become a new route, therefore, to an acquired mode of meritocratic noble status, as well a 2 route to the enrichment ‘needed t0 support this status. ‘The power of the First—the apocalyptic millenarian drive—was revealed in the letters-cum-reports that Columbus wrote to the sovereigns over a period of several, ‘years in order to regain some of the privileges that had, in the wake of his decline from fivor, been taken aay or altogether not accorded him. These letters reveal that the concept ofa “dixovery” was specific to the new staal order in the context of a crusading Christianity: specific privileges were granted (o individuals of the state ifthey could prove that they were the frst ofits vasals to have landed on a portion of non-Christian teritory aid expropriated it. The claim to have “discov cred” it was thus 2 form of land-grant within the auture-specifc judicial terms of the Spanish monarchy. In addition, the letters make it clear that in Columbus's view, it had been his own intellectual “discovery” of the fact that “God could indeed have placed land there in the West” (one verified by his empirical arival at this land), that had led the papacy to, in effec, adjudicate to Spain sovereignty over the lands and peoples of the New World. Also at that time the papacy saw itself, ‘within its mode of “subjective understanding” then, as legitimated to divide up the teritories ofthe non-Christian pats of the globe, according to whic the Chris- tian state had frst arrived ara part of the world hitherto unknown to Europeans and had therefore “discovered” it. Indeed, the pope had referred to Columbus 25 his “lectus filius Christophorus Colon” (that i, our beloved son Christopher Columbus) and as the one who had “discovered” the lands whose jurisdiction and ial ownership he was awarding to Spain (Varela 1982:260).” But before being “discovered,” their existence had to be made conceptualizable, for Latin-Christian Europe and its mode of subjective understanding then. From these letters it is cleat that, as was also the case in Lope de Vega's (1614) later dramatic portrayal of him, Columbus, too, saw the greatness of his r492 feat as lying as equally in the challenge that he had made to the “stereotyped images" of the mainstream geography of his time (inspired to do so by divine revelation and. Providence) as in the event of the empirical voyage ise. As he insisted again and again in these letters, during the long, years that he had tried to put forward his propos, all who had heard it, whether learned experts or practical men of the sea, had deemed it 2 bua (a joke) that there could be land to the west on the way to the Indies, “seeing that God had not apportioned any land to be there” (que Dios nunc habia dado ai tera), and that therefore such a voyage was “foolish and impossible” (ers bunla y imposible). He had to undertake his voyage, for the most part, therefore “against the opinion of all the world;” with only divine inspiration ‘enabling him to stand firm in his contrary eth. Seeing that the central point he would have to challenge was the premise of the hhobitable/uninkabitable line, and the nonexistence of lands above their ostensible tural place” when they were not held up above the water by the unnatural mrotion of God's miraculous and only parly bestowed grace, it was to be precisely Sylvia Water | 25 the counterthrust of his religious and apocalyptic fantasy, or countercosmogony, that would enable him ¢o callin question the arbitrary model of divine creation that had sostained the feudal image of a nonhomogeneous earth ‘The ceneal thrust of Columbus's challenge was based on his projection of the tcligious goal of the restoration of Jerusalem to Chaistanity. e was this goal, he wrote the sovereigns tha had empowered him, although a mere layman and ony setaughe, not only to see himself as divinely chosen to sil to the Indies—in arder to accelerate the capture of Jerusalem in time for the prophesied end of the world, the Second Coming of Christ, together withthe immediate realization of the city of God, with one sheepfold and one lock, on earth—but also to challenge al extablshed “truths” that stood in the way ofthe new “truths” needed to carry aut this mission. AS a result, not only had not one of the sciences that he had studied helped him with his voyage, but because his countertruth was one based on divine inspiration and revelation, the accusations hurled against him—that i, shat of being unleamed in leters (non doo ole), of being a lay seaman and profane man of the worki—as well as the mockery and derision that had been sualed at him during the long years befor his voyage, had all been of no account. All such charges could be answered by the fict thatthe Holy Spirit had filled sis mind with “Seret things hidden from ee earned.” Thus, in carying out his enterptise ofthe Indies, nether reason, nor mathematics, nor maps helped him, only divine guidance and the knowledge that because the end of the world was at hand, the preaching ofthe gospel in many lands in order to ensure the conversion of all idolaters in time forthe Second Coming, was prophecy that had to be file led: he was clearly the one appointed by God for the tsk a hand (Varela 1983; Was 1985) Within the counterlogic of his apocalyptic millensrian belief in the imminent Second Coming of Christ, and therefore ofall the peoples of the world having to te converted to the Christian fith, Columbus put forward the hypothesis of an cath that had been intended for “life and the creation of souls” I propose that this ‘vasa central part of the wider phenomenon that Frederick Hallyn (1990) has de~ fined as tat of the generalized poetics ofthe proper mo. Ie was the means by which the intelectual revolution of humanism was effected and our modes of human being thereby eventually degodded or secularized, ‘This poetics was to cal in question the mainstream order of knowledge of Scho- bscicsm, and with it, the arbitrary model of divine crestion in whose theocenteic system of inference the earth's ography had been logcilly represented as being divided between habizable and uninhabitable realms. These realms—one within God's arbitrarily bestowed redemptive grace, the other outside it—were necessar- iy nonhomogeneous. At the same time, the universe of the pre-Copernican a= tronomers had, within the same clasificatory schema, been also divided hecween the spirimally redeemed supralunar celestial realm of the moving heavens and the post-Adamic ‘falen” terrestrial realm of the nonmoving earth (Hallyn 1990). Con- sequently, the representation, before Copernicus, ofthe unchallengeable 2 prioci26 | s4ga: A New Hild View ‘ofa nonmoving earth was aso as predetennined by the same overal toremic schema based on a physico-spiritual notion of order that functioned to legitimate the sta- tur organizing principle of caste about which the feudal order autoorganized its structuring hierarchies. In the same way, therefore, the empirical reality both of the torrid zone and of the Western Hemisphere had been equally subordinated to their oles as interchangeable classficatory labels and “stereotypical images” of the boundary marker between the habitable and the uninhabitable. Consequently, i the ease ofthe latter, this role had predetermined that its lands should be represented fs necessarily submerged in its “natural place” as the heavier element of earth, tinder the lighter (and by implication, more spiritually redeemed), element of water. ‘And analogicaly, the realm of “allen” natural man, thats, the layman, was neces- sarily represented as also being ontologically inferior to the increasing spiritual perfection of the celestial realms, Therefore, ly scholars were considered innately, cognitively incapable, except they adhered to the theological paradigms of Scholas- Hans Blumenberg (1983:176~79) has shown that the binary schema based on the opposition abitable/uninhabiabl (as exernplified in the figure of Dante's ship ‘wrecked Odysseus, “justly” punished for his breaching of the nec plus uli sign of the Pillars of Hercules), as well a on the opposition between the terrestrial and the telesial, was generated from the conception of God specific to late Scholastics. ‘This conception, that of an Aristotelinized Unmoved Mover, and totaly omanipo~ tent God who had created the universe for the sake of His own glory rather than specificaly for mankind’s sake, had given rise to a thesentric view of the relation ‘between God and man, This relation had become the central premise of the “mode ‘of subjective understanding” of the Scholastic onder of knowledge. In this view of the divine/human relation, che former's total omnipotence was contrasted with the total helplessness and cognitive incapacity of “natural nian” as the fllen heir of Adam's sin, Consequently, the view that such a God, being able to intervene arbitrarily in the everyday functioning of nature, could thereby ater the rules that governed its accustomed course (cursus solites natura) anysime He chose co do s0, had led to to consequences. One of these had been the produc tion of an astronomy and geography whose rules of representation and categorial ‘models hd to “verify” the a prionstic premise of a founding ontological divide beeween the divine/celestial realms and the human/terresrial (at the level of tronom), and between the habtable-within-God's arbitrary gue, and the uninhabit- lable outside it (atthe level of the earth’s geography). The second consequence had ‘been that of generalized “epistemological resignation” with respect to the cogni- tive capacity of “fallen man.” being able to come to kxow dhe rules that governed the everyday processes of mace. These rules, because they belonged (othe realm fof God's absolute power (poteuiaalvalua), could not be known by a humankind Tunable to depend upon the regelarty of the rules governing nature in order to ‘Obtain access (o their organizing or anagogic principles (Hallyn 1990:2187) Sylvia Wynter | 27 However, it was to be precisely this theocentric and arbitrary mode of divine creation central to the Scholastic order of knowledge that was to be challenged by the inellectual revolution of humanism, specifically, by ts generalized poets of the propternos—that is, by the counterpremise to Scholastcis’s theocentic view (Hallyn 1990:56-37). This premise was thatthe Creation had indeed been made by God on behalf of and for the sake of humankind (propter nos homine). Since by the laters redefining ofthe relation berween God and man on mote reciprocally egalitarian terms, the way had been opened for Copernicus, for example, fo move beyond the epistemologiclly resigned and purely scchnical calculations of Prolemaic-Christan astronomy, in order to put forward a new “anagogicaldhrust” (Hallyn 1990254). The intelleccual thrust, that is, which, by making possible human inquiry ino the ognizing principles behind de Creation, would make possible the eventual developmient ofa science of atonomy. Hallyn here quotes the counterpremise of a wodld created for us that is centel to Copernicus’ astertion that, because of his divinely created origin, man could come to know 2 creation whose processes of functioning were tule governed, because created “for our sake” and bound by shi end. As Hallya cites Copecnicus! Foc aang tine, then, I efeted on this confiion nthe sonoma tnd Sone conser the desaton ofthe motion ofthe ners sphere. bea tobe annoyed hat the movements ofthe word machine, crete for outa (oper) byte bet st mot serie aan ofa, were no wndestood wit reste lity bythe pliloiopher, who others xamined so pecely ‘he moa igiea eile of ts word (Quoted in aly 19030), Yet this counterpoetics of the propter nos was also common to the range of ‘humanist thinkers, among them yiters such a8 Ficino and Lorenzo Vala. It was, in effect, the generalization of this poetics that was to make posible the positing ‘of a rule-governed model of divine eaton, in which the end or cause of the Creation hhad necessarily bound the Divine Creator with respect to wha! the organizing principles of his ostensibly, poenta absoluta (absolute power), would necessarily have ‘0 be, In this context, Columbus’ fervent apocalyptic millenarian belief in Christ's imminent return to realize his kingdom and to do so on an earth that had been divinely predestined for this eventual and yet imminent end, therefore itself formed part ofthe generalized poetics of the propte es oF countersystem of symbolic rep- resentation. On the basis of such representation, the feudal order af Latin Christi Europe and its supernaturally guaranteed model of "subjective understanding” ‘would be eransformed into that ofthe secularizing and rapidly expanding modern European state, and its new and post-theological mode of “subjective under~ standing.” In the context of this revolution in the conception of the relation between God and man, and therefore in the mode of representing being, the apocalyptic and2B | types New Wind View messianic projection of the Second Coming ofthe reign of Christ on earth, of one sheepfold and one flack, provided Columbus with an eschatological schema in Whore countersystein of inference all the descendants of Shem, Ham, Japhet, ‘would now be converted, given that al religions were to give way t0 one. For such an eatth, therefore, there could be no longer habitable and inhabitable, inside the sheepfold or out. All was now one sheepfold, and if not, was intended to be ‘nade 0. Above all, the seas that would make this possible all had to be navigable “Mare” On the margin of ane of his books Columbus jotted “Tetum navgaile"; that i, all seas are navigable (cited in Granzotto 1986:41). "The Incomplete “True Victory” of 1492 and the Nonhomogeneous Human: ‘Toward a New Pootics of the Propter Nos Columbus’ apocalyptic conviction of a providential destiny for the spread of Christendom to be effected through the vessel of the earthly state and its quest for territorial expansion would therefore impel him to call in question the “categorial ‘models” and “mobile elasificatory labels” of the “normal” paradigms of the geog raphy of his time. However, it would be the same dynamic that would also impel bim—ouice he arrived in an antpodes where for his learned antagonists there should have been ne laad—to see the non-Christian peoples of his newly found world as, idolaters” withiv the cerms of the emergent states equally juridico-theological categorial models. He therefore saw their lands and original sovereignty as legiti~ imately expropriable (thar is, gainable), and they themselves as even enslvable, within the overall logic of the mode of “subjective understanding” that was now to be instituting of the state, as chat which he had challenged had been of the feudal order. ‘Both Columbus and his fellow-Spaniards therefore behaved towerd the Tainos for Arawak peoples in ways prescribed by the term idolaor; and therefore, a8 t0 a ‘group who were legitimately put at che service of securing the well-being of the pparticularstic nos of Christendom. At the same tims, ehis nos was represented as if iewere the proper ws of the husnan species itself, and was so believed to be within the logie of the apocalyptic dream of “one sheepfold, one fiock, one shepherd.” In poine of fact, the term Idolator was a8 meaningless outs the mode of subjective understanding of Judsco-Christanity init tatal variant as had been the term Zan of medieval Islamic geography outside that of medieval Islam. Instead, both were clasic cases of the deployment of mobile clasificatory labels whose “wath” de- pended on their oppositional meaningfialness within their respective clsificatory Schemas. I propose here that such schemas are normally unchallengeable because they enable human orders both to enact the ro¥ allocations of their social stuc~ tures including the division of labor) and to kegitimate them a they do so, at the same time as they induce the specific modes of generalized eltuism on whose basis they are integrated as dynamic living systems of a unique level of existence—that Syloia Wynter | 29 is, as a hybridly bias and logos, organic and “languaging” level, the behaviors of ‘whose subjects are regulated by the narratvely instituted “programs” that are the conditions both of humanness, the mode of the nos, and therefore of the cognitive phenomenon defining of the human, in other words, the mind. ‘Columbus would therefore “see” the New World peoples in the way his easier leamed antagonists had “seen” che “uninhabitable” torrid zones and the svbmerged-under-vater Western Hemisphere. Specifically, he would see them within the triadic formal model of the Judaco-Christian perception of non- Christians. That is, he would see them as one category of a human population divided up into Christians (who had heard and accepted the new word of the gospel), infidels like the Muslims and Jews, who, although monotheists, had re fased the Word after having been preached the Word (and who were therefore inimici Christ?) enemies of Christ, and idolators, those pagan polytheistic peoples who had either ignored or had not as yer been preached the Word."* Columbus therefore fitted the Tainos or Arawak peoples whom he confronted on October 12, 1492, into the third categorial model, and under the “mobile classificatory label” Ioltor Here, however, the religious clasificatory schema would have interacted with the emerging juridical assficatory schema of the modern state, enabling Coluin- bus in addition to categorize the peoples he encountered in terms of the pattern laid down in the “discover-and-gain” clause of his commissions, Those terms had come to be commonly used in the commissions handed out over several centuries by European sovereigns and other potentates (Washburn 1963). Because they were Linked (0 the psychosocial motivation and commercial imperative that had also impelled his voyage, those terms would powerfully dictate his behaviors toward the nevely encountered peaples. ‘The model for this “discover-and-gain” pattern had been laid dawn over several ‘centuries by earlier contracts drawn up during Western Europe's mapping and oc- ccupying of the eastern Atlantic (that is, the Canary Islands, the Madeira Group, the Azores) (Femindez-Armesto 1987:14-31). In this pattern, it had become cus- ‘omary for the sovereigns of European sates to hand out commissions to aspiring discoverers and gainers on the basis of specific contractual terms. In all cases, the rewatd to the licensee, in exchange for his deed of expanding the wealth and power of the licensing state, was that ofa vice-regal administrative position in the ‘governance of the expropriated territory as wel as a percentage of the tax on trade ‘goods and all other forms of tribute. Also, as would be the case for the nonnobly bom in a social structure still instituted about the status-orpanizing principle of noble blood and birth, and therefore on the warrior deed mode of prowess oF vir ‘that was the correlate of this principle (see Bauman 1987), the new possibility of stataly commissioned deeds of discovering and gaining now offered the opportu- nity of a new type of reward—that of elevation to an acquired (rather than purely hereditary and ascriptive) noble status, and to the prestige ofits aristocratic prerog-30. | s4pe: A New Wid View ‘This latter clause on which Columbus insisted was to be one of the ewo central, motivations that drove his behaviors both before and after, as in Adam Smith’ (1869) fine phrase, che “delusion” chat nature imposes upon us by impelling us to seek to realize status within the terms ofthe “economy of greatness” of our specific orders, thereby inducing us to display those collective behaviors needed by our respective orders, to secure their overall good. In this context, Lyotard’s concept of the dually descriptive and behavior prescriptive role of terms, if extended to Moraes-Farias’s concept of clasificatory labels and “stereotyped images” enables us co see how the specific “knowledge of categories” mode of cognition that led Columbus to see the Tainos or Arawak peoples as idolators, and therefore, in the still hybridly religio-jurdical terms of the classfcatory schema of the emergent state, as well as of the new mercantile order based on the ongoing commercial revolution of his times, would enable him to see and to behave, overall, toward the peoples of these siallstateles societies, only in terms of securing the good of himself, the state, and of Christendom. In other words, Columbus would behave prescriptively within the limits of a _propter nas whose primary reference was that of securing the well-being of himself and his fellow Christians, Ac the same time, as the represented universality of his Christian apocalyptic millenarianism, as well as of the new stata, yet sill Judaco- Christian concept of Man, alsa enabled him to perceive the well-being of himself and of his fellow Judaco-Christian stata subjects, asf this well-being were isomor~ phic with that of mankind, including the Tainos/Arawaks (who would pay the price of extinction for this belie), in general Here Lieberman’ concept of the evolution of our moral behavior can be linked also to the evolution of our models of interaltristc behaviors—to, in effect, the limits of eur propre ns, and therefore ofthe us for whose sake, and in whose name ‘we act. Whereis the behaviors ofall organic species, including those altruistic or selfless behaviors essential to theit respective modes of aggregation of conspecific sociality are genctcally regulated, our human behaviors are dually regulated, that is, both genetically and verbally. At one level, our own animal type, or genetically programmed mode of alteuism and therefore, of conspecificity, is activated, like that ofall organic species, enly i response to the imperative of helping the narrow circle of those who can transmit similar copies of our genes to future generations. However, at the second level, the level, in effect, of the symbolic representa tional systems of our cultural programs, we behave in rule-governed response to the more "generalized modes of alteuism” that are encoded and induced by these systems, and, therefore, in response to the moral-ethical criteria that they pur into phy. At this second level, therefore, the imperative to which we respond is that of helping those with whom we ate languagingly co-identified; those with whom we are made symbolically conspecific by our orders of discourse, and their systems of symbolic representation, both of which I shall turther propose here, ae generated fom the templates of the origin narratives that are universally common, to all Imuman cultures, including our contemporary own (lsaacs 1983:509-43). Given Spleie Wyner | 31 that, as I shall further propose, humans as a third level of hybridly organic and languaging life and therefore as a species, can be made conspecific with others of the group to which we belong only through these founding narratives. In effect ‘we are co-identified only with those with whom our origin narratives and their systems of symbolic representations, or cultural programs, have socialized us to be symbolic conspecifics of, and therefore to display altruistic behaviors toward those who constitute the nos on whose behalf we collectively act. ‘The sociologist D. T. Campbell (1982) alo gives a valuable insight neo the roles of these founding origin narratives and thei systems of representations in the “con- sitioning and inducing” of our culture-specific modes of “generalized altruism” re points out that humans, although they live in complex large-scale societies like those of the social insects, have not, as primates, been evolutionarily selected to be genetically aggregated on a large-scale basis. Nor are the roleallocating mecha nisms specific to our human orders (which decide which groups go to the top of the social structufe and which to the bottom), nor those inducing of cooperation, genetically, as they ae in the case of organic species, predetermined. Instead, its our primary and genetically determined mode of primate competi- tiveness and its correlated “animal-type” mode of instinctual and narrowly excli~ sive modes of kinship, that must be overridden by the processes of conditioning effected by each order's culture-specfie system of symbolic representation—as the ‘mechanisms that can alone induce the artificial modes of affective alteusin or em pathy and, therefore, the symbolically induced modes of conspecifcity, a8 the nos ‘on which our complex human ofders ean alone be based, Consequently, as Campbell (1982: see also 1972:21-38) further argues, the role of our religious traditions is to “condition” the subjects of their order, 0 as to inculcate im them tendencies that are in dicect opposition tothe temptations repre- senting for the most part the direcdy “oppositional tendencies” produced by our instinctual animal-type mode of altruism. Such, indeed, isthe role ofall our modes of discourse and symbolic representation systems, religious and nonreligious, with the exception of the natural sciences that arose precisely on the basis of their rup- ture from this roe, Because the truths or modes of subjective understanding of each such order necessarily serve to induce both the mode of interaleruistic symbolic conspecifcty and of the propter nos on which each human order is based, and are a function, therefore of the socialization of each order’ subject, as well of the regulation of their modes of perception and correlated behaviors, all sich “tnuths” once put into place, must necessarily be not only “impervious to philosophical attack” but impervious also to empirical counterevidence. Given that each such mode of “subjective understanding” and of the “truth of solidarity” (Rorty 1985:15), the truth of what it is good for us to believe is itself only 4 proximate mechanism of ‘what itis good for each form of life and its mode of symbolic conspecifiity (or speciation), and generalized altruism, to have its subjects believe as the condition of is own stable institution and replication as such a specific form of life, oF, auto32 | ype: A New Hiv View poetic living system (Francisco Varela 1979). This can occur even in those cases ‘where these modes of “subjective understanding” and the limits of the modes of altruism, or of the prapter nos that they impose, have become dangerous and dysfunctional for the individual subjects of their orders ‘This was to be tue not only of Columbus and the Spaniards, but ofthe peoples ‘whom they confronted. And it is this historical fact, one conceived in the terms ‘of new cultural history proposed earlier, that can enable us to interpret the Janus- face paradox of 1492 fiom a transculeural and therefore human point of view, ‘What becomes clear fom Lieberman’ and Campbells theses is that although for each human ethnoculeural group our narratively inscribed and symbolically induced mode of altruism is normally activated or triggered in response to the Imperative of helping only those who have been socialized within the same cosmo- kgonic categories as ourselves, and who therefore ate a part of the same “we.” we also normally experience no suc altusn toward, or genuine co-idenifiaion wit, those ‘whom our founding origin narratives have defined as the oppositionally meaning fal markers of otherness to the “us” As for Columbus, the mobile clasificatory label idolator was to the prplernas of Christendom. As such, the Arawak-Caribbean peoples were legitimately for him afuncion of Christendom and the Spanish states’ realization—whether a slaves, as gold-tribute givers, or as encomienda serf, or even 28 converts who could bear witness to the power of the state, to the «ruth of the fth, and to their respective “economies of greatness.” Consequently, what Cerio calls the moral and philosophical foundations on which Spain would integrate the indigenous peoples ofthe continent inta its soci- ety would be effected only on the basis ofthe indigenous people's dually physical and metaphysical group subordination—one in which theit lives would be, from henceforth, merely a function of the realization of the pupter nor of the post- Columbus setders. But why were they so integratable? Once again, the isue here has to do with the limits of a specific mode of symbolic conspecifiity, the limits therefore of a specific system of symbolic representation and mode of subjective understanding. From as early as the time of Western Europe’ first expansion into the eastern Adlantic and its conquest of the Neolithic peoples of the Canary Islands, the royal secretary at the court of Spain, Hemin de Pulgar, had noted that the indigenous ‘peoples had fought with such tenacity and courage as well as military skill chat they ‘would have been invincible had it not been for one factor—that of the fierce Intergroup tivalries between chem (Ferndndez-Armesto 1987:1107-8). These rival ries had enabled the Spaniards to use one faction as their allies in order to defeat the others, one by one. As Richard Rodriguez (1991:47-56) recently points out, although Mexico’ fierce anti-Spanish nationalism led it to refuse to raise 2 public rionument to Hernin Cortez, this nationalism also led it to erase rom its historical ‘memory any suggestion of the documented fact of the “complicity of the other Indian tribes in overthrowing the Aztec Empire.” Sylvia Wynter 33 ‘Yer, seen from a transcultural perspective, it was the symbolic representational system instituting ofthe tightly knit models of lineage-clannic identity (models of ‘identity grounded in their cosmogonic schemas and origin narratives) that was at the root of these disastrous group rivalries. From here the paradox was that this system, which, within the terms of their own autocentric cosmogonie schemas, had provided the building blocks of the creative flowering of the large empires such as those of the Aztecs and the Incas, had also set unbridgeable limits to the {degrees of interaltuistic behaviors that would have enabled the indigenous peoples of the Caribbean and the Americas to unify against the iavaders—that is, by pos iting the “good” or propternos ofall the indigenous peoples (the indios in the Span ish terminology), as the primary focus of their loyal, rsther than the “good” of their lineage-clannic unit Here a parallel point must be made with respect to the thied population group: the peoples of Affica and their equally millennial and traditional lineage-clannic ‘models of identity and modes of the propter nos. If Afeocentsie scholars, like Mexi- ‘can nationalists, have attempted to erase the fact that some of the peoples of Africa ‘were active participants with the Europeans in effecting the slive trade and dis- patching sles to the New World, their antagonists, Positvist historians, have taunted them with trying to erase all memory of the fct that, in theie words, “Afficans sold Afficans." There were, of course, no “Afficans” then. Indeed, it is only within the “mode of subjective understanding” of liberal humanism that “Afficans" could have existed. Rather, here, too, the eaditional lineage-clannic ‘model of identity, and what the historian Joseph Miller (1976) cals the “particular istic worldview," or in our terms, mode of subjective understanding, to which this ‘model gave rise, served to make ie legitimate for one co-identified group to sell and enslave, normally, che members of those who were sutide the affective limits of their proper nos. Even mote, so centrally pervasive was the idiom of lineage-identty that the first slaves sold to the Europeans were, as Miller (1976:8.77) points out, all taken from the specific social category that was defined as legitimately enslaved —that is, those ‘who were termed, within the logic of the Congolese symbolic-representational system, lineggeles men and women. These were men and women who, because they had fallen out of the protection of their own lineages fin which metaphysically normal being was alone possible), had come to be repreiented—as had been the Zanj for medieval Iam, and as the category of the Nego and Negra would come to be perceived by the Europeans within cheie culture-specific representational system as the only legitimately enslavable category —ouside the limits therefore of the real “we Consequently, ifthe numerous peoples of the West African states and acephalous societies were no more able to sce and experience each other as conspecifics and intetaluuistically his-ielated “Afficans” given the system of symbolic representa tion that co-identified them on the bass oftheir lineage-clannic groupings, as the341 type: A New Hl View primary focus of their loyalty, and if, in addition, the indigenous peoples were no ‘more able to see each other as conspecific and interaltruistically related “Indians” within the logic of die equally Tineage-clannic system of representation and. its related mode of subjective understanding, Columbus and the ran of Spanish settlers were to be no more able, within the logic of their monotheistic statal model of identity and its system of symbolic representation and mode of subjective under- standing, to see and behave toward the indigenous peoples (even afier the latter's ‘conversion to Christianity) as subjects of the Spanish Crown and fellow Christians ‘who shared equally in che proper nos of either the sta or of Christendom, fat first the stereotyped image of “idolator” tha: had regulated Columbus’ own bbchaviors toward the indigenous people had, in the beginning, been the obstacle to a more inclusive propter nos, it was soon to be replaced with a new “stereotyped image” based on the Aristotelian concept of natural slaves. This concept was gener sted from a new and powerful symbolic construct that would come to take the place, in the now-secularizing Judseo-Chrisuan cultural system, that religion and the sanction of the supernatural had exrier taken for the role-allocating smuctutes of the feudal-Cristian order, one that had been based on the principles of cate, The new symbolic construct was that of “race” Its essentially Christian heretical posting of the nonlhomegencty ofthe human species was to provide the basis for new metaphysical notions of order. Those notions provided the foundations of the post-1492 polities of the Caribbean and the Americas, which, ifin a new vari- ant, continue to be legitimated by the nineteenth-century colonial systems of ‘Western Europe, as well as the continuing hierarchies of our present global order. Such legitimation takes place within the mode of subjective understanding gener aed from a clasficatory schema and its categorial models, which, mapped onto the range of human hereditary variations and their cultures, would come to parallel those mapped onto the tortid zone and the Western Hemisphere brfore the voyages, of the Poruiguese, and that of Columbus Historian Anthony Pagden (1982) explains why this symbolic construct would, in Cerio’ terms, ay the “moral and philosophical foundations” on whose “terms ‘of exchange” the sociosymbolic contract of the post-1492 polities ofthe Caribbean were originally laid down. He points out that asthe Spanish state began to rational- ize the institutions of its new empire, i¢ was no longer content to remain depen- dent on a system of legitimation based on terms that still conceded temporal power to the papacy. A series of juntas were therefore called fiom 1512 onward, compris ing both royal jurists and theologians. These juntas would make use of Aristotle's ‘Poti in order to displace the theological mode of legitimation that had granted sovereignty to Spain on the condition that i carry out the work of evangelizing the peoples of the New World and of converting them to Christianity, In the place of the category of the idlaters, the juntas adapted the category of natural slaves from Aristotle, in order to represent the indigenous peoples as ones ‘who were by nature different fom the Spaniards. This difference was one expressed in degrees of rationality, with the symbolic-cultural distance between the two groups Sylia Winter | 35 being seen as an innately determined difference, ‘This difference, they then argued, ‘made it clear thatthe “Indios” had been as intended by natural law to be “natural slaves” as the Spaniards had been also intended to be natural masters, Once the right of Spanish sovereignty had been located i “the nature ofthe people being con quered” (Pagden 1982:30), a “knowledge-of-categories” system of diseourse would Set out to represent all the cultural differences that had been geopolitcally and Socivenvironmentally determined, as part of a “stereotyped image” of innate differences predetermined by Natural Law. ‘This was the image put in play in Shakespeare's The Tempest (Li), where Miranda accuses Caliban of belonging to-a “Vile race’ who “good natures’ could not abide to be with.” Its at this conjunc- ‘ure that the triadic model of what has been called the racial caste hierarchy of Latin ‘America based on the ideal of mestsye (Rodriguez 1991:24) was fst laid down, Natural slves are not like civil slaves, who can be bought and sold, but are legally fice whatever the de facto breaches of the law. Although attached to the Spanish settles as ncomionda ser, the Indios and Indat, unlike the negos and negra, fad a moral and philosophical claim on theie nazwa! masters, however tenuously Even more, in the formulations of the theologian Vitoria that followed soon afer, and that set out to interpret the natural slave formula within a more Christian framework, a reconceptualization took place, The Indios, Vitoria argued, while Potentially as rational as the Spaniards, nevertheless could enjoy the use of theit reason only potentially, 2s in the case of children. As “nature's children" to the Spaniards’ “nature's adults.” the new system of symbolic representation san, they ‘were a people who, while free vasals of the Crown, had to be kept under the ‘wardship or tutelage of the Spaniards, jus as children were kept under that oftheit parents (Pagden 1982:r04~6). For this legitimation to be congruent, the indigenous peoples could therefore nno longer be made into a totally disposable slave labor force. And since the land~ labor ratio in which the former was in such excess supply called for a totally dispos- able slave labor force, the transported slaves of Affican descent, who, in the new statally determined wiadic model were defined 38 cv! slaves and therefore as legal ‘merchandise, would now function as the ony legitimately enslavable group of the thre, ‘The construct of a by nature/Natural Law difference was also used in the case of ‘ncqres and nggrs,ifin tandem with a biblical system of representation. On the basis of ther lineal descent, they, too, were represented as legitimate civil slaves. As the Sescendants of the biblical Ham and the inheritors of his curse, it was clear that they were also “disobedient by nature” and intended by Natural Law to be con- trolled by their slave masters, the Spaniards. This “stereotyped” representation which detached them fiom their “moorings in reality” and allowed them to be perceived and treated as legitimately enslavable—not only constituted theit attual enslavement, but also created the empirical conditions in which the moral and Philosophical foundations of the post-1492 polities would be laid down, ‘The ceneral point in this context, however, is that the triadic model between36. | n4gee A New Wild View fie men and women, “nature's children,” and civ shves, was now legitimated on tn essentially postteligious premise, that of the nonkemogeneity ofthe hurar species. ‘That premise is sil encoded in the white/nonwhite, and the European/non- European line just a the premise of the nonhomogeneous earth and universe had been encoded in the habitable/aninhabitable and celesinl/terestrial lines, Al- though the Portuguese and Columbus's voyages, as well as Copernicus’ De Revelu- tions, had initiated the deconstruction of those lines, their empry signifying slots sere to be reaccupied from thereon by two variant population groups within the context of a nonhomogencous image of the human, on whose basis Wester Ea rope was to secularze all human existence in the terms of what Foucault calls is “figure of Man.” ‘Jacob Pandian (1985:3) points out that tis secularization was instituted, among, other discourses, by that of anthropology. This discourse emerged in the sixteenth, Century as a concomitant of Western Europe's expansion into the Americas, a5 well ts into areas of Affica and Asia, and served to reconceptualize the original “True ‘Sel of the Judaeo-Christian model of being (for which all non-Christians were, necessarily the Non—True Self) in its frst, partly secular fora. ‘This form was that of the true Rational Self of "Man," who was now embodied in the subject of the expanding state, the empirical referents of whose represented Human Other were the ostensibly “savage” and irrational peoples of the Americas. Although the latter ‘were represented as the Other to Man conceived of as the Rational Self, the “dis- obedient-by-nature” category of the civil slave that is, the megros and the negra) ‘were represented as the Other to both; and they were pictured as ambiguous on the chain of being of the new notion of order based on degrees of rationality (in place ofthe eatier degrees of spirituality) between the status of the human, 2s the Specal creation of God, and that of the totally nonrational animal species. As with ‘Columbus's behaviors that were prescribed by the othemess ofthe idolstor, so the bbchaviors of the Spanish setlers—who were represented in the new discourse 25 ‘gees humanions, as the more human people £0 the less human of the indigenous peoples represented as a “native” and secondary mode of humanity—were de- Fined both to maintsin che displacement and subjugation of the indigenous peoples and to make the now racially (chat is, innately othetized “civil shave") cate~ {gory into a mere too] and instrument for the social realization of the propter nos of Sh peoples of Spanish descent, whether peninstares or erills, It was within the Structure of this social hierarchy chat the rail caste hierarchy of Latin America rould now emerge. In this hierarchy, the differing degrees of mixtures were Uesignated a more human the more they bred in the European and bred out Iidie and Negro, while che Iter category came to serve as the nev pls ult sign of rational husian being, 38 the Cape Bojador ot Pillars of Hercules that had marked the outermost levels of God's redemptive grace and only partial provi- dence for mankind. ‘The millenarian dream of Columbus's “one sheepfold and one flock” had been ‘based on the limits of a propter nes chat had nonconsciously represented its own, culture specific Judaeo-Christian and European statal os, as if € were the mas of i Sylin Winter | 37 ‘humankind in general. Others could therefore only be the lack ofthis ns, infidels or idolators. As this True Self was seculrized into the Gist secular model of being “Man” these others were to be transformed into its lac, that i into natives aad, ‘most absolutely inthe nineteenth century, ino the nonwhite native and its extreme form of Otherness the niger ‘This teem, which reduces the human to pure object, was to become central in the wake of the abolition of avery in the nineteenth century As Jacob Pandian (2985) further points out, the True Sef of the original Jadaeo-Christian model of being was (in the wake of the intellectual evolution of liberal huinanisn) reseman= Sed in ems ofthe nw marae of ereluon (wel in our ters ofthe new bivevolutionary notion of order that was now mapped onto human heredit “arsine in place of thon ofthe phys anne of Chestn- ful pengrshy and astronomy). In this shift all peoples of Afican descent (ar well as Affca itself, its culture, way of lif, and so on) were now elaborated by the discourse of nineteenth-century anthropology, as well 3s by a related complex of discourse, into the “stereotyped image” and ostensibly empirical referent of represented nonevolved, and therefore, genetically inferior, human Other, These discourses ‘were all to function according to the same rules of representation as those chat Moraes-Faras has shown Co be at workin the contemporary Western geographic accounts of the peoples and lands of black Ai, that were given by the geogra- phers of medieval Mam Gee Mudimbe 1988. So rigorous are these rules—since they are, as Wittgenstein points out in an- other context, a function of our “forms of fe" —that when Profesor Ivan Van Serta challenges the tact supposition hat peoples of ancient Afica could not have made voyages to this continent before Columbus, even though other non- white groups are admittd, if sll rarely, to have done so, what he will be up agains, are rules of representation chat areas much the condition of our present “foxm ofife” as were those that predetermined thatthe torrid zones and the West- cm Antipodes had to be uninhabitable as a function of the instituting of the feudal order. If, 35 Aimé Césaire (1960) has shown, the same rules of representation were also at work in the systemic stgmatizing representations by means of which the ways oie, history, and culures ofall colonilized peoples, because represented a the [Native Other to the figuze of “Man (now conceived of as the eugenic and opti- analy evolved and selected mode of the True Sef), Edward Sai (1978) would lter reveal the same rules of functioning to be at workin representations ofthe peoples of am wee a wot nthe representation ofthe od zone and the Western lemisphere by feudal-Crristian geographets before Columbus's voyage. Feminist scolar evened these re-governed eecryping tobe nt wor, ad in the same terms of opprobriurs, in the representation of women as have, recently, say hberationiss with respect to the stigmatization of homosexwality* Thus, the path toward that really new exploration—one able, as Pinig challenged, to effect 2 dimension of change that can patalel that of Columbus’ move beyond the con ventional reason of his ime—now opens before ts38 | ype A New World View Cee eee eee oes ee ce Oe rin ang etngand snag ofthe man cen fe ean ose re meeal oe ee rea thier? Uma tpt foe ial pores Peer aces eras Games ce viernes of ref our ow word sew of 1492, oth Columb and ter Coperi- aaa oe deol aber undenanding) Cg a eer ae ane as “ng mgmt wnln roma oe dn CISC Seton's ame freee oe oe an ce a aca Gas wraneeen Caer renee iy ie anda tiers gy ote or Ee eee aeons gay aed mea asa ee ret i atlue oh pl Emde ren eee Syleia Wynter 1 39 dah state, his enslavement of some of them, and relentless extortion of gold fiom all—the same paradox would emerge in the aftermath of Darwin's winning ofthat second “true vietory” That paradox was chat although as humans we would grad- ally come to secure our autonomy of cognition with respect to organic nature and thereby with respect to the biological basis of our encultarated humanness, both the pure biologization of such cultural modes of being together with the putting in place of a system of representations instituting a bioevolutionary notion of or- dder—one mapped onto the range of human hereditary variations instead of a catlier, on the physical and organic universe logically led to the enacting of new ne plus ul line that WE. B. Du Bois was the first to identify and define as the color line (1903).” Like its medieval counterpart that isthe habitable /unhabitale, «clei terest line mapped onto the physical universe and that had served to absolutize through the analogy of a nonhomogeneous earth and universe that it inscribed, the feudal orders ostensibly immutable status-organizing principle of «aste based on the allegedly also divinely ordained nonhomogeneity of ontological substance between the hereditary line of noble descent and those of the nonnobles (whose extreme Other was the peasantry), the color line has come to serve a paral Jel function for our contemporary world-systemic order and its nation-state units For a the line that was now mapped onto the empirically differentiated physiog. nomic features of humnan hereditary variations, within the terms of our contempo- rary mode of “subjective understanding” as generated from the origin narrative of evolution that had been made to reoccupy during the nineteenth century, the ear~ lier slot of Genesis (Isaacs 1983; Landau 1991), the color line had come to insribe a premise parallel if in different terms, to that which had been encoded in the feudal Christian order, by the line of caste that had been mapped onto the physical ‘universe as well a onto the geography of the earth. This premise is that of a bio- ‘evolutionarily determined difference of genetic value substance between on evolu- Sionarily selected human hereditary variation and therefore eugeic ine of descent (the line of descent within genetic Grace), anda series, to varying degrees, ofits nonse~ lected and therefore dysgenic Others. This conception, which is inscribed in the white/nonwhite global-systemic hierarchies, is nevertheless anchored in its ex- ‘teme form, on the white (unmixed peoples of Indo-European descent) and the black (peoples of wholly or of partly Affican descent) opposition, with the latter hereditary variation or phenotype coming to reoceupy the ealir signifying place of the earlier torrid and Western Hemisphere, within the logic ofthe contempo- rary globalized and purely secular variant of the Judaeo-Christian culcure of the ‘West, Where the earlier temperate/torrd, “Eastemn"/Western Hemisphere oppo- sition had served to totemically absolutize the represented status-organizing prin~ ciple of cate, that ofthe white/black opposition now serves to absolutize the repre~ sented generic status-organizing principle to which we have given the name cas In other words, by making conceptualizable the representation, in the earlier place of line of nable hereditary descent, of bioevolutionarly selected line of eugenie hereditary descent, the symbolic construct of “race” mapped onto the color line$01 1492 New Wild View has served to enact a new status criterion of eugenicty on whose bass the global bourgeoisie legitimates its ostensibly bioevolutionaily selected dominance—as the lege gal bese of wannaona nd rnc ie of eugene hereditary descent —over the global nonmiddle or working") classes, with its extreme Other being that of the “jobless” and homeless” underclass, who have been supposedly discarded by reason of their genetic defectivity by dhe Malthusian “iron kuws of In consequence, where the color line premise of bioevolutionarily determined dliflrentals and degrees of genetic value between huntan hereditary varia whether those defined by “race,” “chs” “ethnicity” “religion.” “nation nomic bloc.” or “ways of life"—has since the nineteenth century served to enable the sable functioning of the statu-organizing principle or criterion about which the “ism” hierarchies of our contemporary world-systemic order, as well as those ofits nation-state units, have organized themselves, the deep-seated belief in the {etic nonhomogencity ofthe human species, and therefore in the immutabilicy ‘of “race” as well asin the innately predetermined value differential of “clas” that itanalogically founds, has come at 2 high cost. As the underside of the nineteenth and cwentieth century's remarkable and dazzling achievements, this belief system has been responsible not only for innumerable atrocities that were to climax in Auschwitz, but ao for a sociosystematically produced series of savage inequalities Nowhere more pronounced than in the still-subordinated and largely impo ished sitation ofthe descendants ofthe idolators/Humian Others, whether indige~ nous or of Affican and Afro-mixed ex-save descent, these inequalities are graphi- tally expressed in the illogic ofthe present 20/80 ratio of the global distabation of the world’s resources, This ratio, as Du Bois 1903] 1961, 1953) also presciently saw, was and iscausilly correlated with the color line as he problem ofthe ewenti- eth century, Jost asthe Janus-faced nature of 1492 cannot be understood outside the incom- plete nature ofthe “true victories” chat we have won with respect to our autonomy of cognition aba species, so itis with the Janus-faced nature of our world of 1902. Because the mutation by which we have gradually come to secure the autonomy of the mode of cognition specific to our species in the wake of the voyage of 1492 has been only partial, and its true vietory therefore remains incomplete, che completion of that ftst crue victory is necessarily the only posible commemoration ‘of 1492, Such a completion would cal therefore for another such conceptual move into a “realm beyond reason’”—one able to take our present mode of reason itself, and its system of symbolic representation and mode of subjective underseanding that orient the perceptual matrices chat in turn orient our behaviors—as the object ‘ofa new mode of ingui I propo hat such 1 move beyond reaon” fas ake begun, even iil ‘marginally 0. It began in the context of a "general upheaval” whose dimensions ‘were, and will be, as fr-reaching as that ofthe intellectual revolution of Christian ‘humanism and humanism out of which Columbus and Copernicus’ challenge to Spleia Wher | 4x the representation systems and categorial models of geography and astronomy was to be effected, ‘This parallel “general upheaval” of our time was the one that began during the 19308 and 1960s, born out ofthe conjunctural phenomena both of the anticolonial ‘movements (the uprising of the intermediate category of the nonwhite colonial natives) and their challenges to the structures of the global world order that had bbeen putin place over the ceatuties in the wake of 1492. In this context, the black Civil Rights movement that followed on the Montgomery bus baycott and the collective refusal, by the extreme category of an ostensibly dysselected Otherness, of its proscribed apartheid and categorial (that is, tortid zone, Western Hem, sphere) role and place, triggered a sequential series of such movements by other nonwhite groups, including, centrally that of the indigenous peoples ofthe Amer. ‘cas. These latter would now begin the process of co-identifying thenuselves, trans cthnically, s, sf definingly, Indians It was to be their counterperspective on 1492, as perspective arising out of, and developed in the new area of Native American studies, that would, for che fst time, challenge the “stereotyped images” of the official account of the “Columbus-discovered-America” legend of 1492, a legend that represented as transcultually “true” (rather than as only culture specifically 50) has served, since the fourth century, asa central vatiant of the “evolutionary” origin narative of “Progress” founding to our present techno-industrial order. ‘Hence, the paradox that theic question “How could Columbus have discovered America, when we were here fist?” has the same resonance for out times 2s Co- Jumbus arguing against his leamed antagonists—that yes, indeed, God could have put land there in the Western Antipodes! In fact He had to!—had for his, ‘With their challenge to the “stereotyped images” of their ancestors and there- fore of themselves as a “passivized” object waiting to be “discovered” by the only subjects of history, the American Indians have changed the monologue of the fDurth into the conflctive dsiogue of the fifth. Moreover, they have begun that collective deconstruction of the system of symbolic representations that ae insti- tucing of our present “form of life” and of its model of being "Man," whose ex. treme human Other is the blick or “nigger” (Pandian 1987). The origin of this deconstruction is to be found not in the neoliberal humanist piety of mulultur, alism of the 1980s, but in the poctics of a new proper nos that began with the “general upheaval” of the 196cs, Then, given that, itis the peoples of Affican and ‘Affo-mixed descent who have paid the greatest price for keeping in being this system of symbolic representatons and its model of being and behaving, made to serve as they have been, asthe extreme term of the nineteenth-century sociological ‘ariant of the formal triadic model of medieval Islamic and feudal Christian geog- raphy; and analogically therefere, to the Zanj at the “stereotyped image” of an ostensibly atavistic nonevalved mode of the human, outside the sealnt of bioevor tionary genetic selection, its "Grace." As in the case of the feudal geography's representation of the torrid zone/Western hemisphere, therefore, and in that of ‘medieval Islamic geography’s Zanj, so the rules of representation of the historical42 | gr A Now Wil Yew accounts of this groups past, as accounts necessarily antonymic to those that ace the historical genealogy of the genetically selected model of being Man (and, there- fore, of the Indo-European population group that has been made to totemically ‘embody its eugenic eiterion, a genealogy that Bernal [2987:vol.r] recently identi~ fied as that ofthe Aryan model of the past putin place in the nineteenth century), logically predetermined how this pat or "history" had to be represented (Wood- son, 1933). These rules determined that the account of this group's past should be antonymic, t00, to the normative mainstream account ofthe history of the Ameri- cas; hence, the logic af its reflex exclusion by both Cerio’ and Harjo’ interpretive versions of 1492." At the end of his The Onder of Things, Foucault points out that the figure of Mas: only emerged as 2 recent invention “of European culture since the sixteenth cen tury” Specifically, he notes that our contemporary variant of this “figure of Man” conly appeared “a century and a half ago," as an effect of a change in the “funda- ‘mental arrangements of knowledge” that has led to ou present disciplinary com- plexes. In the same way, the frst variant of Man had led to the eatlier order of Jmowledge that he analyzes as that of the Classical episteme (1973:386-87). ‘As 2 now purely secularized model of being that could no longer be guaranteed by the supernatural realm—ss hid sil been pacly the case with the earlier variant of "Man'"—the new variant would be all the more dependent on the fanction of its Other as the extreme term of an ostensibly genetically nonselected, because nonevolved, mode of biologized being. This mode of the Other was therefore snow made to play a central role. In the same way that the "stereotyped image” of Zanj otherness had served to suggest that the medieval Islamic way of life and order of rationality was the only way of behaving humanly and thinking rationally, the stigmatized physiognomy and the mode of biogenetic being ofall peaples of Affican and Afro-mixed descent (as well as Altca itself its cultures, and its way of life and “voodoo” model of nonrationality) would now serve to suggest that our present mode! of being Man.” as totemized in the Indo-European middle-class physiognomy (together with European cultures, ways of life, and rationality) was and isthe only possible model of biologically (that is, evgenically) selected “normal boeing,” and therefore of a “way of life.” From this ultimate mode of otherness based on “race,” other subtypes of oth- ‘emess are then generated—the lower classes as the lack of the normal cls, that fs, the idle das; all other cultures as the lack of the normal culture, that is, ister culture; the nonheterosexual asthe lack of heterosexuality, represented a5 a biologically selected mode of erotic preference; women asthe lack of the normal sex, the male, So, while serving as units of an overall toteric sytem, all were them selves generated from the central and primary representation of the black physiog- omy as “proof” of the represented evolutionarily determined degrees of genetic perfecuon, on whose bans the structunng hierarchies of the social order had, o5- tensibly, been allocated. Above all, asthe proof ofa biognetic nonhomogencity of the species whose function is the exact analogue of the fanction played in the feudal order by the represented nonhomogeneity of the earth and the cosmos. Shiela Wymer | 43 1F he function ofthat eater epetented nonhomogenity had been to mggest thatthe entry and instnstonly determined sats heath of he eal ordering its ole-locsted ition of bor ane, here, the sen orgititing pinple of eae about which tae hari had secs themsves—were as based ona nna dif of btone bev ee hig, nobility nonnoble, pantry that had been soperamurlycndened oy in his Creston, a, qual, had been that ofthe pre ontlegieal fer ot substance, epresented sexing beonen ate ofthe physiol waivers aa betecn hale nihil es, besween the tial a toe toca Present represented nonhonogenty ofthe species Fane to the ae oor In other words, she curly insted sats hierarchies of os lal eter oa its nation-state subi, swe heir ole allocation of bor, sd er represented gta diminelstats-ongeizing principle encoded io De Boke “Color Line” i an, ostesly,evolonary and therfore eal doce, Ine a the general dfeence of degres of pene oreo eae Beni) between our pesen mod of being (and deere of benanag an sntonyic hun Other, baween the iidl-cass model ef being ae ad se aigget Other Consequenty if the torrid zone and the Western Hemisphere had served as the ne pls sgn and maker ofthe ootide of Gods relive bce the siognomy,Haceskin, way of He, cle, histori past of peoples of Ata ane Affo-mined descent has be eepcsented consent a the hie lung asker bewoen the ise andthe outside ofthe esteril genes devoonaned and evoluonaly selected mod of noma being” enced in Our rte model of being, Foucuk’s “Figure of Man” In this comune. he atacatfoed phones omic; ala and histor inage ofthe peoples ofthe Sn era ee seen play a cental Zang role ina power theta tatgy Ths see os designed to suggest tha eo noun ma nd ma sh hich he ear a of thee “nomphosytactc a epmentl phonological seuctk npree ag at he ame meng (Valeo 98 There. he cle rete tm fon—as the devoperstarlzed eonaption afte human that evolied at of te Jdao-Chnisian origin namave ands csmogonic hema tat fad ge Sa to avo vant model (heft hybsidy telige seule and spurte vo setenthe century Enrope, the second now purely secu and lob cope se ' htetoe a mob ofthe ds ofall pe conception ofthe hue epe sented a somorphic with te cls eta wth the elt al the vend modes of being human generico our uniquely hyd ts nag) spevne ‘This miegoaton then Rincon: steel to solic the behrioal some encoded in oor present cultures conception of being husnen aloomngacek eye srtimennitin sere hata ations taken forthe ke ofthe well bang oft leon model conta tobe perceived a they wee being taken forthe ake of he human in eevee ‘pte nos honnes, Tis bbe in the Be ofthe mounting ewidene ots ene os the pantry environment (yi and organi) wells tothe word speeoe44 1 y92tA New World View sociohuman one, was called in question by Pope John Paul Il in his recent audi- ence with the Amazonian Indians, when be spoke ofthe “vicious eycle of jobless ness and poverty" in which land-hungy insnsigrants to the Amazon Basin were as trapped as were the Amazonian Indians themselves in a “picture of pain.”* 1k was in the overll context ofthis systemic misrepresentation and its effects thatthe uprising of black America agains its imposed empirical segregation and lack of voting rights, 2s well as against its torid zone/Western Hemisphere signi- fying ole ofliminal Otherness, would merge with the ongoing anticolonial move- ments around the globe; and, chetefore, with the multiplicity of challenges by varied colonized peoples to thee respective native (if n0t quite nigger roles of signi- fing Othemnes. In this merging of movements, the slogans ofthe political and Inerary-aesthotic movements of black America that, "black power” and “lack is beautfl" —would have had the same resonance forthe eategorial models and conventional social reson of our times as Columbus’ cartographers recognition during his visit to Elmina on the coast of West AGica, that the torid zone was no abitable bt was rather densely populated (populatisina) would have had for that ofthe omhodox “knowledge of categories” geography of his” While it was to be precisely at the historical conjuncture of the anticolonial and black Civil ‘Rights movements that Frantz Fanon, the black Francophone Caribbean paychiae tist and pro-Algerian political activist, because situated 2 the crossroads of both, ‘was to be enabled to make a parallel anagogical dhrst co those made by Columbus and Copernicus and, als, within the fame ofa parallel “general upheaval"—that ofthe 1960s o that ofthe eater intelletual revolution of humanism, and is then- empowering poetics ofthe proper ies. For where Columbus and Copemicus had been compelled to dispute the theo- centre premise of Scholasticism’s arbitrary model of divine cration—the fist a the condition of his voyage, the second as that of his new astronomy—and to thereby propose a “new image of the earth and conception of the cosmos” (Obenge 1987), Fanon would find himself as compelled to dispute liberal human- ism’ biocentric premise ofthe human asa natural organism and autonomous sub- §ect that arbitaily regulates its own behaviors. And to do this a the condition of ‘is newly projected image of the human. In consequence, where the biocentic premise of our present epistemology represents the individual human subject asa genetically defined (and therefore actual) agent who, in accord with is “natural” feclings, randomly and therefore atbtranly decides how to feel desire, prefer, choose, and therefore how both to know and act upon its socal and physica real~ ing, Fanon was to call his premise and its mode of “epistemological resignation” sharply into question. On che bass of his empirical experience asa practicing psy~ chitest, with both his “native” colonial and his black Canbbean patients, Fanon proposed instead—in his Black Skin, White Marks (1964) a radicaly new and rule~ governed model of our human behaviors. Using as his psychoaffective data the regularity ofthe rflenly utophobic behvioral responses ois patients, he sought © idenaiy the wansindividual and systemic organizing principle that ay behind both the reflex and autophobie nature of these behatiors. Srl Hier | 4s Thon nated he no wih ltd voids ad en conditioned to experience thems ai they ween fice cay mer the hegemonic "iene dicoune” of camempory tele Seats et sented hem as sbely thon of Colmbuts nea alm eee es sete she tom zone/anapods, nbs iteracoon ethan tenon hea became awate tat ews wits hs autophobi econ inie mes ence fom woud cheefre be onthe bs ofthe dependable eguliis of his Hane patent reflex vesion othe mpl espn atc own flonan aay tht Fanon was wake spre! "Wha to tt made by Columns sod Caper scm on the as oft r-counter pos the pepe Aes she temolopicl sition” of onhodon Fan oyehuogr ich sought cape tons orhis ates behvion in thie nity automo pres (ori ot purely astonomons, mere fail capsize om), Fanon soup tore the “abortion oft" shat edo these chavo, toate sosone tei oganiing proces that hin tuned te “abetaton ea a Fred said Pinon, ad pd the cps on the ini He hat shots bed the dicipine of phology on ontogenetic penpecive Bue“ sz th unger” (anon 1964:10-1, Te problem ote ack ons fhe colonial nate seleaverive rections was clely no nina potons Rath it was dt ofthe proces of secilaaton by which alone es pets could hve ben insted sich refely seh ect The oxrsing principle of hich he behavior aberton wat sta ikely depict na therefore that of heme fhe sj, of which te empl indie jen wands nomal (the conon hitherto of hs o her aceon leo such a mode ofthe subject) «hooey sing inking, eg coe son. Ths waso even whet the pice ofthis we the “abemaon of er Played refely by Faron patents fiction of elzingslhoed ie th ene ‘four present opin mode of being tht of Foucls "Man" Tsar ig bec pad for he "sbematon of fc ped by al nonbac or wh oe the Ata pysiognomy, elie, ay of fe and enional modes a ony have come o spn thy had een dacuivy intact do, te outers limi and ep a sgn of bly hs bag ‘The cena mechani 2 work er, therefore wa and is tha of mesa ts oe in the process of toealarion, and thcore, nthe regan bah she individ and the elec lech of the enemeof ehaton ace acional, and perecpualcogntie—i cent Forty meant oe ase ‘f repeienation sone dat each man utder andi elene pecine eae ot epee canbe Brough ito bang sucha "ree oi a eed of han, and therfore lngaging eno What Fanon tecogzed wis the cent played in oot human behaves by our alvays ngustely consisted extern of beng (at our hance ae represented mas). Frits on the empleo tae usted te pose ing codes otsymbelc Me a death only ie that una ve Peet Whaeh {ea ins) which dey expres, that al dvds con sane be aca n46 | nga: A New World View ‘Desrartshadnthe wake ofthe oxginal pots ofthe pot ons by which he "What Fanon hal eveaed wat hat, gen the ern oF our poet mae of “nc 1" human being Syleia Wynter 147 revolution of humanism had been compelled—as had Columbus at the level of the geography and Copernicus atthe level of astronomy—to call into question: at the same time that they called in question the overall system of symbolic represen~ tations and mode of subjective understanding enacting of the model of being of the feudal-Christan subject; and, therefore, of its governing code of spitit/flesh symbolic "life" and “death,” or sociogenic principle. Like all such goveming codes or models of being whose sociogenie principles take the place, a its analogue, of the genomic principle for organic species, and thereby serve as the determinant of our order-specific human behaviors (once, that is, they have been inscribed by theie founding narratives of origin and expressed in our social institutions), the interest of our present middle-class model of being Mon in its own stable replication as such a model logically takes precedence, within the discursive logic of our present “form of life:" over the interests both of the flesh-and-blood individual subject and of the human species as a whole, to- gether with, increasingly, that of the interests ofall other nonhuman forms of life ‘on this planet. Ye, hitherto we have had litte knowledge with respect co the fanc~ tioning of these principles and of the mules that govern chem. Thus, the task before us will be to bring into being a new poetics of the propter nos. Sach a new poetics would, in the wake of Fanon’ formulation, have to engage both in a redefi- nition of the relation between conaete individual men and women and in the so~ cializing processes of the systems of symbolic representations generated from the codes that govern all human purposes and behaviors—including those of our present globally hegemonic culture, as at present instituted about in its model of being “Man.” Such a new poetics fits to be put forward as the poetics ofa post-1960s proper ‘nos will have to take 2s its referent subject (in the phice of our present referent of the bourgeois mode of the subject and its conception of the individual), that of the ‘concee individual human subject. With such a shift, che criterion ofits “for the sake ‘of will now necessarily be (in the place of that ofthe global middle classes, whose ‘well-being, because they optimally embody the criterion of our preset mode of the subject has hitherto taken precedence over the well-being of the human, as well as lover that of its planetary habitat ise) that ofthe flesh-and-blood human species; as a well-being measurable only by the well-being of each individual subject, and therefore of what Gandhi termed the “last man,” the least, in our present order, of us al. ‘Such a poetics, as the expression of the universalstic conception of the proper nos, will therefore, in the wake of Fanon, look for the explanation of our human ‘behaviors not in the individual psyche of the ostensibly purely bio-ontogenetic subject, but rather in the process of socialization chat institutes the individval as a ‘human, and therefore, alaays sociogenetic subject. Fanon's call for a sociodiagnostic of the “aberration of affect” displayed by his patients would therefore also entail the cal fora diagnostic deciphering of the system of symbolic representations and their narratively instituted orders of discourse, by means of whose unitary systems48 | yp2 A Now Wold View of meaning the process of sociation ar fected nd the abe of ech Grice and their "fons of fe" ought ina extence Sich an approach based on te concept of» human hsior asthe ory oF hoy we repent theif tha we be to oul the condon of bing in tharmedy, would ae our ngnnaasvesincding cove tha Ma Land (Von) has ecenyanalyed ss our own founding manatve of evotion, which tow tae the place of Genesio Be cna to ay inguin the proces by Mthich oor befavio are 2s lly dependably reputed ae the earth and the Cosmes would come fo be for Cok and Copernics on the bas of de fepecve wrsons ofthe pots of the pm ms, and 8 new, tl-govemed Pf ahieeion Tegel ‘io, by basing eur new approach onthe premise of equally rl-govere noe af aman stata hid a yi hat Bg ae! pe ee eee or ony (185) iis imposibe foc ust have knowlege four soi ely ode the Ts of our spel ele seleundercing, that sch knowledge and tide thse ts possible. Given that ts these aatay insted cosmog ties whose “sereoyped images and unitary systems of neanings fgets with thesgnaling cn ta hey encode, fff epult n he clue speci "god tr ofeach orders socopeic prince or governing coe dt the biologist Dail i.) wa the ft co ange, the Bochemial or opie reward system ofthe bain. And iin doings they thereby themes squat the genetealy determined mechani tha regulate te behaviors of al onan spec (Goldberg 18), then the aking a the stereotyped ager four oes Che estegoral mol inching tat which Herskovits [gt wa the Bs Hen i athe “mj ofthe Nepro as) the pon of departure fo 3 ingiy the marie ad torial seg by which the regulation ofthe bce tnechansns hat then nosate ann dace ur cauespecii ensemble of belay joo haved, should provide an opening co the gang of sich Knoles tude he nits oo preset ele sal-eoneption ST which at Canee Poot would ako propre Int, che member ofeach organic spec ae induced to apy the peterspesic bev needed to ete te Gro individual wellbeing es prorestne sce tthe sme tne ta hey, o- trier core the sable perpteion of tei specierapeiiegeneme, i the cate of human, everywterereuled by curly inated yes of behavior erening meaning, which, he props, should Beeld opium ofthe people dscouss afer Mary (Dmeli sob, se aso Goldberg 196) This Peers, he angus he proce of tcl cbeson Romy imperative fella canbe nducel in burns on by meno of th rand loch conan thu are pvtrmatvely enacted in the case af steeonyped mages”) hy the ry of wobie meuphow" af our des of dcouse, both magia an he Sybian Wynter 4p ‘retical. These correlations function therefore to induce the supraotdinate goals or ‘purposes instituting the criteria of being that govern our behaviors today, just as they governed, in thei: differing modalities, both the behaviors of Columbus and the Spaniards and those of the Arawaks (Taines) when they first confronted each ‘other on that October diy If, asa species, we are now to govern consciously, and therefore consensually, ‘the narratively instituted puxposes that now govern us, we must set out to open a path, as the only posible aman commemoration of 1492, that can open ws onto ‘he securing ofa new “true victory"—one as directed atthe winning of the auton ‘omy of our cognition with respect to the social reality of which we are always already socialized subject-observers, as that first poetic: had made possible that of ‘our cognitive autonomy with respect to physical reality; and after Darwin, with respect to organic reality. ‘The outline of what would be a possible approach to the effecting of “seeond root expansion of thought” has perhaps been put forward best by Heinz Pages, Pagels (1988:32) argues thatthe emergence of the new sciences of complexity will have as their most dramatic impact the narrowing of the gap that at present exists yetween the natural and the human world” As their impact enables us to begin “to grasp the management of complexity, the rich structures of symbols, and per- hhaps consciousness ise” itis clear “not only that the traditional barriers —barsiers erected on both sides—between the natural science and the humanities cannot forever be maintained," but also that such an erasure of their hitherto nee plus lea Jine will be the indispensable condition of completing, in my own terms the hith- certo incomplete “true victory" of 1492. That is, a completion imperative to the closing of the dangerous pap that now exists between our increasing human auton~ ‘omy with respect to oar knowledge of the physical and organic levels of realty, and our lack of any such autonomy with respect to knowledge of our specifically hhuman level of realty, and, therefore, with respect to the rules that govern the individual and collective behaviors by which each such mode of reality is brought into existence and replcated; including our contemporary behaviors that are no Jess heteronomously, besause equally culture-systemically ordered, than were those of Columbus and the “Idolators” whom he conffonted on that wotld=fateful day in October 1492, ‘With this erasure of the line between what Sperber/Moraes-arias define as “knowledge of the word as itis" (scientific knowledge) and “knowledge of eate- sgories” (knowledge within the terms of each culture’ seléconception, or the cul tural knowledge of our contemporary humanities and social sciences), a new image of humanity, will as it id during the Taian Renaissance, “emerge in the future as science and art interact in their complementary spheres.” At the same ti the bass ofthis new image, we shall be enabled co make the “narotive order” of | our “culturally constructed worlds,” together with their “order of human felings and belie, subject to scientific description in a new way” (Pagels 1988). Ie was on the basis of his new image of a homogeneous earth that was made50 | 1492s A New Wield View site Whi poetic milensian contsatory vision (agit the ethodox Acree af a ray mot vines fe mare ase ro Sh hereby body tou anton ins rale-goveret manner tat Calum Bim, both in pte and becuse o hit own Rogaat empl ror and eid roel belit, woul fet the praign siti hose ems et groper Mould be empoweted to plae th “order ofthe enh “unde scene ln fon int new wy Hn the ender of our human ehavon gen the negate corseqeners that were o fellow both inthe immediate wake of Columbus Il nthe Aeris an unt toy forthe eww populson groups he nee tnd di) who, the fat major groups to be dit te expunge ofthe West, were to find thence exegrzed inland och Behave toward being cud the mt ha it ptr man who were hrefre find hens apped by the pal and incomplete naa of te victory” (ha of our incesing cope autonony wth rpc 1 our knowlege ofthe phyla blogic level of walt hough he medium of the natal ience, on the one handy and hough he ck hs “tory” wih tect fo any sch sfonorous knowledge of te rues governing our ua behavior, onthe the, to which tet of hat fi pores of he pope a tad "This wat the ene unl the gener upheaval ofthe on made posible» ae opening ofthe colectve challenge made the sbi epresentona sytem and thr "aereoype ioge” by which we have theo nearly Sven our imumerble moder ofthe Sel an th insareabe One For tito be in the coment ofthis gneaed calenge tou Fats Fanon ould propote, ant cur peset bene naturel aod thereby abtory tvadelof ran beatin, anew cntesatory image ofthe hare, Iwao tic, boease human subject the exreson of he developmental proces of tah ontogeny aod vcigeny, noo: peti he ae inagned oe whi cur preset ede of Knowledge se sbol eresentatonal mos of scan on speci to each eure “Tr of Wend conception of being hei/our behavior mut terete beat clue-aysteiealy and evil dependsly or Sere shins ry) ere and ave hoo nate "nade for ie athe “Nate could have pu things so ox of ppt” and “Mae totum nave gabe” Columbus argued he moved into elm Beyond the eonwenond fr Son of hs tne, "Besides ontogeny, thre is oiogem Fano proposes he, tbo, moved bend thet fe Notes 1. For aspects ofthe ongoing debate cited here, see, among many others, Tono Marti net (aga) and Vargas Llosa (1990). Sylhis Wyoter | sr 2 The dissident perspective his been put forth by, among others, the Association of ‘Amesican Todian Culkures, Kiskpatick Sale (1990), and Hans Koning (1976, 1990) 3. See the Fall/Winter 1991 special issue of Nowsweck magazine. That inue-—tdled 1492-1922, When Words Callide: How Calum” Vnage Tewsformed Boh East and West— was prepared jointly bythe editor of the magazine and the staff of the Smithsonian Insita- Borfs Museum of Natural History who were in charge of the Columbian quincentenary txhibtion “Seeds of Change” See also the eaalogue tat accompanied the exhibition (Wiola and Margolis 1991) 4, These points were made by the Group of 100 in the Morelia Declaration, formulated at che Morelia Symposium "Approaching the Year 2000" and published in the New Vere Times, October to, 199% 5, See Ward (1987382) fora dicusion of ime Carbonells concept of “goal tees" in the orienting of both human and “arifcial” inteligent behaviors. 6. Note, also, that this conception served to absoutize the case-onganiting principle of Antec imperial society. See Ledn-Porll (1990:10). 7 For she series of letters in which Columbus recills how strongly mainszean opinion ‘ejected his propos, ve Varela (983). 8, See Blumenberg (1983), especially pp. 218-26, where he shows the process by which—throggh the discourse of Hobbes and athest—the discoutse of thecal slat Jam (which hasbeen a function of the fees of spinal edempion and ofthe economy oF salvation) had been transformed into that of he new discourse of poli ablutin. This hater had been, { propose, a function of the tlos of rational redemption on which the peein- serial state had been based Although he doesnot ute these terms, Blumenberg also shows how, through the Maldhsian concept of a aw of population, che discourse of €co- ‘nomic absolutism (and therefore ofthe telos of stra eemtion) had, in wen displaced, replaced chat of political absolutism wit ts own discourse and, therefore, the purely polit «al behavioral ethic with that of purely aenomie tic. {have also developed this argument sore flyin Wynter (19926) 9, See Wynter (198425), which points out that Bartolomé de fas Casas, in defending the rationality ofthe Aztecs’ act of sacrifice, antedated by some 450 years Casbonells pine with respect tothe functioning of our modes of “sebjectve understanding” As he argued atthe debate held in Vlladlid with expect tothe jutice or not ofthe conquest “Clearly one cannot prove in ashore time or witha few words infidels that to sacrifice ‘men to God is contrary to nature. Consequeutly nether anthropophagy nor human sace- fice constitutes just cause for making war on certain Kingdoms.» For the test, t sacri fice innocent for the salvation ofthe commonwealth is aot opposed to naural reason, ‘snot something abominable and contrary to nature, but tan ertor that has i origin natural reason tele” 1, This points made by Pauline Mofit Wats (1085) in a seminal essay the relic ious and apocalyptic milenrian impetus of Columbus’ enteaprise of che Indies 11, With respect tothe imperative nature of thee symbolic honding processes for humans, see Wright (2988:197-08). 3, See also Adam Smith (1869) use the concept of wt, expecially asa culture~ specific European form of each human culture's behavior-orientng criterion of optimal be= haviors. Ihave named this criterion, afer Fanow, that ofthe saggncprinipl, which ‘the analogue, a the human level of lie, ofthe code of inclusive fines that functions st the level of organie life asa behavior regulating principle based on the single criterion of52 | sgpe: A New Hind View reproductive success. The sociogenic principle and Smiths “economy of greatness” are therefore synonyins For detail oF this thesis, see Wyater (39913) 15, See alo Sale (1990-123), who cites the pope’ reference to Columbus as the “dilec- ‘us fli: Chrstophorus Colon” (beloved son Christopher Columbus), as the one who had discovered the linds whove sovereignty he was awarding o Spain 14, See Pages (1982) for an analysis of the jridico-theologiaal discourses in wich the ‘concept of dhe hans Spaniards and the Fs-huyan tndians (eased upon a represented by-naticeditferenee ordained by “natural Iw” between the two peoples) was fist isito= ‘ionslized asa pervasive belie structure 15, These charges have been made by historian Gary Nash in the context of the ongo- sng dispute and controversy ove the Houghton Milf history textbook series chat he scosuthored. 16. A bibliography ofthe books written on the epresentation of the “totemic system” ‘of the epers that serves to enact che Bioevalutionsry notion of order that is insicuting of the social steuctures and role allocations of our present global sociosystemic order, if draen ‘up, would reve the rufegorsed nature ofthe terms of epprobrium by which al ofthese [pups ate consistently stigiatied in relation to ther atonyrmic norms. Aimé Césie’s teway Disoune on Colon (160) was the precursor of Edward Said’ (1978) in-depth study of the contemporary “estegorial models" chat are instituting of “natives” as che ana~ loge of the Zany or peoples of back Affia for medieval Ilamic geographers, 25 analyzed bby Moras Fars (1980) 17. W. EB. Du Hots made hi famous declaration that “the problem of the twentieth centy isthe problem of the Color Line—the relation of the darker 1 the lighter races, fof ten in Asa Alfie in Anterica and the inde ofthe se,” in bis colection of esas, “The Soul of Bled Fok (1503) 18. The role of Ernst Hacc! in creating this “stereotypical image” in his book Anho- genie (1879) i gcused in depth by James Burke (1985). 1, These accounts, and their underlying ruler of represenctions, would begin to be as called in question by the "general upheaval” of the 1p6os (nd the call for back studies tnd other nonwhite, feminist and gay iberatonist studies) in che same ways as che rules ‘of tepresenation of the earth’ geography as wel as those ofthe overall scholastic onder of Inowledge ad been called 12 question by the general upheasal of the “hy revolation of humanism; and by Cokumbur: apocalyptic milenarian variant of this revolution. 20, See the Nis Vink Times, “Pope Asks Amends of Braiian Indians” October (9, pt Ay ‘1, The jotting made by Columbus on the margins of his copy of PieredAilly’s Imago [Mandi readin is everysay Latin, Zona tovida won ex ital, quia er cam hoe naivont Prag, in xt plist rb inca egal et asus Mine Sri rs Purnga,quom wines (The crt zone isnot uninhabitable because dhe Portuguese sil throug it even codays i ism fic thickly populated and under the equator i the Castle of ‘Mina of his Serene Hightes, the King of Portugal, which we have seen. 2a. The ewo Latin pases trate as “in the normal course ofculute™ and “inthe nara course of nature” respectively: The latter was a phrase common tothe learned tlscourse of Columbus epoch, ed Sylvia Wymter $3 References Bucion, Gregory 1969, “Conscious Purpose vs. Natu.” In Dialectic of Lileation, edited by D. Cooper Harmondsworth: Penge Buoman, Zygment 1987 Legislators and Interpreters: On Modernity, Pot-modeny and Intell. Cambridge, UK: Polity Pres. ‘Bernal, Marin 1987. Black Athena Vol. 1, London: Free Assocation Books. Blumenberg, Hane 1983, The Legitimacy ofthe Modem Age. Terlated by RM, Wallace, Cambridge, Mass: MIT Pres Bohm, David 1987 Interview with Onmi magazine, Jantary. Boorstn, Daniel 1985, The Dicovers: A History of Mat Seah 1 Know His Wild and His. New York: Vinuge Books, Burke, James 1985. The Duy the Unive Chenged. Boston: Lite, Brown, (Campbell, Donald T, 1972, “On the Genetics of Alewism and the Counter-Hedonic Components ia Human Culture” Jounal of Soci ler 28():21-38 1982, “The Two Distinct Routes beyond Kin Selection so Ulea-rociaity: Implications for the Humanities and Social Sciences” ln The Nata of Pe-Sxial Dewlepment: Inteiisiplinary Theories aud Satis, edited by Diane L. Bridgman, New York Academic Pres. (Cwallo-Sfori, Luigi Luca 1991 “Genes, Peoples and Languages.” viene Amerisan, November, 104-10 Cerio, Gregory 1991 “Were the Spaniards That Cruel?” Newsurek, Fall/Winter, 48-51 Daniel, James F 41980 “Altruism and the Internal Reward System ofthe Opium ofthe People jorual of Sel and Bolg! Seractae: Swain Eman Soibioloy 3(2) Donald, Media| 1991 Origins of the Modern Mind: Thee Staes in he Evin of Culture and Cogution (Cambridge, Mast: Harvatd University Pres. Ds Bois, WEB 90} The Souls of Black Folk. New York: Fawcett, 1961, Fanon, Franz 1964. Blade Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press emindea- Armes, Feipe 1987 Before Columns: Exploration and Colonization fm the Medieranca tthe Ati 1339-1493. London: Mocnillan Feacalt, Michel 1973 The Onder of Things: An Archaeology ofthe Hunn Seiues. New York: Random House,54 | 199224 Naw Hild View Goldberg, Jet {988 Anatomy ofa Scenic Disovery New York: Bantans Press Granzowo, Gianni Toa Clirstpler Columns, Tandlated by Stephen Sartore, London: Collis Halla, Frederick {gy0 The Pei trace of the Wd: Cperins and Kepler, New York: Zone Books Harjo, Susan Shown My Turn 1 Wont Be Celebrating Columbus Day” Nersweet,Fall/Wincer, 32, 199 Hart jefiey Toot. "Fetng the Lindbergh of the 15th Century” Sav Fiesso Examiner, October 14, (Op-Ed page Herskovitz, Melle oat The Myit ofthe Negi Post. Boston: Beacon Press Hubner, Kurt 1083, Ctqu of Scenic Resa. Chieago: University of Chicago Pres Hyer, Conrad O87 The Mooning of Creston: Generic and Modern Scene, Adana: Jobn Knox ress. Swsacs, Glyn Ho's “Aspects of Hunan Evolution.” In Botan fiom Mates 0 Mer, edited by 1D. 5 Bendall. New York: Cambridge Univesity Pros Jameson, Frederic opt Inteciew with Horacio Machén, Nuevo Texto Cio 7, Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Stanford Univesity, Stanford, Cait Kandel, Jonathan AS Li Capit: The Bigraphy of Mesico Cy. New York: Random House, Koning, Hans 1976 Colaubss His ners. New York: Monthly Review Pres gga. “Dorit Celebrate 1492, Mourn It” New Yok Tins, August 14, Op-Ed page Landau, Misia oUt Naatves of Hina Evsltin, New Haven, Conn. Yale University Press Lindstrom, Bjom 1967 Columbus: The Story of Don Crib Colin, New York: Macmillan Legeste, Asmaron oT Gata: Tee Approacs tthe Study of a Afian Soci. New York: The Free Pres. Leén-Porlla, Miguel tog "Mesoamerica 1492, aad the Eve of 1992." Working Paper 1, in Dixoverng the “Ament 1992 Laan Series, Depattaent of Spanish and Portaguese, University fof Maryland, College Park Licherman, Philp ‘opt Uniguely Humans The Evohton of Spech, Thoughts aed Seles Behavior, Cm- bridge, Mass: Harvard University Press Hosa, Mario Vargas ‘oye "Questions of Congues” Heperk December Lope de Vege, Felix wd. EI Naewo Mande decbieno piv Cristal Colon. Edited by J. Le Marine and C Minguet. Presses Universitaire de Lille Sylvia Wymer 155 Iya Jea-Fangois "98 The Pinel Condon A Rae on Knee Tanited z ane by G:Benington sr. Fwd yF ncn Neg Unty a Mae Mota and Vr woe Te Bega Rast Fama Unde. Boon: New wn? tf Boon: New Sine Libary The ine Tt Con an Ang In Mai Kn Rat it The fan Dp: nuptve Es Cane, Mas a ‘University Press. = am Mor Fans, Pl Fetando "90 "Model ofthe Wold nd Categoria Modes The ‘Esl Bari Motil Csicatory Lael ™ Sinan Asin Wt 3 Morton SE 1057 A Nea es ih Tanne eer f Climbs, Anon He ery of America. Madrid: Graficas Yagues. : 7 rete Die Mosse, George 1978 Towurds the Final Solution: A History of European Racon, New York: Howard Fertig oo "98 Tet of a: Cr Pity ed he Odo Kee Bloomin Indiana University Press. ’ a on O'Gomn eimno "98tLsdet dcinie Ane Hit de trade inti yi tse so Ein dl WV contead de Unveil de Moca, Cn tudios Filosoficos, *Genso B sis Tete of ii. Anny ne Hist Nae inte itl Naf New Wo nd tengo Fer. Boomngon nua Une Pe beng, Toph W987 "Sour Thee La pene acne cl piopie ns une pespective de ovement” expr premrd ssp opured by FESEAG, Dake December 0. rgd, ony Sol The lof Nel Man Te Ame inl Or So kin el Oris of ConmpatioF- ‘ogy. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press. = Pres Hee "980 Te Dra of Ren The Con and ie Sef Cpe. New Yo mon & Schuster. F Conley New Yor S- Pann "98 Amol h stn Tn: Ter a etc th : ‘Heights, Ill: Waveland Press. ce Pason Bene {980 Dir Nort dein: isin y Emagen Hanover: Eins Sino Mo. Robe Wi ZnO Af Maglio i hs New a Wh96 | 1yg2- A. Now Wield View Pocock, JG. 970 Polites, Language avd Tine: Essays on Pola Tht ond History New Yesk: Athe- 1y7$. The Madinvelin Maen: Porestne Pola! Thought and the Aan Pia Tad- ‘ign, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Pres Riedl, RL, and J. Kaspar 1984 Biolgy of Knowledge: The Evalutonary Basis of Reson, New York: John Wiley & Sone Rodeiguez, Richard 1991 "Mixed Blood: Columbus’ Legacy: A World Made Mestiza” Harper’, Novent- ber. 47-56 Rodriguer, Roberto 1yo1 “Quincencennial Debate: How Columbus’ Voyage Changed the World” Blak Issues in Higher Eesti 8(26)24. Rory, Richard 1985. "Soldssity of Objectivity” In Po Anulyie Piso, edited by J. Rajchman and Cornell West. New York: Columbia Universiy Pres. Rose, Wendy 1990. “For Some Its. Time of Mourning" New Hard 1, Said, Edward 1978 Orientals. New Yook: Pantheon Books Sle, Kirkpatrick 090 The Conquer of Padi: Ceitpher Calabar and the Colombian Legacy New York: Allred Knopt ‘Smith, Adam 1869 Thea of the Mol Searneus, In The user of Adam Snith, London: Alexander Moray. “Twinn Paolo 1991 Clans: The Great Adeutue, His Life, His Times and His pages, Translated by ‘Lucano F Farina and Mace A. Beckwith, New York: Orion Books THhomalke, Lynn 1934. History of Mogi and Espevimoual Scene sth and ash Centuries. Vol. 4. New York ‘Columbia Univesity Pres. Tone Marines, Jose 1yya “The Last Dissident: An Interview with Noam Chomsky" Exuntr, a Quin centenary Jouml published by the Lain American Institute ofthe University of [New Mexico and the Spain 'g2 Federation. Washington D.C, Valesio, Palo 98 Now Angus: Reis as @ Contenporiry Theory Bloomington: indiana Univer. sity Pres ‘Varela, Consuelo (editor) 1982 Cristi Colin: Testes y documentos compleas. Madrid: Aliana Universidad Varela, Francie 1979, Prnipls of Bikgsl Autonomy. New York: North Hollind, et Sylvia Water 57 Vigilant, Linda, Mark Stoneking. Henry Harbending, and Allan C. Wilson 4991 “ASfican Populations and the Evolution of Hus 253 September 37):1503-6 ‘Viol, Herman J, and Carolyn Margolis 3901, Serds of Change. Five Hundred Year sn Caunbus. Washington: 5 tation Pres. Wardrop, M. Miechell 1987) Man-Made Minds: The Promise Washbum, Wileomb 1962 Kristen Hawkes, sma Mitochondsal DNA” Scene thsonian Insi= of Arial ueligewe. New York: Walker & Co. “he Mein of icone inthe Rien an Stent Cents An ‘can Historical Review 69(4). se “ ‘Pn Me 108s "Prophecy md Discovery Ener ob na? Wesker Jk "9 Tin Co: Ho te a es ena eWil NeYc Whee Some 2 orc Conseae Deon” Now Ley Ht "ose “Undead Pinkie Sc whet tp "98 Tht Seis od Th Cols Ling Moning one aon New ‘York: Times Books. a = feat * Wye, Sy Toh. *New Seve anh Comeson Ex Jey Ragas 1opi "er Man th a Wor: Or Pinder, Pine” Mie Tee Cio Unmet, Sard Ca sop "Adee New Cas Jame, Ge Da On the Spiritual Origins of Chrizoplier Columbus, Amerian Historical Review yohs)73-102 ty" American Philsophical Quine 307-24, perience of Bartolome de ls Casas.” Janae Les Damas and the Sociogenie Department of Spanish & Postuguese, Stanford , and the Autonomy of Human Cogni- on.” Paper presented at an international conference hosted by Wel ie by Wellesley Col