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 Political Philosophy and Public Purpose

Between Politics
and Antipolitics
T HIN K IN G A B O UT P O LIT IC S
A FT ER 9/ 11

D IC K HOWA RD
Political Philosophy and Public Purpose

Series Editor

Michael J. Thompson
William Paterson University
New York, New York, USA
Aim of the series
This series offers books that seek to explore new perspectives in social
and political criticism. Seeing contemporary academic political theory and
philosophy as largely dominated by hyper-academic and overly-technical
debates, the books in this series seek to connect the politically engaged
traditions of philosophical thought with contemporary social and political
life. The idea of philosophy emphasized here is not as an aloof enterprise,
but rather a publically-oriented activity that emphasizes rational reflection
as well as informed praxis.

More information about this series at

http://www.springer.com/series/14542
 Dick Howard

Between Politics
and Antipolitics
Thinking About Politics After 9/11
Dick Howard
State University of New York (SUNY) at Stony Brook
Stony Brook, New York, USA

Political Philosophy and Public Purpose

ISBN 978-1-137-60377-7 ISBN 978-1-349-94915-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-94915-1

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016950216

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher,
whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation,
reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in
any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic
adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or
hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Nature America Inc.
The registered company address is: 1 New York Plaza, New York, NY 10004, U.S.A.
 SERIES EDITOR FOREWORD

The twentieth century has seen a gradual transformation of the concept of

politics. With the collapse of the European imperial powers, of the grand
ideologies of fascism and communism no less than the emergence of new
movements for liberation, the concept of the “political” has become a
catchword, perhaps a kind of amorphous signifier, for what many want
to see, after popular writers such as Hannah Arendt, as a new kind of
human activity. But as Dick Howard makes clear in this book, we must
keep in view that the philosophical reflection on politics means keeping
the “political” alive as a core concept of any rationally informed and pro-
gressive understanding of politics more generally. The “political” means,
in its broadest sense, a kind of ceaseless project of justification, of argu-
ment, and of contestation. It means grasping that politics is not to be
captured by any other agency than our own, that it is a self-critical, self-
authoritative enterprise.
Its opposite is “antipolitics,” or the attempt to foreclose just this project
of seeing our social world as necessarily in contestation, as irreducibly plu-
ral. Antipolitics is in play whenever a philosophical system absorbs politics
as a distinctively human activity. Whenever it is captured by the juggernaut
of historical or economic determinism or when it posits some absolute
totality toward which human beings should strive, we witness the eclipse
of politics as a creative, truly democratic enterprise. Antipolitics is the den-
igration of humans from self-governing, self-critical, and creative beings
situated in historical circumstance to that of mere cogs, parts of a larger,
impersonal force determining our good and our destiny. For Howard, the
collapse of communism as well as vulgar Marxism and fascism all represent

v
vi SERIES EDITOR FOREWORD

a gradual opening up for us as contemporaries in that now we can see

that politics is becoming liberated from the clenches of antipolitics. At the
same time, philosophy sheds its role as a purely analytic, contemplative
enterprise and is revealed as having genuine political potential.
Perhaps not unlike Aristotle’s insistence on the notion of citizenship as
action rather than as legal status, we can see each of Howard’s chapters in
this book as different peregrinations through a novel way of framing the
relationship between politics and philosophy, blending together dialecti-
cally, even organically, what has been compartmentalized analytically for
too long. Of course, antipolitics still persists. Amid various and unrelated
social forces from Islamic terrorism, bureaucratic statism, and the techno-
cratic impulses of global capitalism, antipolitics continues to push against
the grain of the political. But Howard’s interesting proposal is that we see
that antipolitics is itself a kind of politics. As such, it therefore deserves our
attention as a force that persists—even after the triumphal fall of the Berlin
Wall in 1989—and which in many ways requires philosophy as a means to
elucidate the constant tension between politics and antipolitics. Howard’s
provocative thesis is that we need to revisit the idea of politics as a practi-
cal, but nevertheless philosophically informed, enterprise and that this is in
danger of being swallowed once again in a post-9/11 context where force,
nationalism, or rigid ideology take the place of real political engagement.
Howard’s insistence on the relation between politics and philosophy
continues one of the core themes of the series of which it is a part: specifi-
cally the notion of philosophy as an engaged form of praxis and of politics
as a form of rational human activity that transgresses the bounds of utili-
tarian and methodological individualist models of man. Howard reminds
us that political philosophy is best understood as a shared capacity, one
that requires the members of any truly democratic community to adhere
to the values of inquiry and critique. With this in mind, this book is of
real importance at a time when we seem to be falling back into a curious
form of antipolitics: where technocracy expands as a response to economic
crises and moral rage now masquerades as genuine politics—both left and
right. His book should therefore find favor among all who share a vision of
a political community dedicated to the principles of democratic citizenship
and intellectually engaged political praxis.
Michael J. Thompson
New York City
 PREFACE

The first versions of the chapters that follow were written and published
over the course of the past quarter century. I have revised them, sometimes
quite extensively, during the last year as the thesis that unites them became
increasingly clear to me. The chapters are regrouped thematically around
the four types of engagement that have been crucial to the development of
my argument. Because these chapters originated as articles written in dif-
ferent contexts over a little more than a decade, some repetition has been
inevitable. I have done my best to limit it while maintaining the coherence
of each chapter as at once independent and yet interdependent within the
argument as a whole. I have also added some footnotes in order to more
clearly link arguments that relate to one another across different chapters.
Some of the articles in which these chapters originated were written and
published in French, others in English; two of them are based on notes from
talks given for German audiences. The translations are my own, which means
that in addition to the rewriting that was done to preserve the unitary thesis
of the book, the reader who searches out the original will inevitably find dif-
ferences from the present version. I have listed below the publications where
the versions from which I did the last revisions appeared. I thank the editors
and publishers for permission to revise and reprint these materials.
I should thank in particular Olivier Mongin, the director of the journal
Esprit, where I have published a wide variety of essays (including the original
versions of several of those that appear here) over a period of nearly half a
century. It is often the case, at least for me, that writing in another language,
for a different public, encourages the kind of intellectual freedom that and
self-critical perspective that I hope is evident in the chapters that follow.

vii
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS1

Chapter 2
This chapter first appeared as : “ ‘These Petrified Relations Must be Forced
to Dance’: An Interview with Dick Howard” by Douglas La Rocca and
Spencer A. Leonard, The Platypus Review, Issue #50, October 2012.
Chapter 3
This chapter first appeared as the following essay: “Politics and anti-
politics” by Dick Howard in Critical Theory and Democracy (2012) edited
by Enrique Peruzotti and Martin Plot, Routledge, pp. 29–40.
Chapter 4
This chapter first appeared as the following essay: “Western Marxism,
Morality, and Politics” by Dick Howard in The Modernist Imagination
(2009) edited by Warren Breckman, Peter E. Gordon, A. Dirk Moses,
Samuel Moyn, and Elliot Neaman, Berghahn Books.
Chapter 5
This chapter first appeared as the following article: Howard, D. (1999).
Toward a Democratic Manifesto. Constellations, 6: 237–243. doi:
10.1111/1467-8675.00140.
Chapter 6
This chapter first appeared as the following article: Howard, D. (2001).
Philosophy by Other Means? Metaphilosophy, 32: 463–501. doi:
10.1111/1467-9973.00204

ix
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS1

Chapter 7
This chapter first appeared in as the following article: Howard, D. (2013).
Andre Gorz and the Philosophical Foundation of the Political, Logos, 12:3
Chapter 8
This chapter first appears as the following article: Howard, D. (2015). Citizen
Habermas. Constellations, 22: 523–532. doi: 10.1111/1467-8675.12190
Chapter 10
This chapter first appeared in English as the following article: Howard, D
(2013). The Actuality of the History of Political Thought, Veritas, 55:1:67–
81. This chapter was originally published in Globale Rekonfigurationen
von Arbeitund Kommunikation. Festschrift für Hermann Schwengel, Voike
Rehbein and Klaus-W. West (Eds.), Konstanz: UVK Verlagsgesellschaft,
2009, p. 241–254.
Chapter 12
This chapter first appeared as the following article: Howard, D. (2011).
Claude Lefort: a political biography. Continental Philosophy Review. 44:
2:145–150, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V.
Chapter 13
This chapter first appeared as the following article: Howard, D. (2005).
The Necessity of Politics. Danish Yearbook of Philosophy, 40:37–56.
Museum Tusculanum Press.
It has also appears in The Logos Reader (2006) published by The
University of Kentucky Press.
Chapter 14
This chapter first appeared as the following article: Howard, D (2009).
What is Revolution? Logos, 8:3
Chapter 15
This chapter first appeared as the following article: Howard, D (2014).
How to Think About the Great War, Logos, 13:3
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS1 xi

Chapter 16
This chapter first appeared as the following article: Howard, D.
(2002). From Anti-Communism to Anti-totalitarianism: The Radical
Potential of Democracy. Government and Opposition, 37: 551–572.
10.1111/1477-7053.00114
Chapter 17
The text of this chapter first appears as reformatted text of an oral lecture
given by the author at Social Science Research Council’s original After
September 11 essay forum, launched in October of 2001.

NOTES
1. I have indicated below the publication of only the first English translations
of these chapters. Many of them first appeared earlier in French or German,
or were later translated and published in modified forms in those other
languages.
 CONTENTS

1 Introduction 1

Part I Engaging with the Left 11

2 “These Petrified Relations Must Be Forced to Dance”:

An Interview with Dick Howard 13

3 The New Left and the Search for the Political 33

4 The Anti-Totalitarian Left Between Morality

and Politics 51

5 Toward a Democratic Manifesto 69

Part II Engaging with Predecessors 79

xiii
xiv CONTENTS

6 Philosophy by Other Means. The Foundations

of Sociology 81

7 André Gorz and the Philosophical Foundation

of the Political 99

8 Citizen Habermas 123

9 Keeping the Republic: Reading Arendt’s on

Revolution After the Fall of the Berlin Wall 145

Part III Engaging with Philosophy 163

10 The Actuality of the History of Political Thought 165

11 The Paradoxical Success of an Antipolitical

Philosophy 181

12 Claude Lefort: Elements for a Political

Biography 191

13 The Necessity of Politics 203

Part IV Engaging with Contemporary Ideology 221

14 What Is a Revolution? Reflections on the

Significance of 1989/90 223

15 The Great War and the Origins of Contemporary

Ideology 237
 CONTENTS xv

16 From Anti-Communism to Anti-Totalitarianism 251

17 What’s New After September 11? 273

Index 289
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

1 THE DIALECTIC OF POLITICS AND ANTIPOLITICS

The thesis of this book is simple; its articulation is more complicated, as it
moves between philosophy and politics, the present and the past, a New
Left and an old one. Two dates form its bookends:1989 and 2001. The
first, symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall and realized two years later
by the disappearance of the Soviet Union, opened a new era of political
possibilities. The second, September 11, 2001, posed a challenge to the
irenic vision of a new democratic future. My thesis is that the interpreta-
tion of 1989 as the overcoming of totalitarian communism and therefore
the advent of democracy was misleading; as a result, political thinkers have
been unable to understand the new challenges that arose in the wake of
9/11. They reacted to terror with force because they did not understand
the paradoxical dialectics of antipolitical violence and political freedom.
They were caught between politics and antipolitics. This short introduc-
tion will outline the justification of this thesis and make clear the way in
which it is then articulated in the chapters that follow.
The political world during the first half of the twentieth century was
colored by reactions to the unimagined horrors of the Great War; its second
half was overdetermined by the Cold War. The revolutions of 1989 seemed
to promise that the twenty-first century could be the age of democracy.
But the defeat of totalitarianism came so suddenly, smoothly, and nearly
effortlessly that it hardly seemed necessary to reflect on what had been left
behind, and why. The opposition between communist totalitarianism and

© The Author(s) 2016 1

D. Howard, Between Politics and Antipolitics, Political Philosophy
and Public Purpose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-94915-1_1
2 D. HOWARD

capitalist freedom seemed self-evident; each represented different economic

systems on which the rights and freedoms of their citizens depended. The
revolutions of 1989 upended this perspective; they were political more than
they were economic. They made evident the paradoxical nature of totalitari-
anism. It was a political regime that denied the autonomy of the political at
the same time that the power of the state was used to suppress any perceived
challenge to the existing framework of social relations. The creation of an
independent civil society broke the barren loop that nourished a paradoxical
political regime that was built on the denial of politics.1 The autonomy of
the political became possible once the power of the state disappeared. The
democratic potential that emerged was dynamic, open, and imaginative; but
it was precarious because there existed no shared foundation for individual
choice. Seeking stability, unsure of their identity, wanting to insure security,
some who were now freed would opt for an authoritarian government while
others clung to a national or ethnic identity, and still others saw the integra-
tion into global capitalism as their only choice.2 The variety of options that
were opened with the defeat of totalitarianism meant that democracy was
not the inevitable default position. It was one option but not the only one.
A quarter of a century later, the revolutions of 1989 have failed to
realize the democracy they made possible. More troubling from my per-
spective is the fact that the existing Western democracies have persevered
in their course, as if 1989 were a confirmation of their own virtues. The
idea that democracy incarnates the good while totalitarianism is inherently
evil, along with the implication that the overthrow of the latter automati-
cally opens the space of the former, is a vast and misleading simplification.
I will instead interpret communist totalitarianism as a manifestation of
what I call antipolitics, which is a paradoxical vision of the political that
seeks to eliminate particular conditions that produce the need for politics.
Antipolitics can manifest itself in different forms.3 After 1989, it adopted
the costumes of authoritarianism, nationalism or, more easily, it simply
surrendered to the global market. Each choice incarnated a paradox since
each of these forms of antipolitics proposed specific concrete political
actions. This paradox—the fact that antipolitics is a form of politics—has
recurred repeatedly in practice as well as in theory. It might appear that
1989 overcame the paradox of antipolitical politics. The communists had
been a political party whose maintenance in power was justified as the
means to realize political goals whose rational and historical justification
had been articulated by Marx. They may not have wanted to rule as totali-
tarians (which explains the existence of reformers in their midst) but their
 INTRODUCTION 3

power depended on, and enforced, a form of antipolitics by denying the

legitimate existence of other possible political frameworks.4
It would be misleading to criticize the moral intentions of the pro-
ponents of antipolitics, or to deny the difference between living under
regimes of communism, technocracy, or fundamentalism. But the revo-
lutions of 1989 illustrate the presence of a more fundamental problem.
The overthrow of the totalitarian state opens the domain that I call the
political. This is a universe of possibilities which, because they are only
possible, are sometimes intoxicating, at other times sobering, and always
precarious. The freedom to choose becomes an imperative; it is impos-
sible to remain suspended in a world without gravity, to live in a space
where everything is possible and nothing is certain. Once that political
choice is exercised, whatever it may be, the domain of the political has
been de facto closed; antipolitics now stands on the horizon. A horizon
may point beyond the present but it can also close it off. Although some
forms of antipolitics may be more open and thus more desirable than oth-
ers, the dialectic of the political and antipolitics will perdure. The trick is to
articulate a self-critical politics that avoids being fixated as an antipolitics in
order to preserve the open horizon of the political. Practice has to look to
theory, political will has to be supplemented by judgment, present prob-
lems have to be seen from the horizon of historical experience.
This is where the second bookend of this volume becomes important.
On September 11, 2001, the dialectic of antipolitics and the political
failed. Terrorism incarnates, fixates, and freezes the horror of antipolitics.
However nihilistic it may be, terrorism is an antipolitics that does seek a
type of political end. Its perverse political aim is to provoke an overreac-
tion that will weaken its enemy at the same time that its own courage
attracts new followers. This is the point where the failure to understand
the revolutions of 1989 came to be felt. The response to the antipoliti-
cal threat should have sought an opening for a renewal of political space.
Instead, the declaration of a “war on terrorism” had the opposite effect. It
itself was an antipolitics. The reply to violence with violence has no end,
literally or politically. The war against the perpetrators of 9/11 became the
“global war against terror” that knows no limit; for that reason it is also
incapable of defining victory. The preservation of the animal existence of
the citizenry is not the realization of the political; it is the most brutal and
also the most banal form of antipolitics.
The failure to understand the revolutions of 1989 took its revenge with
the decision to invade Iraq. Whether or not they believed that Iraq was
4 D. HOWARD

producing nuclear weapons, the neo-conservatives5 within the Bush gov-

ernment as well as the “liberal hawks” in the intelligentsia recognized that
a war with no political end was doomed to failure. In order to give their
use of force a political goal, they drew a false analogy to 1989, asserting
that once the dictator was gone, the Iraqi people would enthusiastically
embrace democracy, pelting the conquering army with roses, returning
immediately to work in order to insure that the invasion was financially
and morally cost free. It should be no surprise that the result has been just
the opposite: anarchy, tribalism, and religious conflict that have endured
for more than a decade. This openness without limits destroyed the hori-
zon for the reconstruction of the political. One source of the false analogy
was the failure to recognize the difference between an opening of the
political that was the result of the experience of a civil society refusing to
kneel in the face of antipolitics and a “liberation” (and occupation) by a
foreign army.6 The other source was the misunderstanding of the revolu-
tions of 1989 that underlies the chapters of this book.

2 THE ORIGINS OF THIS BOOK: THE ACTUALITY

OF THE NEW LEFT

On September 12, 2001, the day after the shock, I was asked by the edi-
tors of the German monthly, Kommune, which had regularly translated
my political commentaries for French publications to write an essay on the
political significance of 9/11. The invitation was a sort of blessing; in the
face of such unmitigated horror, an intellectual tries to construct meaning
with the aid of his only tools, words and thoughts. I began the next day,
when the air in New York smelled still of the carnage, and the atmosphere
of uncertainty weighed even as the autumn sun warmed the blue sky. My
essay, published also in the French monthly Esprit, was given different
titles by the editors, each stressing different aspects of the same analysis.
The Germans posed a simple question, “War or Politics?” That was indeed
the question of the moment. The French editors were more declarative,
“When America tragically rejoins the World.”7 Their title alluded to the
fact that, after 1989, George Bush senior had declared the creation of a
“new world order” which he of course expected to be dominated by the
hegemonic power of the USA. In that context, the always critical French
were saying that 9/11 demonstrated that, like it or not, America is part of
the world, and that this world is multipolar, open to violence and subject
to the whims of fortune. It cannot be dominated by sheer force or terror,
 INTRODUCTION 5

nor ruled by unilateral power. In effect, America’s reply to the terror had
to be based first of all on learning how to say “welcome” to the world.
That meant that politics is necessary, but it didn’t prescribe what form
such a politics should it take.
As is often the case when trying to think the unthinkable, I looked
back to my own past for some anchor to hold together the uncertainties
of the moment. The first paragraph of my essay began with a rhetorical
question that tried to fix the immensity of the shock.“Where were you on
November 22, 1963?” Even the young remember that date because the
assassination of John F. Kennedy on that day began a new political age for
a suddenly sobered America. A similar question was posed more painfully
by September 11, 2001. However, if the murder of Kennedy was fol-
lowed by a blind engagement in Vietnam, that same American society also
engaged in a ‘War on Poverty’ that was a culmination of the battle for civil
rights. “Which would it be this time,” I asked, “when we hear of a ‘war’
against a non-identified enemy and when society seems to forget itself in
a patriotic spirit that threatens either to dissipate in the long term or to
explode into a demand for an immediate and terrible revenge?”Although
I might formulate these considerations in more theoretical terms today,
they reflect still my way of thinking about politics and antipolitics.
This search for political meaning links the challenge posed by 9/11 to
my experience as a participant in the New Left of the 1960s and 1970s; and
that earlier engagement also hints at the source of my interest in the expe-
rience of the revolutions of 1989.8 In 1967, I attended an international
conference in Veszprem, Hungary, organized by the Quakers bringing
together two youth leaders from each of the major countries in the East
and the West. It seemed like a good occasion to present a petition against
the Vietnam War. Only one participant, a Czech, refused to sign. Her
argument was precisely the one that would be developed by the future dis-
sident leader, Vaclav Havel, in his 1978 book, The Power of the Powerless,
which expressed the political logic that animated the anti-totalitarian dis-
sidents. In a word, she asked why should I go through the motions? Why
should I alienate my voice by signing a meaningless petition? Why join
the consensus? In short, why accept the values of antipolitics? This was an
early manifestation of the stubborn power that opened the hard path to
1989; it is the expression of the power of the political.9
It remains to ask what was “new” about the New Left in the West? That
question helps to explain why could and what should the West have learned
from the revolutions of 1989? The paradoxical dialectics of antipolitics
6 D. HOWARD

suggests that those revolutions represented a challenge to the dominant

Western liberal mode of thinking about the political. Although some par-
ticipants in the New Left did not shy from rhetorical excess, denouncing
political liberalism as a subtle form of totalitarianism, the essential weight
was directed at liberalism’s defense of what I call antipolitics.10 In effect,
the Western New Left was seeking to redefine the political, to open it to
critical questioning, and to refuse the limits of polite liberal discourse.
The sad story of the dissolution and self-destruction of the New Left can
in turn be explained by the dialectics of antipolitics and the political. The
unlimited field of the political that it opened was precarious, uncertain,
and anxious; it was tempting to fall back on theories, to look for certain-
ties, and to define fixed identities. Varieties of Marxism flourished, dog-
matism replaced curiosity, the inventive slogan that identified the personal
as the political turned against its proponents. That story has been told
before; I refer to it here only to explain the kinds of engagement that are
reflected in the chapters that follow.

3 THE STRUCTURE OF ENGAGEMENT

It would be necessary to write another book in order to develop the the-
ory of engagement that unifies this collection. In truth, I was trying to
formulate that larger book when I came to recognize the unity of the
chapters that compose this volume. What I describe here are four gen-
eral types or dimensions of political engagement. I do not claim that this
typology is either necessary or complete. It is built from questions that
have concerned me during the years that have followed the revolutions of
1989. It also expresses a way of thinking that is typical of the New Left
as I have briefly described it here. I leave the justification of my theory of
what a New Left could become to the larger study to come.
Engagement does not result from either political or moral certainty; it
is both an ethical stance and a political commitment. It is an attempt to see
and to feel clearly the fault lines that constitute present reality without the
expectation that they can be overcome by an intervention from the state or
by any other authority. The varieties of such engagements depend on the
particular circumstances of the moment. They are the product of reflection
and the result of judgment. They are an expression of the experience that
has made a person who he has become, and for that same reason each new
engagement is a challenge to the legitimacy of previous engagements, and
also of oneself. In this constantly self-critical manner, the diversity of the
chapters in the present volume reflects a unity. In order to make that unity
 INTRODUCTION 7

theoretically more coherent, I have revised and rewritten the chapters while
trying to call attention to the different engagements that each reflects.11
The first type of engagement presented here recognizes that in order
to confront the dilemmas of the present it is necessary to reflect on the
heritage of the left. In what way was it, and why is it no longer a chal-
lenge to antipolitics? Marxism was the leading source for the left, but its
legitimacy has been challenged, and rightly so. My analysis of the relation
of Marx’s theories to the totalitarian regimes that claimed his heritage
suggests that what Marx was trying to understand was not the material
rise of capitalism as such but the “specter of democracy.” It is nonethe-
less the case that capitalism presents real difficulties for the realization of
that democracy. This recognition leads to the second type of engagement.
Marx had to be challenged, but so did capitalism; and Marx himself pro-
vided fundamental insights into the logic of what can be called antipoliti-
cal capitalism. The founders of modern sociology at the beginning of the
twentieth century intuited the difficulty, which became more clear as the
century advanced. In France, in Germany, and in the USA, political think-
ers seized on the material questions they posed. Among them are André
Gorz, Jürgen Habermas, and Hannah Arendt. They are today’s predeces-
sors, who remain our contemporaries.
The motivation of the first two types of engagement was practical; but
its result is theoretical. There remain unanswered and perhaps unanswerable
questions that can neither be resolved by empirical research nor for that
reason be abandoned. A third type of engagement is necessary. The turn to
philosophy induces a necessary humility and the recognition of limits. The
problem of the political and the temptation of antipolitics were not born in
the twentieth century. What I call the “actuality” of political thought at the
outset of the engagement with philosophy culminates in the recognition of
the “necessity” of politics. The result is a fourth type of engagement, the
confrontation with contemporary ideologies. It will be no surprise to find
that the revolutions of 1989 and the terror of 9/11 are central to the illus-
tration of this fourth type of engagement. Once again, the primacy of the
political has to be reaffirmed against the temptation of antipolitics in order
to understand a more philosophical account of “what is revolutionary”
about these revolutions. From another perspective, the attempt to discern
“What’s New After September 11, 2001”echoes the preoccupation from
which this project began, the attempt to understand and to revitalize the
idea of a New Left. With these two bookends, the dialectics of politics and
antipolitics has come full circle; it cannot be escaped but it must be engaged.
8 D. HOWARD

NOTES
1. There is an ambiguity in the preceding two sentences due to the difference
between the French and English languages. When I refer to “the political”
I have in mind what the French designate as le politique, which refers to
that framework of meaning within which “politics” in the ordinary sense
(as la politique) takes place. It is not always possible to maintain this dis-
tinction in English, as in this example. I have tried throughout this book to
maintain the conceptual distinction when the linguistic usage tends to con-
fuse the two meanings.
2. There were many choices open, including withdrawal into private life, a
return to religion, or even the attempt to recreate a socialism free of the
taint of totalitarianism. The latter was the most difficult, most ambiguous,
and least trod path. In the case that I know from experience, the former
German Democratic Republic (GDR), most of my leftist–reformist friends
did not join the reformed communist party that has competed (with some
success) in united Germany’s elections under the name of “Die Linke” (the
Left). The hopes of those friends for a new start were disappointed, per-
haps inevitably.
3. The paradigm case of antipolitics can be found in Plato’s theory of the
need for a Philosopher King to insure the truly good life. For a history of
antipolitics, c.f., my account of The Primacy of the Political. A History of
Political Thought from the Greeks to the American and French Revolutions
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2011). A short sketch of this his-
torical development is found in “The Actuality of the History of Political
Thought,” Chap. 10 below.
4. Before casting stones at Marx, it should be noted that the same structure
recurs when government is handed to technocratic experts, to liberal ideo-
logues, or to religious fundamentalists. The realization of their political
aims entails the closing of other political possibilities. C.f. for a recent illus-
tration David Rieff’s critique of “philanthrocapitalism” The Reproach of
Hunger (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2015), in chapter 12 titled
“Philanthrocapitalism: A [Self-]Love Story.” An excerpt from this chapter
criticizing the political implications of the work of the Gates Foundation
was published in The Nation, June 15, 2015.
5. Many of the neo-conservatives had been active in the anti-communist
Congress for Cultural Freedom. However, they did not draw the anti-
totalitarian lesson from their experience. C.f., “From Anti-Communism to
Anti-Totalitarianism,” Chap. 16, below. Hannah Arendt had pointed to
their blind spot when she argued that “ex-communists” (as distinct from
“former communists”) show the same traits as the communists: the same
 INTRODUCTION 9

self-certainty, the same vision of historical necessity, and the willingness to

use any means because the end they serve is historically justified. Arendt’s
essay, published in Commonweal in 1953, is reprinted in her Essays in
Understanding, 1930–1954 (New York: Harcourt, 1994).
6. The most astute study of this failure, which both takes account of the false
analogy while reflecting critically on the revolutions of 1989 is Andrew
Arato’s Constitution Making under Occupation. The Politics of Imposed
Revolution in Iraq (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). C.f. also
“The New Left and the Search for the Political,” Chap. 3 below as well as
“What’s New After September 11, 2001?,” Chap. 17 below, which reflects
the political choices facing the left in the immediate aftermath of 9/11,
before the disastrous invasion of Irak. I have retained this chapter in spite
of the changed circumstances because the questions that it asks retain their
relevance.
7. I do not know if either title was my choice as I am unable to find the
French original (there was no English version). I returned to these themes
in a Forum organized by the Social Science Research Council called “10
Years after September 11.” That essay is available at http://essays.ssrc.
org/10yearsafter911/echoes-of-911-anti-politics-and-politics-from-bush-
to-obama/
8. I describe some aspects of that experience in the rewritten biographical
interview that constitutes Chap. 2 of this volume under the title (borrowed
from the young Marx), “Make these Petrified Relations Dance….”
9. She did eventually sign when she was convinced that the petition could
have some real significance; and she remained a dissident in her home
country until the revolution of 1989. C.f., also my essay on the origins of
the Arab Spring that began in 2011, first published in Kommune in
October, 2011, and translated into English as “The resistance of those
who desire not to be ruled,” in Philosophy & Social Criticism, Vol. 38, No
4–5, 2012, pp. 517–523.
10. Whereas totalitarianism is generally imposed from the top down, antipoli-
tics can have its origins within society itself. This implies that antipolitics is
not necessarily totalitarian, although totalitarianism is always a form of
antipolitics.
11. As in the case of the just-mentioned essay on 9/11, I have left aside
much of the occasional writing that I have published elsewhere. I call
attention in this footnote to that other kind of public engagement to
underline the fact that the conceptual arguments in this volume are based
on regular and critical commentary on day-to-day politics. Aside from
writing in daily newspapers or monthly journals, at the suggestion of my
French editor, I wrote for a full year weekly commentaries on American
10 D. HOWARD

politics with the proviso that none would be published until the year had
gone by and a book had been produced. The result was La démocratie à
l’épreuve (Paris: Buchet-Chastel, 2006). In another such long-term
engagement, I contributed weekly 8-minute commentaries for Radio
Canada (Montreal) during the 15 months leading to the 2012 American
elections.
 PART I

Engaging with the Left

 CHAPTER 2

“These Petrified Relations Must Be Forced

to Dance”: An Interview with Dick Howard

I have attempted to preserve the conversational and improvised nature of

this interview published in the journal Platypus edited by a group of young
intellectual activists. The title of their publication makes clear their openness
to critical thought: it refers to Frederich Engels’ dogmatic refusal to accept
the discovery in Australia of an animal that was an egg-laying mammel. That
seemed to the author of The Dialectics of Nature to be a logical impossibility.
Calling their journal the Platypus suggests their own critical attitude toward
Marxist dogmatism. Thanks particularly to Douglas La Rocca for his ini-
tiative. His creative imagination, initiative and persistance made it possi-
ble; Spencer Leonard’s editorial work is reflected in the restructuring of
the discussion for publication in the Platypus, which I have modified where
necessary.

Spencer A. Leonard
In The Development of the Marxian Dialectic (1972), you countered Louis
Althusser on the question of Marx’s relationship to the Young Hegelians
and, through them, to German Idealism as a whole. And you specifically
instanced Lukács as a crucial forbearer in arguing that
[T]he dialectic is the key to Marx’s position—his theory and his prac-
tice… dialectical philosophy is the only kind that can break the monotony
of word games and historical or philological research [typical of philoso-
phy departments at the time], and the only one whose method does not,
by its very nature, condemn it to be a defense of the established order.
(Howard 1972)

© The Author(s) 2016 13

D. Howard, Between Politics and Antipolitics, Political Philosophy
and Public Purpose, DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-94915-1_2
14 D. HOWARD

What at that time demanded the sort of return to Marx’s dialectic that
you undertook? How do you see your work as fitting in with the larger
New Left “return to Marx”?

Dick Howard
First of all, there was really no “Marx” to return to in America. There
was only a Communism that had become completely irrelevant. The
1844 Manuscripts were not translated into English until 1959 by Martin
Milligan and, then, more influentially in 1963 by Tom Bottomore. These
writings brought out things that were new, particularly with regard to the
canonical communist Marx. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, the
theory of alienation became the basis of a critical humanism that was used
by some European communists to challenge the rigid economic deter-
minist orthodoxy of the established communist parties—or to provide a
reason to leave or avoid them altogether. But few of us in the States were
aware of these stakes.
Why, then, was I concerned with political economy? When I arrived in
Europe as a graduate student, I discovered Althusser, as you mentioned.
My first impression of Althusser, particularly of his For Marx, was aston-
ishment. His idea that Marx discovered through his critique of politi-
cal economy a “new continent” could not help but fascinate someone
who was looking for a new left . I actually made an appointment to see
Althusser at the École Normale because I wanted to attend his seminars.
It was one of the strangest conversations I’ve ever had—I talked, he lis-
tened, he said nothing. I talked some more, he listened, yet still he said
nothing. Finally, as I tried to find a good way to end the conversation he
said, “Well, of course, you can come to my seminar.” When I arrived on
the first day, there was a sign on the door saying “Monsieur Althusser est
souffrant.” He was having one of his nervous breakdowns. That was cer-
tainly not the only reason that I never became an Althusserian, although
I did study diligently and later taught the canonical works of the struc-
turalists, from Saussure onward. And I remember sitting in an hot and
overcrowded lecture hall at the Sorbonne where Althusser delivered to the
French Philosophical Society his lecture on “Lenin and Philosophy.” By
that time Althusser’s sophistry at the service of extra-philosophical ends
(hidden under the guise of “science”) had become apparent.
That first encounter with Althusser does explain at least in part the
subtitle of The Development of the Marxian Dialectic: “from philosophy to
political economy.” What I wanted to figure out was how and why Marx
started as a critical philosopher but ended up doing political economy. Was
 “THESE PETRIFIED RELATIONS MUST BE FORCED TO DANCE”... 15

there a rupture between the “two Marxes,” as Althusser argued; or was

there a continuity, as I hoped?
This is where the influence of Lukács was crucial. His 1923 collec-
tion of essays, History and Class Consciousness, developed the thematic of
continuity, particularly in his chapter on “reification and the conscious-
ness of the proletariat.” The same year also saw the publication of Karl
Korsch’s Marxism and Philosophy, which I also discovered at this time.
Both books were condemned by the Communist International, but Lukács
went to Canossa, accepting the condemnation, and took his book out of
circulation. Korsch continued on his crirtical path. Why the condemna-
tion? Here we come to the dialectic, and to political economy. Lukács
developed his major thesis concerning reification and alienation by read-
ing Capital as a critical Hegelian. In this way, he anticipated many of the
insights that only became known when the 1844 Manuscripts, of which
he was not aware, were finally published. (The editor of the Manuscripts,
Riazanov, would himself be purged; and the text was considered suffi-
ciently threatening that the standard German edition of Marx’s writings
published after 1945 did not include them).
After Lukács renounced the book, it disappeared. A few people knew
it,1 including Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who read it early and who, in his
Adventures of the Dialectic, makes Lukács, along with Weber, into the foun-
dation stone of what he calls “Western,” i.e. non-Soviet, Marxism. I might
add here that Lukács had been a participant in Weber’s Heidelberg circle,
along with another figure who would also become a heretical Marxist,
Ernst Bloch. I knew Bloch as a student in Tübingen when he was in his 80s
or 90s. He would talk about some of those Heidelberg salons, evoking din-
ners at which he would wax on with a sort of mystical Marxism to which
people responded, “What’s he saying?” Lukács would then clearly and pre-
cisely explain the dialectical core of Bloch’s apparently mystical élan.
This background explains in part why I also co-edited The Unknown
Dimension (1972) during the same time period. You can see again from
the title that what the book was looking for was something like that
1844 insight: the rediscovery of the dialectic. The subtitle of that book
was “European Marxism since Lenin.” When Karl Klare and I put that
volume together, we had the then-existing New Left in mind as the audi-
ence. We wanted to combat Leninism, the orthodoxy that was always
there as a temptation. Of course the paradox was that what we wanted to
discover could itself become a heterodox orthodoxy if it became part of
a militant political party. I had become aware of this danger, and wanted
to alert readers to it in a final chapter in The Unknown Dimension. The
16 D. HOWARD

chapter would have presented the work of the group that published the
French journal Socialisme ou Barbarie. I had learned of it during my stu-
dent years in Paris when I was involved in some clandestine anti-Vietnam
war activities as a result of which I met Pierre Vidal-Naquet. Through
Vidal-Naquet, I met Claude Lefort and Cornelius Castoriadis and they in
many ways turned out to be the most important influence on my devel-
opment. When I asked Lefort to write the chapter, he was busy finishing
his Machiavelli book; but the next week he told me to come back to meet
a potential author…who turned out to be Castoriadis! He was at the time
preparing the republication of four volumes of his previous works (1973,
1974) while completing L’Institution imaginaire de la société (1975).
The person he proposed as an author never delivered!

SL
When you returned to Marx thirty years later in 2002 in The Specter of
Democracy what had changed and what had not? How have the inter-
vening decades changed Marx’s significance? What makes Marx necessary
after the collapse of Marxism and the socialist workers’ movement?

DH
It’s of course impossible to answer simply such vast questions, all the more
so since on my reading Marx was and remained a philosopher. That means
that he is a thinker whose work cannot be reduced to a set of theses,
positive affirmations or negative criticism, let alone to utopian visions of
happy tomorrows. Having recognized this, I didn’t just stop reading him
in 1972 and then return to him thirty years later. I wrote about him, and
tried to teach him, many times in those intervening years—as I continue
to do today.
Let me try to answer in part your question by using the examples of
Lefort and Castoriadis. Both began as Trotskyists and formed a dissent-
ing group within the French branch of the Fourth International around
1946–1947. Two insights became fundamental for them: first, the danger
of bureaucracy or bureaucratization, including that of the most orthodox
of dissenting movements, Trotskyism. To become a Trotskyist is to join
a secret order. (When I was a student in Paris I went to some Trotskyist
meetings, and one of the things that was strangely funny was that you had
to sign in to go to these meetings, but you had to do it under a pseud-
onym!) Beyond the anecdotal, what’s the basis of Trotsky’s theory? We
know his critique of the Stalinist deformation of the true revolution of
1917 led by himself and Lenin. That revolution could occur because of
Another random document with
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being greatest among them, who can afford to eat [18]Rice all the
Year round. Kid and Fowl, they have a few, and were all the
domestick Animals I saw.
Remark 4. On the Negroes here, their Clothing, Customs and
Religion.
The Men are well-limbed, clean Fellows; flattish-nosed, and many
with Exomphalos’s; the Effect of bad Midwifry, or straining in their
Infancy to walk; for they are never taught, but creep upon a Matt on
all Fours, till they have Strength to erect themselves; and
notwithstanding this, are seldom distorted. These do not circumcise,
but the Slaves brought from the Northward are frequently so;
perhaps from bordering on Morocco.
The Women are not nigh so well shaped as the Men: Childing, and
their Breasts always pendulous, stretches them to so unseemly a
Length and Bigness, that some, like the Ægyptians, I believe, could
suckle over their Shoulders. Their being imployed in all Labour,
makes them robust; for such as are not Gromettas, work hard in
Tillage, make Palm-Oil, or spin Cotton; and when they are free from
such work, the idle Husbands put them upon breading and fetishing
out their Wool, they being prodigious proud and curious in this sort of
Ornament; and keep them every day, for many hours together, at it.
Their Houses are low, little Hutts, not quite so bad as many in
Yorkshire, built with wooden Stockades set in the ground, in a round
or square form, thatched with Straw; they are swept clean every day;
and for Furniture, have a Matt or two to lie down upon; two or three
earthen or wooden Dishes, and Stools, with a Spoon, all of their own
making. They are idle, principally from want of Arts and domestick
Employments: for as I observed, they are so cautious of planting too
much, and wasting their Labour, that they are really improvident;
smoaking all day in long Reed-Pipes together; unplagued with To-
morrow, or the Politicks of Europe.
Whole Towns shift their Habitations, either when they do not like
their Neighbours, or have more Conveniency somewhere else; soon
clearing Ground enough for what Building and Culture they purpose.
Seignior Joseph, a Christian Negro of this Place, has lately with his
People left a clean, well-built Town, and removed further up the
River. Their Huts are mostly orbicular, forming a spacious square
Area in the middle, and in this, the doors paved with Cockle-Shells;
two or three Crosses erected, and round about, Lime-trees, Papais,
Plantanes, Pine-apples, and a few Bee-hives; the latter made out of
pieces of old Trees, three foot long, hollowed and raised on two
Poles.
In the middle of the Area was a great Curiosity, a large Tree with
500 hanging Nests at least upon it; this is a small familiar Bird, that
builds thus about their Towns, upon the extreme slenderest Twigs,
hanging like Fruit, and declares the Wisdom of Instinct, since it’s
designed a Security for their Young, against Monkeys, Parrots,
Squirrels, &c. Creatures of Prey, whose Weight cannot there be
supported.
Anointing their Body and Limbs with Palm-Oil, is a daily Practice
with both Sexes; some use [19]Civet, but all cast a strong,
disagreeable Smell; this mending it much like as melted Tallow is by
a Perfumer’s Shop.
Palaavers are their Courts of Judicature, where the principal or
elderly Men amongst them meet in a Ring or under a Lodge, to settle
the Differences that arise amongst themselves, or with the Factories;
the frequentest are in relation to Trade. Each salutes the other at
meeting, by a Bend of the Elbow, and raising his Hand to his Face.
When they have heard what each Party has to say, they determine
by Vote, who has the Reason of the thing on their side, and so
punish, or acquit. For Fornication, the Party (whether Man or
Woman) is sold for a Slave. If a white Man lies with another’s Slave,
he is bound to redeem her at a current Price. On a Charge of
Murder, Adultery, or if there can be any other more heinous Crime
among them, the suspected Person must drink of a red Water his
Judges prepare; which is called, purging the Criminal: that is, if the
suspected be of ill Life, or had Envy to the deceased, so that the
Surmizes against him are strong, though they want positive
Evidence; they will give him so much of that Liquor as shall kill him;
but if inclined to spare him, they politickly give less, or make it
weaker, whereby his Innocence appears the better to the Friends
and Relations of the deceased.
Panyarring, is a Term for Man-stealing along the whole Coast:
Here it’s used also, for stealing any thing else; and by Custom (their
Law) every Man has a right to seize of another at any Conveniency,
so much as he can prove afterwards, at the Palaaver-Court, to have
been defrauded of, by any body in the same place he was cheated.
Dancing is the Diversion of their Evenings: Men and Women make
a Ring in an open part of the Town, and one at a time shews his Skill
in antick Motions and Gesticulations, yet with a great deal of Agility,
the Company making the Musick by clapping their hands together
during the time, helped by the louder noise of two or three Drums
made of a hollowed piece of Tree, and covered with Kid-Skin.
Sometimes they are all round in a Circle laughing, and with uncouth
Notes, blame or praise somebody in the Company.
During our stay at this Port, we paid a Visit to Seignior Joseph,
about nine miles up the River. The Reason of his leaving the other
Town, he told me was, the frequent Palaavers he was engaged in,
on account of Differences between his People and the Grimattoes,
and the great Expence he was at, in so near a Neighbourhood with
the English. He has been in England and Portugal; at the last place
he was baptized, and took in that christian Erudition that he
endeavours to propagate. He has built a little Oratory for his
People’s Devotions; erected a Cross; taught several of his Kindred
Letters, dispersing among them little Romish Prayer-Books, and
many of them are known by Christian Names. Those of the Country
not yet initiated, never have but one. Mousi, or Moses; Yarrat, and
Cambar, are very common Names to the Men; Baulee, and Kibullee,
to the Women. Others take the Cognomen from their Disposition;
Lion, Lamb, Bear, Hog, &c. like our Danish Ancestors. Seignior
Joseph, who is very communicative, tells me, to the extent of his
knowledge, the People are cleanly, of good Temper, and docible; all
wishing some Missionaries would think their Conversion and Wants
worth regarding: But the Poverty of their Country will probably keep
them a long time from that Benefit. There is no Invitation in a barren
Soil, scarce of Provisions and Necessaries, Danger of wild Beasts a
mile from Home (especially Wolves;) and about their Houses, Rats,
Snakes, Toads, Musquitoes, Centipes, Scorpions, Lizards, and
innumerable Swarms of Ants, a white, black, and red sort, that build
to 8 or 9 Foot high, dig up the Foundation of their Houses in two or
three Years, or turn a Chest of Cloaths to Dust (if not watched) in as
many Weeks. This Christian Negro, by the Advantage of Trade, has
in some measure removed the Wants of his own Family (his Towns;)
they are tolerably stocked with Guinea Hens, Fish, and Venison;
while the Country fifty miles off, he says, have little to feed on but
Honey, and Manyoco Root. He received us in a Europæan Dress
(Gown, Slippers, Cap, &c.) and sent his Canoos out to shew us the
Diversion of chasing the Manatea; they brought one ashore in two
hours time, and we had stewed, roast, and boiled, with a clean
Table-cloth, Knives and Forks, and Variety of Wines and strong Beer,
for our Entertainment. The Flesh of this Creature was white, and not
fishy; but very tough, and seasoned high (as are all their Dishes)
with Ochre, Malaguetta, and Bell-pepper.
His Kinswomen came into the Room after we had dined, and to
them other Neighbours, saluting those of their own Colour, one by
one, by making a Bend of their right Elbow, so that the Hand comes
nigh the Mouth; the other to whom she addresses, is in the same
Posture, and mixing their Thumbs and middle Fingers, they snap
them gently off, and retreat with a small Quaker-like Obeysance,
decently and without Hurry or Laugh. They shewed likewise much
good-nature towards one another, in dividing two or three Biskets,
and half a Pint of Citron Water (we brought) into twenty Parts, rather
than any one should miss a Taste. In conclusion, Seignior Joseph
saw us to the Boat, and took leave with the same Complaisance he
had treated us.
The Religion here, if it may be called such, is their Veneration to
Gregries: Every one keeps in his House, in his Canoo, or about his
Person, something that he highly reverences, and that he imagines
can, and does defend him from Miscarriage, in the nature our
Country-Folks do Charms, but with more Fear: And these things are
very various; either a cleaved piece of Wood, a Bundle of peculiar
little Sticks or Bones, a Monkey’s Skull, or the like. To these, every
Family has now and then a Feast, inviting one another; but of this
more, under the Word Fetish.
 The GRAIN and MALAGUETTA Coasts.
We left Sierraleon and were joined by our Consort the Weymouth,
May 1, from Gambia; we found upon Conference, that both Ships
had like to have ended their Voyage at these first Ports: She had run
on a Sand in that River, wringing three Days and Nights in a Tide’s
way, with great difficulty getting off: We, at Sierraleon letting in Water
to the Ship one Evening, had forgot the Plug, till we had 5 or 6 Foot
Water in the Hold.
The Company’s Presents, we understood by them, were received
well there by the King of Barra, and he has given the Factors leave
to build a Fortification at Gilliflee, a Town commanded by a Woman,
about 15 Miles up the River; made a Duchess by Captain
Passenger, from whence the Custom I believe has been taken up, of
distinguishing the most deserving Fellows at trading Towns by the
Titles of Knights, Colonels, and Captains, which they are very proud
of. This Duchess of Gilliflee has become very much the Factory’s
Friend there, and gives all possible Assistance in their Settlement.
Cape St. Mary’s, or the Starboard Entrance of that River, they
found no Cannibals, as commonly reported among Sailors; but a
civilized People, with whom they wooded their Ship.
On the 4th we were off Cape Monte, and next day Montzerado,
both high Lands; the former appearing in a double, the latter with a
single Hommock; the Country trenching from them, low and woody;
about 35 Fathom Water 3 Leagues from Shore. From the latter,
came off a Canoo with the Cabiceer, Captain John Hee,
distinguished by an old Hat, and Sailor’s Jackett with a greater
number of thick brass Rings on his Fingers and Toes, than his
Attendants. He seemed shy of entering the Ship, apprehending a
Panyarring; his Town’s People having often suffered by the
Treachery of Ships, and they as often returned it, sometimes with
Cruelty, which has given rise to the Report of their being Savages
and Cannibals at several places; very unlikely any where, because
they could not part with their Slaves, which are but few, if they had
this Custom, nor could they have any Trade or Neighbours: Their
Fears would make them shun their Enemies (the rest of Mankind)
and all Correspondence totally cease.
The Fetish they brought off, on this dangerous Voyage, was a
Bundle of small, black Sticks, like a hundred of Sparrowgrass put
into a Bag, knit of Silk-grass, and hanging over one of their
Shoulders, seeming to place a Security and Confidence in it; for I
would have handled and tasted it, but found it put them in a Fright,
saying, to deter me, You didee, you kicatavoo, (i. e.) if you eat, you
die presently.
The mutual Distrust between us, made their present Business only
begging old Breeches, Shirts, Rags, Biskett, and whatever else they
saw, parting in some hurry, and calling to one another for that end, in
a Note like what Butchers use in driving Cattle. They have plenty of
Milhio, Rice, Yamms, and Salt hereabouts.
We found in our coasting by Bashau, and other trading Towns, the
same Fears subsisting, coming off every day in their Canoos, and
then at a stand whether they should enter: The boldest would
sometimes come on board, bringing Rice, Malaguetta, and Teeth,
but staying under Fear and Suspicion. Here we may take these
Observations.
1. Canoos are what are used through the whole Coast for
transporting Men and Goods. Each is made of a single Cotton-tree,
chizelled and hollowed into the shape of a Boat; some of them 8 or
10 Foot broad, carrying twenty Rowers. The Negroes do not row one
way and look another, but all forward, and standing at their Paddles,
they dash together with dexterity, and if they carry a Cabiceer,
always sing; a Mark of Respect.
2. Cabiceers are the principal of the trading Men at all Towns; their
Experience, or Courage having given them that Superiority: All Acts
of Government in their several Districts, are by their Votes.
 They came off to us with some English Title and Certificate; the
Favour of former Traders to them, for their Honesty and good
Service; and were they done with Caution, might be of use to Ships
as they succeed in the Trade: Whereas now they contain little Truth,
being done out of Humour, and learn them only to beg or steal with
more Impudence.
3. The Negrish Language alters a little in sailing, but as they are
Strangers to Arts, &c. restrained to a few Words, expressive of their
Necessities: This I think, because in their Meetings they are not
talkative; In their Trading the same Sound comes up often; and their
Songs, a Repetition of six Words a hundred times.
Some Negrish Words.
Didee, Eat. Attee, ho, How do you?
Malafia, } Dashee, a Present.
Govina, } Ivory. Kickatavoo, Killed, or Dead.
Malembenda, Rice. Tossu, Be gone.
Cockracoo, Fowl. Yarra, Sick.
Praam, Good. Fabra, Come.
Nino, Sleep. Brinnee, White Man.
Sam sam, all one. Bovinee, Black Man.
Acquidera, Agreed. Soquebah, Gone, lost.
Oura, Very well. Tongo, Man’s Privities.
Tomy, Arse-clout. Bombo, Woman’s.

Lastly, the Dress common to both Sexes every where, is the Tomy,
or Arse-clout, and the pleating or breading of their Wooll. The Arse-
clout the Women tie about their Hips, and falls half way down their
Thigh all round; but the Men bring it under their Twist, and fasten just
upon the girdling part behind. Both take great delight in twisting the
Wool of their Heads into Ringlets, with Gold or Stones, and bestow a
great deal of Time and Genius in it.
The Women are fondest of what they call Fetishing, setting
themselves out to attract the good Graces of the Men. They carry a
Streak round their Foreheads, of white, red, or yellow Wash, which
being thin, falls in lines before it dries. Others make Circles with it,
round the Arms and Bodies, and in this frightful Figure, please. The
Men, on the other side, have their Ornaments consist in Bracelets; or
Manilla’s, about their Wrists and Ancles, of Brass, Copper, Pewter, or
Ivory; the same again on their Fingers and Toes: a Necklace of
Monkey’s Teeth, Ivory Sticks in their Ears, with a broad head. Most
of them have one, two, or more of these Ornaments, and have an
Emulation in the number and use of them.
When the Nakedness, Poverty and Ignorance of these Species of
Men are considered; it would incline one to think it a bettering their
Condition, to transport them to the worst of Christian Slavery; but as
we find them little mended in those respects at the West-Indies, their
Patrons respecting them only as Beasts of Burthen; there is rather
Inhumanity in removing them from their Countries and Families; here
they get Ease with their spare Diet; the Woods, the Fruits, the
Rivers, and Forests, with what they produce, is equally the property
of all. By Transfretation they get the brown Bread, without the
Gospel: together, as Mr. Baxter observed, they might be good Fare,
but hard Work and Stripes without it, must be allowed an unpleasant
Change. They are fed, it’s true, but with the same Diet and Design
we do Horses; and what is an aggravating Circumstance, they have
a Property in nothing, not even in their Wives and Children. No
wonder then, Men under this View, or worse Apprehensions, should
be prompted with Opportunity frequently to sacrifice the Instruments
of it.
 SESTHOS.
We anchored before Sesthos, or Sesthio, May 10th, a Place where
most of our windward Slave-ships stop to buy Rice, exchanged at
about 2s. per Quintal. The River is about half the breadth of the
Thames; a narrow Entrance only for Boats on the starboard Side,
between two Rocks, which, on great Swells and Winds, make the
shooting of it dangerous; the rest of the breadth being choaked with
Sands.
The Town is large, and built after a different Model from those we
have left; they run them up (square or round) four Foot from the
Earth; at that height, is the first and chief Room, to sit, talk, or sleep
in, lined with matted Rinds of Trees, supported with Stockades, and
in the middle of it, a Fire-place for Charcoal, that serves a double
Purpose; driving off Insects and Vermine, and drying their Rice and
Indian Corn. Of the upper Loft they make a Store-house, that runs up
pyramidal 30 foot; making the Town at distance, appear like a
number of Spires, each standing singly.
This, and every Town hereabouts, had a Palaaver-Room, a publick
Place of meeting for the People to council, and transact the Business
of the Society: They are large, and built something like our Lodges
for Carts, open, 4 foot from the Ground; then a Stage to sit, rafted
and well covered against Rain and Sun-shine. Here they meet
without distinction; King and Subject, smoaking from Morning to
Night. At this Place, it is common to bring your Traffick; brass Pans,
pewter Basins, Powder, Shot, old Chests, &c. and exchange for
Rice, Goats and Fowls. Two or three Pipes, a Charge of Powder, or
such a Trifle, buys a Fowl. A 2 pound Basin buys a Goat; and I
purchased two for an old Chest, with a Lock to it. Such a piece of
Mechanism I found a Rarity, and brought all the Country down to
admire. A Watch still encreased their Wonder; and making Paper
speak (as they call it) is a Miracle.
They bring their written Certificates hinted above, and when you
tell them the Contents, or they are made Messengers of Notes
between English Ships, they express the utmost Surprize at such
sort of Knowledge and Intercourse; it infinitely exceeds their
Understanding, and impresses a superior and advantageous Idea of
the Europeans.
The King who commands here has the Name of Pedro; he lives
about five Miles up the River, a Sample of Negro Majesty.
As there is a Dashee expected before Ships can wood and water
here; it was thought expedient to send the Royal Perquisite up by
Embassy (a Lieutenant and Purser) who being in all respects equal
to the Trust, were dismissed with proper Instructions, and being
arrived at the King’s Town, they were ushered or thrust in by some of
the Courtiers into the common Palaaver-Room (to wait the King’s
dressing, and coming from his Palace) his publick Audience being
ever in the Presence of the People. After waiting an hour, King Pedro
came attended by a hundred naked Nobles, all smoaking, and a
Horn blowing before them. The King’s Dress was very antick: He had
a dirty, red Bays Gown on, chequer’d with patch-work of other
Colours, like a Jack pudding, and a Fellow to bear the Train, which
was a narrow Slip of Culgee tacked to the bottom of the Gown. He
had an old black full-bottom’d Wig, uncombed; an old Hat not half big
enough, and so set considerably behind the Fore-top, that made his
meagre Face like a Scare-crow; coarse Shoes and Stockings,
unbuckled and unty’d, and a brass Chain of 20lib. at least about his
Neck.
To this Figure of a Man, our modern Embassadors in their Holiday
Suits, fell on their Knees, and might have continued there till this
time, for what Pedro cared: He was something surprized indeed, but
took it for the Fashion of their Country, and so kept making instant
Motions for the Dashee. This brought them from their Knees, as the
proper Attitude for presenting it; consisting in a trading Gun, two
pieces of salt Ship-beef, a Cheese, a Bottle of Brandy, a Dozen of
Pipes, and two Dozen of Congees. But Pedro, who understood the
Present better than the Bows, did not seem pleased when he saw it;
not for any defect in the Magnificence, but they were such things as
he had not present Occasion for; asking some of their Clothes and to
take those back again, particularly their Breeches, sullied a little with
kneeling in the Spittle: But on a Palaaver with his Ministers, the
Present was accepted, and the Officers dismissed back with a Glass
of Palm-Wine and Attee, ho, (the common way of Salutation with
Thumbs and Fingers mixed, and snapping off.)
To smooth the King into a good Opinion of our Generosity, we
made it up to his Son, Tom Freeman; who, to shew his good-nature,
came on board uninvited, bringing his Flagelet, and obliging us with
some wild Notes. Him we dress’d with an edg’d Hat, a Wig, and a
Sword, and gave a Patent upon a large Sheet of Parchment,
creating him Duke of Sesthos, affixing all our Hands, and the
Impress of a Butter mark on Putty.
This was taken so kindly by the Father, that he sent us a couple of
Goats in return, and his younger Son Josee for further Marks of our
Favour; whom we dignified also, on a small Consideration, with the
Title of Prince of Baxos. Several indeed had been titled, but none so
eminently, as by Patent, before; which procured us the entire good-
will of the King; suffering us at any time to hawl our Searn in the
River, where we catched good store of Mullets, Soles, Bump noses,
and Rock-fish; and to go up to their Villages unmolested.
In one of these Towns, some others of us paid a Visit to his
Majesty, whom we found at a Palace built as humble as a Hog-sty;
the entrance was narrow like a Port-hole, leading into what we may
call his Court-Yard, a slovenly little Spot, and two or three Hutts in it,
which I found to be the Apartment of his Women. From this we
popped through another short Portico, and discovered him on the left
hand, upon a place without his House, raised like a Taylor’s Shop-
board, and smoaking with two or three old Women, (the favourite
Diversion of both Sexes.) His Dress and Figure, with the novelty of
ours, created mutual Smiles which held a few Minutes, and then we
took leave with the Attee, ho.
 From his Town we went to two others still farther up the River; at
one of them was a bright yellow-colour’d Man, and being curious to
know his Original, were informed (if we interpret their Signs and
Language right) that he came from a good distance in the Country,
where were more. Captain Bullfinch Lamb, and others, have since
told me, they had seen several; Mr. Thompson, that he saw one at
Angola, and another at Madagascar; a great Rarity, and as
perplexing to account for, as the black Colour.
Exomphalos’s are very common among the Negroes here. I saw
also one squint-ey’d; another without a Nose; and another with a
Hair Lip; Blemishes rare among them. Circumcision is used pretty
much; not as a religious Symbol, but at the Humour of the Parent,
who had found a Conveniency in it.
The Diet is Rice, Potatoes, Yacoes or Indian Corn, Parsly, and
other Vegetables; the Cultivation of which, and their domestick
Affairs, are all imposed on the Women.
In general may be observed, they are exceeding cowardly, like
other Countries undisciplined; a whole Town running away from a
Boat with white Men. Thievish on their own Dunghills; none of them
seeming to have any Notion of it as a Crime, and quarrel only about
a Share of what is stole. So lazy, that Scores of them will attend our
Searn for a Bisket, or the Distribution of such small Fish as are
thrown by; for tho’ their Waters afford great Plenty, they want the
Means or Inclination to catch them; chusing rather to loiter and jump
about the Sands, or play at round Holes, than endeavour to get Food
for themselves.
 Cape A P O L L O N I A .
From Sesthos, we reached in two or three Days Cape Palma;
weighed Anchor from Jaque a Jaques, the 28th; from Bassau, the
30th; Assmee, the 31st; and anchored here the 6th of June. In this
part of our Sailing may be observed,
1. That the Land from Sierraleon, excepting two or three Capes,
and that about Drewin, appears low, and the first Land you see (as
the Irishman says) is Trees; runs very streight without Bays or Inlets,
which makes it difficult to distinguish, and impossible for us to land
safely at; the Surff breaking all along to a great height, by means of a
continued Swell from a vast Southern Ocean; a Sea which the
Natives only understand, and can push their Canoos through. This
seems a natural Prohibition to Strangers, and whence it follows in
respect to Trade, that Ships are obliged to send their Boats with
Goods near Shore, where the Natives meet them, and barter for
Slaves, Gold, and Ivory; for at many places a Grandee Shippee (as
they call it) affrights them, and they will venture then, as I imagine
they can swim.
2. The Ground is very tough, our Consort and we losing three
Anchors in heaving a Purchase; we stopping at Nights for fear of
over-shooting Places of Trade.
3. We find pretty equal Soundings, about 14 Fathom Water, a
League from Shore, unless at one noted place, a Lusus Naturæ,
called the bottomless Pit, 7 Leagues below Jaque a Jaques, where
the Depth is all at once unfathomable, and about three Miles over.
The great Sir Is. Newton, in his calculating the Force of Gravity,
says, Bodies decrease in their Weight, and Force of their Fall, in the
Proportion of the Squares of Distance from the Center; so that a Tun
at the Surface of the Earth would weigh but ¼ of a Tun, removed
one Semi-Diameter of the Earth higher; and at three Semi-
Diameters, but the 1/16 of a Tun. In like manner their Velocities of
Descent decrease: A Body at the Surface which would fall 16 foot in
a Second, at 12000 Miles high, or three Semi-Diameters, would fall
only 1/16, or one Foot in a Second; but at all given Distances,
something, &c.
Now, according to this Rule, heaving a Lead in great depths of
Water, the Velocity should increase with the descent or sinking of it;
since in the Progress of Gravity, the falling Body in every space of
Time receives a new Impulse, and continually acting, the same
Gravity super-adds a new Velocity; so that at the end of two
Seconds, to be double what it was at the end of the first, and so on,
which here the Weight of the super-incumbent Medium should still
more accelerate. Yet a Lead-line is drawn out perceptibly slower at
the second, than the first hundred Fathoms: But perhaps this
proceeds from the increasing quantity of Line to be drawn with it, not
so equally apt to demerge, and a Nisus in all Bodies of Water, from
below upwards, contrary to Gravity.
4. The Winds were more Southerly than above, checking the
Land-Breeze, which obtaining brings strong unwholesome Smells
from the Mangroves.
5. Their Diet being very slovenly, and much of a piece in this
Track, I shall here entertain you with two or three of their Dishes.
Slabbersauce is made of Rice and Fish, a Fowl, a Kid, or
Elephant’s Flesh, the better for being on the stink. They boil this with
a good quantity of Ochre and Palm-Oil, and is accounted a royal
Feast.
A Dog is a Rarity with some: Our Master had a little Boy-Slave of
eight years of Age, in exchange for one. At other Places, Monkeys
are a very common Diet.
Bomini is Fish dried in the Sun without Salt; stinking, they put it in
a Frying-pan with Palm-Oil, then mixed with boiled Rice, snatch it up
greedily with their Fingers.
Black Soupee is a favourite Dish, as well at our Factories, as
among the Negroes; we make it of Flesh or Fowl, stew’d sweet, with
some uncommon tasted Herbs; but the ascendant Taste is Pepper,
Ochre, and Palm-Oil. At first I thought it disagreeable, but Custom
reconciled it as the best in the Country: Men’s way of Diet being
certainly a principal Reason why in all places some of Land and Sea-
animals are approved or rejected; liked in one Country, and detested
in another.
To return to Jaque a Jaques; we met there the Robert of Bristol,
Captain Harding, who sailed from Sierraleon before us, having
purchased thirty Slaves, whereof Captain Tomba mentioned there
was one; he gave us the following melancholly Story. That this
Tomba, about a Week before, had combined with three or four of the
stoutest of his Country-men to kill the Ship’s Company, and attempt
their Escapes, while they had a Shore to fly to, and had near
effected it by means of a Woman-Slave, who being more at large,
was to watch the proper Opportunity. She brought him word one
night that there were no more than five white Men upon the Deck,
and they asleep, bringing him a Hammer at the same time (all the
Weapons that she could find) to execute the Treachery. He
encouraged the Accomplices what he could, with the Prospect of
Liberty, but could now at the Push, engage only one more and the
Woman to follow him upon Deck. He found three Sailors sleeping on
the Fore-castle, two of which he presently dispatched, with single
Strokes upon the Temples; the other rouzing with the Noise, his
Companions seized; Tomba coming soon to their Assistance, and
murdering him in the same manner. Going aft to finish the work, they
found very luckily for the rest of the Company, that these other two of
the Watch were with the Confusion already made awake, and upon
their Guard, and their Defence soon awaked the Master underneath
them, who running up and finding his Men contending for their Lives,
took a Hand-spike, the first thing he met with in the Surprize, and
redoubling his Strokes home upon Tomba, laid him at length flat
upon the Deck, securing them all in Irons.
The Reader may be curious to know their Punishment: Why,
Captain Harding weighing the Stoutness and Worth of the two
Slaves, did, as in other Countries they do by Rogues of Dignity, whip
and scarify them only; while three others, Abettors, but not Actors,
nor of Strength for it, he sentenced to cruel Deaths; making them
first eat the Heart and Liver of one of them killed. The Woman he
hoisted up by the Thumbs, whipp’d, and slashed her with Knives,
before the other Slaves till she died.
From this Ship we learned also, that the inland Country who had
suffered by the Panyarrs of the Cobelohou and Drewin People, have
lately been down, and destroyed the Towns, and the Trade is now at
a stand; and perhaps the Consciousness of this Guilt increases their
Fears of us. The Ceremony of contracting Friendship and Trade, is
dropping a little salt-water into the Eye, or taking it into their Mouth,
and spurting out again; which must be answer’d, or no Trade will
follow.
At Cape Apollonia, the Natives are of a jet black, very lively and
bold, accustomed to Trade, and better fetished than their
Neighbours; have cleaner and larger Tomys, wear Amber Beads,
Copper Rings, Cowrys, and their Wooll twisted in numberless little
Rings and Tufts, with bits of Shell, Straw, or Gold twisted in them.
They have all a Dagger † cut in their Cheek, and often in other Parts
of their Body: A Custom preserved among a few, down to the Gold
Coast. The Romans and Goths, when possessed of Barbary,
exempted the Christians from Tribute; and to know them, engraved a
+ upon their Cheeks; but this seems too distant for any Analogy with
theirs. All we learn is, its being a very ancient Custom, and
distinguishes them from the Country, who they Panyarr and sell for
Slaves, naked at 4 oz. per Head; allowing 100 per Cent. on Goods,
they cost at a medium 8l. Sterling. The Cabiceers, out of this,
demand a due of 20s. and the Palaaver-Man 10s. whence I
conjecture they are more regularly trained to Panyarring or thieving,
than the Towns we have past.
There is a great deal of Ground cleared about this Cape, and
sown with Indian Corn; first brought among the Negroes, it’s said, by
the Portuguese.
 Cabo T R E S P U N T A S .
We stopped a few Hours at Axim in our Passage from Apollonia, and
anchored here June 7, most Ships doing it for the Conveniency of
watering, more difficultly supplied at any parts above. It is called
Three Points, from that number of Headlands that jutt one without
the other; within the innermost is a commodious Bay, nigh the
watering-place. John Conny, who is the principal Cabiceer, exacts a
Duty from all Ships, of an Ounce of Gold, for this Privilege; and
sends off a Servant with his Commission, a large Gold-headed
Cane, engraved John Conny, to demand it. Our Neglect herein, with
some opprobrious Treatment of the Agent, occasioned John Conny
next day to come down with a Posse and seize our Water casks
ashore, carrying away ten or a dozen of our Men Prisoners to his
Town. The Officer among them endeavouring to distinguish to John
the Difference of a King’s Ship from others, got his Head broke: John
(who understood English enough to swear) saying, by G—— me
King here, and will be paid not only for my Water, but the Trouble
has been given me in collecting it. Drink on, says he to the Sailors,
(knocking out the Head of a Half-Anchor of Brandy,) and eat what my
House affords; I know your part is to follow Orders. John, after some
trouble in negotiating, accepted in recompence, six Ounces of Gold,
and an Anchor of Brandy.
His Town stands about three Miles Westward of the watering-
place; large, and as neatly raftered and built, as most of our North or
West small Country Villages. Every Man his Coco-trees round the
House, and in the Streets (such as they are) sit People to sell the
Nuts, Limes, Soap, Indian Corn, and what is a great part of their
Food, Canky, the Work of the Women. It is made of Indian Corn,
after this manner; they pound it in a Mortar for some time, then
malaxing it with Water and Palm-Wine, they grind it still finer with a
Mull upon a great Stone, which every House almost has at the Door
for that purpose; baked or boiled in Cakes, it makes a hearty and
well-tasted Bread.
The Danish (or, as they say, the Brandenburghers) Fort was on an
adjacent Hill, of four or five Bastions, and could mount fifty Guns.
The Garison, when in being, probably taught the Natives the way of
marketing, observed only where the Factories are; but being some
few years since relinquished by them, it’s now in John Conny’s
possession, and has raised up some Contests and Palaavers with
the Dutch: for they pretending a Title of Purchase, sent a Bomb-
Vessel and two or three Frigates last Year, to demand a Surrendry;
but John being a bold and subtle Fellow, weighing their Strength,
answer’d, that he expected some Instrument should be shewed him
to confirm the Brandenburghers Sale; and even with that (says he) I
can see no Pretence but to the Guns, the Brick, and Stone of the
Building, for the Ground was not theirs to dispose of. They have paid
me Rent for it, (continues he) and since they have thought fit to
remove, I do not design to tenant it out to any other white Men while
I live. This sort of Palaaver nettled the Dutch; they threw in some
Bombs and Shot; and heating more with Rage and Brandy, very
rashly landed forty of their Men under the Command of a Lieutenant
to attack the Town: They fired once without any Damage, and then
John at the Head of his Men, rushing from under the Cover of the
Houses, outnumbred and cut them in pieces; paving the entrance of
his Palace soon after, with their Skulls.
This Advantage made him very rusty, upon what he called his
Dues from every body, tho’ just in Trade; and when we had returned
to a good Understanding, my self, with some other of our Officers
paid him a Visit: Our landing was dangerous, the Southerly Winds
making so great a Surff, nor could we do it by our own Boats, but
Canoos of his sending, paying an Accy for the Service; they count
the Seas, and know when to paddle safely on or off. John himself
stood on the Shore to receive us, attended with a Guard of twenty or
thirty Men under bright Arms, who conducted us to his House; a
Building pretty large, and raised from the Materials of the Fort. It
ascends with a double Stone Stair-case without, of twelve Steps; on