10 fundamental flaws of the western intellectual canon

[jamie]

Power -
Power is the ability to define reality and to have other people respond to your definition as if it were there own. It is critical for African people to understand that reality is neutral, and it is only when we stand up and define our reality do at the same time we cause an adjustment, in those who see us as deviant defining their reality.
- Wade Nodes
8TH ANNUAL BLACK MAN THINK TANK


" ...we were nurtured on the strangest narratives, rooted in blood, watered with lies. That odd narrative said only one story was human–the "European story”. It said that one narrow story would have to account for everything: the beginning of humanity, its progress, its destiny.
Where in that alienating narrative were we? Nowhere. Our teachers in the European academy made it clear that to pass their roadblocks into the future we would have to leave everything African, and transit through the footpaths of Europe first. Singly…
It was not so much that we went out to embrace the deadly lie. We looked at its sheer power, and in the despair drilled into us as obedient novices, acquiesced in it. That was the way we half survived in the slaughterhouses of the mind where we were given our proud degrees to set us apart from the unprivileged, the badges proclaiming to the pulverized world that high above our battered people we have made the tremendous effort needed to believe the most sophisticated lies manufactured in the most efficient factories of European supremacy, and learned to proclaim them in nearly natural tones as truth. In the fields of triumphant power we left our minds for dead. And yet under the chaos of the slaughterhouse of souls, sometimes a mind here, another there, refused to die…"
Ayi Kwei Armah,
KMT: In the house of life.



Epistemological trap -
The epistemological traps is what John Henrik Clarke mentioned when he said Europeans didn't only colonized Africa, they colonized thought itself. ...European hegemony requires the disenfranchisement of the discursive outputs of African cultural systems, and knowing & understanding is a cultural output. Knowing is a cultural output, just as knowing & analysis are cultural inputs. So we got to begin to talk about how we're crippled by trying to blackenize white thought. Trying to blackenize European thought. Even trying to compare African things to give them legitimacy ...cause we find counterparts in European things. We do that all the time in our intellectual discourse.

...before we were tiptoeing on the platform because we weren't sure about it and we in fact had this sort of mentality were we always look over our shoulder to see if some white professor or some white scholar legitimized our thought. So we were happy when some white person said Egypt, ancient Kemet was black. You say "well finally finally they telling the truth". Who gives a (....) about what they think.
- Wade Nodes
2006 CHEIKH ANTA DIOP Conference

The insidious aspect of the epistemological trap is the process wherein the. Black social scientists (sic) accept a set of White defined assumptions...
- Wade Nodes




#10 The Academy
Academia is not neutral.


#9 Debate & Rhetoric


#8 Progress & Development


#7 Social Constructions
Social construction is the foundation of complex society(language, weights&measures, writing, etc)

To even critique social construction you need the social reality(construction) that is language & writing.
Side note: Don't ask me to stop my socially constructed reality and join yours ...while pretending your's isn't also a social construction


#6 Reductionism, materialization, & quantification
Physical, social, and cognitive realities are complements to a spiritual whole


#5 Rationality
Rationality isn't reason it's a PRESCRIPTIVE philosophical ruleset to govern the reasoning process



#4 Contradiction
Difference under a principle is based on structural distinction

This is the inverse of #3. There is no such thing as contradiction & hypocrisy in any real sense ...now in a hypothetical(analytical framework) sense sure. It can be quite handy as a rule of thumb to catch certain types of phenomena. That said If an entity behaves differently in it's interactions with the world it's because of structural distinctions(both physical, social, & cognitive) in the entity itself, the different things it interacts with, and the medium those interactions take place in(both physical, social, & cognitive). If an entity reacts differently in different circumstances the question isn't one of contradiction & hypocrisy the question is what are the distinctions that brings about those distinct reactions.

Example:
Two 5lb balls of the same material.
Ball 1 is constructed in the form of a small ball(volume) while ball 2 is constructed in the form of a large ball(volume)
Each ball is dropped on a load barring(2lb) structure(plank) suspended over water. Each breaking the structure.
Each ball falls in the water. Ball 1 sinks into the water ...Ball 2 floats on the water.

The water OBVIOUSLY isn't being contradictory & hypocritical. It reacts distinctly in relation to the balls because each is structurally(volume) distinct in a way that causes distinctions in their interactions with the water ...even though they shared a structural(weight) similarity that caused them to interact with the plank the same. I assert that this carries over to social & cognitive realities as well. The goal is to identify these distinctions & similarities in phenomena along with their interactions in various medium to come to a better understanding of reality(physical, social, & cognitive) in all forms.


#3 Universal Principle
Principles are only universal to a locality

This is the inverse of #4. Everything can not be a universal principle. Principles are bound to a locality in which the universality exist. Those same principles(lesser) exist within larger principles(greater) that give shape to the behavioral properties of the lesser while the lesser complementarly gives shape to the behavioral properties of the greater(which is essentially the picture painted in #4). Other Principles are parallel principle(lesser) existing beside each other within a larger principle(greater). There is no reason to expect or demand that what goes on in one principle should also occur in a parallel principle.

Example:
Four balls of the same weight, volume, and material.
Balls 1 & 2 are dropped in water contained in a bucket and floats without touching the floor of the container.
The same bucket of water is poured onto the floor.
Balls 3 & 4 are dropped in water contained on the surface and bounces up after touching the floor of the surface.

While it is the same water in each case, the water isn't breaking some universal principle by reacting to balls 3 & 4 distinct to how it reacted to balls 1 & 2. The principle by which the water reacts is dependent on the properties defined by the locality. I assert that this carries over to social & cognitive realities as well. The goal is to identify these distinctions & similarities in phenomena along with their interactions in various medium to come to a better understanding of reality(physical, social, & cognitive) in all forms.


#2 Objectivity
Objects are mental structures that are culturally constructed


#1 Truth Concept
Universal applicability does not equal universal relevance

The truth concept conflates that which is universally applicable with also being that which is universally relevant.
Example:
2+2 =4 and 8-4 = 4 and 604-600 = 4 and ((5^2)^1/2)-1 = 4
Each is universally applicable if I do it, you do it, and a martian does it. We all arrive at the same answer IE. Each is true.

The question then becomes "if all of them equal 4 then which one should I use to derive 4?"
The answer is the one most relevant to you.
How do you know what's relevant to you?
Well that's a political, economical, and ultimately "spiritual" question. A question and aspect that was banished from the discussion by plato and his imagined "republic" as being "opinion" "perspective" and ultimately "subjective" ...a source of political stagnation. I.E. how do you effectively rule in this speculative "republic" if everyone has there own "opinion" & "perspective" ...the truth is "higher" because it is reproducible independent of a persons "opinion" (2+2=4 whether I,he,she, or we calculate it)
As Marimba Ani says plato conceived of his concept of truth & epistemology as an ideology suited to political ends ...a means of ruling the "republic".

Which in everyday practice essentially turns into...
1. The only "opinion" "perspective" that matters is that of the ruler of the republic.
2. That "opinion" "perspective" is turned into a known by way of the Truth concept and epistemological ideology
3. The governed should accept this "Truth" not because the governor says so(because that would be subjective), but because the truth is reproducible independent of the governors stance ...therefore it is "universally True" independent of "opinion" & "perspective".
4. Anyone who doesn't adhere to this epistemological ideology is mentally unenlightened(stupid/doesn't know how to think) and not suitable to govern(women,commoners,slaves,etc,etc) in my imaginary "republic"

- signed Plato(Pick the "Truth" that suits your political aims, then hide those aims behind my epistemological shield ...while denying those same "subjective" political aims) the philosopher

“Like a system of politics, science has sought foremost its own preservation,”

"Theory does not advance ideas (as the positivists asserted in the early part of this
century), theory justifies ideas. Empirical methodology is not a tool of revelation and
verification, but rather a tool of refutation and a shield of obstruction behind which the
ideas a theory justifies are operationalized as programs immune to self-interested
criticism. Therefore, the most crucial considerations in the development of theory are (1)
the ideological programs that theory is capable of justifying; and (2) the methodological
framework its protection and preservation demand."

The Theoretical and Methodological Crisis of the Africentric Conception
W. Curtis Banks
The Journal of Negro Education
Vol. 61, No. 3, Africentrism and Multiculturalism: Conflict or Consonance (Summer, 1992), pp. 262-272

Conceptual Incarceration –
The knower is given a set of predetermined concepts and definitions to utilize in the process of knowing. This amounts to European hegemony. In this regard, the alien or Eurocentric ideas inhibit us from fully understanding African reality. The African thinker is, in fact, conceptually incarcerated.
-Wade Nodes
Psychology Serving Humanity: Proceedings of the 30th International Congress of Psychology

...our ability to regain balance as African intellectuals has to do with the recognition that concepts have the capacity to lock you up, concepts have the capacity to limit the parameter of your knowing and understanding. The concepts you use as the critical discourse have the ability to prevent you from engaging in critical thought. That's what I call conceptual Incarceration, the concept puts you in jail. ...It's not any different on the street than it is in the academy. It is the intellectual discourse that is the jail so we start thinking with white thought, thinking with western ideas, those ideas themselves lock us up and it is insidious, it is very difficult to talk about it because I'm speaking English. I'm not speaking igbo, not speaking fulani, even the language itself becomes difficult.
-Wade Nodes
2006 CHEIKH ANTA DIOP Conference


Conceptual Incarceration –
The condition of African thought under the influence of the European Worldview. It refers to the conceptual universe or boundaries imposed on African cognitive-intellectual functioning by the internalization of the European Worldview. Consequentially, such a condition reflects one which defines, i.e. limits/constrains or "imprisons," the conceptual universe of African thought under the influence of the European Worldview
- Kobi Kambon

[jamie]

Rationalism here is not reason, rationalism is the imposition of the control onto the universe, the imposition of the mental order of the European onto the universe. ...so it is not a way of thinking were you try to become in tune with the universe it is one were you impose your own mental order on the universe. That is what rationalism is.
-Marimba Ani

What they do is to take out spirit in their heads. They say there is no such thing as spirit and that helps us then in this process of creating the object, or of objectification, or objectifying the universe. They begin with what they say is the thinking being and take away the idea of spirit and they say they end up with the knower.
-Marimba Ani

Reality, they take out of context. You see it's context which is meaningful and they end up with a fact. Now that's what they tell you in school they say the facts, that's the most important thing, but for them for the European that's all that they can know, they say that's the highest. Yet a fact is something that has absolutely no meaning, until you put it into a context. Think about that, yet they want us to identify this thing called a fact with truth.
-Marimba Ani

So then we have phenomena or the way the universe presents itself to us through experience. You disconnect that, you see again from the universe, from a meaningful context, and you end up with this object that is created.
-Marimba Ani

In that process then according to them you are able to then have, be capable of pure rational thought and it is the thinking being then becomes the European controlled ego

The European controlled ego. The idea is that they are able to control their emotional being. So then we get into that. That's like you know, "you to emotional, don't be emotional" right. They say they can detach themselves from the senses. So this ego detaches itself from the senses. In denial of spirit which that ego fears, they are afraid of spirit. They then say that they can dominate the object, the objectified other. They can dominate nature, they can dominate us. This is an illusion they created but the entire culture is about how that illusion works for them.

Objective Truth which we fall for, we go running after this objective truth and that is actually based on a denial of spiritual reality. It is predicated on self alienation, separation from the self. It is in fact a method of control which the Asili needs. It implies the devaluation of the African self. It implies the devaluation of the African source of knowledge which indeed is spirit and it is a concept of truth that justifies African enslavement and African exploitation and that is basically what is being argued in the book Yurugu.
-Marimba Ani

It is very important to understand the role of the academy that is so called institutions of higher learning in this process of the justification of European behavior. So that the process of objectification that we're looking at here is the process through which the object is created; cause it doesn't exist they create it, ok ...and that process and the concept is sustained by the academy. This is a closed system, a system which is self perpetuated. If you feel your spirit and you listen to your spirit you will be able to totally repudiate this system. But we have to regain confidence, trust, faith in who we are as African people.
-Marimba Ani


Plato had started the ball rolling in terms of making epistemology or concepts of truth; making that ideological...
What Plato was able to achieve was to take a way of defining truth and reaching truth and say this is the only way, ok. Anybody else who doesn't do it this way is stupid and because they are stupid they should be controlled.
-Marimba Ani


The reason we have to move outside of the confines of European thought in order to effectively critique Europe is that you cannot defeat an enemy if you allow him to make the rules. If you allow him to even define the arena within which you go to battle. So that we are in the process of defining the rules, we're in the process of redefining reality from our center because what the enemy does if he's smart we give him the latitude to define the rules then he'll do that in his advantage and he'll neutralize the natural advantage that we have. So what we are doing is taking back the right to define the rules.
-Marimba Ani
Yurugu Unmasked



We're coming to understand this more and more that the most critical thing that our enemy has done is to control our thought process; and we're understanding that, that aspect of the war is so much more damaging than those overt aspects. The things that are obvious to us. We've got to look deeply and understand the hidden dimension, the dimension of the assumptions that we carry around with us, that actually define us to ourselves as unworthy. We're usually not aware when we're doing that. So what some of us are trying to do is to move to that deep level, were we can come to understand that, and the concept of worldview helps us to do that. Worldview and culture are an essential grounding for us.

...worldview is the way in which a group of people define reality, brother Wade Nobles has told us how important it is to define reality for ourselves. Our worldview gives us definitions of truth, of being, of nature, of what it means to be human, of time, of space, of reality, of being.
-Marimba Ani
Yurugu Unmasked


Now what this requires this analysis is that we look deeply into thought process and understand that it's somewhat difficult because we're talking about things that we have never looked at. We've carried them with us but we haven't looked at them we're dealing with a level of assumption. An assumption is something that you don't question, that you don't know it's there, but we've got to know that it's there now so that we can get rid of it, and that we can have a new set of assumption which fit our nature, which are natural to us.
-Marimba Ani


So what this universalism does is that it keeps us from understanding their nationalism. Their nationalism is expressed in universalistic terms, that's what we have to understand. We have to be able to identify the statement of European commitment, value, and objective; goals, intent and so forth. We have to understand what they are committed to and not think that what they are talking about is some universal truth or science or knowledge or whatever the heck they say it is
-Marimba Ani





They then build institutions which are based on, founded on these concepts or this way of understanding reality. In those institutions we are then taught to think according to their rules (remember about the enemy, you can't allow the enemy to make the rules) so we go into those institutions, we're taught to think according to their rules we are educated in their truth and that results in Africans defining ourselves as inferior objects of European domination. We are trained then to accept the system of global white supremacy as truth.
-Marimba Ani
Yurugu Unmasked

Plato made a discovery, and he discovered that if you could define the rules for thinking, for defining truth, what they call epistemology, and make it into an ideology; that is say "this is the only way to think"(there is no other way to think) that then you could use that politically; and so he established the institution of the academy based on a concept of truth. Where truth wasn't suppose to have any meaning, all suppose to be theoretical, all suppose to be practical. You need to look up the word "academy", look for also Akademos, the story of Akademos and see what that's about. So that it's based on objectification, on rationalization, which really means total control of the European mind, and that academy became a training ground for the dominate to learn how they were to rule.
-Marimba Ani
Yurugu Unmasked



The concept of objectivity itself is something that has been used by Europeans to control African people. It is a concept which says that we can contemplate truth without being connected to any culture ...without coming from any prospective, without having any political implication in what we do. That of course is not the case and what we did was to accept this and say that "oh their scientist, their scholars, and so forth were describing us objectively". What they were doing was promoting a particular way of viewing the world, promoting a particular political interest in the world. I do not make that claim because that claim, it would be a lie and it is always a lie. When you know, you open up a book and somebody says "well I'm being objective in doing this". How can you be objective? You are a human being, your part of a culture, your people have been, have had an historical relationship to other people. For any African person to say that they are being objective about Europe would be to say that they are being apolitical, nonpolitical, we need to get away from that.
-Marimba Ani
For the people interview


We are now at a point were we think that we have freedom, the ability to be whatever it is that we can be within this society and so forth. Yet what happens is that we are still thinking within a modality that has been determined by those who would oppress us, those who would control us, and we don't see beyond that. So the question for me becomes "who controls how you think?" We have the ability to create our own structures, our own theories, our own definitions of reality. To look at the African worldview.. ..and to use these things as inspiration for the building of institutions, the creation of things, building our own buildings. We have the ability to do that, so it's almost like we've been conditioned so well, for such a long process, that now it is us who are enslaving ourselves mentally...

...It would be so easy in one sense for us to undo it, that's what I'm saying in this book. Because the way the system of European control works is that you have to accept a concept of reality which makes them superior. If you deny that, their thing will not work, and they will lose their control.
-Marimba Ani
For the people interview