For Hegel the development of self-consciousness arises within an intersubjective struggle for recognition of the self by the other. His early account of recognition appeared in his ‘Jena writings’.100 However, it is the theory of recognition which appears in The Phenomenology of Spirit (1977) that has been most influential. Here Hegel outlines various levels in the development of consciousness generally, including the development of self-consciousness. In the chapter that deals with self-consciousness, the section on the relationship between lordship and bondage is the primary source for most theorists of intersubjective recognition. Having shown how consciousness develops in relation to objects in the material world, here Hegel explains the development of self-consciousness in relation to another consciousness. This development follows a number of dialectical steps. Firstly, the self sees the other as a being like itself: ‘[T]hey are for one another like ordinary objects, independent shapes, individuals submerged in the being [or immediacy] of Life’ (Hegel, 1977:113, ¶186). Secondly, consciousness is decentred, or alienated from itself, as it sees itself for the first time as an object in the experience of the other. Thirdly, it is only the recognition
of the other, that is the other’s acknowledgment of the self as another consciousness, that will ‘return’ consciousness to itself, thus securing a sense of self-consciousness. In other words, the development of self-consciousness depends on this recognition from another. As Hegel (1977:111, ¶178) famously opens his discussion of lordship and bondage, ‘[s]elf-consciousness exists in and for itself when, and by the fact that, it so exists for another; that is, it exists only in being acknowledged’.
100
See Honneth (1995:183, nt2) for a complete list of these writings and the publications in which they appear. Note also that Honneth is alone amongst contemporary recognition theorists in focussing on these early works.
The third moment in this dialectical relation, which results in the achievement of self- consciousness, involves a conflict that Hegel characterises as a ‘life-and-death struggle’ in which ‘each seeks the death of the other’ and must also be prepared to stake their own life (Hegel, 1977:113-4, ¶187). The willingness to face death is necessary to the achievement of autonomy or self-determination: ‘In order to discover itself as a negative or self-surpassing being, self-consciousness must do more than merely live; it must transcend the immediacy of pure life’ (Butler, 1987:51). The preparedness to risk life is necessary because to have self-consciousness means to already be, in a sense, ‘beyond’ mere life:
[S]elf-consciousness is both a living being and somewhat more; somewhat more because it does not just undergo the life-process unconsciously, but is already beyond it in thought. In the attempt then to win recognition of themselves as self-consciousness men [sic] prove that they are beyond mere life by showing that they are not attached to this particular living thing which is themselves, that their recognition as “beings for themselves” (Fürsichsein) is more important, that they will risk their lives for it (Taylor, 1975:153).
The struggle for the death of the other stops short of literal death to achieve this recognition, resulting instead in reduction/objectification (social death). The relation of lord and bondsman in the Phenomenology represents this outcome to the struggle. One individual is not prepared to stake their life, and thus submits to the will of the other, recognising them as a self-consciousness without receiving reciprocal recognition. Effectively, the individual who submits becomes a bondsman, enslaved to the other. The other achieves recognition as lord and subordinates ‘life’. The material reality that ‘life’ represents, acts as a third term in the subsequent relationship between lord and bondsman (Taylor, 1975:154). The physical needs of the lord are catered to by the bondsman, so that the lord no longer has to work to live. Rather, ‘things’ are presented already prepared for the lord’s consumption and the lord’s relationship to material reality is mediated by the bondsman. The bondsman, on the other hand, works on the material world, thus retaining direct experience of it. Consequently, rather than relate to each other directly, their relationship is mediated through ‘things’.
For Hegel, the relationship of lord and bondsman is one stage in the dialectical development of consciousness and the unfolding of an historical teleology. In contrast, twentieth and twenty-first century theorists, having given up on the purposeful unfolding of history, view the relation of lord and bondsman as a distorted and unsatisfactory relationship of domination and subjection. What follows in the next three sections of this chapter, is the identification and then analysis of the speech interactions that create and maintain this relation, seen from this more contemporary viewpoint of its distorted nature.
‘Repressive silence’ in the master-slave dialectic
The struggle between master and slave101 is characterised by Zali Gurevitch (2001:89) as ‘speech fights against another speech, voice against voice, to the point of I or
Thou’.102
101
Osborne (1995:72) notes that the translation to colonial terminology has led to the ‘revitalisation’ of Hegel’s text within the context of decolonisation struggles since WWI, but also argues that it has led to major misunderstandings of Hegel’s philosophy. Also see, however, Buck-Morss (2000:846, nt79) who argues that Hegel used the terms for bondsman (Knecht) and slave (Sklave) interchangeably in the Phenomenology. Buck-Morss argues that the development of Hegel’s master-slave dialectic was influenced from the outset by the colonial relation, and particularly the slave rebellion and establishment of a Black republic in Haiti in the late 1700s/early 1800s.
102
The invocation of ‘I’ and ‘Thou’ is a reference to Martin Buber’s I and Thou (1958) in which Buber distinguishes between ‘I-It’ and ‘I-Thou’ relations with otherness. In ‘I-It’ interactions, the other is related to as an object, in ‘I-Thou’ relations, as another subject (see for example, Crossley, 1996:11). Gurevitch is pointing to the struggle for domination in which only one protagonist can be recognised as a subject.
Consequently, he argues, the slave loses the right to speech and their silence is the mark of their recognition of the master (Gurevitch, 2001:90). This is not to say that the two no longer speak however, but that their conversation is distorted and ‘broken’. One mark of this distortion is that the slave is forced to speak as dictated by the master (Gurevitch, 2001:91). The notion of dictated speech can be detailed by reference to Fanon’s analysis of the colonial relation. Fanon suggests two forms of dictated speech. The colonised are met with contradictory demands to both assimilate to Western culture and to be completely different, a difference which itself reduces them to objects via the logics of primitivism and racism. Applying this to Gurevitch’s dialogical model of the struggle, these contradictory demands can be seen to lead to two forms of dictated speech: the demand to speak ‘sameness’, to mimic the colonial master, and the demand
to speak/mimic (a primitivised and racialised) ‘otherness’.
Fanon explores the harms inflicted by these forms of misrecognition on the colonised and racialised other. If Black people are to be recognised as human beings, it is always a conditional recognition and relational to Whiteness (Fanon, 1986:110). Blackness is always a qualifier on their humanity:
“Oh, I want you to meet my black friend ... Aimé Césaire, a black man and a university graduate ... Marian Anderson, the finest of Negro singers ... Dr Cobb, who invented white blood, is a Negro ... Here, say hello to my friend from Martinique (be careful, he’s extremely sensitive) ...”
Shame. Shame and self-contempt. Nausea. When people like me they tell me it is in spite of my color. When they dislike me, they point out that it is not because of my color. Either way, I am locked into the infernal circle (Fanon, 1986:116).
Thus the granting of ‘equality’ is always conditional. The ‘Black man’ is only like a man, and only if they behave according to the rules of White society, a mimicry which can never guarantee their status. Against any claim to humanity ‘the fact of Blackness’ weighs them down. In the famous story of his response to the White child in the street whose voice hails him, ‘Look, a Negro!’, Fanon outlines the impact of racist misrecognition, which carries with it the whole sedimented weight of racist history:
I could no longer laugh, because I already knew that there were legends, stories, histories and above all historicity ... Then, assailed at various points, the corporeal schema crumbled, its place taken by a racial epidermal schema ... I was responsible at the same time for my body, for my race, for my ancestors. I subjected myself to an objective examination, I discovered my blackness, my ethnic characteristics; and I was battered down by tom-toms, cannibalism, intellectual deficiency, fetishism, racial defects, slave-ships, and above all else, above all: “Sho’ good eatin’.”103
103
Josefson (undated, p10 of 12) explains the inclusion of this phrase in terms of Fanon’s desire to emphasize the crucial role of language in securing the colonial relation. It is through the language of the coloniser that the Black self internalises the image of the primitivised and racialised other. Hence this phrase epitomises the splitting of the Black subject in colonialism, who sees themselves (and their dialect) through the ‘eyes’ of the White coloniser.
On that day, completely dislocated, unable to be abroad with the other, the white man, who unmercifully imprisoned me, I took myself far off from my own presence, far indeed, and made myself an object. What else could it be for me but an amputation, an excision, a haemorrhage that spattered my whole body with black blood (Fanon, 1986:112).
Against the web of racist history and logic, internalised from the milieu in which they live, the self-identity of the ‘Black man’ cannot hold together, but fragments and is made an object. Real psychological harm is done to the Black sense of self as a result of the misrecognition of the White, colonising society.
A second mark of the distorted speech between master and slave is that it takes the form of ‘a conversation through things which for the master are a nuisance and for the slave are blood, sweat and tears’ (Gurevitch, 2001:91-2). This conversation is marked by repression and ‘repressive silence’. It is not that the slave never tries to speak independently, but that their speech is confronted with prohibitions, repression and the refusal of the master to listen, which Gurevitch (2001:93) terms ‘the silenced ear’. Thus, following the logic of repression, the master’s silencing strategies are never fully successful and the repressed speech of the slave continues to ‘haunt’ them. The result of the master-slave interaction then is an impossible bind or ‘neurotic’ relation (Sartre, 1967:18-9), in which the master wishes to be rid of the voice of the slave, but at the same time depends upon it for the dictated speech that ‘secures’ their identity in domination. As Fanon (1986:216-7) expresses it, ‘[a]s long as he has not been effectively recognized by the other, that other will remain the theme of his actions’.
Gurevitch’s analysis of the dialogical processes of domination offers a dynamic account of the ongoing practices of interaction that secure the master-slave relation and with it these identities. In effect, these speech distortions mark the fact that this is a relation which constantly undermines itself. There are no subject-to-subject engagements here. Such a possibility is blocked by repressive silence, the silenced ear and the ability to only interact through ‘things’. In this distorted relation of domination and subjection the identities of master and slave are constituted. The master is constituted as the universal subject, whose demands that the slave both mimic sameness and difference effectively state ‘I am the only subject. Be like me/Be Other’. The identity of the slave, in contrast, is reduced to mimicry, both of an impossible sameness that can never be recognised as such, and of a primitivised and racialised difference. While the dissatisfactions of such a situation for the slave are clear, those of the master need more explanation. According to the logic of recognition, the master remains dissatisfied, despite material comfort,
because his identity can never really be secured in relation to a being he himself does not recognise as his equal. Bhabha’s (1990b:210-11) analysis of the way the practice of mimicry undermines the identity of the master/coloniser provides further insight into these dissatisfactions. While the master claims subjectivity, this claim is constantly undermined by the distorted relation with the slave, which itself ensures the dominant position of the master. Thus the tragedy of the master and slave is shown to be this simultaneous dependence on, and denial of, the intersubjective relation.
This overview of the dynamics of the struggle for recognition and its unstable and unsatisfactory ‘settlement’ in the relation of master and slave, or coloniser and colonised, offers a new lens with which to reinterpret the Maori-Pakeha dynamics of essentialised identity claims as discussed in Chapter Two. Essentialist identities are shown to be relationally constituted in the zero-sum, binarised struggle between self and other, the struggle of ‘I or Thou’ (Gurevitch, 2001:89). The Pakeha demand for recognition from Maori is expressed in contradictory injunctions to sameness (‘we are all immigrants’, ‘we are both indigenous’) and to a primitivised Maori difference. This difference is appropriated in the Pakeha nationalist project, in an attempt to secure Pakeha identity. As outlined in Wolfe’s analysis of repressive authenticity, between these two demands, Maori identities that fail to perform primitivised difference are discounted and ‘silenced’, existing ‘at the vanishing point of subjectivity’ (Fuss, 1995:146). Thus Maori are exhorted to various forms of dictated speech and to otherwise remain silent. A return to the examples used in Chapter Two to highlight the dynamics of repressive authenticity will show that it is the ‘haunting’ and critical speech of Maori politicians and activists, who seek to speak of the violence and injustice of the colonial relation, that is silenced in this way. In the following two sections, I develop the linkage between master and slave and Pakeha and Maori identities further, using Gurevitch’s models of ‘repressive silence’ and the ‘conversation through things’. This analysis highlights the ways in which practices of repression and silencing create and maintain the coloniser-colonised relation.