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Cultural Critique 56Winter 2004Copyright 2004 Regents of the
University of Minnesota
ARIELS ETHOSON THE MORAL ECONOMY OF CARIBBEAN EXPERIENCE
Holger Henke
Truth is a pathless land, and you cannot approach it by any path
whatsoever,by any religion, by any sect. Truth, being limitless,
unconditioned,unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be
organized;nor should any organization be formed to lead or to
coerce peoplealong any particular path.
Jiddu Krishnamurti
Few intellectuals and organic philosophers in the Caribbeanwill
doubt that the region is in a severe moral and ethical crisis at
thishistorical juncture. And yet, making this assertion presupposes
theexistence of an indigenous moral and ethical matrix against
whichsuch a judgment can be made. More often than not, however,
pre-cisely this existence is concealed from the discourse about
societyand moral development in the region. The following essay
pursuesperhaps too ambitiouslya number of simultaneous objects.
First, itintends to highlight some of the elements of what could
perhaps becalled the Caribbean ethic/ethos. In this effort, the
initial guidingquestions are: What are the elements that
circumscribe Caribbeanthought? What are the motives for action? And
what are the ethicsof the people inhabiting the Caribbean? Later, I
will read this (recon-structed) ethos/ethic against Shakespeares
play The Tempest, in par-ticular against the Wgures of Ariel and
(to a lesser extent) Trinculo.Both texts, the Caribbean ethos and
the Shakespearean Wgures,may (and I choose this word carefully, as
I am setting out to exploresubtle connections and discontinuities)
put each other into perspec-tive, withdraw each others legitimacy
or basic assumptions, or rein-force common premises. Second, I will
argue for a view of Ariel thatdiffers somewhat from the predominant
interpretation by postcolonial
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writers. This view will direct the way in which the
ShakespeareanWgures are deployed as a lens through which I choose
to considerissues pertaining to the moral economy of the Caribbean.
Third, theessay is an attempt to utilize differentsometimes
deliberately dis-jointedregisters of writing with which to map the
moral landscapeof Caribbean existence. Since Caribbean existence is
circumscribedby a multiplicity of different discourses, themes, and
cultural tradi-tionsrationalist-positivist, mythopoetic,
Afrocentric, Marxist, andso on (see, e.g., Trouillot 2002)rather
than to settle for any one ofthem, I consider it to be
methodologically more appropriate to moveback and forth between the
epistemological registers implied in thesediscourses.
The connection between ethos and ethics throughout this essay
isnot arbitrary, but reXects the need to consider Caribbean people
asmoral persons.1 This is to say that their actions and parameters
ofthought should be regarded as a collective attempt of structuring
andmaking sense of the world in a culturally speciWc way that
facilitatesthe emergence of a certain measure of order and
predictability.Unlike the moral agent of Kantian and utilitarian
theories, the Carib-bean person should be regarded as a culturally
embedded individualand not an abstract ghost acting in a cultural
vacuum (Hinmann.d., 1). I intend to advance themes that, for a long
time, have lin-gered in the discussions about Caribbean culture and
identity butin the past have been centered on demonstrating the
commonalitiesbetween African or Asian cultures and those of the
Caribbean. WhileI Wrmly believe that these were utterly necessary
in light of the re-quired reconstruction of self- and peoplehood
and the budding pro-cesses of nation building, I am equally
convinced that we havereached a point where it is appropriate to
expand the parameters ofthese debates in order to arrive at a
deWnition of the Caribbean per-sona sui generis, i.e., without
constructing parallel universes. Thisattempt is neither denying the
persistent validity of cultural heritagenor does it intend at the
other extreme to promote a genetic argu-ment.2 However, it is my
persuasion that the history, ontological con-ditions,
epistemologies, and cosmologies of Caribbean peoples, intheir
process of mutual attraction, rejection, and mixing, have createda
unique intellectual space that has come to inform their
habitualways of living and moral motivation.
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When I speak of philosophical thought, I would therefore liketo
emphasize that I primarily refer to the everyday being of the
Carib-bean subaltern, as opposed to the more educated and
literal-scriptural discourses of outstanding Caribbean thinkers
such as AimCsaire, Frantz Fanon, C. L. R. James, and many others.3
As PagetHenry (2000, 2) pointed out recently, much of what can be
regardedas philosophical statements in the Caribbean context are
discursivepractices embedded in nonphilosophical discourses or
texts. While,like all intellectual work, this is work in progress,
I was especiallyencouraged by Henrys recent fascinating and
important book Cal-ibans Reason and his and Wilson Harriss plea for
a mythopoetic logicand the need for Caribbean writers to take
greater account of thislogic, or as Henry calls them, gateways
(2000, 106, 270). Although Ido not share with Harris the belief in
the relative ontological irrele-vance of everyday life, I believe
that the call for mythopoetic dis-courses is well placed when we
consider the moral-ethical contoursof what I call Caribbean
existence. My exploration of the everydaywells of Caribbean
thought, therefore, stands somewhat in contrast toHenrys
groundbreaking book, which focuses on the literary, hightradition
of Caribbean thought. Thus, I do not regard everyday dis-courses
merely as context, but rather as the most profound space ofenacting
what it means to be a Caribbean person.
Although I do not consider myself a deconstructionist, I
be-lieve that this method has its merits, considering that one
importantfeature of Caribbean existence is the persistent presence
of differ-ence and alterity, which give its discourse(s) an
epistemologicalgravity that more often than not collapses them into
each other (see,e.g., Bentez-Rojo 1996, 129; Henke 1997, 43). We
will return to thisaspect later, but sufWce it to mention here that
the intense competitionbetween different value systems in the
region tends to simultane-ously validate and devalue all of them.
The nature of Caribbeanphilosophical thought actually appears to
demand that we approachit as a complex of ideas challenging us
persistently to pursuetoborrow Gayatri Spivaks wordsa critique of
what one cannotnot want (Landry and MacLean 1996, 28). I will
attempt to integratethis approach into the very language of thought
about the elementsof Caribbean moral existence, which may result in
a play with wordsand, indeed, in seemingly irrational or poetic
conclusions about its
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discursive space and limits. Using pun, innuendo,
double-edgedirony, and so on, are autochthonous modes of Caribbean
everydaydiscourse. By appropriating them as tools in the more
highfalutinrationalist and positivistic lingua of academic
discourse, we hope tocontribute to a validation of Caribbean
thought that will demonstrateone possible way to more appropriately
represent the people of theregion.4 In that, it entails an
emancipation of those Caribbean intel-lectual traditions that have
in the past often stood outside of the soci-etal discourse.5 It may
then, indeed, become what Csaire in his 1944essay Poetry and
Cognition called poetic knowledgethat is, knowl-edge in which man
spatters the object with all of his mobilizedriches (quoted in
Kelley 2000, 18).6
Thus, Ariel is Xying again. As a delimiting force acting in a
denseweb of polycultural meanings and moral and intellectual codes,
sheor he has proven to represent the elements of Xuidity and
centrifu-gality in Caribbean existence. Ariel as a metatheoretical
symbol for anongoing discourse about the nature of Caribbean
existence shall inthe second half of this essay be the central
Wgure through which I at-tempt to read some of the
characterizations developed in the Wrst half.
THE CARIBBEAN AS AN ANTIESSENTIALIST SPACE
When conceptualizing and writing about the Caribbean, one has
tobe acutely aware that the complex and violent history of the
region,as well as the diverse peoples that have settled and labored
in it,make it extremely difWcult to arrive at unanimous and
universallyvalid conclusions and concepts about it. In this sense,
the region isindeed a land in which the truth is wandering off the
usual troddenpaths and, to use Krishnamurtis statement in the
epigraph, limitless.However, not only the great diversity of
cultures and their modes ofthinking and discourse contribute to
this opaqueness, but also thefact that, in some of the original
African, Indian, and Chinese culturesthemselves, binary oppositions
and logocentric discourse, Westernnotions of progress, the
juxtaposition of wo/man and nature, and theterminality of historyto
mention only a few of the hegemonic modesof thought in the region
during the past four or Wve centuriesdonot constitute the
traditional epistemology.
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The nature of Caribbean thought is therefore profoundly
anti-essentialist. This is to say that it tends to hold the view
that natureand objects are not necessarily what they seem, that
they do notreadily reveal their true nature (essence), or at least
that they mayrepresent different essences at different times. It
tends to Xatly re-ject monadic constructions that view reality as
indivisible. Caribbeaneveryday discourse is engaged in an extensive
use of multiple logics,code-switching, and artistic and satiric
solution of possibly not re-soluble contradictions and paradoxes.
To the extent that these shiftsand digressions are at the center of
Caribbean existence, it is opposedto the notion of an essence
itself. Let us consider, for example,Jamaican music icon Lee
Scratch Perrys simultaneously idiosyn-cratic and clarifyingand, in
my mind, quintessentially Caribbeanself-description:
Im an artist, a musician, a magician, a writer, a singer; Im
everything.My name is Lee from the African jungle, originally from
West Africa.Im a man from somewhere else, but my origin is from
Africa, straightto Jamaica through reincarnation; reborn in
Jamaica. . . . I have beenprogrammed; many people who born again
must come back to learn alesson. . . . [H]ave you heard of ET? I am
ET, savvy? Savvy? (quoted inKatz 2000, 1)
This cunning voice from a polyvalent, heteroclitic, hyperhybrid,
Cha-gallian Caribbean cosmological and epistemological
heterotopia7
gives a good impression of the rhizomaticas Glissant might
putitdiscourse strategies in these parts.
Any conceptualization of Caribbean thought will consequentlyhave
to take note of this antiessentialism and make it its
fundamentalbasis. However, the use of terms and concepts of ethics,
essentialismversus antiessentialism, and so on, may in itself very
well already bea (Western) imposition on this space that inherently
rejects bipolarmodes of thought, while enabling polyvalent patterns
of thought andenacting multipolar patterns of action.8
Due to its history the region has a number of value systems
oper-ating at various levels of societal discourse.9 Historically,
and in manycases still today, the colonial values (i.e., the
colonists aesthetics,their language, their beauty ideals, and so
on) have constituted theprivileged discourse and deWned who is in
and who is outside
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society. This situation has, for example, created a competing
systemof social respectability clashing with a newer system of
reputa-tion (Wilson 1973). Increasingly, the colonial and
neocolonial dis-course has been pushed back, and a revalorization
of primarilyAfrican values has come to deWne both social reputation
and, to alesser extent, respectability. As Rohlehr has put it in
another con-text, Caribbean self-perception hovers between the
alternatives ofadamic renewal or return, and existentialist sense
of void (1980, 14).Within this mix, we also Wnd social and
philosophical traditions fromIndia and China.
BRIDGING THE CHASM: THE ROLE OF HUMORIN CARIBBEAN DISCOURSE
Whatever the particular mixture of these elements may be, it
isapparent that the earlier described hybridity had one general
conse-quence, which is common to most of Caribbean everyday life. I
amreferring to the important function of humor (by innuendo) as
amechanism to straddle competing value systems. Humor is to
Carib-bean everyday discourse what music is for Caribbean
entertain-ment.10 Ultimately, neither of the latter can do without
the former.The humor that is typical for the Caribbean is, however,
not simplyan empty and vain vessel of communication. Quite to the
contrary,more often than not it embodies important lessons and
truths. As asource of folk wisdom and tradition it does not
establish a set ofprivileged and hegemonic moral rules, which may
be enforced onany possible dissenters, but it strivesand usually
succeedstodemonstrate its truth by enabling the listener or reader
to tran-scend his or her own frame of reference and values. It does
not estab-lish yet another center of discourse, but collapses the
existing centers(Europe, Africa, India, and China) into each other
in a way thatallows all to recognize their humanity andat the same
timeto seethemselves from the outside. It makes the normal self
strange toitself, or rather it reminds the Caribbean self of its
multiple identitysources and thus fundamentally engenders
discursive empathy. Inthe process of laughing, the listener engages
in a sort of secular tran-scendental experience from which he or
she emerges with a higher
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ARIELS ETHOS 39
consciousness of him- or herself. It is the Caribbean subalterns
wayto speak and to speak back to the colonialists (and all that
followedthem). Humor is the Caribbeans unobtrusive strategy to
establish asynthesis where only the opposition of thesis and
antithesis seems tobe imaginable.11
Unlike for other humorous situations, humor in Caribbeaneveryday
discourse is a constant possibility. In his theory of humorVeatch
(1998) explained that for humor to function it requires
threecomponents: (1) an element of normality (N), (2) the
perception of asubjective moral violation in a situation (V), and
(3) both V and Nneed to occur simultaneously. If V and N are
understood as compet-ing value systems, then it becomes immediately
understandable that,unlike in the theory, humor in the Caribbean is
not deliberately con-structed. Caribbean everyday discourse does
not require the situa-tional spark of a constructed moral violation
of what is perceivedas normality in order to collapse or dissolve
both elements in ahumorous way. By way of the constant presence, or
at least potentialpresence, of clashing value systems, the
transcendent moment offersitself to the witty comment at any given
time. While the outsideobserver often attributes this lifestyle to
the easygoing nature ofCaribbean people, for the Caribbean psyche
the humorous transgres-sion means a devaluation of the moral
absolutes contained in eachvalue system. In other words, what
appears as carefree attitude inreality carries much more
fundamental connotations with it. It is arelief from a persistently
psychological tension that pervades manyCaribbean everyday
situations and much of its discourse.
This situation has clear moral implications. Thus, as
Veatch(1998) points out, most individuals have a subjective moral
ordervested in N. To the extent that this moral order is
challenged, ques-tioned, or humorously violated by V, Ns validity
is slightly reducedor at least temporarily compromised. By invoking
and humorouslystraddling this ambivalence, however, humor becomes a
bridge overwhich the individual can traverse the chasm that opens
between com-peting moral systems. Thus, while Fanon (1986, 183)
speaks abouta manicheism delirium, and Csaire laments about
societies inwhom fear has been cunningly instilled, who have been
taught tohave an inferiority complex, to tremble, kneel, despair,
and behavelike Xunkeys (2000, 43), we often see the Antillean
laughingly shrug
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HOLGER HENKE40
off the depth of the ontological abyssthe Valley of
Non-beingsheor he is standing on top of, while wondering which side
to turn to,and whether to turn at all.
Now, this role of humor is particularly pervasive in those
Carib-bean countries that have strong competing value systems
(e.g., inJamaica, Trinidad, or Guyana), while in more homogeneous
Carib-bean societies the prevailing traditional African concepts
(e.g., inHaiti) and creolizations thereof tend to reduce the moral
tensions thatexist between such concepts by virtue of their ability
to be sources oforder and communal peace. These concepts are both
of and for thecommunity, which clearly points to their African
origins (see Mbiti1999, 200). Cultural production (including
everyday discourse) inthese societies often tends to de-emphasize
the humorous elementobserved in the more diverse Caribbean
societies, and focuses moreon spiritual, religious, and
quasi-religious cultural grammar andiconography.
One Weld in which the insurgent and transcendental power ofhumor
in the Caribbean has been mastered is the art of the kaiso.Among
many appropriate lyrics, we may take a closer look at
theTrinidadian calypsonian Mighty Sparrows song Obeah Wedding,which
humorously contrasts two fundamentally different approachesat
securing love.12 While the person, a woman named Melda, is tryingto
attain Sparrows love through the use of an Obeah spell (by virtueof
Obeahs Akan and Igbo roots, representing the African valuesystem),
Sparrow points out to her that she does not fulWll more
con-ventional criteria (presumably representing the European value
sys-tem, as well as more universal preconditions to physical
attraction).In the song Sparrow objects to her use of incense,
garlic, and lard tobewitch him, and to her lack of personal
hygiene. His advice to heris that if she will brush her teeth
better and bathe herself regularlywith soap, she will likely Wnd a
hubby without having to resort tolove spells and incense-burning
rituals.
Interestingly, while Sparrow appears prima facie to reject
theAfrican approach (i.e., the Obeah witchcraft), he does not
carrythis criticism all the way through the song. Thus, his
suggestions fora more successful approach might lead a cunumunu to
becomeMeldas lover.13 The possible West African root of the term is
clearly
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an expression pointing to the creole nature of the society where
theobeah wedding is supposed to occur. By retaining this sympathy
forAfricanness, the European value system is denied absolute
hegemony.Ultimately, the informed listener is laughing about the
way the simul-taneous presence and absence of both value systems
converges in thisparticular courtship situation. Both end up
putting each other in per-spective and coexist rather than compete
with each other. Humortranscends the moral divisions of everyday
discourse.
Ambivalences in Caribbean discourse are embedded in
languageitself, a language that in many instances has been pieced
together onthe basis of some European language, but which carries
signiWcantremnants of African, Indian, and other languages. The
most preva-lent forms of humor in Caribbean discourse therefore are
pun andinnuendo, which are both based on linguistic ambiguity. Here
humoris both embodied in and serves as the instrument for the
transcen-dence of ambiguity and multiple codings.
TIME, COMMUNITY, COUNTERTIME
A deep understanding of Caribbean existence cannot escape the
factthat time is conceived differently in the region than in the
industrial-ized West. The well-known soon come and any time is
Trinidadtime have actually become distinct selling features for
travel agen-cies offering Caribbean vacations to bag-eyed
Americans, Britons, orGermans. As will be demonstrated later (soon
come), this seem-ingly trivial observation also has moral
implications. Again, it isimportant to emphasize that there are
various concepts of time com-peting with each other, and the
various ways in which time is con-ceived or produced depend on the
particular social and economiccircumstances of an individual or a
community. Thus, the perceptionof time stands in an intimate
relation to the particular mode of pro-duction it is engaged
in.
However, before we go into this aspect, the role of origin(s)
has tobe brought into the picture. Cosmologies and epistemologies
pro-foundly different from the European concepts were invisible
travel-ers of the Middle Passage. A linear concept of time such as
in Western
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thought, with an indeWnite past, present, and inWnite future is
dif-ferently constructed in traditional African society. The
traditionalAfrican concept of time is mainly event-driven,
concrete, andun-like modern European conceptsnot measured in
abstract intervals:
Time has to be experienced to make sense or to become real. A
personexperiences time partly in his own individual life, and
partly throughsociety which goes back many generations before his
own birth. Sincewhat is the future has not been experienced, it
does not make sense; itcannot, therefore, constitute part of time,
and people do not know howto think about itunless, of course, it is
something which falls withinthe rhythm of natural phenomena. (Mbiti
1999, 17)14
Without question, this concept of time is inextricably bound
with acosmology and religion that values community and, thus,
moralityas a social and public affair. Different concepts of time
have clashedin the region. As Birth (1999) has explained in great
detail, the previ-ously described prevalent African conception of
time was forciblyreplaced by European clock time. The latter stood
for the temporalrigidities and, by implication, the racist
hierarchies and ethnocentricvalue systems introduced and
perpetuated by the colonial plantationsystem. But clock time also
stood for a moral order that put a pre-mium on the individual
rather than on the community as a whole.In fact, it actually stood
for the imposition of temporal ownershipof a largely atomized
expatriate group over other peoples labor,indeed, their bodies and
therefore their existence. Of course, with thepersistence of
capitalist working arrangements in largely urban envi-ronments,
technological time continues to be the deWning conceptfor the
scheduling of many, if not most, signiWcant daily
activitiesthroughout the Caribbean.
In contrast, as Glissant (1989, 93) points out, the Caribbean
per-son intuitively and deWantly rejects any set notion of time,
particu-larly clock time. The ideal becomes a non-deWned
understandingof time, a concept of time that does not measure in
Wxed divisions,but rather according to what in a given context
appears to be the nat-ural dynamic or sequence of events. This
natural, more Xuid under-standing of time is, for example, embodied
in Trinidadian liming.Liming, a contradiction to clock time, is by
deWnition a social affair.An individual alone cannot lime (Eriksen
1990). It requires a group of
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like-minded companionsfamily, perhaps, or friendswho hangout
together and follow the Xow of the groups collective will
andmood(s) in their activities. Clock time is the last thing on
their minds.Thus, while liming actively opposes exogenous ways of
rigidly orga-nizing labor and/or leisure, it posits an ethic of
community againstthe ascetic rationalism inherent in capitalism and
Protestantism.15
In liming the primacy of community, understood as a natural
andlargely voluntary system of rules, is resurrected or asserted
throughthe impositionor rather lackof (a sequence of) group
action(s).16
It is rather a democratic enterprise than a hierarchically
structuredprocess. Without doubt, liming as an activity ought to be
consideredas a Caribbean form of resistance to an ethic for which
wasting timeis the Wrst and in principle most serious of all
sins:
Loss of time because of conviviality, luxury, even because of
more thanthe necessary and healthy amount of sleep6 to 8 hours at
mostismorally absolutely detestable. (Weber 1973, 159; my
translation)
It is important to note that while both ethics are essential
concepts,the Caribbean ethos is really the movement, the constant
negotiationbetween the poles deWning the two extremes. Thus, as
Birth (1999,13442) points out correctly, glosses such as jus now,
soon come,or any time is Trinidad time are widely used placeholders
thatsimultaneously demarcate the conXict of two or more different
ethics(here, temporal concepts) and help to defuse or negotiate
this con-Xict. While they never really resolve the fundamental
existing antag-onism, they serve as markers that establish a common
ground thatmost parties to the conXict intuitively recognize as an
inalienablepart of their (national) identity. Thus, these markers
implicitly say,This is who we are as Trinidadians, Jamaicans,
Caribbeans. TheytheconXict and the glossesare what make us us.
Thus, the Carib-beans unique moral condition oscillates between
essentialist posi-tions. In other words, the Caribbean persona
tends to reject either/ordichotomies and prefers to embrace
explicitly contextualized andsynergetic concepts of moral
valorization as part of its identity. Thisimpulse is strongest
among the ethnic majority in the region, the peo-ple of African
origin, and it stands in constant contrast to the
ofWcialEurocentric (political) system.
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It should be obvious that in the earlier sketched
Protestant-capitalist (work) ethic, individualism is the basic
organizing principle.The corollary of de-emphasizing community can
be found in theWestern tendency to moral abstraction, such as
described, for exam-ple, in Kants hypothetical imperative. Without
doubt, as form(ality)this ethos is also inscribed in the symbolic
landscape (and the mind-scape) inhabited by Caribbean people (cf.
Abrahams 1983, 140). Onemight even go so far as to suggest that
liming is a distant echo of aris-tocratic European concepts of
leisurely individualism. However, inAfro-Caribbean tradition there
is a greater emphasis on limiting indi-vidualism by the demands of
the community (see, e.g., Gbadegesin1998, 293). These traditions
have survived in the Caribbean. Thus,as Mintz and Trouillot point
out, in Haitian vodou the differencebetween good and evil is
realized in practice rather than throughsome essential manicheism
as in Christianity (1998, 131). While theimposed moral value system
puts a premium on individualism andegocentrism, the morality of
Caribbean society is characterized by afundamental
anthropocentrism.17 In this tradition, a person who sim-ply watches
while children Wght or when conXict occurs betweenadults is not a
good person.18
The communal aspect of (several) Caribbean societies is,
however,not simply an African tradition, but also has deep roots in
Hindu phi-losophy and religion.19 Although there is a strong
emphasis on com-munity in this tradition, it is important to keep
in mind that whilemoral concepts such as justice are certainly a
part of it, they are some-what broken through the social divisions
implemented through thecaste system. Although the caste system and
its pertinent notions ofpurity and pollution clearly stand in
contrast to the theory of univer-sal justice in European thought,
they also show parallels to its class-based praxis.20 There can be
no doubt that the rigidity of the castesystem has become seriously
undermined in the creolized/creolizingsocieties of the Caribbean,
but given the original epistemology andcosmology of African and
Hindu philosophy, it has to be noted thatboth Africans and East
Indians approached the dominant (i.e., Euro-pean) power structures
from a different epistemological basis. Thus,while African moral
concepts were diametrically opposed to Euro-pean classist (and, of
course, racist) rule and its adjacent notion of
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individualism, East Indian ethicswhile equally opposed to the
abusesand indignities of their indentureshipwere at some level able
toaccommodate the rigidities and rituals of a hierarchical social
order.
In much of Caribbean and Latin American writing, the
conXictbetween European and creolized Afro-Asian moralities has
been sym-bolically expressed by the Wgures of Prospero and Caliban
in Shake-speares play The Tempest and an entire body of both
academic andcreative literature based on or inspired by it. I would
like to cast myfollowing interpretation of the Caribbean moral
landscape in thistradition. However, it is my intention to
rehabilitate the Wgure ofAriel, who can be seen to negotiate
between the usually more promi-nently considered Caliban and
Prospero.
ARIELS RETURN
Hegemonic discourse cannot simply conWne itself to establishing
ataxonomy of civilization, i.e., deWning the agents of civilization
andthe subjects of subjugation. The social dynamics of oppressive
ruledemand a more continuous production of stereotypical
civilityand barbarism (Brown 1985, 58). Throughout the Caribbean,
intel-lectual discourse has in the last forty or so years used the
Prospero-Caliban antagonism as a metaphor to describe and analyze
the colo-nial and postcolonial relations between the discursive
center and itsperiphery.21 However, there is also a case to be made
for Ariel, theelusive, ghostlike, creative, spirit-force, whoalbeit
being his mas-ters instrumentnevertheless moves the unfolding plot
of power,subordination, and revelation by the way of his
otherworldly andintangible, invisible hand. As I will argue, Ariel
appears to personifythe force of ideas that only slowly and
incrementally move the courseof history, but, once recognized for
what they are, become a resourcethat cannot be resisted even by
armies.
We recall that Shakespeares Ariel had left the stage to
liveunder the blossom that hangs on the bough (5.1.94). But let us
sup-pose for a second that he has forgotten something and returns
afterall others have left the stage; time may have passed, but as
always, anaudience is there:
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ARIEL enters stage from the left, still. Looking around in
wonderment, he doesntseem to Wnd himself where he wanted to be. He
leaves the stage to mingle withthe audience. Bob Marleys Rastaman
Chant is playing from imaginativeloudspeakers between the readers
ears. While walking offstage, Ariel clears histhroat, then begins
to speak: Anyone here named Pablo? Pablo Picasso? (Noreply from the
audience.) Nobody? (Thinking) Well, anybody here who canexplain the
origin of Cubism? (Pauses) Oh, perhaps it is too early to ask.Youre
just enjoying 1611, 1838, 1933, 1989, or thereabout! (Loud,
impa-tient) Well, what are you staring at me for, then? Go home,
people, theshow is over. Go back to Auschwitz, Bhopal, Chernobyl,
Seveso, Soweto,Gulag, Nagasaki, wherever you come from. (He
disappears to the right,now humming Marleys Redemption Song.)
Is it possible that Ariel, or even Caliban of Shakespeares The
Tempest,could have addressed the audience and in such an irreverent
way?Hardly. And yet, it is certainly imaginable that a new
monologuecould be written in a similar way. But new questions need
to beasked: Who is the audience addressed in this manner? Why is
Arielleaving them? What is the nature of the show that was being
playedbefore this imaginary monologue? Such questions point to the
factthat parameters in the dialogue between hegemon and
subalternhave shifted and are subject to continuous paradigmatic
shifts orinSylvia Wynters terminologyepistemic change. Thus, as for
exam-ple Stuart Hall has pointed out in his essay New Ethnicities,
therecan be no simple return or recovery of the ancestral past
which isnot re-experienced through the categories of the present
(2001, 448).Or, as Scott argues more abstractly, Ariels new
monologue could beunderstood as an invitation to take up the more
difWcult task ofthinking fundamentally against the normalization of
the epistemo-logical and institutional forms of our political
modernity (1999, 20).
Few Caribbean writers have bothered much with Ariel. One ofthem,
Edward Kamau Brathwaite, the cornucopian wordsmith fromBarbados,
has attempted to bring the ghost into the picture. In hisarticle
Caliban, Ariel, and Unprospero in the ConXict of Creoliza-tion: A
Study of the Slave Revolt in Jamaica in 183132,
Brathwaiteinterprets the creolization process by utilizing
Shakespeares protag-onists as archetypical actors in the colonial
drama. Although he isaware of it, it would appear that his Ariel
does not unfold the fullambivalence Shakespeare had applied to his
persona. In Brathwaites
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interpretation, Ariel, usually an educated slave or freedman
opento white creolization and technology (1977, 48), mainly acts as
ago-between, an intermediary, a Hermes, delivering signals and
ordersfrom the colonial Fhrerbunker to the front lines of colonial
sugarplantations in the Caribbean.22
In contrast to Brathwaite, I suggest that Ariel cannot be
appliedas an archetype that denotes a particular personality on the
colonialstage. Rather, Ariel has to be read for what he really is,
an etherealforce permeating the sky just around the heads of the
colonial in-truder but operating well below the radar of his/her
sight/con-sciousness. I argue that Ariel is more appropriately
understood asa metaphor for a set of practices in Caribbean
everyday life. Whois Shakespeares Ariel really? Isnt she or he a
creature that haspromised temporary service, but really only exists
for the single-minded pursuit of his ultimate day of freedom?23 Is
there more toil?Since thou dost give me pains, / Let me remember
thee what thouhast promisd, / Which is not yet performd me
(1.2.24244). Thereis nothing ambiguous about this demand. But Ariel
knows realpoli-tik. Prospero is in possession of superior magic: If
thou murmurst,I will rend an oak, / And peg thee in his knotty
entrails, till / Thouhast howld away twelve winters (1.2.29496).
The result follows aclear cost-beneWt analysis:
ariel: Pardon, master:I will be correspondent to command,And do
my spiriting gently.prospero: Do so; and after two daysI will
discharge thee.ariel: Thats my noble master!What shall I do? say
what; what shall I do? (1.2.297300)
Ariel may be an ethereal force, but he is no dreamer. He is well
awareof his limits. He temporarily allies himself with his
antithesis in pur-suit of the promise and ultimate goal. Indeed,
where Caliban is de-ploring his fate, Ariel is taking action.
Rather than Brathwaites Ariel, the Ariel envisioned in this
essaycomes closer to Rods emphatic description written in 1900:
He is generous enthusiasm, elevated and unselWsh motivation in
allactions, spirituality in culture, vivacity and grace in
intelligence. Ariel is
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HOLGER HENKE48
the ideal toward which human selection ascends, the force that
wieldslifes eternal chisel, effacing from aspiring mankind the
clinging ves-tiges of Caliban, the plays symbol of brutal
sensuality. (1988, 31)
Thus, Rods Ariel is more an invisible hand or an (elusive?) goal
tobe aspired to. While we acknowledge the positive spin given to
Arielin Rods essay, we also need to be mindful of the limits that
theauthor imposed on this Wgure, which have been criticized by
otherssuch as Carlos Fuentes (in the foreword to the 1988 edition)
andRoberto Fernndez Retamar (1988). His endorsement of Europeanin
particular Frenchculture and complete neglect of Americanindigenous
cultural contributions have to be noted as unfortunateshortcomings,
even if weas Fuentes doesattempt to understandit in the context of
the essays historical origins.
Similarly (and perhaps yet closer to the central argument
pur-sued here), as J. Michael Dash points out, a more positive
readingof Shakespeares Ariel has also been suggested by Csaire. In
thevoice of [Csaires] Ariel, the language of the land Wnds
expression(1986, 57). In Dashs view, Csaires Ariel is directed
toward the tran-scendence of the revolt against Prospero:
His discourse is rooted in the belief that the imagination at
its mostintensive strives beyond moral, political, and sexual
divisions for anandrogynous wholeness. (56)
In Csaire/Dashs interpretation, Ariel becomes a voice of
(nonteleo-logical) nature, of the landscape itself, which thus
seems to becomean additional protagonist of the discourse. Ariel,
then, is the voice ofa proto-ecological discourse.24 Yet, by virtue
of his quasi-supernatu-ralistic appearance, Ariel seems to point to
a higher order. The notionof ethereal force implies certain
powerspowers that cannot be seen,operating subtly yet with
determination, transmitting waves throughthe air that may on
different occasions either gently direct or an-nounce dread with a
thunderous voice. Ariel, imprisoned by Sycoraxinto a cloven pine;
within which rift, / Imprisond thou didst pain-fully remain,
without doubt is a master of music in Shakespearesplay (1.2.27779).
Does it take too much imagination to see him akinto a skin
stretched over a drum? Isnt his ghostly song really the trans-posed
voice of Africa, the voice of the African-Caribbean? Isnt there
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dreadful riddim in his song?: Full fadom Wve thy father lies; /
Of hisbones are coral made; / Those are pearls that were his eyes
(1.2.399400). There is even clearer evidence that Ariel has Maroon
character:
. . . Then I beat my tabor;At which, like unbackd colts, they
prickd their ears,Advancd their eyelids, lifted up their noses,As
they smelt music: so I charmd their ears,That, calf-like, they my
lowing followd . . . (4.1.17579)
If Ariel is not dubbing to a dub plate, his pied piper stage
presencestill conjures up the cosmology of African peoples. He is
clearly not ofthe same Xesh and blood as Prospero, Caliban, or
Trinculo. Togetherwith Prospero he both invokes and revokes a
different time experi-ence: My charms Ill break, their senses Ill
restore, / And they shallbe themselves (5.1.3132; see also 3.3). As
indicated above, Arielsghostly appearance also carries a morality
of its own:
You are three men of sin, whom Destiny,. . . . . . . . . . . . .
. .Hath causd to belch up you; and on this island,Where man doth
not inhabit,you mongst menBeing most unWt to live. I have made you
mad. (3.3.5358)
This morality is not only contained in Shakespeares writing, but
alsoinnate in the invocation of African cosmology as it appears
throughthe Ariel Wgure. Without doubt in the African cosmology and
theolo-gies, spirits and spiritual forces are in close contact with
humans.They occupy a somewhat intermediary position between the
realm ofhuman existence and the Supreme Being. There is
communication,indeed interaction, and the well-being of humans
depends on theirability to please spiritual forces. As one
prominent African theologianand philosopher has put it:
Spirits as a group have more power than men, just as in a
physical sensethe lions do. Yet, in some ways men are better off,
and the right humanspecialists can manipulate or control the
spirits as they wish. Men para-doxically may fear, or dread, the
spirits and yet they can drive the samespirits away or use them to
human advantage. (Mbiti 1999, 78)
This relationship not only seems to describe the
Ariel-Prospero
ARIELS ETHOS 49
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relationship, but also connotes a moral dimension that is
signiWcantlydifferent from the Christian tradition where no
intermediary forcesallow the active manipulation of social
relationships or commu-nal well-being. Where Europeans encountered
Ariels African spiritworld in the West Indies it may, indeed, have
made them mad.
READING ARIEL BACKWARD
So far I have utilized the Shakespearean play in a rather
conventionalway, i.e., to help interpret and reinterpret the
Prospero-Arieldynamic, the colonial encounter, and power
relationships betweenEurope, Africa, and the Caribbean. But more is
possibleandrequiredin order for us to make the fullest use of the
Bardsambiguous dialogues (see also Forbes 2001, 56). I shall
therefore turnaround the mirror to see who indeed is the most
beautiful around. Itis Ariels time to laugh and lead the
conversation.
ariel: Now, youre still here, bewitcher? Hasd somehow missed
thylast boat home? Backra no longer, much smaller thy frame lookd
now.The golden chain around your paunch is gone, cant stop my time
nomore. How doest thou feel this day without thy horsemen, bible,
can-non, bare now and face to face with me alone?prospero: Oh
Ariel, my good spirit. Thy tone speakd of mistrust, dis-content
even. Thou didst not doubt my commitment ever, to you, thefair isle
we chose to share. Say I am right! Few moments in time I in-tended
just to borrow, to help you, even now, brighten your days,
ours.ariel: Hush up now, where is your style, the good taste you
once pre-tended? Like sugar it appears to have dissolved to
nothing, sweet van-ity, foaming on your somersaulting lips.
(Frowns) Quite unappetizing!Speaking of jumps and rolls; did mine
eyes not glimpse last night one ofyour European companions, jumping
on his toes tips, quite obviouslycontrary to the drum n basss
riddim? Quite a sight, I confessto you. And thou shouldst tell the
fool that, for the most part, he andhis party have not gotten in
their veins what some would call a poly-rhythm. Not born to be a
prodigy to music, the sweetest of all arts;remember, the waves of
air are my domain. Quite obviously, my clumsyone, no Sly Dunbar,
Max Roach, or Elvin Jones yet from your seedsprang forth.
Thus, or similar, the Bard might have felt compelled to write,
had hebeen born in the West Indiesand black.
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But perhaps no one has expressed the need to write back and
thedetermination to reclaim the moral authority over the destiny of
theCaribbean and its peoples more eloquently and forcefully than
Mon-sieur Csaire himself:
Therefore, comrade, you will hold as enemiesloftily, lucidly,
consis-tentlynot only sadistic governors and greedy bankers, not
only pre-fects who torture and colonists who Xog, not only corrupt,
check-lickingpoliticians and subservient judges, but likewise and
for the same rea-son, venomous journalists, goitrous academics,
wreathed in dollars andstupidity, ethnographers who go in for
metaphysics, presumptuous Bel-gian theologians, chattering
intellectuals born stinking out of the thighof Nietzsche, the
paternalists, the embracers, the corrupters, the back-slappers, the
lovers of exoticism, the dividers, the agrarian sociologists,the
hoodwinkers, the hoaxers, the hot-air artists, the humbugs, and
ingeneral, all those who, performing their functions in the sordid
divisionof labor for the defense of Western bourgeois society, try
in diverse waysand by infamous diversions to split up the forces of
Progresseven if itmeans denying the very possibility of Progressall
of them tools ofcapitalism, all of them, open or secretly,
supporters of plundering colo-nialism, all of them responsible, all
hateful, all slave-traders, all hence-forth answerable for the
violence of revolutionary action. (2000, 5455)
As Lewis Gordon has pointed out, thinking through the
periphery,the underside, the subaltern could as well be
characterized as Cal-iban studies, if we will, where the focus is
study through which Pros-peros language can be decentered (2000,
3). And yet, writing backto Shakespeare, or reading Ariel backward,
remains in some ways toomuch within the given conWnes of European
discourse. The rhetoricaltropes and Wgures basically remain the
same, if mirrored in a some-what renegade style.25 Ariel remains
mired in an Enlightenmentargument, which prima facie would appear
to Wt him well. However,his adeptness to a polyrhythmic ontology is
merely a gesture since itstays tied to the logic and narrative Xow
of the colonizer. Althoughthis allows for considerable leverage, it
also tries to Wght the battle ona turf that has already been
occupied, deWned, and therefore tainted.Enlightenment morality was
class- and race-based, i.e., dependent onthe existence/creation of
an Other, and hence is unWt for applicationto Caribbean contexts or
for the purpose of comprehensive liberation.However, let us not
part with Ariel yet, foras Henry has argued
ARIELS ETHOS 51
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incisivelyour engagement with the poeticist tradition in
Caribbeanthought is a necessary corrective to the predominance of
the histori-cist school within it (2000, 25760). Ariel now has to
remove him-self out of the bipolarity that has emerged, stand
aside, and read thevoices of both protagonists from the side, that
is, by applying a dif-ferent angle. It is time to shatter, not just
turn, the mirror.
READING ARIEL SIDEWAYS
If we can read Shakespeare backward, there must also be a way
toread the text of The Tempest or some of the characters sideways.
Butwhat can that possibly mean, and how can we read sideways?
Obvi-ously, reading backward implied a certain critique of the
originaltext. However, by doing so, the backward-read text runs the
risk ofbecoming a new orthodoxy. Reading sideways then must
presum-ably provide us with an interpretation that does not easily
run therisk of transforming itself into such a Wxed positionality
or hege-monic interpretation. In fact, it has itself to exhibit
transforming prop-erties, i.e., it has to be open to interpretation
while shedding light onthe existing text and countertext. Thus, it
has to be a sort of guidinglight without actually being a
beacon.
In attempting to outline the contours of such a discourse, I
hopethat my application of Shakespearean characters against
themselves,as well as against the ambiguous moral economy of
Caribbean exis-tence, may be a very modest attempt to contribute to
Scotts muchlarger project of refusing history its subjectivity, its
constancy, itseternity; to think it otherwise than as the pasts
hold over the present,to interrupt its seemingly irrepressible
succession, causality, its sov-ereign claim to determinacy (1999,
105). For our effort of mappingthe moral economy of Caribbean
existence, this refusal would thentranslate into a text that
equally questions hegemonic and counter-hegemonic value-system
discourses in the region. It would haveto achieve this by steering
clear of both universalism and cultural rel-ativism. The question
is: Can it be done and has it been done inthe region?
The second part of this question is easy to answer. There can
beno doubt that many aspects of the ongoing creolization
experience(s)
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ARIELS ETHOS 53
in the region show how the peoples of this region have both used
andrefused elements of both their autochthonous value
coordinatesand those imposed by the colonial project. If, as I
believe it has, theimposed colonial moral economyperpetuated in
numerous differ-ing ways in the postcolonial Caribbeanwas a
conscious attemptto confuse and corrupt the moral stage on which
the colonial andpostcolonial dramas were acted out, a reconWgured
moral economycannot be gained by choosing between African,
Anglo-European,andto a lesser extentIndo-Asian values. Instead, the
way forwardappears to be in attempts to normalize a deeply
creolized economyof emotions and values.26
In many instances the popular imagination in the region hasmoved
in this direction, especially in the realms of
magico-religiouspractices, for example, in Haitian vodou.
Beauvoir-Dominique (1998),among others, describes the early rise of
Freemason societies and thecontinuing widespread use of wizard
spell books (grimoires) in Haiti.These underground realms of being,
as she calls it, are to my mindthe most obvious attempts to create
order, a new order, out ofreconWgured elements inherited from
ancestral and acquired occultspaces of we (see also Hurbon 1995,
14649):
Imagine fumes of sulfur, lashing of whips, echoing forth to
present-dayPetwo ritual. Following centuries of bricolage, the
Creoles needed direc-tion and synthesis: a shredding down to impose
order through hierar-chy and command. Radically new ritual
arrangement guided themthroughout their war, under the obedience of
Petwo (sou lobedyansPetwo). (Beauvoir-Dominique 1998, 162)
And yes, there are deWnite attempts to unlearn the bi- and
tripolari-ties imposed on the people of the region. Some of these
attemptsgo beyond the simple use of language, text, and spoken
word, andmake their statements in the realm of music and the
creative arts(see also Forbes 2001, 66). Othersimportant for a
social scienceanalysisstay dedicated to the use of words and
language, but at thesame time attempt to transcend the inherited
materials and re-createan original language and discourse about
Caribbean ethics/ethos.
Foremost, in my mind, is the poetic work of Brathwaite who
hasdeveloped, as Bobb puts it, a style and form that transform the
mar-ginality of the past into a centralizing force (1998, 46). The
key word
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HOLGER HENKE54
here is transform. Brathwaites writing style, indeed, has
surpassedmany conventions, and with the materials offered by
history and con-temporary affairs, his entire oeuvre is a
re-creation of an authenticCaribbean voice, a re-indigenization and
reoccupation of the moraland ethical space held by Caribbean
indigenous and African peo-ples before the arrival of the
colonialists. Thus, when he describesthe view from the location
where he lived in Jamaica, overlookingKingston:
Kingston Harbour the sea fr-om Old Harbour, SpanishTown,
Caymanas, right round to Bull Bay, Pharoah Sanders sun-ship and
valley-mist, the huge huge a-ll day sky and the distan(t) sea-sky
where Cuba an(d) Hispaniola would be,
except that we are lookinsouth tho feelin north (Brathwaite
1999, 124)
he does not simply depict a geographic, but attempts to
characterizealso the torn and fragmented historicity of the
intellectual spaceinhabited by modern Caribbean woman/man.
In fact, however, the authentic, organic voice of the Caribbean
isevident in many different locations and efforts of artistic
(re)creation.Can this be done on a larger, and more sustained
scale, one thateven infects the (academic) discourse about
Caribbean existence? Theanswer to this question will dependamong
other thingson thehistorical process and distribution of class
power. The uneasy coexis-tence of different registers of existence
in the region allows us, how-ever, to take the Shakespearean
markers and emblems and reorderthem for the exploration of a
mindscape that has dramatically alteredfrom the time when he
fantasized about the New World. The rawmaterial is there. The seeds
of a fundamental discursive displacementin the Caribbean exist at
the margins of (ofWcial) society and willalways represent a
potential option indicating that the ofWcial moraleconomy in the
region could and ought to be stacked in ways that
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decenter legitimacy claims of universal, homogenous,
privileged,monadic, and positivist markers and signiWers. The
result, however,will not be another Wxed point, a deWnite and
deWning narrative, but,as Bentez-Rojo reminds us aptly, the goal .
. . lies always at anunreachable point, at the edge of the inWnite,
there, in a space thatshifts continually from the possible to the
impossible (1996, 182):
ariel: So, could it be done?prospero: Why you always asking me?
Havent I given all the wronganswers yet? Go Wnd your own. Leave me
out of this.ariel: Well, I take your word. This is the last you see
of me.prospero, now seemingly wrapped in deep thought: Yeah, yeah.
Thats Wne.I dont have all your answers, why are you even asking me?
(Sucking histeeth; then, as if suddenly reminding himself of
something) I do share your . . .(Pauses) No, lets not start
again.trinculo: Are you ready to leave already? You cant quit now.
(Both juststare at him.) I mean, its just not the time yet.ariel:
Why dat? Is yo mumma tell yuh? Or de nex one. What im nameagain?
Aloysius Gossamer Longshoreman . . . somting somting . .
.?trinculo: Just wait. Its not the right time yet.prospero: Im not
going anywhere anyhow. Im down with you.trinculo: Well, as I say,
this is not the right time yet. This is the agewhere you go
dot-com. But, you dont want to go down there, do you?ariel: Why
not, ah feel ready long time, man.trinculo: Yeah, yeah, you feel
ready long time and that old fart next toyou doesnt even remember
what time is. So, what are you telling meabout long time? Time
longer than rope. I say you have to wait. Youwait, itll be here
soon enough.prospero, protests: Hey, hey, hey; I remember why were
here. I broughtyou here after all. (Falling back into
thoughtfulness/forgetfulness) But wait,isnt it all over now? What
are we waiting for?trinculo, with attitude: You didnt hear what I
said, old man. I say youhave to stick around. You have to wait for
2Dog. Hell question youranswers, your doubts, and your
questions.ariel, imitating a British accent: Well, then, why dont
we all enjoy a cupof tea in the meantime? I have here the Wnest of
the Wnest. A ratherexquisite mixture imported from Ceylonpardon me,
Sri Lanka.
If waiting for 2Dog, hybridity, ambivalence, code-switching,
irony,and moral dualities are a hallmark of Caribbean moral
existence, thesocioeconomic everyday realities on the ground also
force them-selves back into the foreground to prevent a pure
poetics of Caribbean
ARIELS ETHOS 55
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HOLGER HENKE56
existence. This shift in perspective seems to be implied, for
example,in George Lammings work, particularly when he raises the
issue ofa sovereignty beyond the narrowly conceived political
sovereigntyof new Caribbean nations and invokes a notion of
sovereignty con-ceived as the capacity you have for choosing and
making and remak-ing that self which you discover is you, is
distinctly you (2002, 147).Due to the immense technological
capabilities of our times andbecause of the movement nature of
Caribbean existence, our mytho-poetic perspective of the Caribbean
moral economy can and indeedhas to turn back to a more positivist
evaluation. Thus, using Lam-mings shift as a starting point, the
question may be posed where theCaribbean stands in regard to the
current transformation of thehumanist ethos.
Although ethic and moral philosophy have for some time
laggedbehind the new developments in technology, we are currently
ina transition that at its end maywhether we like it or notevenmake
the old humanistic moral economy obsolete.27 Since the dawnof human
consciousness and certainly since the European Enlighten-ment,
individuals could at best hope to be a sub-ject (i.e., attainmentof
independence under a preexisting and encompassing conceptualframe,
such as God, human rights, and so on). Due to advances withthe
Human Genome Project, advances in cloning, and stem cell
tech-nology, new horizons are looming under which humanity has
thepossibility to move from being a subject to becoming a
project.
As far as I can see, the debate about ethical and moral
ques-tions emerging from these possibilities has been considerably
morenuanced, philosophically rigorous, and intense in Europe than
in themore pragmatic U.S. public.28 In the Caribbean, however, I do
notyet see the emerging contours of the Caribbean perspective on
theseissues. In the past we have witnessed concern about young
blackgirls in the region using skin bleaching substances, but what
if U.S.companies were to offer genetic manipulation that would
promiseto achieve Michael Jacksonlike or Jennifer Lopeztype
featureswithout the use of a scalpel? What would be the social
implicationsfor the region if there were doctors offering
phenotypically black par-ents an affordable option to have their
child become a browningXowing hair, straight elongated nose, thin
lips, and all?
Perhaps regional intellectuals and decision makers
implicitly
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ARIELS ETHOS 57
believe that these issues can be avoided, since they may be able
tocode-switch through the new options that are evolving. And
perhapsthat might even work. But, as mentioned before, something
else isalso eroding; the (imperfect) fundamentals of humanism such
ashuman dignity, inviolability of life, the integrity of the
person, and soon are quite possibly Wghting a lost battle against
the overwhelmingtyranny of the possible implicit in these new
life-changing tech-nologies. Like it or not, these humanist
fundamentals have affectedthe Caribbeana creation of European,
African, and Asian culturesto a great extent. If we are indeed on
the verge of becoming ourown project, how will the Caribbean elect
to shape itself and itsfuture? How will its moral economy evolve if
humanisms lure isfading? If hitherto the Caribbean was a hybrid of
Europe and Africa(and, to a lesser extent, parts of Asia and the
Near East), what willbe the long-term effects of the possible
disappearance of the argu-ably most substantial inXuence, the
European humanistic system? Inwhose image will the Caribbean create
itself following these epochalchanges? Will we witness a showdown
betweento analogize withAristotles classiWcation of knowledgean
Afro-/Indo-centric mythicpoiesis (as the basis of a new thrust of
Caribbean nationalisms) anda U.S.-inspired quick-buck praxis (i.e.,
globalization), while the Euro-humanistic rationalist theoria falls
by the wayside? Ariel will have tobe on the move again and can no
longer afford the same degree ofphilosophical liming as in the
past.29
Notes
For their numerous comments that helped me to disentangle some
of my ideas,I am grateful to John Bewaji, J. A. George Irish,
Karl-Heinz Magister, TrevorPurcell, Jennifer Sparrow, Deborah
Thomas, as well as two anonymous reviewers.They, however, are not
to be blamed for the remaining mess.
1. In an earlier article I attempted to discuss Caribbean
existence outsideof the parameters of morality and without an
involvement in the potentiallytreacherous discussions about
binaries such as right and wrong, good and evil(Henke 1997). In
Aristotle, ethos is the character produced by moral habits.
Simi-larly, both the words conscience and consciousness derive from
the Latinconscire (to know, be aware of; from con, with, together,
plus scire, to know).Because Caribbean moral space(s) involve
constant shifts and trade-offs, the termeconomy was introduced in
this context.
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HOLGER HENKE58
2. Important arguments along the same line have been suggested
byimportant Caribbean writers such as Wilson Harris, Edouard
Glissant, PatrickChamoiseau, Derek Walcott, and others. In the
following I will refer to some ofthis work.
3. By using the term subaltern I do not wish to invoke Spivaks
misin-terpreted essay Can the Subaltern Speak? from which, in any
case, she hasdistanced herself (see, e.g., Landry and McLean 1996).
Rather, it is used in theGramscian sense that Meeks (2000, 2224)
seems to propose.
4. This statement may be regarded as problematic and requiring
someexplanation. In my view, there does already exist a Caribbean
cultural discoursethat is largely embodied in the cultural
practices, traditions, and everyday actionsof Caribbean peoples. To
my mind, Caribbean scholars have not yet sufWcientlyrecognized and
thematized these mostly performative and nonscriptural expres-sions
of Caribbean thought. It is hoped this modest attempt at
integrating theminto scholarly work will achieve some of the still
missing recognition.
5. Among the notable exceptions to this tendency are
intellectuals such asRex Nettleford, George Lamming, and Antonio
Bentez-Rojo.
6. And for a moment we will overlook Csaires gendered concept of
therationalizing human being.
7. In his essay Of Other Spaces, Foucault deWnes the term the
followingway: There are probably in every culture, in every
civilization, real placesplaces that do exist and that are formed
in the very founding of societywhichare something like
counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia in which
thereal sites, all the other real sites that can be found within
the culture, are simulta-neously represented, contested, and
inverted. Places of this kind are outside of allplaces, even though
it may be possible to indicate their location in reality.
Becausethese places are absolutely different from all the sites
that they reXect and speakabout, I shall call them by way of
contrast to utopias, heterotopias (1986, 27).
8. The situation here is similar to the dilemma of
deconstructive thinking,described by Gayatri Spivak: Operating
necessarily from the inside, she writes,borrowing all the strategic
and economic resources of subversion from the oldstructure,
borrowing them structurally, that is to say, without being able to
isolatetheir elements and atoms, the enterprise of deconstruction
always in a certainway falls prey to its own work (quoted in Landry
and MacLean 1996, 7).
9. Thus, while in the Christian tradition current Jamaican moral
valuescertainly are perceived as being ordained by God, traditional
Ashanti beliefs holdthat God has no inXuence on peoples moral
values (Mbiti 1999, 202). However,Ashanti was one of the main
ethnic groups from which people were brought asslaves to Jamaica
(Alleyne 1989, 44; Craton 1982, 125). The connection certainlyneeds
a more systematic exploration, but the question arises whether
Jamaicascurrent moral crisis does not also Wnd an explanation in
these competing percep-tions of Gods role in the determination of
human moral values.
10. This is not to argue that rational thought does not play the
same rolein Caribbean discourse as it does for any other culture.
My argument is simply
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ARIELS ETHOS 59
that Caribbean thought is at different times and for different
groups inXuenced bya variety of contending cosmologies, ontologies,
and epistemologies. Any con-structive in-depth and prolonged
communication between these systems is likelyto encounter implicit
or explicit deWnitional boundaries at which point the dis-course
inherently tends toward a resolution in irony and humor.
11. Yet another important, and often underappreciated, strategy
in theCaribbean context is the marginality suffered by
nonconforming individualismand eccentricity or the more or less
real escape of (post)colonial madness. See,for example, Henke 1996,
6971; and Price 1998, 157217.
12. Despite several attempts to secure a copyright permission
for the fewlines that the original version of this article intended
to quote from his song, Spar-row was not willing to produce this
permission. The reader is therefore asked toread the lyrics of the
song on-line, where it can be found reproduced at a varietyof
locations, e.g., at
socanews.com/music/lyrics/melda(obeahwedding).shtml orat
arts.yorku.ca/english/creet/ lyrics.html.
13. Cunumunu is a Trinidadian term for a stupid person. The word
is alsoknown in Jamaica (and possibly other Caribbean countries)
and is therefore prob-ably of West African origin. In Sparrows
song, the term is pronounced with anl in place of the second n in
cunumunu (koo-noo-mooloo).
14. Mbitis claim that African society does not know future
(1999, 16) hasbeen proven wrong by a number of authors and
subsequently intense debateshave developed over the nature of the
African concept of time. See, for example,Beyaraza 2000.
15. The notion of ascetic rationalism was, of course, introduced
by Weber(1973, 380). Since Protestant asceticism is fundamentally
opposed to the danger ofa free and hedonistic enjoyment of wealth,
the subversive power of liming is eas-ily discernible. Despite the
impression given by Weber, however, we also haveto note that both
privacy and the concomitant concept of individualism origi-nated in
the aristocratic classes of feudal Europe. Only gradually, and with
the tri-umph of capitalism, did these concepts become public goods
in Europe.
16. Although Birth (1999, 130) mentions this aspect, his
treatment of it doesnot get adequate coverage and is not
sufWciently emphasized.
17. Exceptions support this general rule; in the case of Nevis,
Abrahams(1968) mentions that there is very little community
activity or feeling.
18. Other important instances of Caribbean communalism are child
shift-ing, rotating savings and credit associations (partner or
susu), family land,day-for-day labor, conviviality, and so on.
19. While community plays a strong role in Hinduism, there seems
to be astronger emphasis on individualism than in traditional
African culture and phi-losophy (see Khan 1996, 6). Community in
Hinduism, moreover, seems to tran-scend anthropocentrism and to
suggest a communion with the universe, a lessconcrete and more
abstract or transcendental form of community.
20. For the aspects of universality and particularity in East
Indian commu-nities in Trinidad, see Schwartz 1964.
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HOLGER HENKE60
21. See, for instance, Csaires A Tempest (1999), Retamars Calban
y otrosensayos (1979), Toumsons Trois Calibans (1981), or the
creative oeuvre of GeorgeLamming, which centers on The Tempest.
22. It is important to note at this point that Brathwaite
introduces what hecalls the Aerial persona. Aerial functions in his
argument as a kind of prototypeAriel, an Ariel who aspires to, but
cannot achieve, becoming his full self. Only inexceptional cases
and for exceptional individuals (e.g., Jamaicas national heroSam
Sharpe) was the successful entrance into the Euro-creolizing or
ac/cultura-tive process made possible (Brathwaite 1977, 59/60).
Still, the relationshipAriel/Aerial is not applied consistently
throughout Brathwaites text. In his Con-versations with Nathaniel
Mackey, Brathwaite describes Ariel as Prosperos spyingeyes, his
communication apparat, police and television aerials (1999, 188).
Arielhas a similarly (potentially) reactionary role in Retamars
(1988) interpretation.
23. This seems also to be the way Csaire reads Ariel (see 1999,
2023).24. Edouard Glissant has consciously and brilliantly
incorporated this as-
pect into his oeuvre. Consider, for example, Glissants thoughts
about the land:I am struck by the fate of Xowers. The shapeless
yielding to the shapely. As if theland had rejected its essence to
concentrate everything in appearance. It can beseen but not smelt.
Also these thoughts on Xowers are not a matter of lamentinga
vanished idyll in the past. But it is true that the fragile and
fragrant Xowerdemanded in the past daily care from the community
that acted on its own. TheXower without fragrance endures today, is
maintained in form only. Perhaps thatis the emblem of our wait? We
dream of what we will cultivate in the future, andwe wonder vaguely
what the new hybrid that is already being prepared for uswill look
like, since in any case we will not rediscover them as they were,
themagnolias of former times (1989, 52). While in the context of
the hybrid, ambigu-ous moral situation of the Caribbean the dream
for the Xowers fragrancebecomes the dominant register of thought
and action, the rampant materialism ofmuch of the rest of the world
appears to rush in a pseudoteleological frenzy fromone invention to
the next, from one record to the next, from growth to moregrowth,
with inner and external peace of woman/man with herself and
betweenwoman/man and nature being as remote as ever before. While
much of theCaribbean is certainly infected by the same bug, it
nevertheless seems to runagainst its deep inner being. If Novaliss
mythic Blue Flower was ever to befound, it would grow somewhere in
the rainforest or along the seashores of theCaribbean islands.
25. This is also an obvious concern of Scott. See, for example,
his introduc-tion to Refashioning Futures (1999).
26. Creole and creolization are by no means clear and
unambiguousconcepts. Space considerations prevent a
problematization of these terms, andI am using them here simply in
order to point to the fundamentally hybrid, inter-mediary, and
multilayered nature of Caribbean social systems. For a
morecomprehensive treatment, see Shepherd and Richards (2002), in
particular theexcellent chapters by Nigel Bolland and Carolyn
Allen.
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ARIELS ETHOS 61
27. The operative word here is may. Obviously the debate about
whetherwhat is technologically possible shall also be what is
morally allowed is currentlyin full swing.
28. I am thinking here in particular about a highly
controversial speech in1998 by the German philosopher Peter
Sloterdijk (his Elmau Lecture), replies byJrgen Habermas, Robert
Spaemann, and subsequent interventions by the Ger-man chancellor
and Bundesprsident, among others (see also Jongen 2001). As faras I
can see, the Sloterdijk lecture is not yet available in English, at
least not on theInternet; however, one source that includes debate
about his ideas and morerecent texts can be found at
http://www.goethe.de/uk/los/symp/enindex.htm.
29. I am well aware that there are exciting new developments
under waywith regard to the development of a Caribbean philosophy,
some of which werealluded to in this text.
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111 Rita Raley eEmpires
151 Cesare Casarino and Antonio Negri Its a Powerful Life:A
Conversation on Contemporary Philosophy
Book Reviews
187 Spectral Evidence:The Photography of Trauma byUlrich
BaerJakki Spicer
191 Marxism, Modernity, and Postcolonial Studies edited
byCrystal Bartolovich and Neil LazarusStephen Groening
195 Books Received
201 Contributors
Correction: The title of Holger Henkes essay in Cultural
Critique 56 contains anerror. The correct title should be Ariels
Ethos: On the Moral Economy ofCaribbean Existence. Cultural
Critique regrets the error.
00Front.qxd 7/20/2004 7:54 PM Page iv
Correction