“We must realize more fully that values create imperatives as well as the more formally superior - imposed absolutes, and that norms control our behaviors as well as guide our reasoning.”
— Alain Locke
There, then, arises the need to consider the importance of values; specifically the value of knowledge as a means to combat the regressive ideologies that disrupt the ability to extend humanity to those who would, otherwise, be deprived of it through a lack of knowledge of their value. The norms that control behavior as well as guide our reasoning are created by the creation of imperatives that align with values that are derived from worthy and progressive ideals.
“The common man, in both his individual and group behavior, perpetuates the problem in a very practical way. He sets up personal and private group norms as standards and principles, and rightly or wrongly hypostasizes them as universals for all conditions, all times and all men.” -Alain Locke
Philosophical idealism, in alignment with Socratic thought become an important concept when considering how to navigate to the worthy and progressive ideal. From the standpoint of Dr. Carter G. Woodson, the chief task becomes one of altering social consciousness for the betterment of social relations. “Consequently, this educational approach toward Black history serves as the primary means for transforming racist social relations. The virtue embodied in learning about Black contributions in history subsequently is an exploration of changing dominant value orientations. Misconceived notions about the Black past were the hotbed for the stirrings of racist opinions and correspondingly, racist behavior. (McClendon & Ferguson, 2019)
“Whether on the plane of reason or that of action, whether “above the battle” in the conflict of “isms” and the “bloodless” ballet of ideas” or in the battle of partisans with their conflicting and irreconcilable ways of life, the same essential strife goes on in the name of eternal ends and deified ultimates”
Above the battle
In the conflict of isms
Further broken down
Into schisms
Lies a bloodless ballet of ideas
Perpetuating the problem
Of inferioriorization and fear
Of that which is unlike the other
The ornamentalized being of color
“Such the transvaluations of value as from time to time we have, lead neither to a truce of values nor to an effective devaluation; they merely resolve one dilemma and sets up another one. And so the conflict of irreconcilables goes on as the divisive and competitive forces of our practical parallel the incompatibilities of our formal absolutes.”-Alain Locke
History has demonstrated how much difference a decade can influence the formation of a normative value system. As times change so do the imperatives on which these systems are built. The ebb and flow of the social standard influences society and the hierarchical system that gets created and applied to the people, places, and things that are within society rely heavily on the ability to juxtapose the worthy and progressive ideal from that which is a challenge to it.
“We cannot declare for value-anarchism as a wishful way out, or find a solution on that other alternative line alley of a mere descriptive analysis of interests. That but postpones the vital problems of ends till the logically later consideration of evaluation and post-valuational rationalizations.” -Alain Locke
How does one begin to articulate their personal value system from the emotions in which they are rooted? Is it possible to “repudiate intellectualism and escape the autocracy of categorical and universals?”
In the beginning there was a heart
and this heart had a mind.
It thought and contemplated the nature of its existence.
It began to consider what it was created to produce
and came up with the concept of love.
It began to emanate love
and from love came the fruits of its spirit.
“To my thinking, the gravest problem of contemporary philosophy is how to ground some normative principle or criterion of objective validity for values without resort to dogmatism and absolutism on the intellectual plane, and without falling into corollaries, on the plane of social behavior and actin of intolerance and mass coercion.”
It is extremely difficult to determine a normative value system among a group of people because, even within that group of people who seem to be alike, there are always things that set them apart from each other. Their respective lives could be completely different, therefore their upbringing may or may not have been the same. Even two people from the same household can grow up and have completely different perceptions of how they were raised which influences their decisions so it is hard to create a value narrative that considers this fact of existence. “This calls for a functional analysis of value norms and a search for normative principle in the immediate context of valuation.”
The value of knowledge is the only way to combat and disrupt the current wave of intellectual regression and create a concrete platform to structure foundational normative principles that are aligned with a worthy and progressive ideal for the collective.
McClendon, J. H., & Ferguson, S. (2019). African American Philosophers and Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350057968
Montmarquet, J. A., & Hardy, W. H. (2000). Reflections An Anthology of African American Philosophy. http://ci.nii.ac.jp/ncid/BA65356223
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