The relational conception of the self: historical threads, part 3

Anna Julia Cooper on identity-based social ties

In the last installment of this series, I suggested that Peter Kropotkin’s view of mutual aid as a force of evolution shows that “[w]e’re in this together, by nature. And since that’s the case, self-interest looks different than it does on the classic view: for us social creatures, self-interest includes the interests of the group(s) we belong to—both the group itself, and the individuals that make it up.”

One way of illustrating this brings me to another important set of ideas, set out by American philosopher Anna Julia Cooper. She was born in slavery in 1858. She led a remarkable life, and as far as I’m concerned, she’s as badass as they come—and she lived until 1964. (Do that math!) After emancipation, she talked her way into getting a college-preparatory education. She eventually got a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and a master’s degree for college teaching. At age 66 she earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Sorbonne. Throughout her life she advocated for the power of education, particularly for Black women, as a means to get out from under dependence on men. Her most influential work, A Voice from the South: By a Woman from the South is described as the first book-length Black feminist text, because it treated issues that are still part of the conversation in feminist philosophy and philosophy of race.

All of this is context for the passage of hers that I want to present as another illustration of the idea that our being in this together points to a different view of self-interest. In an essay in A Voice from the South titled “Womanhood: A Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress of a Race,” Cooper argues that the future of her race depends on elevating the status of Black women. The piece is a speech she gave to a group of Black clergy in 1886, only about 20 years past the end of the Civil War. The problem she’s addressing is, in modern terms, the intersectional disadvantages Black women face as both Black and women. She makes the background assumption that everyone in her audience is interested in making progress as a race: shaking off the residue of slavery, overcoming racism and discrimination, and taking their rightful place as citizens of the United States.

She starts by pointing out the tremendous responsibility women have for shaping new generations in their role as mothers—“one that might make angels tremble and fear to take hold! To trifle with it, to ignore or misuse it, is to treat lightly the most sacred and solemn trust ever confided by God to human kind. The training of children is a task on which an infinity of weal or woe depends.” And yet, she continues, young Black women—“that large, bright, promising, fatally beautiful class that stand shivering like a delicate plantlet before the fury of tempestuous elements, so full of promise and possibilities, yet so sure of destruction”—are vulnerable because they so often lack the protection and support of fathers and brothers. Yet these young women are those future mothers whose influence will be so important to racial progress. If they’re neglected, progress will be at best incomplete. The young women must be attended to, educated, and empowered. That’s what racial progress will consist in.

Photo by Nora Jane Long on Unsplash

It’s not enough, she argues, to point to the many achievements of Black men and call that racial progress: “We too often mistake individuals’ honor for race development and so are ready to substitute pretty accomplishments for sound sense and earnest purpose.” True advancement is not seen in the accomplishments of exceptional individuals, she claims, but ordinary ones. And the way to achieve that advancement is to raise up the most vulnerable in the population. So, she writes, “Only the BLACK WOMAN can say ‘when and where I enter, in the quiet, undisputed dignity of my womanhood, without violence and without suing or special patronage, then and there the whole Negro race enters with me’.” In other words, when we’ve reached a point when it’s unremarkable for a Black woman to take up any role she might want to take up, that’s when we know we’ve made real progress, according to Cooper. And she argues that this is the responsibility of everyone in the Black community:

“I am my Sister’s keeper!” should be the hearty response of every man and woman of the race, and this conviction should purify and exalt the narrow, selfish and petty personal aims of life into a noble and sacred purpose.

We need men who can let their interest and gallantry extend outside the circle of their aesthetic appreciation; men who can be a father, a brother, a friend to every weak, struggling unshielded girl. We need women who are so sure of their own social footing that they need not fear leaning to lend a hand to a fallen or falling sister.

I want to emphasize the point that Cooper is making here: although she doesn’t directly mention self-interest, she’s arguing that it’s in the interests of all Black people to make sure that Black women are supported. And this isn’t because it will benefit them all individually, though it will. It’s because they are in this together. It’s a calling they have because of who they are, the racial identity they share.

Cooper’s argument is a specific race- and gender-focused example of the more general phenomenon Kropotkin is talking about: because we are by nature social creatures, our interests are tied to those of the people we’re connected to just because we’re connected to them. What it means to be a social creature is that you have interests that stem from group membership, independently of the fact that intra-group cooperation may benefit you.

Perhaps you don’t find this convincing. Even so, this is a less selfish conception of self-interest than the classic view. Even if our reasons for engaging in mutual aid ultimately come down to benefits to ourselves as individuals, thinking of ourselves as social creatures expands our sphere of concern beyond ourselves, and this represents a contrast to Hobbes’ enlightened self-interest.