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“Not Equals but Men”: Du Bois on Social Equality and Self-Conscious Manhood

“Not Equals but Men”: Du Bois on Social Equality and Self-Conscious Manhood While recent scholarship has argued for the utility of W. E. B. Du Bois’s thought for democratic theory, his career-long emphasis on the problem of social equality—and the solution of self-conscious manhood—has gone largely unnoticed. In this article, I argue that while Du Bois’s emphasis on social equality powerfully situates racial oppression as a social and epistemic problem, his solution of self-conscious manhood paradoxically reproduces the very conditions of social inequality he seeks to combat. Open to people of all races, genders, and classes, the path of self-conscious manhood consists in radical truth-telling, a free anarchy of the spirit, a will to strive and act, and the purity of isolation. However, through a close reading of Du Bois’s biographies, editorials, and fiction, I show that self-conscious manhood centers an exclusionary and atomized ethic of self-creation rather than producing a democratic political and social order. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png American Political Thought University of Chicago Press

“Not Equals but Men”: Du Bois on Social Equality and Self-Conscious Manhood

Rodman, Emma
American Political Thought , Volume 10 (3): 31 – Jun 1, 2021
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Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Copyright
© 2021 by The Jack Miller Center. All rights reserved.
ISSN
2161-1580
eISSN
2161-1599
DOI
10.1086/715113
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

While recent scholarship has argued for the utility of W. E. B. Du Bois’s thought for democratic theory, his career-long emphasis on the problem of social equality—and the solution of self-conscious manhood—has gone largely unnoticed. In this article, I argue that while Du Bois’s emphasis on social equality powerfully situates racial oppression as a social and epistemic problem, his solution of self-conscious manhood paradoxically reproduces the very conditions of social inequality he seeks to combat. Open to people of all races, genders, and classes, the path of self-conscious manhood consists in radical truth-telling, a free anarchy of the spirit, a will to strive and act, and the purity of isolation. However, through a close reading of Du Bois’s biographies, editorials, and fiction, I show that self-conscious manhood centers an exclusionary and atomized ethic of self-creation rather than producing a democratic political and social order.

Journal

American Political Thought – University of Chicago Press

Published: Jun 1, 2021

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