Social and Political Philosophy

Assignment for seventh and last class (March 29)

Race and Political Theory

We noticed last time that the Western tradition of political theory is the work of men who mainly ascribed a subordinate place to women. This time we notice that it has been the work of (so-called) white people who ascribe (sometimes explicitly, sometimes not) a subordinate place to nonwhites. This is often treated as if it was an unfortunate, but rather minor, oversight. All we need to do is to apply our political principles a bit more consistently, keeping firmly in mind that nonwhite people should have the same rights as whites. Our main reading for this class, by Charles Mills, argues that this attitude underestimates the seriousness and nature of the problem. “White supremacy” he says, “is the unnamed political system that has made the modern world what it is today.” To understand our world and our political tradition, we need to think much more systematically about the role that race has played in both theory and practice.

Read:

The Racial Contract, by Charles Mills

This is a fairly short book, but some parts of it are pretty dense. I’d recommend starting with the introduction, but then skipping the first section of Chapter 1 (pp.9-19) and proceeding directly to the second and third sections (pp. 19-40) before returning to the first section. The other sections that seem most important to me are pages 53-89 and 91-108. If you have the time and the stamina, try to read the whole book. (It might help to skip over the parts that are too dense and theoretical to grasp at first, looking for the examples and the clearer parts, and then returning to the denser bits after you’ve gotten the hang of his views and his writing style. My suggestion that you read the first part of Chapter 1 after the second and third parts is an example of this strategy. )

Also relevant are the selections from Franz Fanon and Malcolm X in the Princeton Reader.

Write: 3-5 pages (total) answering the following questions:

1. What is the Racial Contract, as Mills understands it?

2. What evidence does Mills offer for the claim that the Racial Contract has played an important role in our history? (Summarize briefly.)

3. How does Mills try to show that the classic thinkers of the social contract tradition (including several we have studied) actually buy into the Racial Contract? Does his evidence convince you on this point?

4. Mills claims that the theory of the Racial Contract does a much better job than the ‘raceless’ Social Contract theory in explaining the nature of our political and social world. How so? (How, for example, does he claim it makes possible a better understanding of the Nazi slaughter of the Jews? – pp.102-106) Do you agree?

5. Mills claims that the Racial Contract has been rewritten lately, so that white supremacy is harder to see, but that it has not been abolished. (See pp. 73-78 and 117-118.) Why does he think that our society is still governed by a Racial Contract? What do you think about this?