Pragmatics of Democracy - by Douglas A Jones

Book Synopsis

This study argues early African American literature constitutes an abiding repository of modern democratic thought that is lacking in the political philosophy we normally analyze.

Douglas A. Jones's Pragmatics of Democracy reads African American literature, from its beginnings through the mid-nineteenth century, to theorize how we have come to regard democracy as the most excellent form of political life. Jones notes that the aims of democracy, especially consent of the governed and equality under the law, can seem like tenets of governance that humans desire instinctively. But human nature does not correlate absolutely to politics. Jones argues that political selfhood is formed by "bodily events." He proposes a typology of such experiences that dispose persons toward democratic subjectivity: ecstasy, impersonality, violence, respectability, and care.

African American literature before Emancipation reveals the democratic features of these categories that conventional political philosophy ignores or obscures. Given their lives as enslaved persons or the descendants of enslaved persons, early black writers crafted narratives about achieving democratic subjectivity that were missing in other Anglo-American canons. Pragmatics of Democracy discusses the works of well-known figures such as Phillis Wheatley, Harriet E. Wilson, and Frederick Douglass as well as those of more neglected writers such as Richard Allen, Peter Paul Simmons, James McCune Smith, and Frank J. Webb.

Review Quotes

"Pragmatics of Democracy illuminates the distinctive democratic vision advanced by black writers in the early decades of the United States. Jones's nuanced readings of well-known and neglected figures reconstruct an activist, embodied philosophy through which free and enslaved writers transfigured the terms of their subjection into claims for a polity of equals. An inspiring resource for anyone hoping to understand how democratic culture can be--because it has been--cultivated and sustained in the face of repression, exploitation, and violence."
-- "Lawrie Balfour, University of Virginia"

"Pragmatics of Democracy is an exceptional book--one of the best studies of African American political thought I have ever encountered. Jones's most important contribution is his reevaluation of 'slave morality' in early African American culture. Clapping back at Nietzsche, Jones shows how African American slave morality courageously embodies equal regard, a miraculous democratic achievement."-- "Jack Turner, University of Washington"

"Pragmatics of Democracy reframes democratic theory through the political and imaginative power of African American literature before Emancipation. Jones reveals how early black writers did more than protest exclusion--they dramatized and theorized a surplus vision of peoplehood that has always underwritten democratic legitimacy. What emerges is a carefully wrought vision of democracy's ethical life. Attuned to the contradictions of American democracy, these texts resist closure, instead insisting on democracy as an unfinished, aspirational project grounded in shared struggle and collective life."-- "Melvin Rogers, Brown University"

About the Author

Douglas A. Jones is professor of English, theater studies, and African and African American studies at Duke University.