Herder and Language

What struck me most about Herder's argument, in the excerpt we read from his Ideas on the Philosophy of the History of Humankind, was his insistence that we refer to the different peoples of the world as simply that: people. The word race, he claimed, is the wrong one, because it suggests that those different peoples are entirely different in kind. He puts emphasis on the importance of culture and language in the development of a nation, instead of physiognomy. He notes the distinct differences of each individual human that separates that one from every other on the planet. People and peoples are particular, but even in our particularity we are like one another. Each of us has the capacity for reason and use our intellect to seek "unity," or truth.

I was surprised by Herder, because his notion is remarkably egalitarian and seems to fly in the face of the prevailing notions of his time. In many ways, the phenomena that we classify as racism is a result of the language that allows one to justify another's oppression. By classifying others on the basis of race, and by, as Kant does explicitly, relegating that entire race to the status of subordinate, one opens up a kind of ethical vacuum in which one can justify much while sacrificing little of one's material goals. Because this other is something entirely other and because that other is not a "people" (like the one making this evaluation), the one's ends can be valued as greater, superseding any of the other's goals or desires. The division of the world into races becomes an excuse for exploitation.

On the other hand, it's harder to hurt someone who you know as a person, a fellow human being with his or her own purposes and desires. When you recognize the other's face as a human one, you meet and treat that other according to your own ethical standards. You don't meet her or him as you would a dog, or a beast of burden, or a hostile animal. Such an ethical meeting is the foundation of human community. But it is the case that we sometimes (often as a result of our upbringing or socialization) meet others solely or primarily as Blacks or Hispanics or Whites (this same might apply to women, as well, and perhaps men), and relegate their entire personhood to this mere description. They appear to us as members of a race (or gender), not as individuals and not as members of the same nation. This leads to division, and impedes our understanding of each other. If unchecked in times of social upheaval, the relegation of individuals on a massive scale to the status of other can lead to oppression and violence.

All this was a somewhat roundabout way of saying that the words we use have distinct importance, as does the way that we meet others, and that the language we use can often cloud our attempts to find common ground. If what we are seeking is some kind of truth, then we might do well by regarding Herder's words (slightly paraphrased):

[Those] who succeed in banishing mistakes from creation, lies from our memory, and insults from our nature are to the realm of truth just what the heroes in the fables were to the first world; they reduce the number of monsters on earth.