Race Questions, Provincialism, and Other American Problems (review)

The expanded edition of Race Questions, Provincialism, and Other American Problems brings together the five essays that make up Royce’s original volume with six additional essays that have been unavailable since their original publications, as well as two introductory pieces by the editors. Both Pratt and Sullivan focus on Royce’s views on loyalty, with Pratt tracing the concept from its earliest expression in 1908 through its development in such works as The Sources of Religious Insight and The Problem of Christianity. Sullivan looks to the way in which the essay “Race Questions and Prejudices” “puts his philosophy of loyalty to work” (20) and how (to her mind) Royce’s “careful examination of racial prejudices and his critical treatment of whiteness as a racial category land a significant blow against racial oppression and help dismantle white supremacy” (34).

The first chapter, “Race Questions and Prejudices,” shows Royce struggling through his understanding of race and race problems. On the one hand, he claims that rather than a “black peril” or “yellow peril,” it would be more accurate to show concern about a “white peril” (47) that threatens humanity’s future; in addition, he dismisses the so-called scientific assessments of race and racial characteristics of his day. He points to environmental (including cultural) influences upon groups and thereby questions the dividing of people along essential or inherent characteristics. From this, he presents two lessons: the fallibility of some racial judgments and the relief of race problems in the South by means of administrative changes, specifically the inclusion of African-Americans within certain administrative posts. Further, Royce calls for an understanding of people in humanistic terms and with a humility born of the fact that all are members of the human race, “the whole of [which] very badly needs race-elevation” (68). In so doing, Royce connects race problems with the quest for the beloved community.

However, Royce grants too much when he initially lays out his arguments and seems himself to fall into racism, especially anti-black racism. He provisionally asserts “that the negro is in his present backward state as a race, for reasons which are not due merely to circumstances, but which are quite innate in his mental constitution” (51), he claims it “easy to show that an Australian is just now far below our mental level” (59), and he does not doubt “that some races are more teachable than others” (63). His praise of race relations in Jamaica seems to mistake a lack of “public controversy about social race equality or superiority” (52) with healthy race relations, and he overlooks the anti-black racism inherent in the system that he finds superior (even as he notices the social advantages of a lighter skin). Despite its flaws, this piece is relevant in showing how one might disarm typical racist assumptions, even when they appear under the guise of science.

Royce, in his second chapter, “Provincialism,” uses the term to mean “any social disposition, or custom, or form of speech or of civilization, which is especially characteristic of a province” (69). While we most often attribute a negative connotation to the word, Royce emphasizes “the positive value, the absolute necessity for our welfare, of a wholesome provincialism, as a saving power to which the world in the near future will need more and more to appeal.” In doing so, he contrasts a healthy provincialism with “false sectionalism” (72) and a “mean narrowness of spirit” (73); provincialism for Royce means a recognition of our embedment within communities and of the need to cultivate ourselves and our communities.

For Royce, provincialism better allows people to face three evils of civilization: the evil of the unassimilated in local communities, the leveling tendency found in civilization (the “dead level of harassed mediocrity”), and mob psychology. Newcomers, while often beneficial, pose a danger to the “well-knit organization” of the community if they do not assimilate; provincialism—a sense of pride and loyalty to the community—counteracts...