Introduction

Symposium: Racism in the Eighteenth CenturyZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Introduction AT THE SECOND ANNUAL meeting of the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies, three members gave brief presen­ tations on eighteenth-century racial views. Professor Harry M. Bracken spoke on Bishop Berkeley’s racism, Professor David Fate Norton spoke on Hume’s view about non-whites, and Professor Leonora Cohen Rosenfield spoke on some eighteenth-century at­ titudes about American Indians. The points raised generated such interest that it was decided to devote the meeting of Section E in 1972 to the subject of racism in the eighteenth century, as well as to have a symposium on the matter. At the third annual meet­ ing, during the discussion of some of the first papers to have been presented, the question was raised as to whether racism really existed at that time, and whether various authors discussed were properly being classified as racists. Some suggestions were made that twentieth-century standards were being applied anachronistically to an earlier situation that was quite different. In the dis­ cussion following the symposium the following exchange occurred in an effort to clarify what was meant by *’racism” and how this dif­ fers from "ethnocentrism.” Professors Magnes Morner and Win­ throp Jordan were discussants at the symposium, and Professor Her­ bert Marcuse was the chairman of the session. Professor Richard Popkin was one of the speakers and the presiding officer. Magnes Morner: ... If I disagree somewhat with the term racism here, speaking about the eighteenth century, I do so on the basis of the experience of my work with Spanish American so­ cial history and because I would like to replace the term with "social racial prejudice and discrimination”. . . Winthrop B. Jordan: ... I think I agree with Professor Morner, sharing a certain unhappiness about the use of the term rac239 Ra c is m in t h e Eig h t e e n t h Ce n t u r y ism. Some of us have sat here since 9:00 listening to papers coming from various angles on the problem of racism in the eighteenth century, and I am really troubled by the fact that we have not, that I have heard, had a definition of what is meant by racism. I think that one of the unfortunate results has been a tendancy on the part of some of those giving pa­ pers to try to decide whether individual writers were racist or not. This seems to be unprofitable when one is talking about pervasive cultural attitudes. Take for instance the Abbe Gregoire; he was interested in freeing slaves. In some senses he was a real equalitarian, and yet when he set out to prove that Negroes were not inferior, what did he do ? He gathered together a collection of writings by Negro writers and he published these as evidence that, here indeed, Negroes can perform intellectually. And he also wrote about the fact that there were important empires and cities in Africa, but if one examines that, it needed to be done at the time; fair enough, but is that racist, or is it not racist ? I guess it is not a terribly profitable question, because one could argue that in making the proposition that he was making, he was asking Africans and the descendents of Africans in the New World to per­ form like Europeans, and it was not possible for him then, or, I suspect, for anyone then, to accept the possibility that there were different attributes of African culture which were valu­ able which the European culture lacked. I suspect that many of the people who have been talking today (and I’m a bit rais­ ing a question rather than trying to make a point at this junc­ ture, because I hope many people will ask questions when I am through), I suspect that many people would say that racism is an ideology which grew up as a way of rationalizing the over­ seas exploration of Europe, and the exploitation of less tech­ nologically advanced peoples, which the Europeans under­ took . . . From the floor: I have a question: Have we really defined rac­ ism yet ? Where does ethnocentrism end and racism...