Description
This paper argues that universal values and principles can exist in a contemporary global context, but universalist projects are hindered and corrupted by relationality. To give an example the paper begins by briefly highlighting the constructed (biological and moral) relationality in Kant’s anthropology, which undermines the universalist claims and practice of his cosmopolitan ideas. Such attempts at defining universalism were viewed with suspicion by postcolonial thinker Frantz Fanon, not only for obscuring the racist relationalities that underpinned such universalism, but also for imposing a hegemony of ideas in the name of progress. Rather than accept relativism in the place of universalism, though, Fanon argued for a postcolonial humanism which centres subjectivity and recognition of difference as a universal trait. However, his ideas still contain a tension between breaking the chain of relationality while also calling for recognition of difference. His ideas were still rooted in modernity and focused on social relationality. Finally, then, the paper explores the omissions in Fanon’s thought, chiefly a non-social or non-materialist relationality, drawing from indigenous and theological perspectives to consider guesthood as a possible foundation for some universal values.
