While reflecting on the upcoming 1956 election, W.E.B. Du Bois pinned the following:
“In 1956, I shall not go to the polls. I have not registered. I believe that democracy has so far disappeared in the United States that no ‘two evils’ exist. There is but one evil party with two names, and it will be elected despite all I can do or say.”
The repudiation of the primary channel for political change coupled with the lack of a definitive alternative path: Du Bois’s message amounts to an image of pessimism that Afrikans acquainted with the American political theater are disposed to. Opposed to the hopeful optimist who would readily subscribe to the offered channel of political change, Du Bois takes on the role of a man who, having fatalistically resigned from their post of a prominent activist, waning in their permeating despair, offers nothing but a paralyzing pessimism in the linear path of material progress. This scene of pessimism feels even more familiar when considering the recent refusal of the Black left to vote, similarly rejecting the ‘lesser of two evils’ argument.
This scene of paralyzing pessimism is undoubtedly what is conjured in one’s mind when one hears a pessimistic style of politics, with its merit invariably stamped out and run into the ground. This style of pessimism has no seat in the political theater for the hopeful optimist who demands a definitive course of action. However, is this unquestioned conception of pessimism warranted?
Towards the end of the article, Du Bois reaffirms that:
“Stop yelling about a democracy we do not have. Democracy is dead in the United States.”
Without endorsing some of Du Bois’s remarks–to speak of democracy disappearing without it existing in the first place is comical–the role Du Bois plays under a different gaze in the political theater seems promising. No longer does the audience boo at the perceived despair, or walk out on his fatalistic resignation. The audience, as the set designers, have substituted a paralyzing pessimism for a critical pessimism, one that, driven by an intense dissatisfaction, retains a critical outlook necessary to challenge the prevailing structures of power.
But promising for what? A new consciousness necessary for Afrikan progress. While the hopeful optimist remains fastened to their faith in the existing order of things, convinced that all that is needed is a mere change of moral scenery for political leaders, this critical pessimism, underpinned by a wave of intense dissatisfaction, gives rise to a new subjectivity, a new consciousness necessary for Afrikan liberation. Rejecting the hopeful optimist’s faith, the critical pessimist comes to recognize the power dynamics that drive history, priming one to fundamentally challenge the existing order and the primary channel for political change.
Source:
Du Bois, W.E.B. “I Won’t Vote.” The Nation, 1956.