Pierre-André Taguieff

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Pierre-André Taguieff, born in 1946 in Paris, is a philosopher and political economist, and director of research at CNRS (in an Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) laboratory, the CEVIPOF). He is the author of many essays in sociology, mainly concerning the questions of racism, racialism (or "scientific racism"), antisemitism and historical revisionism.

[edit] Works

In La Force du préjugé - essai sur le racisme et ses doubles (1987), Pierre-André Taguieff analyzed several different types of racism:

  • The first type of racism is against miscegenation, in favor of racial segregation, and wants to preserve differences between various alleged races. 19th century racialism theories, such as Arthur de Gobineau's An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races (1853-55), are an example of this type of racism, which pretends to be founded on science and on the existence of biological human races. In other words, this pseudo-scientific racism mistakes differences in the amount of melanin (which determines skin color) for racial differences.
  • The second type is insidiously hosted by the Enlightenment philosophy of universalism: its dream of unity of mankind may bring it, in specific and extreme cases, to the will to annihilate all cultural differences, amounting to effective genocide or ethnocides. Taguieff's point is not in declaring that the Enlightenment philosophy is racist in itself, but rather that extreme forms of this will of universality may lead, in practice, to the destruction of the plurality of cultures and to the rejection of even moderate forms of multiculturalism.
  • The third type, more recent, has integrated the cultural relativists' attacks against racism. This new form of racism has reversed the famous anti-racist arguments of ethnologist Claude Lévi-Strauss. According to Lévi-Strauss, different cultures are incommensurable, and, because of this, each one thinks progress and superiority is on its side - Lévi-Strauss, in his 1952 essay for the UNESCO, used the famous metaphor of two trains crossing each other's path: each one thinks he is going the right way, while the other seems not to move or to move backward. Because of this, ethnocentrism is a necessary optical illusion, which in turn racist discourse uses to justify itself. According to Taguieff, racist discourse, such as that supported by Alain de Benoist's Nouvelle Droite far-right movement, has accepted the theories of cultural relativism and the non-existence of biological race. Claiming to uphold cultural relativism and thus antiracism, this new racist discourse in fact reiterates the strict distinction of various ethnic groups and segregation between them. Since it argues that "ethnic groups" exist but are not biological races, it claims not to be racist. However, apart from the pseudo-scientific racist theories of the 19th century, it espouses an anti-assimilationist point of view in completely rejecting the notion of a social melting pot. Arguing that the Enlightenment's philosophy of universality, taken to extremes, is a form of racism, it pretends to be antiracist by preaching strict separation of ethnic groups. However, if the critics of "universal racism" are correct, it is clear that this new form of racism is descended in a direct line from the old discourse of separation between different supposed races.

Taguieff is also very interested in the work of Leon Poliakov and has worked a great deal on the antisemitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Today he works on nationalism, the future of the Republic, and the concept of progress.

Pierre-André Taguieff's denunciation of antisemitism and of the instrumentalisation of anti-zionism by specific ultra-minority groups has been somewhat controversial, his opponents claiming that he was identifying anti-zionism with antisemitism. However, Pierre-André Taguieff does not define himself as a "Jewish intellectual", and is a staunch opponent of any form of communitarianism whatsoever. As such, he does not claim that anti-zionism is necessarily antisemitism, but simply that in some islamist circles, explicit anti-zionism may dissimulate implicit antisemitism, in the pure tradition of the European history of antisemitism.

[edit] Bibliography

for the english edition : The force of prejudice : on racism and its doubles (Minneapolis, Minn. : University of Minnesota Press, ©2001. ISBN 0-8166-2372-4, 0816623732)
  • 1991 - Face au racisme, La Découverte (dir.)
  • 1991 - Théories du nationalisme (Kimé) (collaborating with Gil Delannoi)
  • 1992 - Les protocoles des sages de Sion, faux et usage d’un faux
  • 1994 - Sur la Nouvelle Droite, Galilée
  • 1995 - Les fins de l’antiracisme, Michalon
  • 1996 - La République menacée, Textuel
  • 1997 - Le racisme, Flammarion
  • 1998 - Face au Front National. Arguments pour une contre-offensive, La Découverte (avec Michèle Tribalat)
  • 1998 - Les populismes
  • 1998 - La couleur et le sang : doctrines racistes à la française, Mille et une Nuits
  • 2000 - L’effacement de l’avenir, Galilée
  • 2001 - Du progrès. Biographie d’une idée moderne
  • 2002 - La nouvelle judéophobie, Mille et une Nuits
  • 2004 - Le sens du progrès - Une approche historique et philosophique
  • 2004 - Prêcheurs de haine. Traversée de la judéophobie planétaire, Mille et une Nuits
  • 2005 - La république enlisée - Pluralisme,communautarisme et citoyenneté, Ed. des Syrtes
  • 2005 - La foire aux illuminés Ed. Mille et une nuits.
  • 2006 - L'imaginaire du complot mondial: Aspects d'un mythe moderne, Ed. Mille et une nuits.
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