Progress out of Meaning: Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic in Conversation with Marxism Molly Dunn College

Paul Gilroy’s The Black Atlantic examines the critical relationships between race, culture, and nationality. Throughout history, national rhetoric has been racially exclusive. White culture has been the basis of western national identity. Many black scholars reacted to this nationalist othering by promoting pan-Africanism, or the concept that people of African descent should be politically united. Gilroy values pan-Africanism, but believes it oversimplifies black political culture. Culture is central to Gilroy’s concept of modernity; he believes art can create progress out of struggle.

Gilroy’s focus on culture fundamentally opposes Marxist notions of progress. Marxism holds that historical progress is motivated by the dialectic between bourgeois property relations and productive forces. Over time, productive forces destroy social systems at large. Eventually, productive forces will destroy private property, and class struggle will cease to exist. Culture does not factor into Marx’s concept of progress; only social and economic forces. Culture is not important to Marx; he doesn’t see humans as agents of progress but rather subjects in a greater historical framework. This paper hopes to compare Gilroy’s counterculture of...