emotion

Submitted by (inactive) on Friday, 10/21/2011, at 12:59 AM

EMOTION according to Léopold Senghor

 

In the colonial binary, is it often said that Reason is European and Emotion is African. But for Senghor, it does not mean that African is devoid of reason. Through the senses, through the touch and not through the analytical and destructive European eye, the African reaches another way of knowledge by assimilating the object to the subject (himself), by directly living it. Doing this, it gives him more vital force. That’s what Senghor calls the “emotional power” of the coloured man.

 

Quotes :

 

L. Senghor « The spirit of civilisation, or the la of African negro culture », 1962

 

“With the European the chords of the senses lead to the heart and the head, with the African Negro to the heart and the belly, the very root of life.”