An American Friendship. Horace Kallen, Alain Locke, and the Development of Cultural Pluralism by David Weinfeld (review)

Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:

• An American Friendship. Horace Kallen, Alain Locke, and the Development of Cultural Pluralism by David Weinfeld
• Jakob Egholm Feldt (bio)

An American Friendship. Horace Kallen, Alain Locke, and the Development of Cultural Pluralism. By David Weinfeld. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2022. 248 pp.

An American Friendship. Horace Kallen, Alain Locke, and the Development of Cultural Pluralism traces the friendship between Horace M. Kallen and Alain Locke from their first encounters at Harvard and their stay at Oxford as Rhodes scholars in 1907–8 to Locke's death in 1954 and Kallen's reflections on Locke thereafter. The book's core claim is that the cultural and social philosophy of cultural pluralism was developed in dialogue between Kallen and Locke as a lived experience, a reflection on friendship between differences. Both were original and prolific intellectuals profoundly influenced by the flourishing pragmatism of the period. Consequently, multiple intersections of American (and global) cultural, intellectual, and social history meet in Kallen and Locke's specific lives as practical and real problems. In this way, Weinfeld follows the protagonists as instantiations of wider cultural and social issues, as examples of how theory springs from lived experiences. The arch-question is "what difference does the difference make?" Should race and ethnicity make a difference in culture and society? [End Page 704]

The book is accordingly formed as an intellectual biography of two elitist intellectuals and professors with minority backgrounds. Weinfeld has made impressive use of archival material and includes rumors and hearsay in the margins to draw a portrait of two men with faults, feelings, grandeur, and strong passions for creating and educating for newness, for the future. He brings new and fascinating material to the fore, particularly about both Kallen's and Locke's ambiguities vis-à-vis their friendship across racial boundaries. If the question is whether Kallen and Locke have some sort of co-authorship of the concept of cultural pluralism, however, I have doubts. While the detailed biographies are interesting in their own right, it is worth a discussion of whether these details conjure up a new or revised history of the development of cultural pluralism.

There are two central revisions of historiography in play in the book. One is that Kallen, possibly unfairly, claimed authorship of the idea of cultural pluralism. The other is that Kallen's famous protest against discrimination against Locke at Oxford was more ambiguous than it seemed. Weinfeld questions whether Kallen participated in the infamous Thanksgiving dinner for the Rhodes scholars to which Locke was not invited because he was African American. Was Kallen less steadfast in his anti-discrimination position than he allowed himself to admit? Several times, Weinfeld calls Kallen's early position on African-Americans "racist," which I find arguable and somewhat anachronistic given the prevalent discourses on ethnicity and race of the period. The same goes for Locke's occasional use of "antisemitic" stereotypes in letters and notes. Both men surely wrote derogatorily about each other's background. In Weinfeld's narrative, it is important that the dialogue and friendship between the two overcame the "racist" views that they supposedly held.

The crux of the book's historical argument is that Kallen was not the sole author of the idea of cultural pluralism as an American cultural ideal and social philosophy. According to Weinfeld, it was a dialogically developed idea between Kallen and Locke as an outcome of their experiences and friendship. Kallen insisted that differences should make a difference, and that is the essence of democratic life, while Locke more gradually grew into a similar position as reflected by his intensive efforts toward African-American cultural renewal through education, intellectual work, and artistic brilliance. The book portrays a parallel work of growth and renewal of Jewish and African-American peoplehood to which "contribution" and "excellence" were of prime importance. Kallen and Locke were elitists who believed that respect for cultural differences was a function of their uniqueness. [End Page 705]

Weinfeld comments that Kallen learned to see the originality of African-American culture through Locke's excellence. The democratic play among differences depends on cultural pluralists' ability to see, admire, and become inspired by what "others" have and create...