Teilhard de Chardin and Senghor on the civilization of the universal

I.2.3. Complementarity of Human Races in Totalisation

In the Teilhardian world view, human races are complementary. No race is supposed to claim superiority over others. In this way, Teilhard de Chardin goes against Levy-Brühl, Hume, Hegel, Arthur de Gobineau, Heidegger and Gusdorf, just to name some western thinkers, who had considered the African, especially the Negro-African race, as inferior to other races. Teilhard de Chardin avers:

Races, patries, nations, Etats, cultures, groupes linguistiques..., toutes ces entités superposées ou juxtaposées, concordantes ou discordantes, isolées ou anastomosées, sont au même degré, quoique à des plans différents, naturelles : car elles représentent les prolongements directs, chez l'homme et à la mesure de l'homme, du processus général englobé par la biologie sous le nom d'évolution.^22(*)

As a palaeontologist and cosmologist, Teilhard de Chardin tends to reconcile East and West:

L'Issue du Monde, les portes de l'Avenir, l'entrée dans le Super-humain, elles ne s'ouvrent en avant ni à quelques privilégiés, ni à un seul peuple élu entre tous les peuples ! Elles ne cèderont qu'à une poussée de tous ensemble, dans une direction où tous ensemble [fût-ce sous l'influence et la conduite de quelques-uns (d'une « élite ») seulement] peuvent se rejoindre et s'achever dans une rénovation spirituelle de la Terre.^23(*)

Hence, collectivisation is not the work of some privileged cultures or human races or civilizations. The doors of the future are going to open themselves only through the impulse of all the civilizations together. The Civilization of the Universal is not for some peoples, but it is the work of all though some may lead the others in this panhuman convergence.

Since we are all from the same species, we must work to build up a common mind and avoid racism. The increase of human consciousness favours forces that tend towards dissolution but this is countered according to Teilhard de Chardin, by a planetary impulse towards solidarity: the Civilization of the Universal.

I.2.4. Unity and not Identity

An ecumenical view of humanity emerged clearly in Teilhard de Chardin's mind during his days. The call for the Civilization of the Universal is based here on his principle that union differentiates in order to neutralize all forms of racism. The collective must be personalized in order to heal the cleavage. Individual races must become collective-minded.

The various races of man, in so far as we can still distinguish between them, in spite of their convergence, are not biologically equal but different and complementary like children of the same family. And there is no doubt that it is even to this very genetic diversity that we must attribute the extreme biological richness of mankind. Each race must therefore strive to keep its identity, because the Civilization of the Universal means unity in diversity and not fusion in identity. With all confidence, Teilhard de Chardin thus says:

There is nothing in this, I think, to hurt anyone's pride: provided, of course, that each one of us understands (like each member of a family), that the only thing that ultimately matters is the general triumph of all mankind by which I mean that globally it shall attain the higher term of its planetary evolution...They accuse me of being a racialist, I am not. For the racialist, mankind is divided into higher and lower races, any fusion of the two being immoral and degrading. The biologically inferior races have, for him, only one useful purpose, to perform the meaner tasks, and humanity will never attain unity.^24(*)

Though different, all races are complementary and equal in dignity. In effect, there are in Teilhard de Chardin's vision, some races that act as the leading light of evolution and others that have reached a dead end. Mankind is evolving towards a form of totalisation, and this process necessarily entails a particular role for every race. The various races, though different, are capable of coming together in synthesis. These races must therefore share

[...] an attitude of sympathetic collaboration in a unanimous effort towards «ultra humanization», for which every shade of humanity needs the others in order to attain maturity.^25(*)

There is in fact a moral effort needed in order that this collaboration among races may take place effectively. Teilhard de Chardin states:

Pour s'unifier et se concentrer en soi-même, l'être doit rompre beaucoup d'attaches nuisibles. Pour s'unifier avec les autres et se donner à eux, il doit porter atteinte, en apparence, aux privautés, les plus jalousement cultivées, de son esprit et de son coeur. Pour accéder à une vie supérieure, en se centrant sur un autre lui-même, il doit briser en soi une unité provisoire. [...] L'effort moral est nécessairement accompagné de douleur, de sacrifice. ^26(*)

Human relationships are so complex that one needs to be very careful in relating with the other person. There is a constant moral effort that is needed. This entails a great spirit of sacrifice. Coming up together in view of the Civilization of the Universal is not something so easy. Accepting the values of the other culture or human race is not given. History teaches us how the African race had always been considered as less human than the others and it is on this basis that western man came to colonize the black man in order to `humanize' and `rationalize' him.

Claude Cuénot tells us that the views of Teilhard de Chardin on the complementarity and collaboration of races were not accepted at UNESCO for example, though he maintained his friendship with Julian Huxley, the Chairman.

* ²² Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, La vision du passé, Paris, 1957, P. 288.

* ²³ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Le phénomène humain, Paris, 1955, pp. 271-272.

* ²⁴ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, in Cuénot, C., Teilhard de Chardin, London, 1965, P. 301.

* ²⁵ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, in Cuénot, C., Teilhard de Chardin, London, 1965, P. 302.

* ²⁶ Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Ecrits du temps de la guerre (1916-1919), Paris, 1965, p. 195.