Alain Locke's Aesthetic Valuation and Racial Relations in America

• In Event: Aesthetics and Politics in an "Age of Populism"

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, the philosopher and aesthete Alain Locke staked his life’s work and career on the power of aesthetics to shift and reconstitute interracial relations and political culture in the United States. For Locke, aesthetic valuation held a potential to transform individuals that moral valuation did not. This paper examines Locke’s thoughts on the potential power of aesthetics to enhance democratic life. Famously, Locke and his contemporary W.E.B. Du Bois disagreed over the function of art and whether it ought to serve a (counter-)propagandistic purpose. This paper gives an extended analysis of that debate in light of Locke’s philosophical understanding of value theory. The result of the examination is a vision of the role of aesthetic taste and valuation in political life and their relationship to political judgment. The merits and limitations of Locke’s theory will be discussed.

Author

• Michelle Rose, Brown University