Left Universalism, Africacentric Essays presents a defense of universalism as the foundation of moral and political arguments and commitments. Consisting of five intertwined essays, the book claims that centering such arguments and commitments on a particular place, in this instance the African world, is entirely compatible with that foundational universalism. Ato Sekyi-Otu thus proposes a less conventional mode of Africacentrism, one that rejects the usual hostility to universalism as an imperialist Eurocentric hoax. Sekyi-Otu argues that universalism is an inescapable (...) presupposition of ethical judgment in general and critique in particular, and that it is especially indispensable for radical criticism of conditions of existence in postcolonial society and for vindicating visions of social regeneration. The constituent chapters of the book are exhibits of that argument and question some fashionable conceptual oppositions and value apartheids. (shrink)

Part of a book forum on Ato Sekyi-Otu's 'Left Universalism, Africacentric Essays' with a response by the author.

The rejection of liberal universalism originally arose from the political right. Edmund Burke, Joseph de Maistre and other conservatives poured their scorn on the “Rights of Man” that the Enlighten...

The rejection of liberal universalism originally arose from the political right. Edmund Burke, Joseph de Maistre and other conservatives poured their scorn on the “Rights of Man” that the Enlighten...