Kenan Malik
Encyclopedia
Kenan Malik is an Indian-born English writer, lecturer and broadcaster, trained in neurobiology and the history of science
. As a scientific author, his focus is on the philosophy of biology
, and contemporary theories of multiculturalism
, pluralism and race. These topics are core concerns in The Meaning of Race (1996), Man, Beast and Zombie (2000) and Strange Fruit: Why both sides are wrong in the race debate (2008).
His work contains a forthright defence of the values of the 18th-century Enlightenment
, which he sees as having been distorted and misunderstood in more recent political and scientific thought.
, England. He studied neurobiology at the University of Sussex
and History of Science at Imperial College, London
. In between, he was a research psychologist at the Centre for Research into Perception and Cognition (CRPC) at the University of Sussex
.
He has given lectures or seminars at a number of universities, including University of Cambridge
(Department of Biological Anthropology); University of Oxford
(St. Anthony's College
and the Department for Continuing Education); the Institute of Historical Research
, London; Goldsmiths College, University of London (Department of Social Anthropology); University of Liverpool
(Department of Politics); Nottingham Trent University
; University of Newcastle
(Department of Social Policy and Sociology); University of Oslo
; and the European University, Florence
. In 2003, he was a visiting fellow at the University of Melbourne
, Australia
. He is currently Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Surrey.
As well as being a presenter of Analysis on BBC Radio 4
, he has also presented Night Waves, Radio 3
’s Arts and Ideas magazine. Malik has written and presented a number of TV documentaries, including Disunited Kingdom (2003), Are Muslims Hated (which was shortlisted for the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression award, in 2005), Let 'Em All In (2005) and Britain's Tribal Tensions (2006).
He has written for many newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian
, Financial Times
, The Independent
, Independent on Sunday, Sunday Times
, Sunday Telegraph
, New Statesman
, Prospect
, TLS
, The Times Higher Education Supplement
, Nature
, Rising East
, and Göteborgs-Posten
. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
.
, freedom of expression, and a secular society
, and in defence of rationalism
and humanism
in the face of what he has called "a growing culture of irrationalism, mysticism
and misanthropy
".
In the 1980s, he was associated with a number of Marxist organisations, including the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), and Big Flame
. He was also involved with anti-racist campaigns including the Anti-Nazi League
and East London Workers Against Racism. He helped organise street patrols in East London to protect Asian families against racist attacks and was a leading member of a number of campaigns against deportations and police brutality including the Newham 7 campaign, the Afia Begum Campaign Against Deportations, and the Colin Roach
Campaign.
Malik has written that the turning point in his relationship with the left came with the Salman Rushdie affair. Much of his political campaigning over the past decade has been in defence of free speech, secularism and scientific rationalism. Malik was one of the first left-wing critics of multiculturalism, has controversially opposed restrictions on hate speech
, supported open door policies on immigration
, opposed the notion of animal rights
in a series of debates with Peter Singer
and Richard Ryder
, and spoken out in defence of animal experimentation.
Malik wrote for the RCP's magazine Living Marxism
, later LM. Although the RCP has since disbanded, Malik has written for later incarnations of LM, and for its on-line successor, the British web magazine Spiked
.
, science policy, bioethics
, political philosophy
, the history
, philosophy and sociology
of race, and the history of ideas.
To date, he has published four books, The Meaning of Race: Race, History and Culture in Western Society and Man, Beast and Zombie: What Science Can and Cannot Tell Us About Human Nature, Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides are Wrong in the Race Debate and From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy.
and pluralism.
Malik argues that racial discourse and theories of racial difference arose in opposition to the universalist ideas of the Enlightenment
, and gained their plausibility from "the persistence of differences of rank, class and peoples in a society that had accepted the concept of equality." (page 70) As the nineteenth century unfolded, the politically dominant classes appropriated science
(particularly evolutionary theory
) to support the idea of a natural order underlying social and economic inequalities, though nothing about the dynamic of science itself necessitated racial conclusions. Thus, "the discourse of race did not arise out of the categories of Enlightenment discourse but out of the relationship between Enlightenment thought and the social organisation of capitalism." (page 225)
The idea of race applied initially to class differences within European society, but was later applied to differences between Europeans and others, "and hence became marked by colour differences." (p. 8) In the twentieth century, racial theory was largely discredited by its association with Nazism
, and the word "racism
" entered the political vocabulary as a term of criticism, but the defeat of the Nazis led only to a recasting, not the destruction, of a belief in immutable differences among groups of human beings. This belief has been transferred to contemporary notions of culture.
As depicted by Malik, twentieth-century anthropological thought
mistakenly divided humanity into integrated, holistic cultures that must be understood as static; such cultures must not be tampered with, since the nature of their harmonious functioning requires that they must "survive intact." (page 156). Malik sees this tendency in anthropology as another expression, along with the idea of race, of "a particularist, relativist, and anti-humanist philosophy" that has rejected Enlightenment universalism. (page 7) He opposes the "politics of difference" — the identification of competing social groups based on shared history and a sense of identity — believing it sets back the struggle for political and economic equality. The final chapters of The Meaning of Race contain a critique of postmodernist
and poststructuralist theories, including the views of Edward Said
. Here, Malik argues that such theories misinterpret the relationship between the West and other cultures, and are detrimental to the possibility of social equality. In its essence, Malik argues, postmodernism is defeatist — it is prepared to accept a place for marginalised groups within society without demanding true equality.
problems of contemporary theories of human nature, in particular evolutionary psychology
and cognitive science
. He argues that, "The triumph of mechanistic explanations of human nature is as much the consequence of our culture's loss of nerve as it is of scientific advance." (pages 13–14) While rejecting epistemic relativism, with its denial of an objective truth about the world, Malik insists that scientific theories of human nature are, in practice, shaped by cultural influences, as well as being responsive to data. He argues that the scientific study of human nature has been distorted by post-war cultural pessimism. In examining evolutionary psychology and related theories, Malik distinguishes between these theories, which he sees as a form of universal Darwinism (attributing explanatory power to Darwinian theory in a wide range of domains), and the work of "circumspect Darwinists" (who are cautious about its explanatory power) (197).
Though Malik sees human beings as a product of evolution
, and that universal Darwinist theories have merit when applied to non-human animals — and perhaps some merit when applied to human behaviour
— he is sceptical about how far they can be applied to human beings. In particular, theories of a biologically-evolved human nature cannot, alone, account for the transformations of behaviour that arose from our immersion in a symbol
ic world built up out of language
and culturally
-meaningful relationships. Thus, "the scientific tools with which we investigate animal behaviour are inadequate for understanding human behaviour" (p. 231).
In discussing cognitive science and philosophy of mind, Malik concludes that each human being possesses "an extended mind"; a brain becomes a human mind only by its immersion in social relationships together with "other brains linked by language and culture." (p. 331) Human meaning derives not from nature but from the language-linked social network of which we are part." (p. 334) If we did succeed in creating a machine capable of participating in a human society like a human being, it would be human (334-35).
In the final chapter of Man, Beast and Zombie, Malik laments what he sees as an increasing reluctance to view individual people as autonomous, rational, and competent agents, and a tendency to view them as damaged, weak, incapable, and possessing limited control over their fates. All this has both encouraged and been reinforced by what Malik sees as mechanistic accounts of human nature. It has been accompanied by a shift of emphasis from negative liberty to positive liberties and paternalistic protections, and by an acceptance of limits to human possibilities and a deference to "nature" — all in marked contrast to the spirit of Enlightenment humanism.
The book also critiques multicultural paradigms about identity and cultural inheritance. Malik concludes that 'race' is not a biological concept and is useless as a way to separate people and he says that it is not just ignorant racial scientists that perpetuate this myth, it is anti-racists too.
and a trustee of the free-speech magazine Index on Censorship
.
History of science
The history of science is the study of the historical development of human understandings of the natural world and the domains of the social sciences....
. As a scientific author, his focus is on the philosophy of biology
Philosophy of biology
The philosophy of biology is a subfield of philosophy of science, which deals with epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical issues in the biological and biomedical sciences...
, and contemporary theories of multiculturalism
Multiculturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
, pluralism and race. These topics are core concerns in The Meaning of Race (1996), Man, Beast and Zombie (2000) and Strange Fruit: Why both sides are wrong in the race debate (2008).
His work contains a forthright defence of the values of the 18th-century Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, which he sees as having been distorted and misunderstood in more recent political and scientific thought.
Career
Malik was born in India and brought up in ManchesterManchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, England. He studied neurobiology at the University of Sussex
University of Sussex
The University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....
and History of Science at Imperial College, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
. In between, he was a research psychologist at the Centre for Research into Perception and Cognition (CRPC) at the University of Sussex
University of Sussex
The University of Sussex is an English public research university situated next to the East Sussex village of Falmer, within the city of Brighton and Hove. The University received its Royal Charter in August 1961....
.
He has given lectures or seminars at a number of universities, including University of Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
(Department of Biological Anthropology); University of Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
(St. Anthony's College
St Antony's College, Oxford
St Antony's College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England.St Antony's is the most international of the seven all-graduate colleges of the University of Oxford, specialising in international relations, economics, politics, and history of particular parts of the...
and the Department for Continuing Education); the Institute of Historical Research
Institute of Historical Research
The Institute of Historical Research is a British educational organisation providing resources and training for historical researchers. It is part of the School of Advanced Study in the University of London and is located at Senate House. The Institute was founded in 1921 by A. F...
, London; Goldsmiths College, University of London (Department of Social Anthropology); University of Liverpool
University of Liverpool
The University of Liverpool is a teaching and research university in the city of Liverpool, England. It is a member of the Russell Group of large research-intensive universities and the N8 Group for research collaboration. Founded in 1881 , it is also one of the six original "red brick" civic...
(Department of Politics); Nottingham Trent University
Nottingham Trent University
Nottingham Trent University is a public teaching and research university in Nottingham, United Kingdom. It was founded as a new university in 1992 from the existing Trent Polytechnic , however it can trace its roots back to 1843 with the establishment of the Nottingham Government School of Design...
; University of Newcastle
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
Newcastle University is a major research-intensive university located in Newcastle upon Tyne in the north-east of England. It was established as a School of Medicine and Surgery in 1834 and became the University of Newcastle upon Tyne by an Act of Parliament in August 1963. Newcastle University is...
(Department of Social Policy and Sociology); University of Oslo
University of Oslo
The University of Oslo , formerly The Royal Frederick University , is the oldest and largest university in Norway, situated in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. The university was founded in 1811 and was modelled after the recently established University of Berlin...
; and the European University, Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
. In 2003, he was a visiting fellow at the University of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
. He is currently Senior Visiting Fellow at the University of Surrey.
As well as being a presenter of Analysis on BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
, he has also presented Night Waves, Radio 3
BBC Radio 3
BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...
’s Arts and Ideas magazine. Malik has written and presented a number of TV documentaries, including Disunited Kingdom (2003), Are Muslims Hated (which was shortlisted for the Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression award, in 2005), Let 'Em All In (2005) and Britain's Tribal Tensions (2006).
He has written for many newspapers and magazines, including The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
, The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, Independent on Sunday, Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)
The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper, distributed in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times is published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International, which is in turn owned by News Corporation. Times Newspapers also owns The Times, but the two papers were founded...
, Sunday Telegraph
Sunday Telegraph
The Sunday Telegraph is a British broadsheet newspaper, founded in February 1961. It is the sister paper of The Daily Telegraph, but is run separately with a different editorial staff, although there is some cross-usage of stories...
, New Statesman
New Statesman
New Statesman is a British centre-left political and cultural magazine published weekly in London. Founded in 1913, and connected with leading members of the Fabian Society, the magazine reached a circulation peak in the late 1960s....
, Prospect
Prospect (magazine)
Prospect is a monthly British general interest magazine, specialising in politics and current affairs. Frequent topics include British, European, and US politics, social issues, art, literature, cinema, science, the media, history, philosophy, and psychology...
, TLS
The Times Literary Supplement
The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
, The Times Higher Education Supplement
The Times Higher Education Supplement
The Times Higher Education , formerly Times Higher Education Supplement , is a weekly British magazine based in London reporting specifically on news and other issues related to higher education...
, Nature
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is equivalent to the natural world, physical world, or material world. "Nature" refers to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general...
, Rising East
Rising East
Rising East is an online journal focusing on social and cultural issues associated with the regeneration of east London. Produced by the University of East London's Research Institute, it was originally a print journal produced by Lawrence & Wishart .-External links:* *...
, and Göteborgs-Posten
Göteborgs-Posten
Göteborgs-Posten is a major daily newspaper in Sweden. It is published in Gothenburg, with containing coverage of local, regional, national and international issues. It is chiefly distributed in western Götaland. It has the second largest national circulation, after Dagens Nyheter and before...
. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts
Royal Society of Arts
The Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufacturers and Commerce is a British multi-disciplinary institution, based in London. The name Royal Society of Arts is frequently used for brevity...
.
Politics
Malik has long campaigned for equal rightsCivil rights
Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' freedom from unwarranted infringement by governments and private organizations, and ensure one's ability to participate in the civil and political life of the state without discrimination or repression.Civil rights include...
, freedom of expression, and a secular society
Secularism
Secularism is the principle of separation between government institutions and the persons mandated to represent the State from religious institutions and religious dignitaries...
, and in defence of rationalism
Rationalism
In epistemology and in its modern sense, rationalism is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification" . In more technical terms, it is a method or a theory "in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive"...
and humanism
Humanism
Humanism is an approach in study, philosophy, world view or practice that focuses on human values and concerns. In philosophy and social science, humanism is a perspective which affirms some notion of human nature, and is contrasted with anti-humanism....
in the face of what he has called "a growing culture of irrationalism, mysticism
Mysticism
Mysticism is the knowledge of, and especially the personal experience of, states of consciousness, i.e. levels of being, beyond normal human perception, including experience and even communion with a supreme being.-Classical origins:...
and misanthropy
Misanthropy
Misanthropy is generalized dislike, distrust, disgust, contempt or hatred of the human species or human nature. A misanthrope, or misanthropist is someone who holds such views or feelings...
".
In the 1980s, he was associated with a number of Marxist organisations, including the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and the Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP), and Big Flame
Big Flame (political group)
Big Flame was "a revolutionary socialist feminist organisation with a working-class orientation" in the United Kingdom. Founded in Liverpool in 1970, the group initially grew rapidly, with branches appearing in some other cities. Its publications emphasised that "a revolutionary party is necessary...
. He was also involved with anti-racist campaigns including the Anti-Nazi League
Anti-Nazi League
The Anti-Nazi League was an organisation set up in 1977 on the initiative of the Socialist Workers Party with sponsorship from some trade unions and the endorsement of a list of prominent people to oppose the rise of far-right groups in the United Kingdom. It was wound down in 1981...
and East London Workers Against Racism. He helped organise street patrols in East London to protect Asian families against racist attacks and was a leading member of a number of campaigns against deportations and police brutality including the Newham 7 campaign, the Afia Begum Campaign Against Deportations, and the Colin Roach
Colin Roach
Colin Roach was a 21-year-old black British man who died from a gunshot wound at the entrance to Stoke Newington police station, in the London Borough of Hackney, on 12 January 1983. Amid allegations of a police cover-up, the case became a cause célèbre for civil rights campaigners and black...
Campaign.
Malik has written that the turning point in his relationship with the left came with the Salman Rushdie affair. Much of his political campaigning over the past decade has been in defence of free speech, secularism and scientific rationalism. Malik was one of the first left-wing critics of multiculturalism, has controversially opposed restrictions on hate speech
Hate speech
Hate speech is, outside the law, any communication that disparages a person or a group on the basis of some characteristic such as race, color, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, nationality, religion, or other characteristic....
, supported open door policies on immigration
Free migration
Free migration or open immigration is the position that people should be able to migrate to whatever country they choose, free of substantial barriers...
, opposed the notion of animal rights
Animal rights
Animal rights, also known as animal liberation, is the idea that the most basic interests of non-human animals should be afforded the same consideration as the similar interests of human beings...
in a series of debates with Peter Singer
Peter Singer
Peter Albert David Singer is an Australian philosopher who is the Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at Princeton University and Laureate Professor at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at the University of Melbourne...
and Richard Ryder
Richard D. Ryder
Richard Hood Jack Dudley Ryder is a British psychologist. He is a former Mellon Professor at Tulane University, New Orleans. He served as chairman of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Council from 1977 to 1979, and is a past president of Britain's Liberal Democrat Animal...
, and spoken out in defence of animal experimentation.
Malik wrote for the RCP's magazine Living Marxism
Living Marxism
Living Marxism was a British magazine, originally launched in 1988 as the journal of the British Revolutionary Communist Party . It was later rebranded as LM and folded in March 2000 following an adverse ruling in a libel lawsuit brought by the British news corporation, Independent Television News...
, later LM. Although the RCP has since disbanded, Malik has written for later incarnations of LM, and for its on-line successor, the British web magazine Spiked
Spiked (magazine)
Spiked is a British Internet magazine focusing on politics, culture and society from a humanist and libertarian viewpoint.- Editors and contributors :...
.
Areas of academic interest
Malik's main areas of academic interest are philosophy of biology and philosophy of mind, scientific method and epistemology, theories of human natureHuman nature
Human nature refers to the distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally....
, science policy, bioethics
Bioethics
Bioethics is the study of controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology and medicine. Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, and philosophy....
, political philosophy
Political philosophy
Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...
, the history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
, philosophy and sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
of race, and the history of ideas.
To date, he has published four books, The Meaning of Race: Race, History and Culture in Western Society and Man, Beast and Zombie: What Science Can and Cannot Tell Us About Human Nature, Strange Fruit: Why Both Sides are Wrong in the Race Debate and From Fatwa to Jihad: The Rushdie Affair and its Legacy.
The Meaning of Race
The Meaning of Race examines the historical development, and philosophical and political roots, of the idea of race. It also explores the relationship between the idea of race and contemporary theories of multiculturalismMulticulturalism
Multiculturalism is the appreciation, acceptance or promotion of multiple cultures, applied to the demographic make-up of a specific place, usually at the organizational level, e.g...
and pluralism.
Malik argues that racial discourse and theories of racial difference arose in opposition to the universalist ideas of the Enlightenment
Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment was an elite cultural movement of intellectuals in 18th century Europe that sought to mobilize the power of reason in order to reform society and advance knowledge. It promoted intellectual interchange and opposed intolerance and abuses in church and state...
, and gained their plausibility from "the persistence of differences of rank, class and peoples in a society that had accepted the concept of equality." (page 70) As the nineteenth century unfolded, the politically dominant classes appropriated science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
(particularly evolutionary theory
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
) to support the idea of a natural order underlying social and economic inequalities, though nothing about the dynamic of science itself necessitated racial conclusions. Thus, "the discourse of race did not arise out of the categories of Enlightenment discourse but out of the relationship between Enlightenment thought and the social organisation of capitalism." (page 225)
The idea of race applied initially to class differences within European society, but was later applied to differences between Europeans and others, "and hence became marked by colour differences." (p. 8) In the twentieth century, racial theory was largely discredited by its association with Nazism
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
, and the word "racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
" entered the political vocabulary as a term of criticism, but the defeat of the Nazis led only to a recasting, not the destruction, of a belief in immutable differences among groups of human beings. This belief has been transferred to contemporary notions of culture.
As depicted by Malik, twentieth-century anthropological thought
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
mistakenly divided humanity into integrated, holistic cultures that must be understood as static; such cultures must not be tampered with, since the nature of their harmonious functioning requires that they must "survive intact." (page 156). Malik sees this tendency in anthropology as another expression, along with the idea of race, of "a particularist, relativist, and anti-humanist philosophy" that has rejected Enlightenment universalism. (page 7) He opposes the "politics of difference" — the identification of competing social groups based on shared history and a sense of identity — believing it sets back the struggle for political and economic equality. The final chapters of The Meaning of Race contain a critique of postmodernist
Postmodernism
Postmodernism is a philosophical movement evolved in reaction to modernism, the tendency in contemporary culture to accept only objective truth and to be inherently suspicious towards a global cultural narrative or meta-narrative. Postmodernist thought is an intentional departure from the...
and poststructuralist theories, including the views of Edward Said
Edward Said
Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...
. Here, Malik argues that such theories misinterpret the relationship between the West and other cultures, and are detrimental to the possibility of social equality. In its essence, Malik argues, postmodernism is defeatist — it is prepared to accept a place for marginalised groups within society without demanding true equality.
Man, Beast and Zombie
Man, Beast and Zombie investigates the historical roots, philosophical assumptions and alleged methodologicalMethodology
Methodology is generally a guideline for solving a problem, with specificcomponents such as phases, tasks, methods, techniques and tools . It can be defined also as follows:...
problems of contemporary theories of human nature, in particular evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology
Evolutionary psychology is an approach in the social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as memory, perception, and language from a modern evolutionary perspective. It seeks to identify which human psychological traits are evolved adaptations, that is, the functional...
and cognitive science
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
. He argues that, "The triumph of mechanistic explanations of human nature is as much the consequence of our culture's loss of nerve as it is of scientific advance." (pages 13–14) While rejecting epistemic relativism, with its denial of an objective truth about the world, Malik insists that scientific theories of human nature are, in practice, shaped by cultural influences, as well as being responsive to data. He argues that the scientific study of human nature has been distorted by post-war cultural pessimism. In examining evolutionary psychology and related theories, Malik distinguishes between these theories, which he sees as a form of universal Darwinism (attributing explanatory power to Darwinian theory in a wide range of domains), and the work of "circumspect Darwinists" (who are cautious about its explanatory power) (197).
Though Malik sees human beings as a product of evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
, and that universal Darwinist theories have merit when applied to non-human animals — and perhaps some merit when applied to human behaviour
Human Behaviour
"Human Behaviour" is Icelandic singer Björk's first solo single, taken from the album Debut. It contains a sample of "Go Down Dying" by Antonio Carlos Jobim. The lyrics reflect on human nature and emotion from a non-human animal's point of view. The song is the first part of a series of songs that...
— he is sceptical about how far they can be applied to human beings. In particular, theories of a biologically-evolved human nature cannot, alone, account for the transformations of behaviour that arose from our immersion in a symbol
Symbol
A symbol is something which represents an idea, a physical entity or a process but is distinct from it. The purpose of a symbol is to communicate meaning. For example, a red octagon may be a symbol for "STOP". On a map, a picture of a tent might represent a campsite. Numerals are symbols for...
ic world built up out of language
Language
Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication...
and culturally
Culture
Culture is a term that has many different inter-related meanings. For example, in 1952, Alfred Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn compiled a list of 164 definitions of "culture" in Culture: A Critical Review of Concepts and Definitions...
-meaningful relationships. Thus, "the scientific tools with which we investigate animal behaviour are inadequate for understanding human behaviour" (p. 231).
In discussing cognitive science and philosophy of mind, Malik concludes that each human being possesses "an extended mind"; a brain becomes a human mind only by its immersion in social relationships together with "other brains linked by language and culture." (p. 331) Human meaning derives not from nature but from the language-linked social network of which we are part." (p. 334) If we did succeed in creating a machine capable of participating in a human society like a human being, it would be human (334-35).
In the final chapter of Man, Beast and Zombie, Malik laments what he sees as an increasing reluctance to view individual people as autonomous, rational, and competent agents, and a tendency to view them as damaged, weak, incapable, and possessing limited control over their fates. All this has both encouraged and been reinforced by what Malik sees as mechanistic accounts of human nature. It has been accompanied by a shift of emphasis from negative liberty to positive liberties and paternalistic protections, and by an acceptance of limits to human possibilities and a deference to "nature" — all in marked contrast to the spirit of Enlightenment humanism.
Strange Fruit
Strange Fruit: Why both sides are wrong in the race debate (Oneworld, 2008) is a book focusing on the anti-enlightenment dichotomy of racial science and anti-racism and critiques both. Malik argues that racial scientists should be allowed to express their views publicly and be critiqued in the public domain, while also criticizing censorship from traditional anti-racist organisations. Most of the book focuses on science and race and whether race can tell us anything about humans, he argues for a third way. He argues that 'race' may be a poor man's clue to many things like genetic disease in populations, but this does not have anything to do with 'race' by itself, he argues 'race' may be an obvious indicator of populations of genetics within multi-ethnic countries, but it is not exclusive to 'races' as a whole.The book also critiques multicultural paradigms about identity and cultural inheritance. Malik concludes that 'race' is not a biological concept and is useless as a way to separate people and he says that it is not just ignorant racial scientists that perpetuate this myth, it is anti-racists too.
From Fatwa To Jihad: The Rushdie Affair And Its Legacy
From Fatwa To Jihad is his latest book, released to coincide with the 20th anniversary of the Fatwa place on Rushdie. In his analysis Malik documents the events surrounding the Bradford protests, the Fatwa, the riots in India and the government and media response. Malik also explores the life of immigration from the Indian subcontinent to Britain and how that has shaped modern British-Asian identity. He also documents and critiques the rise of state multiculturalism and the long term effects on cities like Birmingham. Coupled with an analysis of the culture of self-censorship and fear of today's media, the book neatly ties up a wide range of subjects into an account of how and why the shadow of the Fatwa still hangs over us.Current affiliations
Dr. Malik is a Distinguished Supporter of the British Humanist AssociationBritish Humanist Association
The British Humanist Association is an organisation of the United Kingdom which promotes Humanism and represents "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs." The BHA is committed to secularism, human rights, democracy, egalitarianism and mutual respect...
and a trustee of the free-speech magazine Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship
Index on Censorship is a campaigning publishing organisation for freedom of expression, which produces an award-winning quarterly magazine of the same name from London. The present chief executive of Index on Censorship, since 2008, is the author, broadcaster and commentator John Kampfner, former...
.
External links
- Personal website
- "Bad bargain made in the mosque" by Kenan Malik, The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, July 6, 2006 - "The Colour-Coded Prescription", transcript, presenter Kenan Malik, Analysis, BBC, November 17, 2005
- Globe of the World, transcript, presenter Kenan Malik, Analysis, BBC, March 16, 2006
- "What hate?, Muslims believe they are under attack from all sides. But racial abuse is being exaggerated to stifle critics of Islam" by Kenan Malik, The Guardian, January 7, 2005
- "Multiculturalism and the road to terror", essay by Kenan Malik, HandelsblattHandelsblattThe Handelsblatt is a leading German language business newspaper, published in Düsseldorf by the Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt. It has a circulation of 145.437 daily copies. Its editor-in-chief is Gabor Steingart...
, January 3, 2006, published at kenanmalik.com - Islamophobia myth, essay by Kenan Malik, Prospect Magazine, February 2005, published at communautarisme.net
- "Too much respect: Liberals argue that a more diverse society requires less diverse opinion. Nonsense", essay by Kenan Malik, Prospect Magazine, March 23, 2006, published at freethinktank.com
- "What is it to be human?", Talk given as part of a debate with Susan BlackmoreSusan BlackmoreSusan Jane Blackmore is an English freelance writer, lecturer, and broadcaster on psychology and the paranormal, perhaps best known for her book The Meme Machine.-Career:...
entitled 'Flesh not Meat: Are we more than matter?' at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 5 December 2000 - Video (and audio) of interview/discussion with Kenan Malik by Kerry Howley on Bloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tvBloggingheads.tv is a political, world events, philosophy, and science video blog discussion site in which the participants take part in an active back and forth conversation via webcam which is then broadcast online to viewers...