William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
1868-1963 · Liberation · Household name
Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian and editor who made the colour line an object of philosophical analysis and called it the problem of the twentieth century. He named double consciousness: you see yourself through the eyes of a world that looks down on you. Over seventy years his account changed, and by Dusk of Dawn in 1940 he tied himself to Africa by a shared history of slavery and insult rather than by blood. At ninety-three he joined the Communist Party and moved to Ghana.
Signature
The position Du Bois is most identified with in the Profiler:
- Ignorance
- strongly leans Bondage
- Authority
- Consent of the Governed
Positions on the 8 axes the sources answer
- Society
- leans Collectivism (25 on a 0–100 scale from Collectivism to Individualism)
- Beauty
- leans Objective (75 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- Order
- leans Horizontal (75 on a 0–100 scale from Vertical to Horizontal)
- Truth
- leans Objective (89 on a 0–100 scale from Subjective to Objective)
- War
- mildly leans Pacifism (33 on a 0–100 scale from Pacifism to Militarism)
- Ignorance
- strongly leans Bondage (6 on a 0–100 scale from Bondage to Bliss)
- Conviction
- leans Uncertain (25 on a 0–100 scale from Uncertain to Certain)
- Allegiance
- leans Global (81 on a 0–100 scale from Local to Global)
12 of 20 axes are left blank: the sources do not answer them, or Du Bois refused the framing. Nothing is imputed; a blank is not a middling score.
Foundational questions
- Economy
- State Socialism
What is the ideal organization of economic life? - Authority
- Consent of the Governed
What is the legitimate source of authority? - Death
- Agnostic
What happens at death?