Desire as power: The political philosophy of Zora Neale Hurston

In ‘The Uses of the Blues’, James Baldwin writes that the blues is a source of healing and creative energy; it has been the ultimate symbol of black people’s will to survive and thrive. The blues is an expression of self-love, one’s doggedness not to despise oneself. Above all, the blues is the art of raising a voice where silence has been ordered. It is thus a prototypical existentialist response to the world. If Zora Neale Hurston were to be a singer, she would no doubt have been one of the most inspiring blues artists. It is no surprise that Alice Walker puts her in the same group as Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, forming a sort of ‘unholy trinity’. This article imagines Hurston’s political philosophy through the prism of the blues as an existentialist philosopher who, in defiance of the idioms of death and nihilism surrounding her, proclaims a love of self and a dogged will to live. Of particular interest is the relevance of her social thought today, especially against the backdrop of Afropessimism and its implicit nihilism.