Requiem for Faith Unmitigated*—Or—Faith in 1923 Palestine and 2023 Israel: Revising Alain Locke's 1923 Pilgrimage (Musing Again)

in 1911, alain locke sojourned from oxford university, England to Universitat zu Berlin, Berlin, Germany, located on Friedrichstrasse to attend lectures regarding nineteenth-century philosophy from Georg Simmel; aesthetics from Max Dessoir; idealism from Hugo Münsterberg and from Kantians Benno Erdmann and Adolf Lasson. Locke prepared himself for this journey. While the first African American Rhodes Scholar at Oxford University, Hertford College, starting in 1907, in 1909, he hired a tutor to learn German so that he could read the texts of untranslated works from the Austrian School of value theory. Locke would use Alexius Meinong and Christian von Ehrenfels, representatives of the Austrian School, in his later works. However, his interest in value theory did not bode well at Oxford—his senior thesis proposal, “The Concept of Values,” was rejected by the Oxford faculty responsible for its approval, one of whom was not his faculty advisor, Ferdinand C. S. Schiller, the only pragmatist at Oxford. Schiller was working in a hostile environment because pragmatism and value theory were considered tawdry in contrast to pristine logic, philosophy of language, analytic philosophy, and ancient Greek and Roman philosophy. Locke left Oxford unceremoniously but arrived at the Universitat zu Berlin to a supportive Hugo Münsterberg, one of his former professors at Harvard, who was in residence at Universitat zu Berlin.Bereft of funds to continue his education in Europe, Locke returned to America in 1912 without terminal degrees from Oxford or Berlin. However, he was able to land a teaching position at Howard University, Washington, DC, where he eventually became chair of the Department of Philosophy. Despite further setbacks, he graduated from Harvard University in 1918 with a doctorate in philosophy.Locke had, while at Oxford, attended at least the first of the eight Hibbert Lectures by William James, titled “On the Present Situation in Philosophy,” given on 18 May 1908. The lectures became the basis of James's 1909 Pluralistic Universe: Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the Present Situation in Philosophy. Locke also attended the ceremony at which James received an honorary DSc from Oxford. As fate would have it, Ralph B. Perry, who came to be noted for his biography of William James, The Thought and Character of William James (1935), was his dissertation advisor. Locke argued in his 1917 doctoral dissertation, The Problem of Classification in the Theory of Value: Or an Outline of a Genetic System of Values, that all values were fundamentally relative.2 He, thereby, like other pragmatists, naturalized epistemology. However, Locke made it starkly clear to Perry that he disagreed with him, and also with Dewey. Locke proposed that experience is not an elixir providing a warrant for values, as was often granted,3 and that, contrary to claims from Franz Brentano and Christian von Ehrenfels, there is no quaint universe of generic values with distinct pristine features. Classifying values is, for Locke, a subset of the general problem of trying to find an entity that is definitive of the nature of value itself. Particular attitudes, according to Locke, need not remain tethered to any particular category. The absolute stability of value categories is thus rejected by Locke, all the way down. The content of whatever universally common values or norms exist, ethical or otherwise, is far more lucid than often thought. In effect, as I interpret Locke, there is no queer universe of epistemic true values revealed through experience, intuition, critical reasoning, or scientific reasoning, let alone pure reason; value categories are far more complex than pragmatism had allowed.4 Locke had his own version of value theory.5 If his thesis that values substantively shape what and how we understand reality, and that reality itself is best understood as fluid, is right, then the search for universal ethical values is at best a search for functional values beneficial to humanity, not necessarily for values endemic to some sort of objective conscientia phenomenon that gives warrant.In September of 1923, while away from his duties at Howard University, Locke arrived in Vienna, Austria, which was a part of his touring itinerary of Europe. He attended at least the first of two Roland Hayes concerts in Vienna at the Mittlerer Konzerthaus-Saal in early October. Hayes was barely 5’4” tall, not much taller than Locke. It was arguably among the most important musical events of Vienna's concert season. Hayes's silky, deep tenor voice provided a smooth melodic sound to classical German songs, and spirituals were the rage among seasoned and novice concert goers. “Mr. Hayes has taken over from the primitive race gift in the art of song.”6 Locke attended Hayes's ascension to the heights of European culture, not just to support Hayes, but because he considered it an event that would forever change even American perceptions that doubted Negro equity, because the spirituals deserve the status of high art.7 Especially important for Locke was that Hayes sang both classical German songs and African American spirituals on the same program. Hayes's sophisticated presentation belied the stereotype of Black men as simply loud spiritual singers or hyper-sexed comedic buffoons bellowing vernacular minstrel tunes to reaffirm white fantasies of Blacks as “Dey show got rhythm.” Locke's “Roland Hayes, An Appreciation,” published in Opportunity in December 1923, appeared in print before “Impressions of Haifa” (1924), which describes his 1923 visit to Haifa and meeting the Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi (Bahá’í faith).8 Also appearing in print were comments in a local Vienna paper about Hayes's concert: “Do not imagine that it is sufficient to be white to become an artist; try first to sing as well as this black man did” (Locke, “Roland Hayes: An Appreciation” 356). In addition to Hayes's concerts in Vienna, Locke attended a winter semester of open academic lectures at the Vienna Internationale Hochschulkurse (language center) on anthropology and psychology.Leaving Vienna, a northern European location that was a geographic universe away from Palestine, Locke traveled by train on 4 October to the seaport of Trieste Italy, and then boarded a steamer to Alexandria, Egypt, for a few days before taking off on another steamer to the island of Lesbos in Greece, and the seaports of Piraeus, Greece, and Chanak, Turkey, finally arriving in the ancient Byzantine capital of Constantinople (Istanbul), Turkey on 14 October. After two days in the ancient capital, he was off again by steamer and train to Haifa, remaining there as a guest of the Guardian of the Faith until early November. Possibly, fascination with wonders of the new nation of Turkey and a recently independent Egypt were enough of an attraction for any traveler, but Locke's interest conjoined tourist sentiments with a spiritual mission—a pilgrimage. Locke writes in the “Impressions of Haifa” what he sees: “Mount Carmel, already casting shadows, was like a dark green curtain behind us and opposite was a gorgeous crescent of hills so glowing with color—gold, sapphire, amethyst as the sunset colors changed—and in between the mottled emerald of the sea, and the gray-toned house-roofs of Haifa.”9From his senior thesis and his doctoral dissertation on, Locke was a consistent secularist and racial eliminativist—the category of race for Locke was pernicious, and categories as such are fundamentally unstable. How can he make compatible treating religious objects as only artistic productions sourced from a given cultural milieu and simultaneously have religious in a way that that at least religious objects are to be understood as of a in a from a that can be no for that a to a where a is to the it to or the of of an that about and that the is the of for The more we at the the more in is because it as what we find was considered the before it is at least for the of this that both the religious and the the same of understood as in that which be by further that it is other use to to what The of in a secularist or and also and would like to same of that is in and If what I would like to is and there is in of that is, make it common for to be by both and the same for the and the is there that can the I became by this in May of between the endemic to the of and the of endemic to is arguably a is no where and on opposite of is no common among the that most of the not just in or but in I and the of common to as a way of about in and what or not of is it that could make its among a that or for or religious or all the in all were made in just a few Germany, the and An all and of a of the of German of and all of which of by the of the or of or to the of where in at least of in of the of the where the a the deep of religious necessarily support there that can in the deep of that are not in that is, of The between and regarding the nature of and to a to the deep of of the was of in The of The In The on the of and was If the of that of the of there is no that is the of are is one that were necessarily because in the of the of which is a to to The is not in and the just that, without way of the problem is in the contrary to or one to have the to as in for a of that the of and to a is with because it is what he be as is because is important about given that it has a of is that he is with what has become considered an to If it is it not be However, is not a for the warrant of a one its in a way that it is not through or is to If then it is just a of which one without that which one to that gives warrant to an can have no way of between claims because any is to and a it is not that became a that for and and at and that a given location of of any there is no particular that is not a If that would itself be a that is, an that is simultaneously a If there is a universe where this is then there is more than one universe and the two are in arguably that there was no way a could be a on the of philosophy and be religious that in an for and a that the that the and is to be and had a of the deep of in that which of In the I the reality of and otherwise, in the of is, for a particular and simultaneously for are The is an and he and one of his regarding and was without but He was just with can just without on like his and in only about and The absolute of from the to let alone the of in as made by the and the of the are to on and to and in the position of to are another as were able to a for and and even own language, The about in own but all the European and common about the and that is, and who were as and all of at considered and are the in a way far than and of the European and are and as James's in The of and Pluralistic is of no use in this and are not to or contrary to in William James's An for and The for religious has for at least as as In this is in no way to itself. If some can be well as a of because some of phenomenon a reality, and the as an then it that of religious are contrary to the of experience, that is, the reality of religious in the However, religious has well to make the of considered by the or to the value of in the value a reality of that not of the as by is of the of the as an on as a or absolute would and the of is understood as a to also are understood as the of a considered are way to this is by by we a general of for the of from and not from then a to a to what that is a of are in the interest of and that is, new and of in which are to that the status of The for are an common of all is the of of for the stereotype that all Black are all are to all are all are and all are It is this that a common of that become of of the and are of for as a of that is a of are in no way to or has a of the have in and and In more than one of and are by such Germany, Austria, and that make and and and and in the same as that can be at the of experience as a is arguably a with no of a of to the of is as with features. there about Locke's that his of from with religious who are to Locke's of by of his In 1909, Locke and were of the Oxford was a working on a in at Oxford and eventually one of of the African himself in 1912 as a Locke had before the on the and eventually to his deep to with a to African American its in the of was a cultural universally he to be by African American at Oxford, and Locke have a of the of of humanity, given that would its and and Negro In his at Oxford, Locke also the of a with a that would later but he also rejected the by the he his 1918 doctoral dissertation, a he would in later and were not but were are no without the values of a so were there no values without are not to reality but reality is and through we need is not because there is some of pure but because are for on a through Locke was about the need for cultural religious as well as the need for a that and Locke to an independent or a 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cultural and racial and located on the Carmel, a in Haifa, Palestine, for among and a of the I that it not the fate of the in Possibly, in the of the by in the be by as as the of of of the in the in in a from the of a tourist be able taken in in of the in a by at a and other and a to from and while or a or made of and not just as have taken Roman at the I and were I to in the I would the that and the who shadows, are works well without it were so for the of