Paleface: The Philosophy of the 'Melting-Pot'

by Wyndham Lewis

The irrepressible controversialist, in a lively and provocative exposition of racial problems, mainly drawn from contemporary literature.

THIS TITLE IS CITED AND RECOMMENDED BY: Books for College Libraries.

Genres: Philosophy

303 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1929

About the author

(Percy) Wyndham Lewis (1882-1957) was a novelist, painter, essayist, polemicist and one of the truly dynamic forces of the early 20th century and a central figure in the history of modernism. He was the founder of Vorticism, the only original movement in 20th century English painting. His Vorticist paintings from 1913 are the first abstract works produced in England, and influenced the development of Suprematism in Russia. Tarr (published in 1918), initiated his career as a satirical novelist, earning the praise of his contemporaries: "the most distinguished living novelist" (T.S. Eliot), "the only English writer who can be compared to Dostoevsky" (Ezra Pound).

After serving as an artillery officer and official war artist during the First World War, Lewis was unable to revive the avant-garde spirit of Vorticism, though he attempted to do so in a pamphlet advocating the modernisation of London architecture in 1919: The Caliph's Design Architects! Where is your Vortex? Exhibitions of his incisive figurative drawings, cutting-edge abstractions and satirical paintings were not an economic success, and in the early 1920s he devoted himself to study of political theory, anthropology, philosophy and aesthetics, becoming a regular reader in the British Museum Reading Room. The resulting books, such as The Art of Being Ruled (1926), Time and Western Man (1927), The Lion and the Fox: The Role of the Hero in the Plays of Shakespeare (1927) and Paleface: The Philosophy of the Melting-Pot (1929) created a reputation for him as one of the most important - if wayward - of contemporary thinkers.

The satirical The Apes of God (1930) damaged his standing by its attacks on Bloomsbury and other prominent figures in the arts, and the 1931 Hitler, which argued that in contemporary 'emergency conditions' Hitler might provide the best way forward in Germany damaged it yet further. Isolated and largely ignored, and persisting in advocacy of "appeasement," Lewis continued to produce some of his greatest masterpieces of painting and fiction during the remainder of the 1930s, culminating in the great portraits of his wife (1937), T. S. Eliot (1938) and Ezra Pound (1939), and the 1937 novel The Revenge for Love. After visiting Berlin in 1937 he produced books attacking Hitler and anti-semitism but decided to leave England for North America on the outbreak of war, hoping to support himself with portrait-painting. The difficult years he spent there before his return in 1945 are reflected in the 1954 novel, Self Condemned. Lewis went blind in 1951, from the effects of a pituitary tumor. He continued writing fiction and criticism, to renewed acclaim, until his death. He lived to see his visual work honored by a retrospective exhibition at London's Tate Gallery in 1956, and to hear the BBC broadcast dramatisations of his earlier novels and his fantastic trilogy of novels up-dating Dante's Inferno, The Human Age.

Reviews

[Paul O'Leary · Rating 3 out of 5]

They don't write books like this anymore.....and you can probably guess why right away-even if all you know is the title of the book. This is an interesting book. Wyndham Lewis was quite a satirist in his day. What makes most readers of Lewis uneasy today is trying to discern from his prose a joke, or just sarcasm, or the straight-out truth as Lewis sees it. I get the feeling boundaries for these categories were more scumbled for Lewis than most people would allow or consider decent today. This book is a satirical polemic on race relations at the end of the twenties, and all that that implies. Lewis spends more time spanking self-eviscerating palefaces, though, than being condescending to other races; but he makes ample time for that as well. Lewis stumbles onto animal rights in this book; unfortunately the reader is left to feel it's a sour joke-I think he meant it to be-, so Lewis the prophet looses out again to the Lewis of bad manners. It's hard to imagine him wanting it any other way, however. There are a lot of interesting extracts from other works inside this book that I appreciated. Lawrence's 'Mornings in Mexico' is quoted at length as is Dubois' novel 'The Dark Princess'-I blush to admit I had no idea Dubois wrote novels until
I read this book. Lewis mentions Van Vechten a couple of times in comparison with Dubois' novel, likely making few happy back when this was written and even fewer readers-if any-now. I also believe this book introduced me to T H Green. If it means anything to you, Hemingway took this book and its ideas seriously. Again, it's really hard to tell how much Lewis himself did. I'm inclined to think he did more than somewhat. Lewis saw nonwhite racism as a cosmic cultural, if not political, threat as it was abetted by and allied with white anti racists attacking themselves. This is a unique book for readers today as its ideas aren't allowed satirical examination any longer. Racism can't/shouldn't hide behind jokes any longer. Maybe this explains why my review is the only one for this book.....

[Fnaught · Rating 5 out of 5]

'In general outline my argument will be this: Against this dark demon I oppose everywhere (for the sake of argument and "purely and simply to amuse myself") a White demon or daimon; the spirit of the White race against the spirit of the dark race-the mystical dark race of the romantic White imagination (not against-naturally-any flesh and blood Black brother, or fellow slave, of the moment). Against this overexcitable, oversusceptible romantic White, too, I bring the discipline of my criticism, and offer him as cold a bath as possible, where, for the period of immersion, at least, he can keep cool. With its white demon I believe the White race can be saved (instead of perishing on its way to the melting pot), if this demon can only be properly utilized. He is a marvelous force, who has manifested himself on many occasions, and often given us evidence of his magical power. If we do not entirely throw him over, he can yet be our savior; he was the daimon of Socrates, this White demon we have inherited-he has a vivid and spectacular history that it would be unwise for his antagonists to allow themselves to forget. It may be that very rapidly many people of our race will stop kowtowing to the dark demon, and turn again to him. And ultimately he may blanch or bleach the entire melting pot.'

[BrandosEgo · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Philosophic Undercurrent of Paleface

A. The book is not a fiction novel.
While Lewis does say that he has been approaching the issues “via creative fiction” (Lewis here is referring to the extracts he has examined in the book such as Atlantis by Hans Dominik (Quoted in German) Loin des Blondes by Thomas Raucat (Quoted in French) and Dark Laughter by Sherwood Anderson (Quoted in English). The book is closer to a Sociological/Philosophical thesis on The “rising tide of colour”, “The Melting Pot”, “The Congo flooding the Acropolis” which of course is a real word affair. He quotes these real works in order to direct the discourse and illustrate his real thoughts on real issues in the real world.
“I dignify this critical work with the title of system, because as literature stands today, it in reality amounts to that. It is a system that will enable any fairly intelligent man, once he opens his mind to it, and seizes its main principles, to read under an entirely new light almost everything that is written at the present time.” (p109.)

B. Objective
“My main object in Paleface has been to place in the hands of the readers of imaginative literature, and also of that very considerable literature directed to popularizing scientific and philosophic notions, in language as clear and direct as possible, a sort of key; so that, with its aid, they may be able to read any work of art presented to them, and, resisting the skilful blandishments of the fictionist, reject this plausible 'life' that often is not life, and understand the ideologic or philosophical basis of these confusing entertainments, where so many false ideas change hands or change heads. (p109.)

C. Three Actual Axioms
1) Progressive Destruction - “The anti-Paleface campaign has all the appearance of attacks upon a disintegrated organism, by some other intact and triumphant organism : it has very much too human and personal a flavour. What it seems to imply is that the white world is ‘finished’ that it is a culture under assaults from without and from within.” (p84.)
[…]The hideous condition of our world is often attributed to 'dark' agencies, willing its overthrow. But there have always been such devils incarnate - it goes without saying that there are such evil agencies
'dark' influences of every sort are certain at all moments to be at work. That alone would not account for the unique position of universal danger and disorganization in which we find ourselves all round the globe. It is obviously to its mechanical instrument, not to the human will itself, that we must look.
Without White Science and the terrible
power of its engines, such evil people as always abound would be relatively harmless. (p250.)

2) Cultural Degeneration - “The Paleface at present, owing to adverse circumstances, has fallen so low intellectually, is socially so impotent, and his standards of work and amusement are so mechanical, that he cannot be taken as ideal by any man.” (p57.)
It is quite easy for White Men, as well as Negroes to become Mass men not to be distinguished from one another. Industrialism is able to achieve that for you whoever bosses.” (p221.) “glorifying the negroes” (p209.) “Black-worship” (p210.)

3) We find ourselves in a new moral landscape where the previous white order is dead, so being an outlaw and a revolutionary has become the new order of the day. (Conclusion to Part One p70-p93.)

- - -

Personal Stance:
“It is not the melting pot I object to, but the depreciation and damage done to one of the ingredients..” (p257.)

- - -

These are some of the key points.
Aside from this the book is rich in commentary and good takes. On “Communism”, “Behaviourism” Pseudo- Intellectualism”, “Scientism”, “Progress” and “Time”.
Here’s one of my favourite quotes from the book; (referring to modern political factions) “‘The West’ is for almost all of those a finished thing, either over whose decay they gloat, or whose corpse they frantically ’defend’”. (p256.)
Although most of the philosophical discourse remains timeless, due to an exponential worsening of the situation I would judge some of Lewis’s more specific observations on Europe and America particularly as somewhat dated. He punctuates the book in the last chapter with what I would read as a preferential statement on Pan-Europeanism over Jingoism.