Revolution and universality

interpreting the time and age of the haitian revolution 1791–1804

Carl Wilén

pp. 97-120

in: Elena Namli (ed), Future(s) of the revolution and the reformation, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2019

Abstract

A major theme of the current "Haitian turn" has been what the author calls a "universality analysis," which stresses that the Haitian Revolution, in contrast to the American and the French, once and for all abolished slavery. The chapter investigates the intervention into the Haitian turn by two scholars specializing in the history of human rights: Lynn Hunt, who advocates a universality analysis of the Haitian Revolution; and Samuel Moyn, who defends what the author calls a "universality-skeptical" analysis. It is argued that a theory of universal political forms, understood as contradictory and limited by the social content of power they mediate, can reveal that Hunt presupposes the effectivity of the political form independent of social content and a theory of historical continuity connecting the Haitian Revolution to our own age, and that Moyn presupposes emptiness of the political form reducible to intentions of actors and outcomes of events and a theory of discontinuity.