If civilizations can be ranked, so can people.

In the previous column, we examined how historical sequence hardened into civilizational replacement. Europe increasingly positioned itself as mature, advanced, and representative of history’s culmination. Africa was placed earlier in time — not absent, but developmental.

Once hierarchy operates at the level of societies, it presses downward into anthropology.

Civilizational ranking eventually requires a theory of capacity.

The question shifts from:Which civilization is advanced?toWhich people are capable?

Early modern European thought did not initially deny African humanity outright. Such a claim would have sat uneasily with Christian affirmations of shared human origin and natural law traditions that emphasized common descent.¹ Instead, difference was reframed as development.

The issue was not whether Africans were human. It was whether they were equally mature as humans.

A growing strand of early modern political philosophy linked reason to freedom and political authority. John Locke, for example, tied property rights and legitimate government to rational self-governance.² Capacity for disciplined reason became increasingly associated with civil and political maturity.

If reason is the basis of freedom, then perceived deficiencies in reason justify limits on autonomy.

European travel literature and missionary accounts frequently described Africans as childlike, impulsive, or governed more by passion than deliberation.³ These depictions varied by author and region, but the developmental framing is clear: Africa was not inhuman; it was immature.

The language of childhood is revealing.

Children are human.Children........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)