Reassembling Modernity Thinking at the Limit

8/12/2019 Reassembling Modernity Thinking at the Limit

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/reassembling-modernity-thinking-at-the-limit 1/24

ocial cientist

Reassembling Modernity: Thinking at the LimitAuthor(s): Sasheej HegdeSource: Social Scientist, Vol. 37, No. 9/10 (Sep. - Oct., 2009), pp. 66-88Published by: Social ScientistStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27748608 .

Accessed: 18/03/2014 09:47

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of

content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms

of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Social Scientist is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Scientist.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 202.41.10.30 on Tue, 18 Mar 2014 09:47:49 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=socialscien

http://www.jstor.org/stable/27748608?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp





http://www.jstor.org/stable/27748608?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=socialscien



Reassembling Modernity

historical causality.Needless to say, I take this to be the definitive marker of

Marxism, indeed a constitutive facetofMarx's central thesis that the relations

ofmodernity are, among other things, 'contradictions of progress'.Without

doubt, the challenge of historical materialism as a theoryofpolitics- and not

quite (or only) as a philosophy ofhistory- would need foregrounding in this

context.

All the same,my remarks here respond to a solicitation -quite surelynot

something sought or demanded by our other contributors here, but I guess

self-inflicted.At its root is a set of questions that have formed the basis ofintellectual negotiation the last two or threeyears under the auspices of the

Alam Khundmiri Foundation (Hyderabad). This has concerned the very act

of configuring 'modernity'- both the category itself and the modes of

experience internal to it. It is within this framework that an attempt was

made to understand the stakes of politics, as represented both by various

forms of identitypolitics and thewider claims to culture and difference that

preface such forms of articulation. These questions, prompted as well by

wide-ranging reflections as they obtain today on the landscape of what is

termed 'alternative' or 'multiple' modernities, serve as context formyremarks here.

But, of course, historical ends have a regularway of transmuting intonew

beginnings?and at no timemore often than duringmodern times, asMarx

recognized, when claims of novelty depended upon a corollary sense of

senescence and obsolescence. Is there scope yet fora sortof framing reversal -

of the sort that allows for a re-postulation of themodernity idea? The

imperative clearly cannot be foroverarching linearities and grand paradigms,but rather formore finely tuned explications appropriate to the modern

present. It is in that spirit that I invoke the claims that I do in this criticalnote.

I.Epistemic AnchoringsOne might, at the very outset, puzzle over how we can make epistemiccontactwith theground(s) ofmodernity that isour subjectmatter. Indeed, as

I see it,much of the success or otherwise of currentdiscussions ofmodernitylie in theirrole in the construction of this subjectmatter. The straightforward

property that most accounts usually ascribe to modernity- without

necessarily thinking it through-

is a capacity to create itsnormativity out ofitself.This will commit them towhat the philosopher Charles Taylor has

identifiedas either a 'cultural' or an 'acultural' theoryofmodernity.1 Cultural

theories account for the transition tomodernity in terms of the intrinsic

appeal of thenormative content of a specific cultural form.Taylor himself, in

his substantivework, adopts this kind of approach inhis explication of the

LT)

cozr

a>

IECD

croOlCD

67







Social Scientist

modern identity as shaped by ideals of inwardness, freedom and the

affirmation of ordinary life.Acultural theories,on theother hand, explain the

transition in terms of the actualization of some universal but dormant

capacity for thought and action, or byway of theperformance of some social

operation which is definable independently of culture. In thismodel, all

cultures could, under suitable conditions, undergo the transition to

modernity; any culture could in principle serve as 'input' for the chosen

'culture-neutral' explanatory procedure. Functionalism has been an

influential theory of the 'acultural' kind, but theories that construe thetransition tomodernity as a rationalization process also tend to take this

form.

According toTaylor, this form of independent variation has been a greatsource of confusion in attempts to explain modernity

- to echo his linehere,

"an acultural theory tends tomake us both miss the original vision of the

good implicit inWestern modernity and underestimate the nature of the

transformation thatbrought about thismodernity"-while himself adhering

to the 'cultural' kind of approach.2 Butwhat is it to have - orwork with - a

'theory' of modernity? Taylor specifically proposes that "(an) exclusivereliance on an acultural theory unfits us forwhat is perhaps themost

important task of social sciences in our day: understanding the fullgamut of

alternative modernities which are in themaking in differentparts of the

world"; while adding that themodernities in question consist of "creative

adaptation", even that "(a) given societywill, indeedmust, adopt themode

forwhich ithas the cultural resources".3

Now, controversies about when theWest entered themodern period

notwithstanding- around 1500 formost historians, in the seventeenth

century forphilosophers and historians of science, sometime after 1850 forthose who study literature or the visual arts - a certain narrative about

'disenchantment', rationalization and secularization often comes to

dominate the talk aboutmodernity's distinctive features.The consequence of

this narrative has been tomake the disparate descriptions ofmodernityreconcilable and the individuation of modernities hard to discern.

Paradoxically, this iswhat is being gestured at by means of the contrast

between 'cultural' and 'acultural' theories ofmodernity. I sayparadoxicallybecause, forTaylor, "(n)ot everymode of cultural distinctness is (-) justified

and good"; indeed that any plurality of culturally different alternativemodernities should be subjected to the normative conditions ofmodernityitself.4 n fact, forTaylor:

One can envisage another kind of search for an alternativemodernity,one that would realize itsnormative promise more fully.This is an

important issue -indeed, one of the great issues - of our time. But the

ooorslL_CD

-QOt

O

CD_Q

ECD

CDUOO

ONo

COO

Z

CO

>

68








two questions are distinct: Can we create a normatively superioralternativemodernity? Can there be a plurality of culturally different

alternativemodernities?5

The entire process of this demonstration need not concern us here

(although I think it is important, especially since ina later sectionwe dwell on

a critique of the 'alternative' or 'multiple'modernities idea). One is also not

accusing Taylor of being caught in an ethnocentric bind, which would have

again required more detailed commentary. But surelywhat seemsmarked

out by the context of this framing (Imean Taylor's) is that while certain

images and contoursmight be particularly appropriate to each other -1 have

inmind here thebinary instituted between 'cultural' and 'acultural' theories,

that the tendency being ascribed to a theory in the 'cultural' mode could be

attributed to the other 'acultural' theoryaswell (and vice versa)- the content

itself (ofwhat is being inferred about modernity, namely, the capacity to

create itsnormativity out of itself) ispartially independent of either typeof

demarcation. Such a possibility, I should think, precludes the proposal of

substituting cultural theories for their acultural counterparts; and even urges

that theories should be regarded as just one component, ofno more defining

importance than concepts, of the composite ideas which is themodernity in

question today.6

This, obviously, does not settle the epistemic issue,which also concerns

what one takes 'theories' ofmodernity to commit one to. Peter Osborne has

this to say about the role of so-called 'theories ofmodernity' (as distinct from

themore general theorization of'modernity' that he sketches): "to provide a

content to fill the form of themodern; to give it somethingmore than an

abstract temporal determinacy".7What isbeing entailed by this formulation?

The reflection isof specialweight because -unlike priorMarxist dismissals ofthe space of the 'postmodern'

-Osborne's account is directed specificallytowards confrontingMarxism's neglect of problems in the philosophy of

history, aswell as squaring up to "the fact thatmodernity/modernities growold" and that "(f)ully reflexive concepts of postmodernity ... take us back

into the paradoxes and aporia of 'modernity' at a higher conceptual level".8

Letme look at it in some detail; I report ithere with all themore assurance

that the considerations forwardedmay inclinemy Marxist friends in favour

of the epistemic issues at stake.

Osborne begins by framing themany different senses inwhich the term

'modernity' can be (and has been) used -modernity as a category of

historical periodization, a quality of social experience, and an incomplete

project- and the problematic conclusions drawn by scholars, Marxists

included, concerning thenature and statusof the concept itself. he problem,forhim, arises from "the absence in ... [most] ... accounts of an independent

LT)

CD

IECD

CLCD

69







Social Scientist

treatment of the logic of modernity as a category of historical

periodization...; no consideration of theway inwhich the idea ofmodernityitselfmarks a newway ofperiodizing history;no consideration of the relation

between the kind of historical time occupied bymodernity as an epochal

category and thatwhich is internal tomodernity itself'.9As Osborne puts it:

'Modernity' ... plays a peculiar dual role as a category of historical

periodization: it designates the contemporaneity of an epoch to the

time of its classification; yet it registers this contemporaneity in terms

of a qualitatively new, self-transcending temporality which has thesimultaneous effect of distancing the present from even thatmost

recent past with which it is thus identified. It is this paradoxical

doubling or inherentlydialectical quality thatmakes modernity both so

irresistibleand so problematic a category.10This temporal structure, he furthermaintains, has been an abundant

source of equivocation within analysis- between Marxists generally

-

oscillating as they seem to be between "two differentuses of'modernity'":On the one hand, it is treated as a flawed andmisleading category for the

identification and analysis of historical processes which are better understoodinquite other terms.On theother, itappears as the legitimate designation for

an historical phenomenon, the theoretical comprehension, but not the

identification, of which is contested.11

Adopting the first sense, they offer a critique of the discourse of

modernity; and yet, as Osborne discloses, their conclusion emphatically

presumes the second sense: "modernity is an historical reality, capable of

'prolongation', 'fulfilment' and 'abolition'". The 'connection' here is framed

thus: "[It] resides in the reflexivity f historical experience itself: 'modernity'

has a reality as a form of cultural self-consciousness, a lived experience ofhistorical time,which cannot be denied, however one-sided itmight be as a

category of historical understanding".12Mark thepoint: it isbeing suggested that therecan beMarxist accounts of

'modernity'which do not reduce itto amerely ideological concept. Indeed, it is

some such presumptions of the lattersort thatmakes Marxists uneasywith the

concept, so that even as modernity is recognized as a historical given, it is

'given' only as an ideological form, a mode of experience produced and

reproduced by the rhythms of the capitalist market. Osborne also draws

attention to a tendency toofferin theplace ofmodernity an alternativeMarxistaccount of historical development, based on a periodization of modes of

production, the rise and decline of classes and so on, but highlights a problemabout the terms of this opposition. As he notes, it is precisely the idea of a

differential temporalitybound up with the concept of modes of productionwhich "is associated with the idea ofmodernity itself'.13

ONooCNlL<D

_QO

tJ

O

(D_Q

Ecu

Q_CD

OnO

CO

>

70








Clearly, the problem- and I think this is important

- is thatmost

accounts remain within the tradition of an unreflexive sociology of

modernity wherein - to recallOsborne, once again- "the attempt to establish

what is new about 'modern' societies fails to reflect upon the temporalcoordinates and conceptual implications of this form of investigation itself;

and that

(t)he problem posed by an insufficientlydifferentiated concept of

modernization ... cannot be reduced to a simple opposition between

'homogeneous' to 'differential'historical times.Rather, itconcerns the

possibilities and pitfallsbuilt into the dialectics of homogenization and

differentiation constitutive of the temporality ofmodernity, and the

way inwhich these are tied up, inextricably,with the politics of a

particular set of spatial relations.14

The idea that thismatrix conveys is that of a 'transitive' state (or

condition), a designation corresponding towhat Osborne has distinguished,with reference to the concept ofmodernity itself,as "our primary secular

category of historical totalization"

a form of historical consciousness, an abstract temporal structurewhich, in totalizing history from the standpoint of an ever-vanishing,

ever-present present embraces a conflicting plurality of projects, of

possible futures,provided theyconform to itsbasic logical structure15

Although, as is conceded, which of these projects will turn out to have

been trulymodern, only timewill tell.What happens is that a radical idea

passes, by distinct spatializations, into other senses in which the term

('modern', 'modernity' or even 'themodern age') is employed. Some such

spatializations are the result of semantic and socio-historical associations, but

they also have their origin (as Osborne also avers) "in the repressed spatial

premises of the concept ofmodernity".16 Indeed,what this translates into is a

possibility that the significance ofmodernity for the non-West can never be

grasped unless it is apprehended in the non-West's changing spatial

relationship to theWest. The 'prejudice', or principle, under attack here can

be shown to be problematic, however. For if,as Osborne discloses, "new

configurations of 'modernity'will emerge in bothWestern and non-Western

places"17, then the impulse to both construe and deny universal history that

undergirdswhat he isgeneralizing about the space ofmodernity would (haveto) be compromised. This is true of Taylor's problematization as well,

especially his contention about "themost important task of social sciences in

our day: understanding the fullgamut of alternativemodernities which are in

themaking indifferentparts of theworld", although he also vacillates. Surelyhis insistence that everything should be subject to thenormative conditions

COP?COZT

0)

(D

ClCD

71







Social Scientist

ofmodernity itself implies that nothing is self-evident or could on some

ground be taken forgranted.As such, themark ofmodernity can be as controversial as theproperty to

be inferred bout it. If the available sociology ofmodernity is interpreted,as I

think itmust be, as being unable to put together awell-formed debate about

the ground(s) ofmodernity, this surely cannot be ascribed to the whole

enterprise of historicization, whether liberal,Marxist or even postcolonial,which in some form or other have always been so concerned. Indeed, to

embellish the point justmade, the notion ofmodernity - and of a basic

orienting "prepositional" relation thereto (that is, toward, through, for,

against, within, around, beyond, beside, athwart, before, etc.)- has long

served as the tacitly assumed or explicitly stipulated framework ofmost

historical inquiry, includingmuch work delving into thevast stretches of the

past prior tomodernity. We moderns cannot seem to get away, even in spiteof ourselves, fromour ownmodernity as the indispensable historical a prioriformaking sense of human affairs.Finding any largermeaning or "plot" has

most oftenmeant bringing inmodernity somehow or other, in the process

invariably begging crucial questions: why (orwhen or where) to stopwithsuch eventual putativemodernity and itsconscious course or perceived path?

When do we know thatX, Y, or Z has arrived at theordained time and place,if the benchmarks or criteria are shifting along with the very process itself?

What does one make ofmodernity as a distinct but paradoxical form of

historical temporality? Do modernity and increasingly more modern

developments alleviate or exacerbate Hegel's 'unhappy consciousness' of

trauma and tragedy, touse twomelancholy themes so pervasively invoked for

European history and its 'difficultpath'?18Last, but not the least,what does it

mean to affirm the idea ofmodernity as a capacity to "create itsnormativityout of itself?

The point to stick to or emphasize is that theoperations herein can - and

ought to - be still fully cognitive, while also being politically articulated or

historicallymediated. The complications stem from the fact that it seems to

be adducing to a level of normativity that goes beyond, if you will,

'preconditions' (plainly, the histories of what led up to something) and

'effects' (the aggregate of the changes which that something causes or that

unfold with respect to it) and held to underlie the historical study of socio

political forms.19n otherwords: to have stated that there is something about

modernity (or evenmultiple modernities) that can and needs to be known is

not yet to ask how it is that our descriptions of it (the theorywhich makes

particular accounts of modernity more than just a heuristic device for

identifyingthe space of themodern) are themselves overdetermined bywhat

we can and need to know about modernity. It is these overdeterminations

ONooCN|

cd_qo

ti

oLCD

-O

Ecd

"SLcd

UlO

OnO

coo

z

m

>

72








that I shall now proceed to disclose in the next section, and in the process

critique some of the extant tendencies that structure the debate onmodernityandmodernization today. If the discourse surrounding aspects of the debate

have been contrived, it has also been marred by partisan views by both

modernity's protagonists and itsantagonists.

II. Overdetermined Terrains

In his seminal work on Chinese modernity published in the 1960s, the

historian Joseph Levenson argued thatMarxist historicism had resolved aproblem that had plagued Chinese intellectuals ever since the encounterwith

the modern West had forced a parochialization of Confucian values from

their once universalistic status into the circumscribed endowment of a

national past; an endowment, moreover, thatwas inconsistent with the

struggle for modernity.20 For Levenson, continued attachment to

Confucianism despite loss of faith in its intellectual validity represented a

tension between 'historyand value' created byWestern intrusion intoChina:

Confucianism, necessary as the historical source of a Chinese national

identity,had to be overcome ifChina was to become a nation. Marxisthistoricism, inhis view, enabled Chinese intellectuals to come to termswith

the need to abandon the basic values of traditional culture by historicizingthose values (thereby salvaging them as historical relics),while at the same

time alleviating the sense of inferiority efore theWest which this situation

created by demonstrating the equally time-bound nature ofmodern Western

values (now reduced tobourgeois values). As he strikinglyremarks:

Confucius ... redeemed from both the class aberration (feudal) of

idolization and the class aberration (bourgeois) of destruction,might be

kept as a national monument, unworshipped, yet also unshattered. Ineffect,the disdain of amodern pro-Western bourgeoisie for Confucius

cancelled out, for the dialecticians, a feudal class's premodern devotion.

The Communists, driving history to a classless synthetic fulfilment,

retiredConfucius honorably into the silence of themuseum.21

Working off these ideas, the historian and theorist Arif Dirlik has

recentlyobserved;

Itmay be one of the profound ironies of our times that this situation

has been reversed since Levenson wrote his analysis: Confucius has beenbrought out of themuseum once again,while it is the revolution that is

on its way to being museumified; not by feudal worshippers of

Confucius, but by the bourgeoisie who once disdained Confucius, and

the Communist Party that remains in power as thebeneficiary of that

revolution.22

LT)PJcoZTCDCD

CDOQOlCD

73







Social Scientist

Dirlik is categorical that Levenson's analysis and evaluation of what the

revolution had achieved in resolving the tension between the past and the

present "were informedby a Eurocentric teleology ofmodernity; the claims

of the values of ancient civilizations must inevitablybe relegated to thepastwith thevictory ofmodernity as represented by themodern nation".23Dirlik

notes that the situation since has changed both with the passing of

revolutions and with an insistent questioning of a Eurocentric teleology of

modernity, which (he sees) as an outcome of 'globalization' replacing

'modernization' as a paradigm of contemporary change:The passing of the Chinese Revolution, as of socialist revolutions in

general, may be attributed to their particular failings. Similarly,advocates of the Confucian revivalmay attribute the revival to the

particular virtues inherent in Confucianism. While there may be

something to be said for such views, inmy view, they suffer from a

debilitating parochialism that fails to account for a larger historical

contextwhere it isnot just socialist revolutions that are relegated to the

past but the very idea of revolution, and it is not just theConfucian

tradition that is at issue, but the return of traditions in general.24Dirlik's prognosis does not quite end there. He sees further

complications attending to these efforts,noting that "(f)or all the talk about

Asia and Asian values over thepast fewyears, the idea of Asia remains quite

problematic, and so do the ideological and cultural sources fromwhich Asian

values are to be derived", while going on to conclude that "(i)t isdifficult to

avoid an inference that all these revivals, coinciding temporally, are productsof the same world situation, though they obviously have local inflections

depending on social context and ideological claims".25According toDirlik,

"these reversals have been accompanied by challenges tomodernity's ways of

knowing", with calls for 'Sinicization' and 'Islamicization' of sociology aswell

as a revival indifferentnational contexts "of the so-called 'national studies',

which advocates a return not only to the epistemologies but the

methodologies of classical studies".26 Interestingly,Dirlik detects in these

tendencies "a loss of consensus over the institutional and intellectual content

ofmodernity even asmodernity isglobalized". As he puts it,"(m)odernity is

not a thing but a relationship, and being part of the relationship is the

ultimate marker of themodern", discerning in this view "a postcolonial

rephrasing of critiques ofmodernization discourse thatgot under way in the1960s".27

Dirlik is clear-cut that where earlier critiques "retained a view of

European modernity as the source ofmodernity" this is "now questioned in

the context of thepostcolonial critique". Significantly, forhim, "while earlier

critiques shifted attention to structures of political economy in order to

ONooCNl

<DJOO

CD_Q

OnO

>

74








counteract the culturalism ofmodernization discourse, postcolonial criticism

ofmodernity has brought culture back in to reaffirm thepersistence of local

subjectivities, and the local appropriations of capitalistmodernity".28 Dirlik

sees in this trend of criticism somethingmisleading- "the danger of slippage

froman insistence on the contemporaneity of all societies thatare parts of the

relationships ofmodernity, and help define the latter, to the potential or

actual 'modernness' of all such societies" - and which "imposes upon thepasta consciousness that is a product of a postcolonial demand for cultural

recognition and equality".29 He is explicit that "for all its purportedconstructivism, the very urge in postcolonial criticism to overcome a

dichotomous modernity/tradition distinction invitesby theback door reified

notions of culture".30

Interestingly,forDirlik, such a claim also underwrites recent effortsto

revisemodernization discourse inkeeping with contemporary cultural claims

onmodernity inmany non-Western societies. He calls attention to a specialissue of Daedalus entitled 'Multiple Modernities'; in particular, to the

anchoring comments of the issue's editor, S. N. Eisenstadt, who notes the

followingwith reference to the idea of 'multiplemodernities':...goes against the views long prevalent in scholarly and generaldiscourse. It goes against the view of the 'classical' theories of

modernization and of the convergence of industrial societies prevalentin the 1950s, and indeed against the classical sociological analyses of

Marx, D?rkheim and (to a large extent) even ofWeber ... that the

cultural program ofmodernity as itdeveloped inEurope and thebasic

institutional constellations that emerged there would ultimately take

over in all modernizing and modern societies ... The actual

developments inmodernizing societies have refuted thehomogenizingand hegemonic assumptions of thisWestern program ofmodernity.

While a general trend toward structural differentiation developedacross awide range of institutions inmost of these societies ... thewaysinwhich these arenas were defined and organized varied greatly

...

giving rise tomultiple institutional and ideological patterns. These

patterns did not constitute simple continuations in themodern era of

the traditions of their respective societies. Such patterns were

distinctivelymodern, though greatly influenced by specific cultural

premises, traditions and historical experiences. All developed distinctlymodern dynamics and modes of interpretation, forwhich the originalWestern project constituted the crucial (and usually ambivalent)

reference point.31

Clearly this represents a shift in the location ofmodernity- inDirlik's

terms from "nations, regions and civilizations (themselves the creations of a

LHCOZTCDCD

IECD

CJQCLCD

75







Social Scientist

Eurocentricmodernity) to institutions andways of thinking- inotherwords,

discourses conceived both in linguistic and institutional terms"; and goes on

to suggest that "in this perspective ... there is no such thing as aWestern,

European, orAmerican modernity, as these all representdifferentmixtures of

modern, pre-modern or non-modern elements; there are simplymodern

discourses that co-existwith pre- or non-modern discourses that themselves

represent all kinds of local varieties".32 For Dirlik, this represents a

deterritorialization ofmodernity "from its spatial associations", and discerns

in this a possibility ofmodernity's globalization "for,whatever the origins,the discourse is transportable across geographical or cultural boundaries".33

Now, to be sure,Dirlik is critical of these tendencies, attributing them to

a "downgrading of a Eurocentric modernity, accompanied by culturallydriven claims onmodernity", although he mentions that the tendencies "may

appear differentlyto participants in the new dialogue on modernity".34 But,

for Dirlik, what provokes further questions concerning the 'multiplemodernities' idea is "the concomitant ascendancy of globalization as a new

paradigm for grasping the reconfiguration of power in the contemporary

world", which according to him "still leaves open the question of what

provides thisworld with a commonality which, ifanything, ismore powerfulin its claims than anything that could be imagined in the past".35Dirlik is

certain that thepolitical economy of contemporary capitalism is important to

grasping not only arguments forglobalization, but also the emphasis grantedto assertions of cultural difference.As he forcefullydeclares (and I shall quoteat some length singularly, fora problematisation thatwill soon follow):

...while cultural differences have been present all along, what

distinguishes our times from times past is a willingness to listen to

invocations of cultural legacies not as reactionary responses to

modernity but as the very conditions of a global modernity. ...

'Multiple modernities' suggests a global multiculturalism that reifies

cultures in order to render manageable cultural and political

incoherence; diversitymanagement on global scale, so to speak. How

else to explain the continual slippage in these analyses into the languageof nations and civilizations against the recognition of the internal

incoherence of the entities so described? Arguments for 'multiple

modernities', no less than arguments for globalization, state their case

in terms of cultural differences that are aligned around spatialities thatare the products themselves of modernization: nations, cultures,

civilizations, and ethnicities. In identifying 'multiplicity' with

boundaries of nations, cultures, civilizations and ethnicities, the idea of

'multiple modernities' seeks to contain challenges tomodernity by

conceding the possibility of culturally differentways of being modern.

ONooCNj

CD-OOtJ

o

<D

E(L)

"S.

CD

ONo

m

>

76








While this is an improvement over an earlier Eurocentric

modernization discourse, it perpetuates the culturalist biases of the

latter,relegating to thebackground social and political differences that

are the products not just of past legacies but ofmodernity, and cut

across national or civilizational boundaries. The framingofmodernities

within the boundaries of reified cultural entities feeds on, and in turn

legitimizes, themost conservative cultural claims on modernity. What

an idea of multiple modernities ignores is that the question of

modernity is subject to debate within the cultural, civilizational,national or ethnic spaces ittakes as itsunits of analysis. The problem of

Eurocentrism, its foundation in capitalism as a dynamic force, and

attendant problems ofmodernity are not simply problems between

nations and civilizations, but problems that are internal to their

constitution.36

Doubtless, forDirlik, "ideas of multiple or alternative modernities,

conceived along cultural boundaries, seem quite benign in recognizing that

modernity may follow trajectories other than the European, but theyhave

little to say on what suchmultiplicity of trajectoriesmay mean in terms of

contemporary configurations of global power".37Even as we absorb the terms of this criticism -

making the space as it

seems for a historicization ofmodernity that dispels with the burden of

culturalism - one must be wary of the overdetermined terrain that oversees

the space of thisproblematization. I am not of course alluding to theMarxist

space of its articulation -undeniably, it is precisely this space that gives the

critique its bite - nor its involved recapitulation of the terms of the

postcolonial critique (and 'alternative' or 'multiple' modernities' idea). In

what follows, I shall quickly put some pressure on the terrains traversed by

considering a problem which has not, tomy knowledge, been aired on the

question of theorizing modernity. Readers may be put off by the

philosophical treatment of what remains ultimately a historical and

substantive question, but Iwould urge theirpatience.

III.Re-threading the Domain

Those living in the time of the present are eventually faced with the task of

comprehending the relation of themselves (including the discursive frames

theyoccupy) to the largerhistorical context. In one regard, then, to constitute'modernity' as an intellectual-historical configuration is a routine gesture;

from another angle, though, itpresents a challenge, one of reconciling the

'cognitive' and the 'historical' (neither of which is independent of the other

nor canmake absolute claims on each other).38Without doubt, much social

and political criticism today is sensitive to the difficultyof shiftingbetween

LT)PJCOZTCD

IECD

OQQ_CD

77







Social Scientist

the two terrains;but the insistence seems to be that the challenge is itself n

empiricalmatter and not one of principle, and thuswill have to be tested in

the tumult of the sociohistorical situation rather than considered out ofhand.

This produces, it seems tome, a characteristically ambivalent moment in

which criticism is imbued with new social importance and insightfulnesswhile simultaneously failing to fullycomprehend and negate itsownmaterial

determination, the standardway (incidentally) of recapitulating 'modernity'

(or progress) as part of an unfolding of history,with each historical period

representing stages in the reconciliation of the tension between thematerialand intellectual dimensions of culture (a gesture intrinsic to dialectical

histories of reason). Positioned in thisway,.as the lost opportunity to render

itsown history reflexivelytransparent, social and political criticism retreats

into idealism, formalism and moral universalism, and theorists of various

ideological persuasions and theoretical predilections advance to the

prophetic cusp of amodernity without measure. Ought not the challenge of

theorizingmodernity tobe different?

Doubtless, ifthere is a challenge and opportunity tobe found inoffering

a historical account of themoment of modernity, then thismust lie in

developing amode of analysis that avoids themodel of the dialectical historyof reasonwhich, as it turns out, remains a constituent of themoment of the

'modern' itself. am afraid I cannot takeup entirely,for reasons of space, the

dimensions of this formulation, although broadly, I think, this is what

Osborne is gesturing at when he speaks of an unreflexive sociology of

modernity informingmost accounts ofmodernity.39All the same, itwould be

amode of appraisal that turnsaway from thebig dialectical processes thatare

supposed to determine what we must become, and focuses instead on the

historical contingencies thatmake uswhat we happen to be.

Interestingly enough, it is this central move that underscores the

alternative (ormultiple) modernities idea. Thus confer again Taylor's specific

point (noted above in our previous section) that "(an) exclusive reliance on

an acultural theoryunfits us forwhat isperhaps themost important task of

social sciences in our day: understanding the full gamut of alternative

modernities which are in themaking indifferentparts of theworld" (even as

he adds that themodernities inquestion consist of "creative adaptation" and

that "(a) given societywill, indeedmust, adopt themode forwhich ithas the

cultural resources").40 Ifthis is so, then one can posit the question of location

being posed herein - both in the context ofTaylor as indeed the alternative

(ormultiple) modernities construct - as having its conditions and aswilled

rather than necessary, although, to be sure, as has been recently noted

elsewhere (and in a differentcontext), "the question of location does not refer

to some 'more authentic' point of epistemic access, but infact,underlines the

ONooCN|L<D

_QO

ti

OslCU

_Q

E<D

+-?CL

<DCO

O

OnO

ooO

Z

ro

>

78








importance of a certain 'densityof argumentswithin a lived Community' in

the business of knowledge production".41 Yet there are issues, both of a

substantive kind and in termsof a heuristics of self-problematization. Allow

me a quick elaboration, before I turn towrapping upmy paper.To be sure, to describe the question of 'location' as an exercise in self

problematization is a key step in transforming themoment of 'modernity'into an object ofhistorical contextualization (whether that exercise translates

into a foregrounding of the alternative\multiplemodernities idea or not)

what the contributors forward as 'thepostnational condition'). And yet, as Isaid above, if ne can posit thequestion of location being posed as having its

conditions and aswilled rather than necessary, thenwe can ask:what are the

conditions that allow us to declare that thepossibilities ofmodernity in the

contemporary world are not what they seem, when one opens up to the

modernity construct?42 ndeed,what is itwe do to ourselves when we suspend

given ideas as a prior theoretical-political horizon and constitute new frames

of intelligibility nd understanding? Note that I am far rom claiming that the

question ofmodernity cannot admit ofbeing put, or even answered,without

some precisemethodological calculus; rather, that in seeking aftera stronger

recasting of the problem ofmodernity the question of the justification of

what we come to count as an authoritative explanation of a given state of

affairsor as an evaluation of normative Schemas isnot to be confused with a

historical narrative account ofhow it is thatwe have come to regard theworldtheway we do and why we employ the specific evaluative criteria thatwe do.

Exactly what this problematization comes to -justwhat line is being

drawn between the logical constraints ofwhat is required for the theorizationofmodernity and the historical-sociological suggestion that this involve a

scaffolding of facts and frameworks - is clearly sensitive to details of one'scognition and history and the individuation of their contents. The challengeconcerns itsgeneralization, however. Trying to thinkabout this raises thekeyissue of the extent towhich any 'location' - even one grounded ina capaciousdiscursive capacity, and given over to realizing the normative promise of

modernity more fully- could envisage such alternative perspectives, which

by definitionwe cannot occupy. Notice that this isnot a bar inprinciple: we

cannot occupy temporal points of view in the distant past, but we can say

perfectlywell what they are like and work with them. But my point is

different.43 o the extent that 'theory' informs theproduction ofknowledgesabout modernity, then themodernity theorist problematizes the object by

problematizing his or her commitment to the positive knowledge inwhich

the object resides. This applies as much to the founding moments of

modernity in any given socio-historical context as to its dispersion across

contexts. Historical contextualism, on this register, is less a heuristic device

LT)C?cozrCDCD

CDCTQOl

79







Social Scientist

for identifyingthe space of themodern, than a theoryof thenormativity that

modernity constitutes; it is, on this score and as our engagements of the

foregoing pages would have disclosed, a more radical, more completecontextualism than any previous renditions of themodernity idea. But what

exactlydoes itmean to say that a theoryofmodernity is constitutive in this

sense and not justheuristic? And again,what isone tomake of a resort, in this

context, to a politics ofmodernity- the issue, above all, of putting together

an intelligible account of the "rights and wrongs ofmodernity".44

IV. Final Foray

Any plurality of culturally different alternative modernities, Taylor has

argued, should be subjected to the normative conditions ofmodernity itself.

Inwhat follows, I shall be putting some pressure on this assessment, and in

theprocess coming to termswith the idea ofmodernity as a capacity to create

a normativity out of itself. ndeed, this constitutive role becomes visible onlyifwe hark back to a reflexivereading ofmodernity, although securing such a

reading requires beingmindful of the following two coordinates. The first sa

historical semantic inquiry into the term 'modernity' (or evenmodern), aninquiry forwhich I am anyway totally unequipped.45 Although referencemaybemade in a generalway towhat such a historical semanticmode takes tobe

its initialmeaning, the termwill functionprimarily as a guidepost orienting an

inquiry into themodes of appearance and genesis of a bounded space of agencyand subjectivity.Thus, asNiklas Luhmann has observed, "(t)he most common

descriptions of modern society repeatedly refer to an unusual measure of

contingency".46 This is as true of Anthony Giddens, whose work The

Consequences ofModernitf7 sees the characteristic ofmodernity as consisting in

a "time-space distanciation", wherein (orwhereby) the reciprocal tiesbetweentime and space are decreasing and becoming contingent (that is to say, theyare

based on agreements); or ofZygmunt Bauman, who situateshis studywithin the

debate about Enlightenment made famous by Adorno and Horkheimer's

critique,but, quite unlike theprotagonists of the FrankfurtSchool, takes solace

less rom theoriginalproject ofmodernity thanfrom itspostmodern legacy.48t is

perhaps significant to note that the discourse on modernity ismost often

conducted at the semantic level,where (to echo Luhmann again) in attempts to

characterizemodernity "featuresare employed thatoriginatefrom the repertoire

of societal self-descriptions".49his corresponds asmuch toHabermas's wellknown essay 'Modernity:An Incomplete Project' (referredto earlier in n.l

above), as toStephenToulmin's Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of odernity, or

in JaveedAlam andmore recently nDipankar Gupta.50The second trades in the notion of 'normativity' for that of

'individuation' as a crucial aspect of modernity. On this view, even as

(7sOOCNL<D-OO

t5

O

CD_Q

ECL)

+->Q_CD

ONO

"o>

80








modernity creates a normativity out of itself,the normativity so producedfeeds back on itself o create a space of agency and subjectivity.51t isdoubtful

whether a sociological description- whether in termsof a singularmodernity

or even amultiple (or alternative)modernities - can carry theweight of this

normative argument, although itmust be conceded that the strong claim

grounding it (namely, thenormativity notion) implies also a critique of the

secularization theorem which has often served as the basis of the sociological

description. Indeed, taking issue with the substantialistic ontology of history

presupposed by the secularization theorem, thephilosophical historian Hans

Blumenberg argues that the continuities and discontinuities leading from the

Middle Ages tomodernity (he is invoking, of course, the.historyof Europe,but parallels could be drawn in thenon-European [read, Indian] context as

well) can best be described in termsof a 'reoccupation':What mainly occurred in the process that is interpreted as

secularization ... should be described not as the transposition of

authentically theological concepts into secularized alienation from their

origin but as the reoccupation of answer positions that had become

vacant and whose corresponding questions could not be eliminated.52Indeed, such a reoccupation theory goes on to suggests thatmodern

rationality is thenew answer to a problem that first rose in theMiddle Ages.More importantly, Blumenberg's genealogy suggests thatmodernity as a

capacity to create a normativity out of itselffunctions as a boundary conceptfor themodern subject, not as a historical constant that is simply repeated in

a secularized guise.Accordingly, on the one hand, modern concepts of

subjectivity, f the subject's activity and theteleologythereof), mplythathuman

activity is asmuch conditioned by existence, the genesis and continuation of

which is not entailed by the subject's activity (in this sense a 'deficit' is

ontologicaUy constitutive for the subject).53But, on the other,modernity also

postulates self-conservation (or self-preservation) as a principle of formal

causation. Consequently, a 'surplus'- and not only a deficit- is ontologicaUy

constitutiveforthemodern characterizationof subjectivity nd agency.One can easily see that the matrix of these ideas is ill suited to pass

judgment on specificmodernities, or to describe modernity in away that is

appropriate to itscomplexity.And yet,one cannot do awaywith them aswell.

Indeed, the degree towhich these coordinates are at odds with each other

need not concern us here, and those who affirm that they present

requirements that are difficult to render compatible will be forced either to

think theirway through a series ofmore or less difficult choices or to find

some strategyfor evading these choices.

CDPJ

CD.CD

ICD(TOQ_CD

81







Social Scientist

Sasheej Hegde is at the department of Sociology, Hyderabad Central University,

Hyderabad.

Acknowledgment: This is a revised and expanded version of the paper

presented at theNational Workshop on 'Radical Enlightenment and Socialist

Alternative' hosted byAkeel Bilgrami and Prabhat Patnaik under the auspicesof theAlam Khundmiri Foundation, Hyderabad. I greatly appreciate their

comments aswell as those of other participants in theworkshop. Thanks alsoto JaveedAlam for his patience and support.

Notes and References:

1 The distinction obtains inCharles Taylor, 'Two Theories ofModernity', Public

Culture, Vol.11 (1) 1999, pp.153-74. The idea of modernity as a capacity to

"create its normativity out of itself', clearly echoes J?rgen Habermas. See his

The PhilosophicalDiscourse ofModernity: Twelve Lectures (Cambridge,PolityPress, 1987) p.7. Chs.l and 12 of this work are important. See also Habermas,

'Modernity: An Incomplete Project' in Hal Foster (ed.), The Anti-Aesthetic:

Essayson

Postmodern Culture (Port Townsend, Washington, Bay Press, 1983),pp.3-15. I press on the question of normativity in the last section ofmy paper,

although it informs good deal of thereading attemptintheother sectionsaswell.

2 Taylor, 'Two Theories ofModernity', ibid., p. 168.

3 Taylor, ibid., p. 164.


5 Taylor, ibid., p. 164, n.7.

6 Indeed,accenting

thispoint

further s that(asTaylor observes):

"It should beevident that the dominant theories ofmodernity over the last two centuries have

been of the acultural sort. Many have explained the development ofmodernityat least partly by our 'coming to see' something like the range of supposed truths

mentioned ...Curiously enough, (negative theories ofmodernity, those that see

it not as gain but as loss or decline) too have been acultural in their own way"

(ibid.,p. 155). I takeup more fullythequestion of what it is to conceptualizemodernity as a capacity to create its normativity out of itself in a later section of

my paper.

7 Peter Osborne, The Politics of Time: Modernity and Avant-Garde (London,

Verso, 1995), p.17.

8 Osborne, ibid., p.20. Not least of the problems, one need note, concerns the

character and status of the 'postmodern'. Marxist unease also springs from the

fact that the concept ofmodernity (in its logical form) admits no internal

principleofvariation, principle thatcould identifyhehistorically as opposedto the chronologically) 'new'. All the same, as a noted theorist has stated, "(t)he

proclamation of the 'postmodern' has at least one virtue. It has clarified that

ooorslL_(L)

JO>O

ti

O

<L)_Q

ECD

Q_CD

LO

OO

onO

z

on

O>

82







Social Scientist

17 Osborne, ibid.,p. 16. It is significant erhaps that in acceding to thepoliticallogic of the concept of modernity, Osborne is invoking an investigationimplicating Japan; and this from a rather peculiar source, namely, Naoki Sakai,

as we saw above. The recognition underscoring Sakai -that "there is no inherent

reason why the West/non-West opposition should determine the geographic

perspectiveofmodernity exceptforthefactthat itdefinitely ervesto establishtheputative unityof theWest, a nebulous but commandingpositivitywhoseexistence we have tended to take for granted for so long" (cited in Osborne,

ibid., p. 16)- need not translate into the point about new configurations of

modernity being uncovered in both Western and non-Western places. All the

same, these comments - on the part of aMarxist - not only make the point that

there could be Marxist accounts ofmodernity which operate at a different level

of analysis from the concepts of Marxist political economy, but they argue more

fundamentally about 'modernity' as a primary secular category of historical

totalization. Granted that the epistemic importance of the modernity concept

has (thus)been established,thenext question iswhat can usefullybe done torefine our grasp or application of the concept. Read on.

18 The Indian theoristSudipta Kaviraj has exploited this theme for the Indiancontext as well. See his The Unhappy Consciousness: Bankimchandra

Chattopadhyay and theFormation ofNationalist Discourse in India (Delhi,

Oxford University Press, 1998). On the terrain ofWestern social theory, more ina later section.

19 The philosophically-mindedhistorianHans Blumenberg (The Genesis of the

Copernican World, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1987, p. 127) has called

attention to the ease with which we confuse these two levels, and I think we need

to be alwayswary of this, in thoughtasmuch in practice. Butmy point issomewhat different. Blumenberg, of course, was alluding to the history of

science, although such a conflation does underwrite a whole range of

scholarship. Besides, ideas about 'necessary' and 'sufficient' conditions too

suffer from pitfalls. The contrast of methods, in this case, can never be an

absolute one, since in determining what conditionsare

sufficient (for somethingelse), one may still have to get involved in determining what is necessary for

those very conditions.

20 JosephLevenson, Confucian China and itsModern Fate, 3 Vols (Berkeley,Universityof California Press, 1968).

21 Joseph Levenson, Confucian China and its Modern Fate, Vol.3 (Berkeley,

University of California Press, 1968), p.79. Cited in Arif Dirlik, 'Global

Modernity? Modernity in an Age of Global Capitalism', European JournalofSocialTheory, ol.6 (3), 2003,p.278.Much ofwhat followsinthissectiondrawson the critiqueofferedbyDirlik, althoughmy essay as awhole records other

turns as well departing from the terms offered in the former.

22 Dirlik, ibid., .278.



25 Dirlik, ibid., p.278. Note, the 'revivals' that Dirlik is here calling attention to is

OOrML_<L>

_QO

ti

Osi.0)jD

Ecu

+->CL

0)

ONo

m

>

84








not only the Confucian revival, but also the Islamic revival, a Hindu revival in

India and right-wing ationalists inTurkey,which have all become visible

during this same period.

26 Dirlik, ibid.,pp.278-79. In question here is the equation ofmodernitywithWestern ways of knowing, which Dirlik sees as afflicting a large part of academia

today (includingUS foundations)and not just inthedomain ofhumanitiesandsocial sciences.

27 Dirlik, ibid., pp.279. Mark the phrase 'a postcolonial rephrasing of critiques'; we

will return o thispresently. he immediately receding citation in the text isalso from the same page.

28 Dirlik, ibid., p.279. One could here strike parallels with Osborne's disclosure

noted above to the effect that "new configurations of'modernity' will emerge in

both Western and non-Western places" (op.cit., p. 16); or indeed Taylor's

proposal that "(an) exclusive reliance on an acultural theory unfits us forwhat is

perhaps themost important task of social sciences in our day: understanding the

fullgamutof alternativemodernitieswhich are in themaking indifferentartsof theworld" (op.cit., . 164)

-all ofwhich should lead inthecourseofour paperto a space of problematization on the question of reassembling modernity. See

also the section to follow.

29 Dirlik, ibid., p.280. For Dirlik: "Postcolonial criticism is driven by an urge to

deconstruct claims to cultural essentialism, even though it has done more than

its share in contributing to the 'culture-talk' that has become so audible duringthe last decade, reaching its crescendo with the discussions surrounding

September 11. The latter also dramatized that, contrary to the assertions of

postcolonial criticism, what has been atwork for the past two decades is not the

dissolution of cultural essentialism but the hardening of cultural boundaries

that accompanied the revival of cultural fundamentalisms around the globe"

(ibid.).Likewise,he affirmshat"(r)adical postcolonial criticism as been at onewith a resurgent modernization discourse and contemporary geopolitical

analysis in perpetuating reified views of cultural traditions, identifiedwithpolitical or civilizational units that are themselves the products of modernity's

political imagination" (ibid.).


31 S.N. Eisenstadt, MultipleModernities',Daedalus Vol.129 (1) 2000, p.l; cited in

Dirlik, ibid., pp.280-81. Dirlik sees echoes of this comment in another

contributor to the Daedalus issue, Bj?rn Wittrock ('Modernity: One, None, or

Many? European Origins and Modernity as a Global Condition', ibid., pp.31

60). Even as the latter reaffirms modernity as a common condition, Dirlik notes

thatWittrock "goes even further in evacuating it of substantial uniformity even

in its origins in Europe, while acknowledging the persistence of the pre- and thenon-modern as constituents ofmodernity" (Dirlik, ibid., p.281).

32 Dirlik, ibid., .281. The citation in theearlierpartof thissentence is also fromthe same page.

33 Dirlik, ibid., p.281. Of course, the process can be multiple and diverse-

vide the

discourse of 'multiple modernities'-

but, interestingly enough, as Dirlik notes,

LH&COZTCD

JD

zuCD

CJQCLCD

85







Social Scientist

"(w)hile not the cause of global uncertainty over modernity, the importance of

the disappearance of the socialist alternative to capitalism in creating this

uncertainty has not been sufficiently appreciated" (Dirlik, ibid., p.282).

34 Dirlik, ibid., p.284. Crucially enough, he also records that "too much

preoccupation with Eurocentrism or colonialism also disguises fundamental

questions of contemporary modernity that cut across so-called cultural divides,

especially as the locations ofmodernity and culture are themselves thrown into

question with the reconfigurations of economic and political organization

globally" (ibid.). I engage the question of'location' briefly in the next section.

35 Dirlik, ibid.,p.284. ForDirlik: "Globalization suggestsinescapablythat,forallits divisions around issues of culture, the world as we know it shares somethingin common ... And, what ismore, globalization differs from modernization by

relinquishing a Eurocentric teleology to accommodate the possibility of

differenthistorical trajectories in the unfolding of modernity" (ibid.). Hefurther notes, in this context, "a reluctance to stress the context of current

discussions of modernity within the political economy of contemporary

capitalism" (ibid.).

36 Dirlik, ibid., pp.284-85.

37Dirlik, ibid., p.287.

Dirlik of course concedes that a consideration of these

questions "compels a somewhat more complicated approach to the question of

the relationship between globalization and universalism" (ibid, p.285). I am

afraid the question ismore complicated than the terms offered in Dirlik, and

therefore I am deferring the question. I hope to return to itmore systematically

elsewhere, as 1 have in various other contributions. I am sure the reader can

discover forhimself (orherself)thesourcesofmy thoughts n thequestion. Butof course some pointers are contained herein too.

38 The challenge along this axis, clearly, is to generate, not just a distinctive method

of social political criticism, ut an account of the verysubjectmatter of thiscriticism itself. To be sure, concerned with the foundation of a completely

different ind of criticismwhich is not concernedwith judging,and whosecenter of gravity lies not in the estimation of the single work but in

demonstrating its relation to all other works and, ultimately, to the idea of social

and political criticism. 1 am afraid I cannot do justice to all these demands, but

do read on.

39 To recall Osborne, once again-

"the attempt to establish what is new about

'modern' societies fails to reflect upon the temporal coordinates and conceptual

implications of this form of investigation itself (op.cit., p.8). See also the

considerations that follow.


41 Malathi de Alwis et. al, 'The Postnational Condition', Economic and Political

Weekly, Vol.54 (10), 2009, 2009, p.35. Note that in Taylor's case, as we have

observed above in Sect. I, there are conditions for delivering into this

circumstance. In fact, for Taylor, the possibility of a plurality of culturally

different alternative modernities must be subjected to the promise of a

normatively superior alternative modernity.

ooorMs_(V_QO"?

O<LCD_QE<l>

Q_

0)

Ono

coO

Z

o>

86








42 Or, alternatively, the formulation that "(m)odernity is aWestern idea. Whether

it can any longer be thought of as an exclusively Western concept... however is

doubtful" (Osborne, op.cit., . 16),which is inkeepingwith the idea about new

configurations of modernity being uncovered in both Western and non

Western places. Of course, we have already noted Naoki Sakai's point that there

is no inherent reason why theWest/non-West opposition should determine the

geographicperspectiveofmodernity exceptfor the fact that itdefinitely erves

to establish the putative unity of theWest. See our n.17 above for this, as also the

text from which this springs.

43 What is another variation on a theme that is familiar through the works ofIndian and Western philosophers: of how to dispel the air of paradox

surrounding positionality. Positional objectivity can be made to seem

paradoxical, because, in order to be aware that its conception of the world is

from a specified "somewhere", the subject must already have stepped outside it

and occupied a 'higher' (transcendental?) vantage point outside the boundaries

of that positionality. The issue warrants considerable historical and conceptual

treatment, something that' I have not been able to come across in the literature.

I have ina shortnote triedto develop the facetsof thisquestion inmy 'The

Cognitive and the Historical: Responding to Sen' {Economic and Political

Weekly,Vol.42 (15), 2007, pp.1387-390).

44 The phrase is taken from Akeel Bilgrami, who in the course of another treatment

has observed: "I do not actually think that there is a well-formed debate about

therights ndwrongs ofmodernity" ('SecularLiberalism andMoral Psychologyof Identity,Economic and PoliticalWeekly,Vol.32 (40), 1997, p.2539, n.13).

Delivering into thisproblemmight lend someperspectivetomy proposals here,

althoughthequestions that I admit of heremight also be seen as away into the

problem.

45 The locus classicus here is surely Reinhart Koselleck, Futures Past: On the

Semantics ofHistorical Time (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1985). The central

idea here is that 'modernity' is the place we need to be seeking after an inference

about the present, especially since it iswithin thismodality ('as a formofcultural self-consciousness, a lived experience of historical time') that the

present receives itsmost heightened articulation. In other words, 'the present' as

the unceasing celebration of it's coming, what is and is to come, the time of

modernity. See also Osborne, op.cit., esp. pp.9-13.

46 Luhmann, op.cit, p.44.

47 Stanford, Calif: Stanford University Press, 1990. A more phenomenological

approach to this subjectmatter can be had in hisModernity and Self-Identity:Self nd Society ntheLateModern Age (Cambridge,PolityPress, 1991).

48 ZygmuntBauman,Modernityand Ambivalence (Cambridge: PolityPress, 1991).In fact, for Bauman, postmodernity ismodernity coming of age. The debate

about Enlightenment made famous by Adorno and Horkheimer's critique can

be had in the latter's ialectic ofEnlightenmentTrans. J. umming) London:

Verso, 1986 (second edition). For another recent history of modernity told in a

thorough, grindingly systematic style, see PeterWagner, A Sociology ofModernity: Liberty nd Discipline (London, Routledge, 1995). This work too

CO&)LT)ZTa>a>

CDCTQCLCD

87







Social Scientist

represents modernity as an inherently and irreparably contingent project, torn

apart rightthrough itscore by incompatibledemands/promisesand hopes of

autonomy and order, emancipation and normativity, freedom and discipline.

49 Luhmann, op.cit., p.2.

50 Toulmin's workwas publishedby theFreePress,New York in 1990.For JaveedAlam, see his India: LivingwithModernity (Delhi: Oxford UniversityPress,

1999), especially the distinction that he posits between 'entrenched modernity'

and an 'unembodied surplus' that constitutes the space of the modern. The

reference to Dipankar Gupta is to his Learning to Forget: The Anti-Memoirs of

Modernity (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 2005), whose central move is to

explain modernity less through its morphological attributes such as

industrialization, technology, and urbanization than to construct his model of

modernity around the phenomenon of intersubjectivity. For Gupta: "For

modernity to reclaim its analytical status, it must return to its original

formulationwhich was in termsof the differenceitmade in the relationsbetween people" (ibid. p.5). Luhmann himself is concerned to force home the

point that we remain without adequate structural descriptions of the

characteristics ofmodernity. As he puts it: "What is lacking is a theory adequatefor such a state of affairs, a semantics of the relationship between structure and

semantics, a

theory

of

self-description

of a

society

that

reproduces

itself via

structure" (/bid., p.5). According to Luhmann, sociology has played only "a

small role in the discussion of the criteriaofmodernity" (ibid., p.4), and

consequently seeks to formulate a set of considerations productive of this topic.It is also significant that the observations articulated herein avoid the terms of

the Weberian story. I hope to engage with this formulation more completelyelsewhere in a work in progress.

51 Of course, whether or not modernity becomes de-spatialized as a result

depends, however, on what it could mean to claim that a bounded space is

constitutive for (political) community. This claim merits assessment on its own

terms, despite- and even because of - the fact that the discussion of the

intertwining ofmodernity and democracy often slips into ametaphorical mode.

I engage this question elsewhere.

52 Hans Blumenberg,The Legitimacyof theModern Age (Cambridge,MA, MIT

Press, 1986), p.65. Of course, the historical occurrence of colonialism in the

non-European context introduces complications into the parallel I am striking.

Again, this is a point that hope todevelop inmy work inprogress,althoughsome suggestions do obtain inmy 'Modernity's Edges: A Review Discussion',

Social Scientist, Vol.29 (9-10), 2000, pp.33-86.

53 Note, nothing in thisphilosophical anthropologythat I am summarily tatingconflicts with the semantic space of Akeel Bilgrami's formulation invoking

aspects of the radical enlightenment from across the early modern space of

dissent. I take it that his formulation is also featured in this issue of SocialScientist. At any rate, I am working off the thoughts anchoring the inauguralremarks of Akeel Bilgrami made at the seminar from which this issue springs.

ONooPNIi_&>_QO

tJ

O

CL)_Q

E<D-f?1CL0)LO

ONO

o>

88

Reassembling Modernity Thinking at the Limit

Documents

Transcript of Reassembling Modernity Thinking at the Limit