Hakluyt
01-15-2006, 04:48 AM
http://allafrica.com/stories/printable/200601100438.html
All Cultures Are Not Equal
The New Times (Kigali)
OPINION
January 10, 2006
Posted to the web January 10, 2006
By Kenan Malik
Kigali
'I denounce European colonialism', wrote CLR James. 'But I respect the learning and profound discoveries of Western civilisation.' James was one of the great radicals of the twentieth century, an anti-imperialist, a superb historian of black struggles, a Marxist who remained one even when it was no longer fashionable to be so.
But today, James' defence of 'Western civilisation' would probably be dismissed as Eurocentric, even racist. To be radical today is to display disenchantment with all that is 'Western' - by which most mean modernism and the ideas of enlightenment - in the name of 'diversity' and 'difference'. The modernist project of pursuing a rational, scientific understanding of the natural and social world - a project that James unashamedly championed - is now widely regarded as a dangerous fantasy, even as oppressive.
'Subjugation', according to the philosopher David Goldberg, 'defines the order of the Enlightenment: subjugation of nature by human intellect, colonial control through physical and cultural domination, and economic superiority through mastery of the laws of the market.' The mastery of nature and the rational organisation of society, which were once seen as the basis of human emancipation, have now become the sources of human enslavement.
Enlightenment universalism, such critics argue, is racist because it seeks to impose Euro-American ideas of rationality and objectivity on other peoples. 'The universalising discourses of modern Europe and the United States', argues Edward Said, 'assume the silence, willing or otherwise, of the non-European world.'
Not just for radicals, but for many mainstream liberals too, the road that began in enlightenment ends in savagery, even genocide. As the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argues: 'Every ingredient of the Holocaust... was normal... in the sense of being fully in keeping with everything we know about our civilisation, its guiding spirits, its priorities, its immanent vision of the world - and of the proper ways to pursue human happiness together with a perfect society.'
This belief that modernism lies at the root of all evil is so pervasive that only right-wing reactionaries, like Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher or the late Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, it sometimes seems, are willing unreservedly to defend James' belief in the superiority of 'the learning and profound discoveries of Western civilisation'.
So the real question to ask in the wake of September 11 is not, as many have suggested, 'Why do they hate us?', but rather 'Why do we seem to hate ourselves?'. Why is it that Western liberals and radicals have become so disenchanted with modern civilisation that some even welcomed the attack on the Twin Towers as an anti-imperialist act?
CLR James, like most anti-imperialists in the past, recognised that all progressive politics were rooted in the 'Western tradition', and in particular in the ideas of reason, progress, humanism and universalism that emerged out of the Enlightenment. The scientific method, democratic politics, the concept of universal values - these are palpably better concepts than those that existed previously, or those that exist now in other political and cultural traditions. Not because Europeans are a superior people, but because out of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution flowed superior ideas.
The Western tradition is not Western in any essential sense, but only through an accident of geography and history. Indeed, Islamic learning provided an important resource for both the Renaissance and the development of science. The ideas we call 'Western' are in fact universal, laying the basis for greater human flourishing. That is why for much of the past century radicals, especially third world radicals, recognised that the problem of imperialism was not that it was a Western ideology, but that it was an obstacle to the pursuit of the progressive ideals that arose out of the enlightenment.
As Frantz Fanon, the Martinique-born Algerian nationalist, put it: 'All the elements of a solution to the great problems of humanity have, at different times, existed in European thought. But Europeans have not carried out in practice the mission that fell to them.' For thinkers like Fanon and James, the aim of anti-imperialism was not to reject Western ideas but to reclaim them for all of humanity.
Indeed, Western liberals were often shocked by the extent to which anti-colonial movements adopted what they considered to be tainted notions. The enlightenment concepts of universalism and social progress, the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss observed, found 'unexpected support from peoples who desire nothing more than to share in the benefits of industrialisation; people who prefer to look upon themselves as temporarily backward rather than permanently different'. Elsewhere he noted that the doctrine of cultural relativism 'was challenged by the very people for whose moral benefits the anthropologists had established it in the first place'
How things have changed. 'Permanently different' is exactly how we tend to see different, groups, societies and cultures today. Why? Largely because contemporary society has lost faith in social transformation, in the possibility of progress, in the beliefs that animated anti-imperialists like James and Fanon.
To regard people as 'temporarily backward' rather than 'permanently different' is to accept that while people are potentially equal, cultures definitely are not; it is to accept the idea of social and moral progress; that it would be far better if everybody had the chance to live in the type of society or culture that best promoted human advancement.
But it's just these ideas - and the very act of making judgements about beliefs, values, lifestyles, and cultures - that are now viewed as politically uncouth. In place of the progressive universalism of James and Fanon, contemporary Western societies have embraced a form of nihilistic multiculturalism. We've come to see the world as divided into cultures and groups defined largely by their difference with each other. And every group has come to see itself as composed not of active agents attempting to overcome disadvantages by striving for equality and progress, but of passive victims with irresolvable grievances. For if differences are permanent, how can grievances ever be resolved?
Copyright © 2006 The New Times. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).
All Cultures Are Not Equal
The New Times (Kigali)
OPINION
January 10, 2006
Posted to the web January 10, 2006
By Kenan Malik
Kigali
'I denounce European colonialism', wrote CLR James. 'But I respect the learning and profound discoveries of Western civilisation.' James was one of the great radicals of the twentieth century, an anti-imperialist, a superb historian of black struggles, a Marxist who remained one even when it was no longer fashionable to be so.
But today, James' defence of 'Western civilisation' would probably be dismissed as Eurocentric, even racist. To be radical today is to display disenchantment with all that is 'Western' - by which most mean modernism and the ideas of enlightenment - in the name of 'diversity' and 'difference'. The modernist project of pursuing a rational, scientific understanding of the natural and social world - a project that James unashamedly championed - is now widely regarded as a dangerous fantasy, even as oppressive.
'Subjugation', according to the philosopher David Goldberg, 'defines the order of the Enlightenment: subjugation of nature by human intellect, colonial control through physical and cultural domination, and economic superiority through mastery of the laws of the market.' The mastery of nature and the rational organisation of society, which were once seen as the basis of human emancipation, have now become the sources of human enslavement.
Enlightenment universalism, such critics argue, is racist because it seeks to impose Euro-American ideas of rationality and objectivity on other peoples. 'The universalising discourses of modern Europe and the United States', argues Edward Said, 'assume the silence, willing or otherwise, of the non-European world.'
Not just for radicals, but for many mainstream liberals too, the road that began in enlightenment ends in savagery, even genocide. As the sociologist Zygmunt Bauman argues: 'Every ingredient of the Holocaust... was normal... in the sense of being fully in keeping with everything we know about our civilisation, its guiding spirits, its priorities, its immanent vision of the world - and of the proper ways to pursue human happiness together with a perfect society.'
This belief that modernism lies at the root of all evil is so pervasive that only right-wing reactionaries, like Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher or the late Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn, it sometimes seems, are willing unreservedly to defend James' belief in the superiority of 'the learning and profound discoveries of Western civilisation'.
So the real question to ask in the wake of September 11 is not, as many have suggested, 'Why do they hate us?', but rather 'Why do we seem to hate ourselves?'. Why is it that Western liberals and radicals have become so disenchanted with modern civilisation that some even welcomed the attack on the Twin Towers as an anti-imperialist act?
CLR James, like most anti-imperialists in the past, recognised that all progressive politics were rooted in the 'Western tradition', and in particular in the ideas of reason, progress, humanism and universalism that emerged out of the Enlightenment. The scientific method, democratic politics, the concept of universal values - these are palpably better concepts than those that existed previously, or those that exist now in other political and cultural traditions. Not because Europeans are a superior people, but because out of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the scientific revolution flowed superior ideas.
The Western tradition is not Western in any essential sense, but only through an accident of geography and history. Indeed, Islamic learning provided an important resource for both the Renaissance and the development of science. The ideas we call 'Western' are in fact universal, laying the basis for greater human flourishing. That is why for much of the past century radicals, especially third world radicals, recognised that the problem of imperialism was not that it was a Western ideology, but that it was an obstacle to the pursuit of the progressive ideals that arose out of the enlightenment.
As Frantz Fanon, the Martinique-born Algerian nationalist, put it: 'All the elements of a solution to the great problems of humanity have, at different times, existed in European thought. But Europeans have not carried out in practice the mission that fell to them.' For thinkers like Fanon and James, the aim of anti-imperialism was not to reject Western ideas but to reclaim them for all of humanity.
Indeed, Western liberals were often shocked by the extent to which anti-colonial movements adopted what they considered to be tainted notions. The enlightenment concepts of universalism and social progress, the French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss observed, found 'unexpected support from peoples who desire nothing more than to share in the benefits of industrialisation; people who prefer to look upon themselves as temporarily backward rather than permanently different'. Elsewhere he noted that the doctrine of cultural relativism 'was challenged by the very people for whose moral benefits the anthropologists had established it in the first place'
How things have changed. 'Permanently different' is exactly how we tend to see different, groups, societies and cultures today. Why? Largely because contemporary society has lost faith in social transformation, in the possibility of progress, in the beliefs that animated anti-imperialists like James and Fanon.
To regard people as 'temporarily backward' rather than 'permanently different' is to accept that while people are potentially equal, cultures definitely are not; it is to accept the idea of social and moral progress; that it would be far better if everybody had the chance to live in the type of society or culture that best promoted human advancement.
But it's just these ideas - and the very act of making judgements about beliefs, values, lifestyles, and cultures - that are now viewed as politically uncouth. In place of the progressive universalism of James and Fanon, contemporary Western societies have embraced a form of nihilistic multiculturalism. We've come to see the world as divided into cultures and groups defined largely by their difference with each other. And every group has come to see itself as composed not of active agents attempting to overcome disadvantages by striving for equality and progress, but of passive victims with irresolvable grievances. For if differences are permanent, how can grievances ever be resolved?
Copyright © 2006 The New Times. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).