aloysius modernity

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Demystifying Modernity: Notes Not so Tentative Author(s): G. Aloysius Source: Social Scientist, Vol. 37, No. 9/10 (Sep. - Oct., 2009), pp. 49-54Published by: Social ScientistStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27748606Accessed: 18-09-2015 15:11 UTC

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Demystifying Modernity Notes Not so Tentative

The foundational nature of the concept of modernity not only for the

understanding of most other issues of social sciences but also for actual solution of the problems of the individual and collective lives of the nation-state. Either in conscious and systematic manner or in an unconscious and vague sense it is what we understand and evaluate as modernity that affects most of our particularly collective decisions.

As the foundational concept the contextuality of its reading is also acute in the case of modernity. And as context is always pluralistically and contestatiously perceived several conflictual

readings of this crucial concept are unavoidable and even desirable.

Accordingly the present reading is to be considered as one among the several within both the academic and popular discourses; it also is to be treated like all perspectives within academics as reflecting certain definite interests within society.

The term modernity (not to speak of its correlatives modernism and modernization) is used in several senses; first as a time period and second referring to a set of particularly political institutions

specifically addressed as modern. Within the framework of this

presentation these two meanings are considered derivative and

consequential and as such they are not the issues of discussion. The third and contested meaning of the term modernity is of a discursive formation of a special kind which is a constant dialectic between a

description and prescription. It is an ideology (could also be termed as an ideal or orientation) engendering and legitimizing a set of

practices and by the same register inhibiting and delegitimizing another set of practices.

With the apprehension of hegemonization through homogenization ever on the increase it has become customary and even fashionable to speak of multiple forms or varieties of modernity. Implicit here is the notion that singular/grand narratives and

singularly normative conceptions are always hegemonic, and therefore to be avoided in all theorizing. The position taken here is somewhat different. While it is a salutary advice in the context of

persistent cultural totalization, the same cannot be made into an absolute law or be deployed indiscriminately to wriggle out of any

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and every theoretical or practical impasse. The attempt here is to

conceptualize unabashedly a singular modernity and whether the same

escapes the charge of hegemonizing is for the participants to decide.

Modernity often enough at least in this part of the world is identified either manifestly or implicitly with 'westernity' if one could coin such a term.

With such identification it is also presumed that the argument against modernity both conceptual as well as practical has been won with hands down as it were. Again it is suggested that such a depreciatory use of an idea whenever and only whenever one is in theoretical strait jacket is plainly untenable. One needs on the other hand to negotiate with the substantial issues involved. Though this presentation takes off clearly from within a

western context it attempts to move beyond it. And again its success or

otherwise is to be judged by the participants of the discussion. The single most important point that has been noted on the question of

modernity ever since the problematic surfaced in collective consciousness is its ambivalence: its enabling and ennobling qualities on the one hand and an

apparent emaciation it has brought about in several spheres of human life on the other. The classical sociologists D?rkheim, Marx and Weber and later thinkers of the Frankfurt school and more recently Immanuel Wallerstein, Charles Taylor and several others have noted this and have made it as one of their own important problematics.

Despite its well-acknowledged ambivalence, the thinkers mentioned

above, not a single one of them, has to date called for a reversal to a stage of

pre-modernity. To be sure, when the discourse was in its formative stage there were enough social forces though named differently which demanded a

reversal to what they thought was a status quo ante. But once the bottom-line was cleared certain irreversibility had been achieved and the situation was

accepted by contenders on all sides. Tackling the negative side of the ambivalence then only meant working with the present or as Marx did,

moving forward. This consensual irreversibility of modernity did indicate that what had been achieved despite its obvious negative consequences is

much too precious for all to be given up. This precious core of modernity, its emancipatory thrust has been

though formulated variously centered around the correlated concepts of

rationality, rationalism and rationalization. This logic of reason if further

explained at two levels: one, that of metaphysics or philosophy in general and

two, as economic/bureaucratic or instrumental/technological. The rationality so explained is also posited as an intellectual-universal principle common to

all of humanity. And ironically the negatives aspect of modernity too do not veer much away from the same set of concepts and they are sought to be

expressed through terms such as homogenization, uni-dimensionalization,

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spiritual flattening, tyranny of the reason and so on. It is at the behest of this

double-edged sword of modernity as rationality all the paraphernalia of what

subsequently have been identified as modern are seen as flowing. The socially good and bad or liberative and oppressive, then of modernity are seen as

originating from the same source of rationality as explained above.

Modernity as rationality is viewed as having a logic of its own moving inexorably forward liberating and enslaving simultaneously the different

spheres of human life. The critique proffered here is, that the mainstream explanation of

modernity as philosophical or instrumental rationality engendering contradictory dynamics within human collectivities is a reified one, essentialistic in conception and somewhat monolithic in characterization. And understandably the contextual and applicational elaboration of

modernity has been riddled with ambiguities, equivocations or plain confusion. What is suggested here is to bring down the concept of rationality in the context of our discussion of modernity from the high heavens it resides in and through its social contextualization prise it open so that a somewhat amended and more adequate formulation could be tried.

It is in this context that the term social rationality is suggested as a better substitute in the explanation of modernity. The core substance of modernity is social rationality. It replaced what could be termed as the social

irrationality of pre-modernity. The term social rationality has several

advantages over the other forms of rationality offered, philosophical or instrumental or even simply rationality. It brings down the discussion to the

sociological level of society and social relations. It makes the social man as the

subject as well as the object of discussion. Once rationality is seen as social contextual it could be analyzed as a humanly designed and socially determined process subject to all the historico-political vagaries. In other words rationality is about what human beings think, speak and do in the course of organizing their complex activity of production exchange and

consumption. Social rationality is what determines and in turn determined in the very vortex of social power relations which is the foundational raison d'etre of its birth and beginning itself.

The single most important and determining irrationality of pre modernity is perception of ascriptive differentiation and practice of discrimination among members of the society. The differences among men and women on account of their circumstances of birth being important these differences were treated as the basis for the social practice of discrimination. Such perception and practice were seen as naturally given or divinely ordered and hence the role of men and women constituting such a society is merely to

accept and abide by it. The raison d'etre of such an ordering came from

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without and hence the proper attitude is acquiescence. Man indeed was under the spell of a self-imposed tutelage. The hierarchical ordering as well as its sacred legitimacy went as a single package

- the Divine Rationality. In the wake of modernity this changed. The sameness of human essence

in spite of birth and other ascriptive differentiations came to be recognized as

important and determining; and since the essence and worth being the same

all men are entitled to be treated similarly. The change thus is at two levels

simultaneously: cognitive/epistemological on the one hand and conduct/ ethical on the other. This is the core and non-negotiable minimum of

Enlightenment-Modernity: universality of perception as well as universality of practice. Humanism demands the direct abolition of the social irrationality of pre-modernity, in other words, supernaturalism. Religio-cultural hierarchy is hereby replaced with politico-ideological horizontality. This is the core as well as foundation of all modernity. The emergence and

emancipation of man from his self-imposed tutelage is the process by which he discovers universality. It is the question of Human Rationality.

Egalitarianism as a principle and practice in social relation entrenched within society and culture as the single hegemonic legitimizing criterion of evaluation and guide to action then constitutes the essence of modernity. It is enshrined within modernity as a dialectical tension between an 'already' and a 'not yet' a given but still to be achieved and an ideal to strive for and also a

template for the construction of a discourse. As an operationalised definition it reaches its most unambiguous formulation in the Kantian Categorical Imperative. The rise to hegemony of the egalitarian principle as modernity

means that there gets built around it a confluence, consensus and commitment of interests, stakes, perceptions and practices. A process is set in

motion towards a new discourse whose implications get unfolded only gradually and historically.

The twin process of deconstructing the pre-modern social irrationality and the reconstructing the modern social rationality while at the conceptual level is abstract and universal, at the experiential level it is very much concrete and culture-specific and by and large an internal matter. No culture or human collectivity has ever been in isolation and interaction between cultures and societies has been the norm, this having been said, dynamics of cultures are spurious if not spontaneous and self-generated. In context this then means that embedding of egalitarianism within a given collectivity is a

process that is posterior to the dismantling first, of the culturally constructed

irrationality. The discriminated mass of pre-modernity needs to experience the gradual or sudden disappearance of the irrationality and in those very

aspects egalitarianism is to be seen as taking position. Elevation to the equal status is to be experienced culturally and historically. This also means that the

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cultural wherewithal for the reconstruction of the new rationality is to be found within. Such a view gives us a more nuanced as well as a dynamic notion of cultures as negotiated settlements of plural power position. Culture is a way of struggling together, a negotiation between dominance and resistance. In theory and under ideal circumstances then modernity is the

resurgence of the earlier suppressed traditions of a culture in a new context. It is here that the singular and plural natures of modernity are to be delineated.

Formulating modernity as social rationality, it was suggested was a mere

amendment of the established formulation. The relation between this amendment and the others needs to be commented upon. Prioritizing the human-social initiative over the non-human gives us an advantage in

explaining the process. The primary and original thrust of modernity we

suggest is the social and the others are only consequential to as well as means to achieve the former. Bureaucratization and technologization are

necessitated by the fact that mass has surfaced within the new scenario

demanding to be served and supplied in a similar/egalitarian manner.

Bureaucracy and technology are strategies to serve the mass society; they are not an end in themselves but means to serve the newly homogenized mass of individuals. Rationalization of social organizations through differentiation and diversification also serves the purpose of accommodating the needs as well as expressing the multifarious skills of the numerous. Philosophical rationalization is again a search for the metaphysical foundation of as well as

explanation for the new social reality. The basic raison d'etre however remains at least in theory the social rationality. Egalitarianization, rationalization and homogenization (similaritization) are analytically distinct concepts capable of being grasped in their own terms. However in concrete social processes they inevitably appear as intertwined, inseparable and differentiated merely through emphases. It is this, that is the source of so much of modernity's ambivalence. However the provocation for these

secondary aspects becoming primary distorting the picture that is, the means

becoming an end one ought to search elsewhere.

Modernity as egalitarianism is willy-nilly also a process of leveling. It is an ideological process of dismantling the theologically legitimated asymmetrical social power structure. In other words it is a process of democratization. It is a process by which social power is sought to be relocated and re-configured. As a process of democratization process it also calls for dissolution of elitist and exclusivist social enclosures and insist on social merger at least in the public and political spheres. That is modernity is a movement in favour of those who hitherto had been relegated to a social limbo. Any such move even in the best of. circumstances would not be conceded without confrontation and challenge; on the other hand such a

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move would be ideologically as well as actually be resisted, sabotaged, redefined, reoriented and if possible reversed. If modernity as social

rationality is a move forward, it would at every stage be met with its counter

depending of the politico-economic configuration under even the most innocuous or revolutionary pretexts. Hence the actual scenario at a particular point of time of a given collectivity is to be seen in the balance of social forces at play. A successful counter force would certainly tip the scale on the

negative side of modernity in innumerable ways open specifically to that

particular culture.

Such analyses of actual scenarios more often than not get bogged down

by a theoretical inability to distinguish between the promise and project, the

project and performance of modernity. Modernity is eulogized or censored without differentiating between the actual and the conceptual. The

ubiquitous sliding downwards of modernity from it high theoretical promise to its actual low performance, needs to be accounted by among several other

aspects, to this of power bifurcated as dominance and resistance. One cannot at least in logic perennially frustrate the forward thrust of modernity and

simultaneously also run it down. Conflict of ideologies is a fact of life and its tentacles need to be recognized everywhere in capillary and camouflaged forms.

Finally it is claimed that the priority of the social in rationality highlighted here has been hinted at if not elaborated by most of the serious thinkers of the day. Most important among them are Immanuel Wallerstein and Charles Taylor. Particularly the latter's essay Modern Social Imaginaries would very much run along these lines. The entire range of political theory for example is concerned with explicitation of this egalitarianism through the

agency of the State.

G. Aloysius is an independent researcher based in New Delhi.

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Article Contentsp. 49p. 50p. 51p. 52p. 53p. 54

Issue Table of ContentsSocial Scientist, Vol. 37, No. 9/10 (Sep. - Oct., 2009) pp. 1-90Front MatterEditorial: Modernity and Democracy: The Legacies and the Future of the Enlightenment [pp. 1-3]The Individual as a Subject [pp. 4-15]Beyond Enlightenment: Democratizing Modernity [pp. 16-31]The Divided Mind and Democratic Culture [pp. 32-48]Demystifying Modernity: Notes Not so Tentative [pp. 49-54]The Damnation of Monsieur Capital: In Defence of Modernity [pp. 55-65]Reassembling Modernity: Thinking at the Limit [pp. 66-88]Book ReviewReview: untitled [pp. 89-90]

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