Modernisation & Its Discontents
English Essay on "Modernisation & Its Discontents"
A wit once said that all reviews of Hamlet have a good part and a bad part. The good part is where the reviewer criticizes all other theories; and the bad part is where she/he presents her/his own theory. It is time to inflict the bad part of this essay on the patient reader.
It is our argument that many external critiques of modernization are unified at a deeper level by an alternative way of seeing the world, and that this unity has found expression, naturally, in what is called the cultural critique. In this section, we shall elaborate on this argument in order to bring out more specifically the differences in ways of seeing or cultural perspectives between protagonists and antagonists of modernisation. The object of the discussion is to present at the same time an alternative theory of behavior, an alternative view on modernisation theories, and an analysis of the legitimising role of these theories in respect of certain values and actions.
What is Culture?
In the following discussion, we treat the terms culture, world view, cognitive system or way of seeing as synonyms. The use of these concepts is derived from a long literature in sociology, psychology and anthropology which goes back at least to Max Weber’s (1931-1947) distinction between rational and traditional behaviour and their relationship with the problem of meanings, to Emile Durkheim’s work on the primacy of social structure in human behaviour and construction of meaning, Talcott Parson’s synthesis of these two writers arid his own views on the sturcturation of humap agency through meaning systems and the legitimacy provided to existing social institutions by such construction, and George Mead’s (1934) analysis of behaviour as a tension between the I and the social roles derived from the expectations of others (the me). In anthropology, these ideas were taken up subsequently in the writings of Claude Levi-Stauss, Louis Dumont, Clifford Geertz and Stanley Tambiah among others.
Much of what is said below is not new. The attempt is essentially to synthesise four well-known strands of thought in social science literature: the distinction between rational and traditional behaviour, the role of cognitive systems in determining behaviour, the structured nature of cognitive systems, and the perception of behaviour between two aspects of this structured reality.
It is appropriate to begin with a definition of culture. An elegant definition, provided by Greetz (1973), is that of a supernatural system which fills the information gap between what our bodies tell us and what we have to know in order to function or, to use a more recent metaphor, as the human software which fills the gap between human needs and the available genetic hardware. This means, in Geertz’ words, that there is:
(No] such thing as human nature independent of culture...[Our] central nervous system...is incapable of directing our behaviour or organising our experience without the guidance provided &y systems of significant symbols....educationsight.blogspot.com Such symbols are thus not mere expressions, instrumentalilies, or correlates of our biological, psychological, and social existence; they are prerequisites of it. Without men, no culture, certainly; but equally, and more significantly, without culture, no men.
Culture, this system of symbols, can thus be likened to a map of the universe which we carry in our heads, and which enables us to integrate our values, choices, and actions. It is a designs for living, a filter through which we access all experience, physical as well as social, and which enables us to act in situations presented before us. All human action, said George Mead, is interaction -- which others, ourselves, our natural and created physical world within culturally defined contexts that determine not only action, but its meaning. It is scarcely worth-mentioning here that these: Culturally defined Contexts, like languages, differ from society indeed from cu/hire to culture.
Personal And Impersonal Maps:
Theories of modernisation are located in a particular (modern or western) culture which is unique in a very important sense. In order tobring out this uniqueness, we will have to introduce the concepts of persona! and impersonal maps. To get a little ahead of the story, these maps are integral elements of every cultural system, whether traditional or modern; the tension between the two provides the principal dynamic of cultural evolution and social change; and what distinguishes one culture from others is, in part, the uniqueness of the tension or balance between its component parts.
Now, what are these two maps. It is easier to first, describe them separately as two independent cultures and then to talk about the blend or the balance between them in an observed cultural system. This is not to say, of course, that these maps exist in isolation anywhere; indeed, even the distinction between the two is unique to what we call modern culture. To simplify matters, we shall concentrate on three key dimensions of the cultural maps: theories of the self (ontology), of knowledge (epistemology), and of the universe (cosmology).
The impersonal map can then be imagined as a culture in which everyone perceives herself or himself or himself to have impersonal relationship with other people, with the natural environment and with knowledge. The distinguishing characteristic of this cultural perspective would be a perception of the individual as being separable or detached from the social, physical or intellectual environment; and then environment itself as being divisible into a finite number of partitions.
A ‘personal’ map, in contrast, can be imagined as a culture in which every person sees himself or herself to have only personal relationship in each of the three dimensions. In this case, the sense of identity is created through identification rather than through separation. In fact, in this cultural system, the notion of an ‘individual’ (observer, agent, actor, what have you) is very hard to construct. Furthermore, the relational identity will not permit the conceptualisation of the social or physical environment in terms of a finite number of attributes.
The differences between the two maps are not merely cosmetic. They have implications for our values, orientations and actions. Impersonal relations and attitudes are reflected in organisation, rationality, linearity, and control; they need to be static and rigid, to constantly define terms and freeze them in place, to perceive time as discreterater than continuous, and to place the world in a conceptual grid. Not surprisingly, therefore, ‘hard’ social sciences such as economics and political science focus on relationships of exchange and power respectively, both of which belong in the impersonal sphere.
Personal relations and attitudes are manifested in spontaneity, fluidity, and bilateral vulnerability; they must evolve dynamically and have to be flexible, concepts and definitions keep changing and evolving, time is seen as continuous, and attention is directed mainly towards those aspects of social reality which elude the conceptual grid of impersonality.
Modern culture is unique in a very special sense. It is the only one which wishes consciously to separate these two dimensions of culture, one from the other, and to place them in a hierarchy in which the ‘impersonal’ is superior to the ‘personal.’ This is what is called the impersonality postulate of modernity: ‘That impersonal relations are inherently superior to personal relations’. Before arguing this point, it would be helpful to have to more entailed description of the three dimension of culture.
With regard to self-definition or ontology, the ‘impersonal’ view can be described by what the anthropologist Louis Dumont calls ‘individualism,’ a characteristic of those (Western) societies, which ‘value, in the first place, the individual human being: every man is, in principle, an embodiment of humanity at large, and as such he is equal to every other man., and free.’ Dumont contrasts this with ‘holism,’ a characteristic of those contemporary or ancient societies in which value is placed in the first place, on order: the conformity of every element to its role in society -- in a word, the society as a whole. This means, among many other things, that individualism provides sense of personal identity independent of relationships, and based on such abstract or ‘impersonal’ elements as abstract rights, attributes, desires, preferences or even professional occupation.
In contrast, the ‘personal’ view can be termed ‘relationalism’ in which the individual sees herself or himself simply as the nexus of a web of relationships. There relationships and role acquire a metaphysical and symbolic (as opposed to a literal) quality; the culture tells u what, for example, it means to be a spouse, a neighbour, a friend, a patron or a client, but is silent on what it means to be have preferences, attributes or rights.
Similarly, in our theories f the universe or cosmology, the impersonal view is represented by what can be called ‘instrumentalism’, i.e., perceptions of such things as land, the village, the home, trees, forests, animals, stars, goods and even people, primarily as sources of gratification. Alternatively, the ‘personal’ view would see all these entities in a relational context: a home is not just the place where you are living at the moment, but also an integral part of your history as well as of your future.
The ‘instrumental’ view sees everything as being replaceable or substitutable, whereas the relational perspective finds everything unique and irreplaceable. It follows that ‘impersonality’ implies the attribution of only a finite set of qualities or characteristics to each object, while ‘relationality’ sees an infinite dimensions in each in terms of its attributes.
Lastly, it is also possible to identify two broad alternatives in the theory of knowledge or provided by a cultural map. The impersonal view is represented by the Cartestian positivism/literalism which found its most forceful exposition in the works of the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle. In this view, valid knowledge derives only from the separation of the observer from the object of knowledge, and the expansion of knowledge takes places through its division into separate self-contained divisions which cause and effect relations restricted to each subdivision.
Alternatively, in the ‘personal’ view designated by such terms as communication, hermaneutics or semiotics, valid knowledge derives from identification with the object of knowledge, in other words through a personal relation between the observer and the observed, which precludes the attribution of finite dimensions or of independent cause and effect relations hips in each of these dimensions of analysis.
It is our argument that many external critiques of modernization are unified at a deeper level by an alternative way of seeing the world, and that this unity has found expression, naturally, in what is called the cultural critique. In this section, we shall elaborate on this argument in order to bring out more specifically the differences in ways of seeing or cultural perspectives between protagonists and antagonists of modernisation. The object of the discussion is to present at the same time an alternative theory of behavior, an alternative view on modernisation theories, and an analysis of the legitimising role of these theories in respect of certain values and actions.
What is Culture?
In the following discussion, we treat the terms culture, world view, cognitive system or way of seeing as synonyms. The use of these concepts is derived from a long literature in sociology, psychology and anthropology which goes back at least to Max Weber’s (1931-1947) distinction between rational and traditional behaviour and their relationship with the problem of meanings, to Emile Durkheim’s work on the primacy of social structure in human behaviour and construction of meaning, Talcott Parson’s synthesis of these two writers arid his own views on the sturcturation of humap agency through meaning systems and the legitimacy provided to existing social institutions by such construction, and George Mead’s (1934) analysis of behaviour as a tension between the I and the social roles derived from the expectations of others (the me). In anthropology, these ideas were taken up subsequently in the writings of Claude Levi-Stauss, Louis Dumont, Clifford Geertz and Stanley Tambiah among others.
Much of what is said below is not new. The attempt is essentially to synthesise four well-known strands of thought in social science literature: the distinction between rational and traditional behaviour, the role of cognitive systems in determining behaviour, the structured nature of cognitive systems, and the perception of behaviour between two aspects of this structured reality.
It is appropriate to begin with a definition of culture. An elegant definition, provided by Greetz (1973), is that of a supernatural system which fills the information gap between what our bodies tell us and what we have to know in order to function or, to use a more recent metaphor, as the human software which fills the gap between human needs and the available genetic hardware. This means, in Geertz’ words, that there is:
(No] such thing as human nature independent of culture...[Our] central nervous system...is incapable of directing our behaviour or organising our experience without the guidance provided &y systems of significant symbols....educationsight.blogspot.com Such symbols are thus not mere expressions, instrumentalilies, or correlates of our biological, psychological, and social existence; they are prerequisites of it. Without men, no culture, certainly; but equally, and more significantly, without culture, no men.
Culture, this system of symbols, can thus be likened to a map of the universe which we carry in our heads, and which enables us to integrate our values, choices, and actions. It is a designs for living, a filter through which we access all experience, physical as well as social, and which enables us to act in situations presented before us. All human action, said George Mead, is interaction -- which others, ourselves, our natural and created physical world within culturally defined contexts that determine not only action, but its meaning. It is scarcely worth-mentioning here that these: Culturally defined Contexts, like languages, differ from society indeed from cu/hire to culture.
Personal And Impersonal Maps:
Theories of modernisation are located in a particular (modern or western) culture which is unique in a very important sense. In order tobring out this uniqueness, we will have to introduce the concepts of persona! and impersonal maps. To get a little ahead of the story, these maps are integral elements of every cultural system, whether traditional or modern; the tension between the two provides the principal dynamic of cultural evolution and social change; and what distinguishes one culture from others is, in part, the uniqueness of the tension or balance between its component parts.
Now, what are these two maps. It is easier to first, describe them separately as two independent cultures and then to talk about the blend or the balance between them in an observed cultural system. This is not to say, of course, that these maps exist in isolation anywhere; indeed, even the distinction between the two is unique to what we call modern culture. To simplify matters, we shall concentrate on three key dimensions of the cultural maps: theories of the self (ontology), of knowledge (epistemology), and of the universe (cosmology).
The impersonal map can then be imagined as a culture in which everyone perceives herself or himself or himself to have impersonal relationship with other people, with the natural environment and with knowledge. The distinguishing characteristic of this cultural perspective would be a perception of the individual as being separable or detached from the social, physical or intellectual environment; and then environment itself as being divisible into a finite number of partitions.
A ‘personal’ map, in contrast, can be imagined as a culture in which every person sees himself or herself to have only personal relationship in each of the three dimensions. In this case, the sense of identity is created through identification rather than through separation. In fact, in this cultural system, the notion of an ‘individual’ (observer, agent, actor, what have you) is very hard to construct. Furthermore, the relational identity will not permit the conceptualisation of the social or physical environment in terms of a finite number of attributes.
The differences between the two maps are not merely cosmetic. They have implications for our values, orientations and actions. Impersonal relations and attitudes are reflected in organisation, rationality, linearity, and control; they need to be static and rigid, to constantly define terms and freeze them in place, to perceive time as discreterater than continuous, and to place the world in a conceptual grid. Not surprisingly, therefore, ‘hard’ social sciences such as economics and political science focus on relationships of exchange and power respectively, both of which belong in the impersonal sphere.
Personal relations and attitudes are manifested in spontaneity, fluidity, and bilateral vulnerability; they must evolve dynamically and have to be flexible, concepts and definitions keep changing and evolving, time is seen as continuous, and attention is directed mainly towards those aspects of social reality which elude the conceptual grid of impersonality.
Modern culture is unique in a very special sense. It is the only one which wishes consciously to separate these two dimensions of culture, one from the other, and to place them in a hierarchy in which the ‘impersonal’ is superior to the ‘personal.’ This is what is called the impersonality postulate of modernity: ‘That impersonal relations are inherently superior to personal relations’. Before arguing this point, it would be helpful to have to more entailed description of the three dimension of culture.
With regard to self-definition or ontology, the ‘impersonal’ view can be described by what the anthropologist Louis Dumont calls ‘individualism,’ a characteristic of those (Western) societies, which ‘value, in the first place, the individual human being: every man is, in principle, an embodiment of humanity at large, and as such he is equal to every other man., and free.’ Dumont contrasts this with ‘holism,’ a characteristic of those contemporary or ancient societies in which value is placed in the first place, on order: the conformity of every element to its role in society -- in a word, the society as a whole. This means, among many other things, that individualism provides sense of personal identity independent of relationships, and based on such abstract or ‘impersonal’ elements as abstract rights, attributes, desires, preferences or even professional occupation.
In contrast, the ‘personal’ view can be termed ‘relationalism’ in which the individual sees herself or himself simply as the nexus of a web of relationships. There relationships and role acquire a metaphysical and symbolic (as opposed to a literal) quality; the culture tells u what, for example, it means to be a spouse, a neighbour, a friend, a patron or a client, but is silent on what it means to be have preferences, attributes or rights.
Similarly, in our theories f the universe or cosmology, the impersonal view is represented by what can be called ‘instrumentalism’, i.e., perceptions of such things as land, the village, the home, trees, forests, animals, stars, goods and even people, primarily as sources of gratification. Alternatively, the ‘personal’ view would see all these entities in a relational context: a home is not just the place where you are living at the moment, but also an integral part of your history as well as of your future.
The ‘instrumental’ view sees everything as being replaceable or substitutable, whereas the relational perspective finds everything unique and irreplaceable. It follows that ‘impersonality’ implies the attribution of only a finite set of qualities or characteristics to each object, while ‘relationality’ sees an infinite dimensions in each in terms of its attributes.
Lastly, it is also possible to identify two broad alternatives in the theory of knowledge or provided by a cultural map. The impersonal view is represented by the Cartestian positivism/literalism which found its most forceful exposition in the works of the logical positivists of the Vienna Circle. In this view, valid knowledge derives only from the separation of the observer from the object of knowledge, and the expansion of knowledge takes places through its division into separate self-contained divisions which cause and effect relations restricted to each subdivision.
Alternatively, in the ‘personal’ view designated by such terms as communication, hermaneutics or semiotics, valid knowledge derives from identification with the object of knowledge, in other words through a personal relation between the observer and the observed, which precludes the attribution of finite dimensions or of independent cause and effect relations hips in each of these dimensions of analysis.
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