Re: Modernity & Politics

In a message dated 5/28/2003 9:40:48 AM Eastern Standard Time, 
ibnsubhi@yahoo.com writes:
> Thanks to all those who commented.  I tend to agree> most with Khoo.  On the 
>one hand, modernity has been> giving too much credit for "liberating" 
>individuals> from the collective stronghold of past traditional> societies.  
>"Traditional" societies, likewise, have> been overly accused of suffocating 
>individual> autonomy.  Part of the problem is the way social> scientists have 
>set up these categories: mechanical vs> organic solidarity, gemeinschaft vs 
>gesselschaft,> oriental despotism vs occidental decentralization...
Khaldoun--you originally asked why modernity appeals to some 'emergent' sectors 
of the world.  I wasn't entirely clear what you meant by this phrase (emergent 
sectors) and why you chose your examples--the white working class in the US and 
zionist settlers have certainly seen their day 'emerge' and go, and both enjoy 
quite low status in the world these days, while 'western feminists' is largely 
a race-baiting phantasm--see especially Dirlik's critique of the way 
postcolonials have used this notion.  But putting that aside, if the question 
is what appeal modernity has, a lecture from Foucault about how its all 
disciplinary anyway isn't really apropo.  The 'attraction' of modernity is 
certainly not the black box camera in the school bus.
Modernity holds a lot of appeal for a lot of people--not only people who want a 
new t-shirt or a car, but also people who want liberal divorce laws, modern 
medicine, the ability to sleep with who they want, the bright lights of the big 
cities...  Yes, the promise of modernity often turns out to be a 
fraud--inaccessible to some, not what it seems to others.  Yes, as well that 
'traditional' cultures aren't uniformally stifling (although many are, in many 
ways).  Yes as well some people are pushed into modern life because they're 
kicked off their land, not because they want to enter it.  But if you want to 
develop an account of the spread of modern ideals that moves beyond colonial 
elites and western settlers, you'll have to take seriously some of the 
experienced drawbacks of people living in 'traditional' contexts and some of 
the experienced promises of modernity (and keep in mind that the romantization 
as well as denigration of 'pre-modern' life is a vital tradition of 
modernity/post-modernity).   There's plenty of evidence that even in colonial 
contexts, people often sought out modern institutions that they thought could 
be turned to their benefit (see Ortner's critique of Spivak).    
As for race--not mentioned at all in your original post--at least in the 
contemporary United States there are some ironic twists to this.  The 'white' 
subaltern culture of country music and Christian fundamentalism is quite 
'local' and nostalgic for the pre-modern compared to the 'black' culture of 
hip-hop, which provides a soundtrack to much of the transnational consuming 
class.  100 years ago, both white workers and zionists sought (successfully) to 
latch themselves onto the white race/the west because these were the most 
powerful groups in the world system.  I'm not sure what the connection is to 
modernity is there.
Steven Sherman