Page 179 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

1480 berkshire encyclopedia of world history

caste system by tracing back fictitious Aryan genealogies enjoyed toleration as residues of life before the true reli-
for them.The traditional Confucian worldview had some gion, though the grand vision of history implied their
similarities to this system.While the absence of caste pur- eventual absorption once their consciences allowed it.
ity made entrance to Chinese civilization easier for out- Islamic civilization developed elaborate mechanisms of
siders, entry was still very much a one-way process of incorporation, in which non-Muslim minorities enjoyed
laihua, of “coming to be transformed.” As the ideal Con- a good deal of social and political autonomy, resting on
fucian social order was the supreme expression of virtue, the idea of a contract of protection that dated back to the
and the emperor the point of contact between heaven early conquests.
and earth, the Chinese polity was seen as radiating out- Metanarratives of world history have also served polit-
ward and potentially encompassing the tianxia, the ical purposes in modern times. Four in particular deserve
“world under heaven.” “Barbarians” could improve their mention.The first has been called a “Whiggish” theory of
standing only by ascending the cultural gradient of history, after the liberal Whig party of eighteenth-century
Confucianization. Britain. The gradual constitutional development of the
Religious metanarratives were most developed in English monarchy, and the growing power of merchants
expansionist missionary religions like Christianity and and others of liberal temper, gave rise to the notion that
Islam. Founded against the background of earlier Middle history had been unfolding toward a built-in goal of lib-
Eastern faiths, and colliding with still other religions as eral enlightenment.This metanarrative was transferred to
they spread around the world, Christianity and Islam North America, including the United States after its
have had sophisticated visions of world history and how founding as a “great experiment.” As Whiggish historians
religious diversity fits into it. Both are narrative religions, would have it, the story of the Anglo-Saxon peoples,
that is, religions with a sense of historical development both in medieval and early modern English experience
centered on events of significance to a spiritual commu- and in the triumph of the colonies, was one of divine
nity. Both share a metanarrative of human creation, fall, favor and ever-expanding liberty. In the twentieth cen-
prophecy, covenants, and eventual redemption, all tury, this metanarrative gained a broader scope, in West-
unfolding within world history. And both draw on this ern Europe and even beyond. During the Cold War, the
metanarrative to make sense of other belief systems. Whiggish view of history merged into a “Plato to NATO”
Other religions that preceded them, like Judaism, have metanarrative.This saw the contemporary West as heir to
been seen as legacies of earlier stages in God’s interven- a continuous heritage of human freedom over two mil-
tion in the world. Islamic theology has proved quite lennia, and its defender against world Communism. In
accommodating in extending this basis for coexistence to the present day, an example of Whiggish history is Fran-
all the major world religions. In the medieval period, cis Fukuyama’s book The End of History, which predicts
when Christian theologians first struggled to find points the triumph of capitalism and liberal democracy every-
of contact with revived classical thought and with the where in the world, as the political system best suited to
newly encountered cultures of the Americas, they fell human nature.
back on natural law. Natural law, while only truly fulfilled A second modern metanarrative has been Marxist. As
with knowledge of Jesus Christ, still could be seen as Karl Marx (1818–1883) first argued in the nineteenth
informing all religions and ways of life. It denoted the century, history is driven by class struggle. When tech-
innate sense of ethics and the striving toward God that nology advances, the economic possibilities it opens up
even non-Christian societies and religions reflected. For come into tension with older patterns of social and
both Christianity and Islam, these metanarratives tied in political organization. Eventually societies rupture in
with practical political arrangements of tolerance and revolutions, and new ruling classes rise to power. Thus
coexistence. In medieval custom, nonbelievers often the major phases of world history succeed one another: