Page 180 - Encyclopedia Of World History Vol IV

political thought 1481

slavery, feudalism, capitalism, and eventually socialism ner of the cultural identity that is supposed to triumph in
and communism.This focus on economic structures and modern times.They play down internal diversity for the
vast impersonal forces can give quite comprehensive sake of unity.They play up distinctiveness from other cul-
and compelling interpretations of world history. One of tural centers so as better to affirm a sense of self in the
the strengths of Marxist thought in the early twentieth present, and a pride in self-contained accomplishments.
century was its ability to encompass and explain every- Often, the metanarrative comes forward into the last cen-
thing, or at least profess to do so. But it bears noting also tury or two, as a tale of how outsiders (European impe-
that treating the contours of world history as basically rialists in particular) encroached upon a once glorious
inevitable denies much room for human agency. Every- community. Despite oppression and humiliation, the
thing unfolds in its own good time, so hurrying along indomitable spirit of that community eventually broke
history as those of a more inspired temper might wish through again in the mid-twentieth century, and began a
cannot achieve much. Moreover, the eventual triumph of process of self-renewal. Sometimes the metanarrative
communism rests more on inevitability than on any looks forward to a future national or civilizational re-
absolute moral desirability. According to the Marxist demption as a new power center in the world, restored
metanarrative, all moral standards are products of their to its proper place by its own efforts.
time, of the circumstances and interests that they serve.
A third kind of metanarrative is that which affirms a Postmodernism and the
large-scale political identity, typically of a civilization or New World History
a nation-state. This use of world history became espe- Finally, a fourth kind of contemporary metanarrative is
cially important in the twentieth century, as non-Western loosely postmodern. At first glance, it may seem odd to
parts of the world began finding their feet within the talk of such a thing, since postmodernism is suspicious
modern international system. Certain Indian and Chi- of metanarratives and stresses that all identities and
nese metanarratives of world history illustrate this pat- meanings in history are constructed and perpetually in
tern well. To take their place in the world, large and flux. But “world history” as largely practiced in Western
internally diverse countries like India and China have to academia today is heavily influenced by some aspects of
develop a coherent sense of self and a claim to preemi- postmodernism, and tells tales of the past through a
nence despite the momentary triumph of the West. In political lens much as the writers mentioned above do.
Jawaharlal Nehru’s 1944 book The Discovery of India, One prevailing emphasis of contemporary world history
the future prime minister laid out what amounted to a has been on encounters among cultures, on hybrid iden-
metanarrative of Indian history. All currents, no matter tities and transgressions, and on the mixing and match-
how different on the surface, merged together in a single ing of cultural packages. Partly this reflects what
stream of Indian identity, which eventually flowed into inevitably would be a theme in any global history, sim-
the secular, socialist, internationalist India he envisioned. ply given its scale, and the issue for this discussion is less
Likewise, Chinese nationalists reflected in the 1920s on one of accuracy than of relative emphasis.The emphasis
what China could keep and what it must abandon in its goes as far as it does partly because of a skepticism
march to modernity. Many concluded that the Confucian toward rival metanarratives of national unity or civiliza-
high culture and other traditions had to go, to ensure the tional superiority. From the past, world historians of this
modernization and survival of the Chinese race in a Dar- bent strive above all to extract illustrations of pluralism
winian world. and to call into question any essential boundaries that
Whatever the details of these kinds of national or civ- others might take for granted. This aim maps loosely
ilizational metanarratives, they have some features in onto political sympathies for present marginality and the
common.They project back onto the past some forerun- hybrid identities that liberal globalization is producing.