The Global History of "Modernity"

Author(s): Peter Van Der Veer

Source: Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient, Vol. 41, No. 3 (1998), pp.
285-294
Published by: BRILL
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3632415
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THE GLOBAL HISTORY OF "MODERNITY"

PETERVAN DER VEER
(University of Amsterdam)

This paperfinds its origin in a certainuneasinesswith the applicationof the

notion of "modernity"to a wide-rangingset of phenomenain world historyand
with the replacementof an idea of the singularityof modernityby a notion of
a multiplicityof "modernities."It offers a critical reflectionon the arguments
put forwardin the contributionsmade to JESHO(volume 40, number4, 1997)
by suggestingthat it might be preferableto speak of a single modernityand of
a multiplicityof histories.This suggestionis made in orderto retaina sense of
the uniquenessand power of Europeanmodernitytogetherwith a sense of the
complexityand variationof its clash with historicalprocessesin many partsof
the world.
The paper adopts the view that modernityis a projectand an ideology that
originatesin the Enlightenment.Modernitycelebratesfreedom from localized,
hierarchicalbonds, progress in terms of scientific knowledge and economic
welfare, and rejects the past in so far it does not fit the story of progress.The
paperalso suggests that this projecthas multipleoriginsin WesternEuropeand
the Americas and is itself partly the productof the Europeanexpansion. As
such it has spread over the world and forced societies in different parts of
the globe increasinglyto come to grips with the project at least from 1800
onwards.The main argumenthere is that modernityshould in the first place
be understood as a project, that is as a political notion which is realized in

the nation-state.The spread of this political notion leads to its clash as well
as its articulationwith a multiplicityof historiesin differentpartsof the world.
A particulardifficultyfor historiansis that the writing of history itself is so
much a part of the projectof modernitythat it is hard to escape from it. This
is true not only for the writing of the history of the nineteenthand twentieth
century. It is also the case in a writing of the pre-modern in terms of the modern,

that is to say in a writingthat tries to detect "modern"featuresin "pre-modern"

history.History's conceptualsite is modernity.The majorconceptsused to describe its subjects are often derived from modernity, such as the contrastive pairs
of public versus private, individual versus group, community versus society.')
1) Chakrabarty1992.
? KoninklijkeBrill NV, Leiden 1998

JESHO41,3

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PETER VAN DER VEER

Several of the contributions to the anniversary issue of JESHO argue that

instead of one single modernity there are several different ones. Ira Lapidus
speaks of a Muslim modernity. The Japanese historian Naito whose work is
discussed in Harriet Zurndorfer's contribution argues for the modernity of the
Sung dynasty. David Washbrook mentions that the modernisation process may
have produced a variety of distinctive and different "modernities" rather than a
single invariant model of Modernity. Barbara Andaya speaks of the translation
of Western modernity into Southeast Asian neo-traditionalism. How different
are these modernities? Some authors seem to understand it in the proverbial
sense of many roads leading to Rome. They find characteristics of modernity,
especially in the sphere of mercantilism, which lead to the same economic
development as in the modern West. In this connection one speaks about monetarization of the economy, about seemingly modern forms of credit as in Klaas
Veenhof's contribution, about proto-capitalism, as in Washbrook's discussion
of India, or about a "progressive development of culture," as in Zurndorfer's
discussion of Japanese historiography on China. In a number of cases the conditions for a development into modernity are shown to be fulfilled and, subsequently, the argument goes on to show how what was potentially available did
not, in the end, yield the same end-result as seen in the West. Some of this has
difficulty in escaping the depressing modernist language of "failure" and "lack."
This is a line of thought reminiscent of Max Weber's thinking about modernity. In the first two decades of this century, Weber published his famous treatises on modernization, and in particular, on the role of religious and political
as well as social and economic factors in the processes of modernization. When
Weber began to study non-Christian religion at the beginning of this century,
he was guided in his analyses by three convictions. First, he believed that what
scholars had to explore were the causes of the fact that modern capitalism had
risen in the West and nowhere else. Second, he also believed that the predominant feature in the course of modernization was disenchantment (Entzauberung);
and third, he believed that with his studies on the "Protestant Ethic" he had
found the one and only viable answer to these questions. One of the problems
of Weber's ideal-typical comparative approach is that it compares civilizations
as unified wholes. It thus tends to neglect the interaction between societies in
the capitalist world-system and, more specifically, it tends to ignore the colonial
process. In its analysis of civilization it also ignores the emergence of the nationstate. I want to suggest that perhaps not civilization should occupy center-stage
in the analysis of modernity, as in Weber or Louis Dumont, but the nationstate. And it is this political formation whose absence I find most glaring in the
contributions we are discussing.

THE GLOBAL HISTORY OF "MODERNITY"

287

Hegel's Vorlesungen ueber die Philosophie der Geschichte (1822-1825)

argues that the Geist, the rational Spirit, unfolds itself in History and that it is
embodied in the State. The Spirit cannot gain self-awareness in China and
India. In China individuals obey the State as mindless people and in India the
contemplation of inner subjectivity leads to the Negation of Reality, and thus
the State. In both societies true freedom is impossible. In less metaphysical language one could say that Enlightenment rationalism requires as its vehicle the
nation-state and its instruments of governmentality, one of which is history
itself. Hegel's philosophy shows indirectly that the colonial intervention by
European powers is necessary for the spread of rationality and the modern
nation-state. The crucial obstacle in this unfolding of the world-spirit of rationality and the quintessential sign of backwardness is religious obscurantism.
This Hegelian way of thinking is still prevalent in social sciences. Let me
briefly recapitulate the accepted social science view of nationalism and its relation to religion.2) The emergence of the European nation-state is commonly seen
to depend on three connected processes of centralization: "the emergence of
supra-local identities and cultures (the 'nation'); the rise of powerful and authoritative institutions within the public domain (the 'state'), and the development
of particularways of organizing production and consumption (the 'economy')."3)
In an influential book Ernest Gellner connects these three processes in a characteristically sweeping manner.4) He argues that modern industrial society
depends on economic and cognitive growth which in its turn, requires a homogeneous culture. A crucial factor in his scheme is the centralization of resources
by the state to run an educational system that imparts a standardized, literacybased high culture. Industrial division of labour requires a shared culture; that
shared culture is nationalism; and nationalism holds together an anonymous,
impersonal society with mutually substitutable atomized individuals.5) Such
a culture of nationalism is by definition secular, since economic and cognitive
growth are possible only when the absolutist cognitive claims of the literate
high cultures of the agrarian (pre-industrial) age are replaced by open scientific inquiry.6)Nationalism comes thus in a package with individualism and secularism, as required by the industrial transformation of an agrarian world.
It is plausible, of course, that there are significant relations between the
emergence of an industrial economy and the gradual homogenization of culture

2)
3)
4)
5)
6)

van der Veer 1994.

Grillo 1980, p. 1.
Gellner 1983.
Gellner 1983, p. 57.
Gellner 1983, pp. 77, 142.

288

PETER VAN DER VEER

through a state-controlled education system, but Gellner exaggerates the universal success of homogenization and simplifies its nature. His argument subsumes a variety of local histories under the mechanical laws of a universal
history, and it is doomed to analytical defeat in the face of any nationalism that
is religious, rather than secular. The history told by Gellner unfolds itself, independent of human agency. It is the story of the victory of a fetishized historical force, Capitalism, which celebrates objective imperatives and ignores
meaningful and innovative action by individuals and groups who make history
in everyday practices. Gellner pays little attention to the contradictions of
homogenization as well as the forms of resistance that it meets. The basic flaw
of the modernization theory, espoused by Gellner, as well as that of many
Marxist analyses of the expansion of Capitalism, is the assumption that a common, shared culture (or ideology) is necessary to integrate the social system.
While it can be seen that the social constraints of the division of labour as well
as the physical constraints of political force produce to some extent what we
can call "social order," there is no need to assume this phenomenon, and there
is plentiful evidence against the assumption that social order depends on common culture and moral consensus.7)
One reason for the influence of texts which universalize the modernization
of Western Europe, such as the one by Gellner-but those by Anderson and
Hobsbawm are not different in this respect-is that they stylize a picture of
nationalism typical not only for social theory, but for an entire common-sense
way of thinking.8) Crucial is the way in which this kind of nationalism ignores
the differences between European societies in the development of the nationstate and thus is able to universalize not only the notion of the nation-state, but
also a particular form of modernization which did actually not occur in
Europe.9) The discussion of nationalism ends up, predictably, with its own,
axiomatic, dichotomy between "traditional" and "modern." "Tradition" is what
societies have before they are touched by the great transformation of capitalism; and what seems to characterize "traditional"societies most is that they are
under the sway of "religion." With that observation we are back to Hegel.
It is, I think, not enough to circumvent the problems of understanding a variety of histories in the world by using expressions as "the modernity of tradition," as Lloyd and Suzanne Rudolph did a few decades ago.10) At least not if
this only means that we seek the Hegelian Spirit in the unfamiliar guises of
7) Abercrombieand Turner1978, pp. 149-170.
8) Hobsbawm1990;Anderson1991.
9) van der Veer 1997.
10) Rudolphand Rudolph1967.

THEGLOBALHISTORYOF "MODERNITY"

289

other cultures. I would suggest that there is, in fact, only one modernity and
that is the one embodied by the political idea of the nation-state. It clashes
with other historical forms of social life and govermentality and it is the clash
and the violence of it which has to be described everywhere. The distinction
between West and non-West is irrelevant here. The project of modernity that is
crucial to the spread of colonial power over the world provides new discourses
in which subjects understand themselves and their actions. Actions and events
that cannot be seen as significant within the modern conceptualization of history are thus not part of "history." Colonial power, in my view, is both internal and external. It is the power of new forms of governmentality. Whether one
turns peasants into Frenchmen, to use Eugen Weber's phrase, or into Indians,
the process is in important respects similar.") The formation of nation-states
such as Britain, France and Holland is deeply connected with the process of
colonization, both external and internal. Crucial to colonization is the transformation of "backwardness"into "modernity"and it is education more than direct
violence which has to achieve that transformation. The story of education also
reflects the connectedness of internal and external. It is a story which begins
probably in the early eighteenth century and picks up speed only after the
French and American Revolutions.
Perhaps not everyone is aware of the fact that a major university in the
United States was founded with money earned in South India. Yale College, the
predecessor of Yale University, inherited a substantial part of the vast fortune
that the childless Elihu Yale had accumulated during his service as the East
India Company's governor of Madras. Yale came to India as a clerk in 1671
and left in 1699 after having been dismissed as governor and president of the
Madras council. He amassed a great fortune equivalent to five million dollars
from his private trade transactions. These transactions came under increasing
scrutiny from the Directors of the Company till his dismissal followed. Yale was
very religious-minded and supported church building and missionary activities.
The Puritan dissenters in Connecticut who wanted to establish an independent
college were able to convince Yale that by supporting them he would promote
the universal spread of Protestant religion.12)
What does this anecdote tell us? First of all, it graphically narrates how the
first step towards the building of the British empire made connections possible
between India, England and America of a kind which escaped the attention of
earlier generations of historians. It is the kind of story told by Edward Said in
his analysis of Jane Austen's Mansfield Park in which the facts of Empire re11) Cf. Chakrabarty1995, p. 756.
12) Viswanathan 1994.

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PETER VAN DER VEER

main in the shadows of the plot.13)Despite the tendencyto write nationalhistories of "little England,""little Holland"and so on, historiansare becoming
more aware these days of the global connectionsin which their nationalnarratives are embedded.This means that not only the historyof capitalismbut the
history of modernityitself is located in networksof contactsbetween different
parts of the world.
Second, this anecdotetells us how much cultureand religion are part of the
story of economy and society and vice versa. It is a particularproductof representationsof modernityto split up social life in domainswith clear boundaries, such as the economy, the state, religion. Such representationshave as
their effect that it has become increasinglydifficultto write full histories of
social transformation,a difficultyenhancedby professionalspecializationalong
the same lines which separatethe domains of social life. This means that the
history of modernityis also and perhapsprimarilythe history of modernhistory writing.If one wants to tackle the issue of "modernity"I would arguethat
thereis a substantialneed for a reflexivetheoryof the genealogyof historyand
of the professionalizationof the writing of history.
Third, to combine the two previous observations,the story may alert us to
the fact that it is especially in the field of educationthat one may find the history of modernityilluminated.Yale was extremelyinterestedin the promotion
of Protestantismand saw educationas a primevehicle for the spreadof knowledge and the removal of superstition.A centuryafter Yale endowed a center
of knowledge and education in America there was a great debate in India
between those who valued the knowledgecontainedin the literatetraditionsof
India and those who valued the scientific rationalitycontainedin the libraries
of England.It is importantto see that in this period India became the testing
groundfor new ways of teaching which were only later importedin England.
It is also interestingto note how intimatethe links are between the promotion
of the utilitariangospel of Thomas BabingtonMacaulay and the evangelical
gospel of his fatherZacharyMacaulay.
In her book on English educationin nineteenth-century
India, GauriViswanathanhas arguedthat English literature,as the mirrorof the true self, was the
mediumthroughwhich the transformationof Indianbackwardnesshad to take
place. At the same time, literaturewas the site of contestationbetween missionariesand Utilitarianadministrators.Viswanathanshowed that while literaturewas a source of the regenerationof an innatelydepravedself in nineteenth
centuryProtestantEvangelicalism,it was a means of exercisingreason and free
13) Said 1993.

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will in Utilitarianism.'4)This debate was a real one, and we would be wrong

to think that the missionarieswere backward-lookingconservativeswhile the
utilitarianswere progressiveforces in the liberationof mankind.In fact, during
this very period missionarysocieties were extremelyactive in the strugglefor
the abolitionof slavery,while utilitarianswere equivocalon this subject.Nevertheless, beyond the complexities of this conflict we may see a fundamental
agreementof both parties to the effect that the colonized had to be converted
to modernity.
Essential in the conversionto modernityand the formationof the moder
state, the nation-state,is the creationof a civil society, a biirgerlicheGesellschaft. ParthaChatterjeehas recently arguedthat in India by far the majority
of the populationhas remainedoutside of civil society until today.15)That is
not to say that the majorityof the populationis outside of modernity.It is targeted by welfare policies of the modernizingstate and it is mobilizedby political formationsto express populardemandson the developmentalstate. It is
this part of social life, what Chatterjeecalls political society, which is still
difficultto conceptualize.In my view this is also the area in which modernity
and post-modernitytouch each other, since it is in the new culturalsphere of
the modern media and global migration that the nation-stateis transcended
where it is not yet fully in place.
If one accepts my suggestion to replace the question of the singularityof
modernitywith that of the historicalemergenceof the nation-stateand its colonial spread,one's time-framebecomes that of the nineteenthcenturyand after.
The pre-historyof colonialism and the nation-statebrings us obviously in the
eighteenthcentury and earlier, as I have tried to show with referenceto the
story of Yale, but this is not where the focus of attentionshouldbe. The mere
fact that the anniversaryissue of JESHOhas a much broadertime-framewith
a relativeneglect of the nineteenthcenturymakes it difficultto discuss the contributionsindividuallywithin the perspectiveI use. Neverthelessthereare a few
themes which are relevantfrom my perspectivefor the issues discussed in the
contributions.
First of all, thereis the importantthemeof the "inventionof tradition"which
is crucial in the formationof both nationaland colonial governmentalityin the
nineteenthcentury.BarbaraAndaya arguesin her contributionthat "the hostility to the past often seen as intrinsic to the modernizationprocess has not
formed a dominanttheme in SoutheastAsian approachesto the present.'Tradition' may be reappraised,but it is not devalued"(p. 406). I agree that it is
14) Viswanathan 1989, p. 19.
15) Chatterjee 1997.

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PETER VAN DER VEER

part of the project of modernity to invent a tradition that has to be discarded

as backwardness, but another part of that project is to invent a tradition through
which modern culture is naturalized and nationalized. This is happening simultaneously in the colonial metropoles and in the colonies and thus exemplifies
the simultaneity of internal and external colonialism. In the case of Java, John
Pemberton has argued that traditional Java was constructed in collusion between the Dutch and Javanese elites, just as Nicholas Dirks has argued for
India that caste society has been invented in collusion between Brahmans and
colonial officers in the nineteenth century.'6) While these authors, in my view,
put too much emphasis on the colonial transformations of the nineteenth century, it remains crucial to see how much the archive of the pre-colonial period
is constructed by the same groups which were involved in the invention of
tradition.17)
Another theme is the way in which developments which took place in the
eighteenth century were frustrated by colonialism in the nineteenth century. I
agree entirely with David Washbrook's attempt to connect the early industrialization of England with Empire. His explanation of the reduction of India to a
static, traditional society in the nineteenth century seems, however, a variant of
R.C. Dutt's economic nationalism which explained India's backwardness by
the de-industrialization of India by the British. While the global history of Capitalism that he narrates is of crucial importance, its emphasis on the economy keeps the dynamism of cultural and political history out of sight. The
notion that colonial forces produced a static society in the nineteenth century
has become so much an orthodoxy among Indianists that it is in need of
serious reconsideration.
A third theme is that of the incorporation of discursive traditions in new arenas of public debate which emerge in the nation-state and in the colonies. Ira
Lapidus' story is that of continuity, a regular trope in the description of Islam.
The core of this is that in religions, such as Islam and Christianity, there are
traditions to which believers refer. These traditions have their own place for
argumentative exchange, for religious criticism, but ultimately they aim at moral
improvement, for which the rhetorical figure of the Prophet is exemplary. These
traditions, however, have to respond to the challenging tradition of modernity
and I would argue that it is this what makes the twentieth century Maududi
different from the sixteenth century Sirhindi, whatever the similarities and semblances may be. Rafiuddin Ahmad has, in the case of Bengal, shown how important the introduction of the politics of numbers and representation has been
16) Pemberton 1994; Dirks 1987.
17) Breckenridgeand van der Veer 1993.

THEGLOBALHISTORYOF "MODERNITY"

293

on bridgingthe gap between elite Muslims (ashraf) and the common people
(ajlaf).'8)

It is within this changing context that revival movements get new,

modernmeanings.
Finally, there is the central theme of writing history itself. HarrietZurndorfer'scontributionis devoted to this complex issue. What strikesme here is
the need for an engagementwith the imperialisthistoryof Japanesewritingon
China, "Japan'sown Orient"as Stefan Tanaka has it.19)While romanticand
Enlightenmentphilosophersthoughtabout the West by relatingit to the East,
Japan imagined itself in relation to China. We seem to encounterin Japan
nationalisthistoriesin search of their traditionsof modernityas we are accustomed to encounterin the historiesof the West.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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1994 On the Subject of "Java" (Ithaca: Cornell University Press).
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1967 The Modernityof Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
18) Ahmad 1981.
19) Tanaka 1993.

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