Globalisation and the History of Ideas

8/13/2019 Globalisation and the History of Ideas

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Globalization and the History of IdeasAuthor(s): Allan MegillReviewed work(s):Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Apr., 2005), pp. 179-187Published by: University of Pennsylvania PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3654245.

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lobalizationn d t hi s t o r y o d e a s

AllanMegill

Whatconnectionsexist betweenglobalizationand the historyof ideas?Itis a difficultquestion,for globalization s contentious.The debateon global-izationhas generateda vastbutalso veryrecent literature-for example,therewas notyet anentry or globalization nthe 1994 editionof theEncyclopaediaBritannica.'However,the relativelyrecentemergenceof a debateon global-izationdoes not meanthatthe set of ideas surroundinghe term arose all of asuddenin the last few years. On the contrary, he globalizationconceptgoesback to themiddle thirdof thenineteenthcentury,although t has roots earlier.The conceptappears n TheCommunistManifestoof 1848, where we are toldthat thebourgeoisiehas through ts exploitationof the world-market iven acosmopolitan haracteroproduction ndconsumptionnevery country. 2Manyothernineteenth-centuryhinkers ikewise reflected on the emergingconnec-tion between the alleged Europeancore of civilization and those partsof theworld inhabitedby other peoples. In nineteenth-century houghtwe oftenfind aEuropeanriumphalism,ppearingn MarxandEngelsas thetriumphalismof productive orces. These forces were taken to be global-that is, they wereseennot as attached o any particular ation or culturebutas the manifestation

Thispaperwas firstpresentedat aconferenceon IntellectualHistory n aGlobalAge heldat the HerzogAugust Bibliothekin Wolfenbiittel,Germany n October2004. The conferencewas sponsoredby theHerzogAugustBibliothekand the Journalof theHistory ofldeas, andwasorganizedby professorsDonaldR. Kelley and UlrichJohannesSchneider.' The New EncyclopaediaBritannica(Chicago, 1994), V,MicropaediaReady Reference,304, where there s no globalization etween Gliwice and Globe. Unsurprisingly,he situ-ationhas now changed:see globalization, EncyclopaediaBritannica 2004), retrieved 10 De-cember2004 fromEncyclopaediaBritannicaOnline(http://search.eb.com/article?tocld=224992)(23-page print-out).2 KarlMarxandFriedrichEngels,Manifestoof the Communist arty(sectionI, BourgeoisandProletarians ),n TheMarx-EngelsReader,ed. RobertC. Tucker New York,19782), 476.

179Copyright005byJournalf theHistory f Ideas, nc.


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180 AllanMegillof a universalprocess. The notion of a universalprocess to which all humanbeings areor will be subjectedwas markedlydifferentfrom the vision of therelationbetweenEuropeand the restof the worldthat was to be foundin ear-lier ideologiesof empire. 3

But while globalization s not exactly a new idea,untilrecentlyit was notwidely viewed as the core realityof the presentmoment,nor was it seen asitself constitutinga problem.Only recentlyhas it come to be widely recog-nized thatglobalizationhas two distinct andconflictingfaces. The most chal-lengingresistancesto globalizationarein fact deeply implicated n globaliza-tion itself, so much so thatthey would not exist withoutit. In other wordstheissue is not one of conflictbetweenthe universalisticprocessof globalizationanda particularismhat is external o it. Rather, t is a matterof challengestoglobalizationthatglobalization tself has launchedand continuesto sustain.

Fromtime to time a word or phrasearises that is thentakenup by manypeople as a way of characterizing he presentmoment.We might call thesenow-terms. For Marxists of a generationor two ago the preferrednow-termwas late capitalism.ForMarxists n Marxism'smorehopefulperiods,as wellas formany supporters f capitalismand liberaldemocracy, he now-termhasoften been some variantof modernormodernity.Where latecapitalism ug-gests a shortbreathing pellbeforethe nextrevolutionaryransformation, mo-dernity uggests heneed to spread nlightened, ecular deasandcorrespondingmodes of human nteraction o places thatare as yet unenlightened.For somenon-Marxistsafter hecollapseof grandnarrativebut beforethecollapseof theUSSR, thenow-termwaspostmodernity.Todaypostmodemity s largelyathingof thepast.Itsinaptnessas anow-termbecame evidentby the mid-1990s, if notslightly earlier.It seems clear thatwe continueto live within the frameworkof moder-nity, at least insofaras we takethe termmodernityas designating he applica-tion of a technicalandbureaucraticationality o everwiderspheresof humanlife. The spreadof material echnologies,the rise of rule-basedprocedures ordoingthings,andtheimpactof amarketeconomythat s evermore extended nits scope andinterconnectedness re all indicationsof a modernity hat is verymuch alive. On the otherhand there are currentphenomenathat are hard tounderstandn terms of the notion of modernity.These include such thingsasreligiousfundamentalism nda growinglocalism andregionalism.Inpartglobalizationdoes little more thandesignatemodernity'sextensivetendency, hat s, its tendencyto spreadoverlargerandlargerareasof theglobeand of human ife. But if globalizationmerelymeantone aspectof modernity.we wouldhardlybe so fixated on the termas we aretoday.It is clear,however,

3 Anthony Pagden,Lords of all the World: deologies of Empirein Spain, Britain andFrance c. 1500-c. 1800 (New Haven,Conn., 1995).


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IntellectualHistoryin a GlobalAge 181thatthetermdenotes notjust modernity'sgloriousspreadbutalso its limitsandfailures.It is this thatgives thenotionthatourage is anage of globalization heresonancethat it has.

It is no accidentthattheadventof globalizationas a now-termwas a prod-uct of themid- to late-1990s.Everythingcametogether n thattimeto maketheterm useful in generaldiscussion. First and foremostwas the failureof Marx-ism. Subsequento thefailureof Marxismwas thefailureof secularhumanitar-ian liberaldemocracy o attainanything ike thetriumph hatsome, mostnota-bly FrancisFukuyama,hadpredicted.4Thisbecameevidentearlyin thedecadein the collapse of Yugoslaviaand in the responseof the majorliberaldemo-cratic states to whatfollowed, andit was also evidentin variousotherconflictsthatemerged hroughoutheworldinthe wake of thecollapseof the disciplin-ing andordering, f also in some ways stultifying,role previouslyplayedbythe overarchingrivalryof the Soviet Union and the United States.The con-flictedrealityof globalizationhas becomeglaringlyevident n theearlytwenty-firstcentury.The 9/11 attack, n its combinationof a fundamentalist eligiousreactionagainst the West with the skilled use of up to date technology, isonly the most obvious instanceof this dialectical relation.In sum,whatopposes globalization s not a kind of Herderianocal culturethat has cultivated ts own resourcesover aperiodof generationsand thatnowfinds itself threatened y a larger,would-be universalculture.Rather, heresis-tancesto theuniversalizing orces arethemselvesin largemeasureproductsofa modernistuniversality-sometimes only a material-technicaluniversality,sometimesalso intellectual(as when modernistnotions of rightsaredeployedin supportof local cultures).Although t was not the case initially, n its currentusage the termglobalization embodies this fact of symbiosis. In recognizingboth a conflict and a unityof opposites,the term is particularly ptto the cur-rentsituation.As a now-term t supersedesmodernityandpostmodernity.Mo-dernity, akenas a now-term,errsby its focus on theuniversalizingprocessoftechnology (airliners,for example, are flown in exactly the same way, usingexactly the same set of procedures, hroughout he world). Postmodernity seven less adequateas a now-term,for it focuses on a set of internalquarrelswithinthe larger rameworkof modernism.Ourtime is a time of globalization,if it is any determinate ime at all.5

4 FrancisFukuyama,TheEndof Historyand the Last Man(New York,1992).I do not mean to suggest that deploymentof some aspects of the modernistuniversalagainstotheraspects is an entirelynew phenomenon.Axel Schneiderfinds precisely such astrategyamong members of the anti-MayFourth MovementXueheng groupin China in the1920s and 1930s; for example,Wu Mi used the New Humanism of the HarvardprofessorIrvingBabbitt n defense of Chineseculture.Significantly,WuMi and other scholarsconnectedto him were rediscoveredby New Guoxue [Nationaltradition] ntellectualsin the People'sRepublicin the 1990s. (Axel Schneider, Bridging he Gap:Attemptsat Constructinga 'New'


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182 AllanMegillHow, then, are we to relate the history of ideas to globalization?In theCommunistManifestoMarxandEngels articulateone aspectof globalization,

namely, its universalizingaspect. In readingMarx and Engels now, we seemany ways in which they were rightabout worldhistorysince 1848 but alsomany ways in which they were wrong.We need only considerthe followingoft-quotedwords fromtheManifesto:

The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantlyrevolutionisingthe instruments f production,andthereby he relationsof production,and with them the whole relationsof society....All fixed, fast-frozenrelations,withtheirtrainof ancientand venerableprejudicesandopin-ions, areswept away,all new-formedones become antiquatedbeforethey can ossify. All that is solid melts into air,all that is holy is pro-faned...Theneedof a constantlyexpandingmarket or its productschasesthe bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestleeverywhere,settle everywhere,establish connexionseverywhere.The bourgeoisiehas through ts exploitationof the world-marketgiven a cosmopolitancharacter o productionandconsumption n ev-ery country....I]t has drawnfrom under the feet of industrythe na-tionalgroundon whichit stood.All old-establishednational ndustrieshave been destroyedor aredaily being destroyed.They aredislodgedby new industries,whose introductionbecomes a life and deathques-tion for all civilised nations,by industries hat no longerworkup in-digenousrawmaterial,butrawmaterialdrawn rom he remotestzones;industrieswhose productsareconsumed,not only at home,butin ev-ery quarterof the globe....And as in material,so also in intellectualproduction.The intellectualcreations of individualnations becomecommon property.National one-sidedness and narrow-mindednessbecome more and more impossible, and from the numerousnationaland local literatures,herearisesa worldliterature.6We are struckby how Marxand Engels arebothrightandwrong in this

passage. They envision a constantrevolutionizingof the instrumentsof pro-duction andthe coming into being of a world market; hese predictionshavebeenconfirmedby subsequent vents.On theotherhand,we arenowverywell

Historical-Culturaldentity n thePRC, EastAsianHistory,22 [2001], 129-44.)No doubt hereareotherforeshadowingsof the recentanti-modernist se of the resourcesof modernism.Per-haps-although this is purespeculation--the most distinctiveaspectof the presenttime is theanti-modernist se not so muchof modernistconceptionsas of highlyadvancedtechnologies.

6 MarxandEngels, Manifestoof the CommunistParty (sectionI), 476-77.


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184 Allan Megillreferred o these as articulate ideas).9 The historyof ideas attempts o situateideas into one or anotherhistorical contextand to interprethose ideas in thelight of thatcontextualization,withoutreducingthe ideas in questionto mereepiphenomenaof somethingmore fundamental.

The point I wish to make here has far less to do with Marx himself thanwith the theoreticalinsufficiencies of an unreflectivehistoricalmaterialism.Unreflective historicalmaterialism s not anexclusive fault of explicitlyMarx-ist historiography. Rather, it appears in any form of historiography thatunreflectivelyacceptsa variantof historicalmaterialism-including those thatare shorn of Marx's specific predictionsaboutthe developmentof capitalistsociety butnot shornof the (at bottom) ontological assumption hatthereis asingle historicalprocessthathas a single ontological ground.Tothis assump-tion the claimthatarticulate deas aremerely epiphenomenal o historycomesas a secondarybut not for thatreason less significantassumption.To be sure,there is a greatdeal of intellectualdiversityevidentin the his-tory of ideas as well as in the historicaldiscipline as a whole, and so I makethese generalizationswith some trepidation.One of the saving graces of thehistory of ideas is the interdisciplinary haracterof the field, which keeps itfrom being beholden to any single disciplinaryorthodoxy.Nonetheless, it isclear that culturalhistory --or,moreprecisely,the new culturalhistoryhas lately been the dominantgenre in many historical subfields. In an articlepublishedin 1999, the historianRichardBiernackisuggested that the newculturalhistorysucceededsome time ago in making ts agendapreeminent nthe discipline.10There is little doubtthatmuchof themost interestingworkinhistoryoverthe lasttwenty-fiveyearshas been writtenunder hegeneralhead-ing of culturalhistory.Thereis also little doubt that the new culturalhistory'sorientationoward ntellectualhistory s in many ways reductive andto suchadegree that it hardly recognizes the historyof ideas variant of intellectualhistoryas apartof thehistoricaldisciplineatall). Biernackihasarguedpersua-sively thatalthough he new culturalhistorydefineditself in oppositionto anolder paradigm f social history,it has tended to takematerialneed as thefoundationof Historygenerally, n close agreementwith the generalizedhis-toricalmaterialismunderlyingsocial history.As Biernackinotes, thenew cul-turalhistoriansassume an underlyingontological unity for theirwork. They

9 AllanMegill, IntellectualHistoryandHistory, RethinkingHistory,8 (2004), 547-55, at548. 10RichardBiernacki, MethodandMetaphorafterthe New CulturalHistory, n VictoriaBonnell andLynnHunt(eds.),Beyondthe CulturalTurn:New Directions in theStudyof Societyand Culture Berkeley,Calif., 1999), 62-92, at 62. Biernackiof courserefersprimarily o En-glish-language,especiallyAmerican,historiography,with a side glance to the French. On therise of the new culturalhistory,see Allan Megill, Coherenceand Incoherence n HistoricalStudies:From heAnnalesSchoolof the New CulturalHistory, NewLiteraryHistory,35 (2004),207-31.


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IntellectualHistoryin a GlobalAge 185follow theirpredecessors, he social historians, inbuildingexplanations hatrest on appeals o a 'real' andirreduciblegroundof history, houghthatfootingis nowculturaland inguisticrather han oras muchas) socialandeconomic. 'Biemacki suggeststhat,in assumingthat the groundof history s cultural-linguistic,historiansfollowed Clifford Geertz'saccountof culture n The In-terpretationof Cultures,whereGeertzfamouslyasserted hat culture s not apower,somethingto which social events,behaviors, nstitutions,orprocessescanbe causallyattributed;t is a context,somethingwithinwhich they canbeintelligibly-that is, thickly-described. '2 Biemacki shows that influentialculturalhistorians-among them, Robert Darnton, Lynn Hunt, and RogerChartier-took upGeertz'snotionof cultureas a grounding eality, as some-thingthat s a generalandnecessary ruth ather han...ausefulconstruction. 'Withoutdenyingwhathe sees as therevelatoryandenrichingcharacter f suchworks as Damton's The GreatCat Massacre and Hunt'sPolitics, Language,and Class in the FrenchRevolution,Biemacki suggests that, we may havereacheda pointatwhichessentializing he semioticdimensionof 'culture'as anaturallygiven dimension of analysis is shuttingoff reflection and disablingpossibly illuminating nterpretations f history. '4Evenwhereone finds a realdivergenceof culturalhistoryfrom social his-tory,thegeneralcast of culturalhistoryhasoftenbeenreductive n otherways.Forexample,for a time in the late 1980s andearly1990s,theconcept of expe-rience was much touted as a focus thatintellectualhistoryoughtto take as itsown. There s no doubtthattheattempt o get at the experienceof pastsocialor culturalgroups or individualactors is an importantpartof the historicalenterpriseandthatthe work of such historiansas Natalie Davis, RobertNye,WilliamReddy,andmanyothershas enrichedourunderstanding f thepast bybringinginto the historical field categoriesof people andtypes of experiencenot previously subjectedto historicalinvestigation.But I contendthat it is amistake to take experience, or any other supposedlygroundingreality,asnormativefor intellectualhistory.The problemwith such grounding meta-

11Biemacki, MethodandMetaphor, 3.12 CliffordGeertz,TheInterpretation f Cultures:SelectedEssays (New York,1973), 14,quoted by Biemacki,63-64.13 Biemacki, MethodandMetaphor, 4.14Biemacki, MethodandMetaphor, 4-65. SeeRobertDarnton,TheGreatCatMassacreand OtherEpisodes in French CulturalHistory (New York, 1984); and LynnHunt,Politics,

Language,and Class in the FrenchRevolution Berkeley,Calif., 1984).An earliercommentatorwho pointedout the all-embracing,andtherebyempty,character f the new culturalhistorians'apparentlyontologicalappealto culture s MarilynStrathem, Ubiquities review of Hunt[ed.], TheNew CulturalHistory),Annalsof Scholarship,9 (1992), 199-208.15 See JohnE. Toews, IntellectualHistoryAfter the LinguisticTurn:The AutonomyofMeaningand the Irreducibilityof Experience, AmericanHistoricalReview,92 (1987), 879-907.


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186 Allan Megillphors-and they are clearly metaphors,nothingmorethan that-is thattheyarereductivewithrespectto articulatedeas.It is unfortunatelyruethatwithinthehistoricaldisciplinemuchof whatpasses for intellectualhistoryis actuallysomething else. For example, in some partsof the field, intellectualhistorygets reduced to the history of intellectuals,with the ideas advancedby theintellectuals in question hardly entering into contention at all. Analogousreductionismswithrespectto articulatedeasare to be foundwhen intellectualhistory presents tself in suchguises as historyof mentalitiesorhistoryof ev-erydaylife, or when ideas are treatedsimply as culturalcapital(withnojudg-ment offered as to the value or validity of those ideas). I emphasizethatI amnot objectingto the historyof mentalities,historyof everydaylife, historyofexperience,orhistoryof culturalcapital.My objectionis only to the mistakenattempt o equateintellectualhistorywith, or reduceit to, any of those enter-prises.If globalizationdefines our now, henwe have to acknowledgethatweare underthe sway of a two-fold process-a processthat is bothan extensionof modernity nd a set of resistancesto that extension (resistancesthatarethemselves a productof the very modernity hattheyresist).It seems true thatthe extensiveprocessis universal n character justas Marxsuggested),deriv-ing froma set of technologicalforces thattend towardsamenesswherever heyappear.Thus, at a fundamental evel, the New Yorksubway is the same asthe Tokyosubwayis the same as the Londonsubwayis the same as the Parissubway is the same as the Budapest subwayis the same as the Moscow sub-way-or, if they arenot, it is becausesome of thesetransportationystemsarebehindin theirtechnologyand othersahead.To the extentthatwhatI havejustsaid is true,Marx'sreductionismwith respectto articulatephilosophical,reli-gious, aesthetic,and other deasalso holdstrue,andthere s absolutelyno needfor a non-reductive ntellectualhistory.But we know fromthedialecticalcharacter f globalization-which is boththe extension of modernityand theriseof resistances o modernity-that Marxwas wrong.And we knowthatat a superficial evel all of thesubwaysystemsmentionedabove aredifferent.Theirdifferencesare all ultimatelydifferencesof (non-technological) deas-that is to say, differencesof ideas that are notreducible to the workingsof historicalmaterialism.Note how, in the UnitedStates today, a large number of voters vote on groundsthat are only partlydeterminedby theirmaterial nterests,as one could see, duringthe 2004 U.S.election campaign,by the Bush-Cheneysigns in front of exceedingly modestdwellings in the SouthernUnitedStates,and as one couldsee evenmoreby theactual results of thatelection.

The evident divergencebetween technology and materialinterest on theone hand and whatpeople believe and are committedto on the other demon-stratesnotjust the desirability,but the indispensability, f formsof thehistory


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IntellectualHistoryin a GlobalAge 187of ideas that areresolutelytheoretical-philosophical, ritical,andaxiologicalin character. n fact I would arguethat an intellectualhistorythat is not theo-retically,critically,and evaluativelyorientedis not worthy of the name. Forhow canwe understand he (froma purelymaterialpointof view) irrationalactions of voters, terrorists,and everyone else unless we understand,on thelevel of ideas andnotby reduction o somethingelse, the ideasthatdrivethem.In short, ideas have consequences,and for this very reasonthey continuetodeservestudyin a critical-historicalway.

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Globalisation and the History of Ideas