It is not uncommon that people firmly believe that modernity is the right and only passage to the better life of human beings. However, every progress pays price; modernity is not an exception.
After reading the chapter two "Pasages of Sovereignty" of the book "Empire", I began to understand the tactics used in the expansion of imperial powers. In the name of “civilization” (or "modernization"), colonization is always “an adequate justification for imperialist conquest and domination” (Hardt & Negri, 2000, p. 175). As such, there is no difference between the past Europe imperialists and the new Empire, the United States, both with selfish agenda. Sadly enough, the colonized people were convinced by a network of power that the cultural, economic and technological modernization and the possibility of democracy were good for them. Some even extol the developments truthfully. What's worse, colonization often creates discrepancies between the past and the present; going back is impossible.
Yes, with the expansion of capitalism into every corner of the world, modernity brought about tremendous economic developments. However, “capitalism is based ideologically and materially on free labor”, which resulted in “new systems of slavery on an unprecedented scale” (Hardt & Negri, 2000). This is the real agenda behind imperialists' actions. As is stated in both "Empire" (Hardt & Negri, 2000) and “Black Atlantic” (Paul Gilroy, 1993), black people were incessantly exacted to the most extent as modernization process unfolded. Even when post-modernists are singing the “politics of difference” and embracing hybridities, black people are still suffering unequal treatments as we can see in modern society. Is this new system of slavery really different from before? Or, should I say, modernization is only a progress for certain amount of people?
However, those people who were luckily free of slavery suffered from other kinds of latent tortures. Nationalism, as the revolt of colonization, was “from the beginning set down on the road to the totalitarian overcoding of social life” (Hardt & Negri, 2000); as it does in countries such as Cuba, where freedom only belongs to the dictator. Actually, everyone is implicated by accepting modernity without question. According to Latour’s book, we have never been modern (1993), modern world is abstractly defined as discrete, fragmented and separatable units whereas it is hybrid in reality; the formation of social groups is based on abstractions rather than supposedly real or biological relationships. For one thing, the first deconstructed and then reconstructed relationships can function more productively than before; for another, people have to choose between socially constructed dichotomies, e.g. religious, race, sexual preferences, which lead to anxiety and identity crisis.
(Here, media, with the ability to reorganize time-space relations, fixed the constructed reality and also placated the anxiety to some extent, as what religions did in the past.)Every change by nature has two sides. Modernity, as the "progressive" passage in human evolution, is shown to the world its desirable side. But questions are: whose desire it is? Is it not merely a constructed truism and seduction?
This post was incredibly truthful, and as such it may be hard for some of us to swallow. Growing up in Canada, I know that I have in some way or another played a part in the making of "Empire". Most of my family members however came from overseas, leaving their homeland in search of a better life. I think for them, modernism means something different than what it means to me. I cannot understand what it is like to feel oppressed and subjected to state abuse. They can. I cannot imagine feeling unsafe every time I leave my house. They can. I think for me, I sometimes try to resist modernism because it seems a bit off. It is hard to ignore the close ties of Empire and Imperialism. For me modernism is very much what Stella has talked about and because of that I very badly do not want to be modern, but cannot seem to find a way out of it here in Canada.
ReplyDeleteThank you sophie for your sensible comments, which connect my thoughts with our real-life experiences. I really appreciate your way of interpreting and it well-conveyed what was in my mind.
ReplyDeleteI usally belive that people make decisions depending on comparison because there is no sheer good or complete bad things. Thus, for those who have the ability to choose their living environments, they make decisions depending on comparisons. Although there are many shortcomings in a society with high modernity, it is bearable comparing with the experience of oppression and state abuse as you mentioned. For those who were born in a modern environment, they tend to refute modernity and desire other ways of being because they have no comparisons (or should I say, no real life experience in a compared environment). However, it maybe only a fantasy since the whole world is continuously reiterating which one is better.
So, our sense of "progress" has been constructed by a network of power for such a long time that it is very hard to alter the direction (I am not ignoring human agency, but their influenc on this longstanding conception is pretty feeble in my opinion...)