Traditional and Critical Theories of Culture Santiago Castro-Gémex ln his renowned 1937 programmatic article “Traditionelle and Kritische Theorie” [Traditional and critical the- ory], Max Horkheimer (1974 [1937], 223-71) established a distinction be- tween two conceptions of “theory.” The first of them refers to a series of propositions whose validity lies in its correspondence with an object already constituted prior to the act of representation. This radical separation be- tween subject and object of knowledge converts theory into a pure activity of thought, and the theorist into a disinterested spectator who is limited to describing the world as it is. Such an idea of theory, which considers the object of study to be a series of facticities and the subject to be the passive element of an act of knowing, is identified by Horkheimer as “traditional.” Tn opposition to this theory, he describes a second model that he designates “critical theory.” In contrast to traditional theory, critical theory considers that both science and the reality it studies are the product of a social praxis, which means that the subject and object of knowledge find themselves so- cially performed. The object is not simply “there,” deposited before us and waiting to be apprehended, nor is the subject merely the notary of reality. Both subject and object are the result of complex social processes. The fun- damental task of critical theory is therefore to reflect upon the structures from which both social reality as well as the theories that scck to account for it are constructed—including, of course, critical theory itself. Even when Horkheimer’s project was conceived as a tool in the struggle against the positivism of his time, it could, it seems to me, be very useful for drawing up a map of modern theories on culture. | will argue that such theories can be divided into two basic groups: Those that perceive Mepantia: Views from South 1.3 Copyright 2000 by Duke University Presssoe Nepantla culture as “natural facticity,” that is, that approach their object as if it were rooted in “human nature”; and those that, on the contrary, consider culture to be a realm structured by praxis, that is, a social construction of which theoretical practice itselfisa part. Following Horkheimer, | will call the first group the traditional theory of culture and the second the critical theory of culture. In what follows, [ will identify some characteristic elements of traditional theory and then cuntrast these with the concept of “geuculture™ developed by postcolonial theories. With this I propose to present postcolo- nialism asa critical theory of culture in times of globalization or, parodying Fredric Jameson's phrase, as a “cultural critique of late capitalism.” The Metaphysics of the Subject and the Traditional Concept of Catture Any consideration of the traditional theory of culture should begin with the following epistemological reflection: Culture becomes the abject of knowl- edge only when man constitutes himself asa subject of histury. The concepts of “culture,” “history,” “subject,” and “man” refer to the same genealogi- cal rout, which, chronologically speaking, emerged and consolidated itself between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Befure this era, something like “culture” was not thinkable, simply because the episteme that made the concept's formation possible had not yet been configured. If we limit ourselves solely to the types of theories arisen in the West, we will see that neither in Greece nor Rome. nor in the Christian Middle Ages, was a the- ory of culture possible in its traditional, much less critical, sense. This was due to the fact that morals, politics, and knowledge were viewed as simple prolongations of cosmological laws, that is, as a set of natural institutions ordered around the consummation of a cusmolugically predetermined end {telos). For Aristotle, truth, goodness, and justice are impossible withaut considering the “basic principles” which govern the cosmos, because the purpose of science, legislation, and morals is to manifest “being insofar as being.” that is, the natural order such as it is and not as it appeurs. For Aris- totle, the reflection on the social life of men does not pertain to “theoretical sciences,” which address only the “basic principles” of things, but toatypeof minor and less dignified knowledge designated “practical sciences.” First philosophy, or metaphysics, occupies the pinnacle of the entire gamut of knowledges. as its task is to establish the most universal notions. The ubject of metaphysics is the immutable laws that rule the cosmos, and it is fur this reason the most abstract, the most exact, and the most general of allCastro-Gémez:Tradstional aud Critical Theorles of Culture sciences. In contrast, sciences like politics and economy derive their general concepts from metaphysics because their object of study, human lifc, has no autonomy whatsoever in relation to the laws of the cosmos. The same is true for the fields of morality and legislation. Since the laws of social life have a cosmological foundation, independent of human will, the wisdom of the good ruler consists precisely in recognizing this foundation and ensuring that the laws of the polis are organized around the fulfillment of man’s “natural dispositions.” The crux of all this is the following: in an epistemological order in which morals, politics, and knowledge are thought to be dependent on the laws that rule the cosmos, the emergence of an object of knowledge called “culture” is impossible. It is only when human life in its totality is perceived as a dynamic process governed by laws creared by man himself, and which are, therefore, not simple corollaries of natural laws, that it is possible to speak of culture in both the traditional and critical senses of the concept. ‘The modern idea of “man,” understood as a being that produces himself in history and creates cultural values, can emerge only in the vacuum left ‘behind with rhe disappearance of classical cosmology. It is, then, only during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries thar the idea of culture as a space of specifically Auman values, contrasted to “nature,” began to consolidate itself.' Under this idea, culture constirured that sphere of moral, religious, political, philosophical, and technological values that permitted man to“humanizc himself,” that is, escape the tyranny of the “state of nature.” If, as mentioned above, the metaphysics of the cosmos turned social life into 2 purely derivative element whose dynamics reflected the general laws of the universe, now man saw himself as the producer of his own forms of political and social organization. That is, nature ceased to be the site to which man reverted in order to extract moral lessons or contemplate divine glory and came to be seen instead as an object to be pur at che service of human interests. The metaphysics of the cosmos was substituted by the metaphysics of the human. The world that modern thinkers such as Bacon, Descartes, and Kant referred to was not the Greco- Roman-Medieval cosmos, in which social life was a simple “reflection” of predetermined laws, but a world created by man in his image and likeness. But if the world is a human construction and not an inexorable reflection of the ex aeterna, then social life assumes an as yet unthought dimension: temporality. Neither Plato, nor Aristotle, nor Thomas Aquinas contemplated time as an axis from which human action derived cosmo- logically predetermined meaning. Since man was not responsible for the506 Nepantla creation of something “new.” time was nothing but the actualization of potentialities established beforehand and forever, But when man was per- ceived to be the sole architect of his own destiny, then it could be said that humanity lay in rhe capacity to humanize, that is, in man’s ability to con- stitute himself in time through the creation of his own world: culture. The first characteristic of the traditional concept of culture is then the idea that the gradual humanization of the species is a process that occurs in time, in history, and is not already determined from an outside by cosmological laws. If through culture man slowly liberates himself from the chains imposed by nature, then cultural forms acquire ever increasing degrees of perfection to the extent that they permit the unfolding of the “spirit,” that is. the exercise of human freedom. For Hegel, the cultural forms that mast closely resemble nature possess less dignity than those that are more abstract. This is because nature belongs to the sphere of necessity, while spirit is the proper site of freedam. Thus, for example, the religions that Practice in naturalist cults are inferior to Christianity, which possesses a more abstract concept of divinity (God is spirit). The samc is truc of artistic manifestations: thase which imitate nature or revolve around the purely figurative are inferior to those which privilege pure form, since these latter have managed to escape the tyranny of material contents, which do not befit the free expression of spirit. From Hegel's hand we find thus a second characteristic of the traditional concept of culrure: the privilege of so-called high culture over and above popular culture. The lettered, or, as Weber would say, “rationalized” forms of culture {musical codification, secular- ized art. literature. philosophy, historiography) are the most elevated, since through them man can reflect upon himself and recognize his own spiri- tual vocation. The human groups that have not been able to accede to the reflexivity of high culture remain rooted in “youth” and find themselves in need of the “illumination” radiating from lettered peoples, particularly philosophers. The lettered and the philosophers are those people who can elevate themselves above cultural contingencies and apprehend their object from the outside, with the same gaze of a deus abscondirus that condescends to contemplate the world. But ifthe evolution of culture is the outcome of a historical process, then freedom can also be objectified, particularly in rhe sphere of political life. A nation that has reached maturity has nut only developed a “high,” that is lettered, culture, but has been able to constitute itself politically as a “nation-state.” For Hegel, the state is the true hearer of culture, of a peuple’s307 Gastro-Gémaz- Traditional and Critical Thaorles of Culture “national spirit.” Only in the state does freedom become objective, because it is chere that all individuals are reconciled with the ethical substance of the collectivity. Individuals must, therefore, subordinate themselves to the state, since it is only through its mediation thar they can learn tobeconscious of who they are, what they want, and what their destiny is as members of a single nation. Johann Gottfried von Herder, Rousseau, Montesquieu, and Johann Gottlieb Fichte also considered the state to be the bearer of a people's national identity. In contrast to the contractualists, they thought the state should be established on the basis of geographical conditions, customs, language, and the ways of thinking of the people over which it rules. This brings us tothe third characteristic of the traditional concept of culture: the identity between people, nation, and culture. The fullest objectification of culture, understood as freedom from imperatives coming from an exterior, is the historical construction of the national-popular state. Individuals can experience true freedom only as members of a stare that juridically reflects what Montesquieu called the “general spirit,” Hegel the “Volksgeist,” and Rousseau the “general will.” Postcolanialism as a Critical Theory of Cultere Transferring the distinction introduced by Horkheimer to the present sub- ject, it can be said that the difference between the traditional and critical theories of culture is the recognition, by the latter, that its object of study is not a natural facticity but a social construction. Culture is discerned not as the site of freedom, that which protects us from the tyranny of nature, but as the network of relations of power that produces values, belicfs, and forms of knowledge. Theory is, in turn, taken not for a set of analytical Propositions uncontaminated by praxis, but as an integral part of this net of inclusions and exclusions called “social power.” The theorist is not a passive subject who assumes an attitude of scientific objectivity and neutrality, but an active subject who finds himself or herself traversed by the same social contradictions of the object under scrutiny. Subject and object form part of the same lattice of powers and counterpowers from which neither can escape. Onc of the fundamental tools of critical theory, one which distances it substantially from traditional theory, is the notion of “totality.” This con- cept implies that society is a sui generis entity whose workings are relatively independent of the activity of individuals composing it The social group is something more than the total sum of its members and constitutes a sys- tem of relations whose properties are different from those of the particular508 Nepantia elements that enter into relation with each other. Society's “plus” compared with its individuals lies, then, in the set of relations rhat individuals estab- lish among themselves, so that what counts for critical theory is the kind of transaction or negotiation that takes place between subject and structure. The life of the structure cannot do without the subjects, as Emile Durkheim and Niklas Luhmann proposed, nor can the life of the subjects do without the structure, as the communitarians would have it. This concept of totality certainly breaks with the metaphysics of the cosmos, because the Jaws that structure the lives of men are not seen as simple reflections of a divine or cosmological normativity; but it also breaks with the metaphysics of the subject, hecause sucial life is no longer considered a transparent extension of human consciousness and will. This means that social life does nut free man from the tyranny of nature, guiding him via culture to a gradual humanization, but subjects him instead to a new kind of heteronumy, this time under the form of systems that are not entirely under his control. Such systems are “sccond nature” in the sense that they exert an external coercion on individuals and become, as Ciiddens demonstrates, the conditions of possibility for human action. But the action of individuals reverts, in turn, to the wurkings of the systems, impelling their historical transformations. In contrast to the traditional concept of culture. a critical theory of culture posits, then, that social life is not the reign of freedom bur that of contradiction; that, because social life does not depend entirely un the intentionality of consciousness but rather on the dialectic between subject and structure, it generally has perverse consequences, that is, outcomes that escape all rational planning. [t can even he the case, as Beck, Giddens, and Bauman show, that these perverse results do not emerge from a lack of rationality, but rather as a consequence of it, as the crisis of the so-called project of modernity teaches us (Beck 1986). (Organized social relations, which for traditional theory appear tn he the way out of the “srate of nature” and an entry into the spiritual or “civil” site of culture, are perceived by critical theory asa space of struggle and confronting interests. In the field of postcolonial theories,) the idea of “totality” is ex- pressed in a category—the “world-system™ that was coined by the North American social philosopher Immanuel Wallerstein (1994), but has been widely used by such different theoreticians as Walter Mignolo, Enrique Dussel, Anibal Quijano, and Giayatri Spivak. From a hermencutical point of view, the interest of this category lies in its reference to a structure of global dimensions. broadening thus the interpretative horizon of the tex508 Castre-Gomez-Tradilional aud Critical Theories af Cultare “national society” that had functioned as the classical referent of social sci- ences since the nineteenth century, The world-system is a sui generis set of social relations configured in the sixteenth century as a consequence of the European expansion over the Atlantic.’ ‘The world-system is a network of interdependencies that covers a single space of social action. Sociologically speaking, this means that, from the sixteenth century onward, the lives of an ever greater number of people began to be linked by a planetary division of labor, coordinated by smaller systemic units denominated “nation-states.” The differences be- tween groups and societies that constitute the world-system do not depend on their level of industrial development or degree of “cultural evolution,” bur on the faenctional position they occupy within the system. The differ- ences are thus not temporal but structural. Some of the system's “social zones” occupy the function of “centers.” meaning that they monopolize the hegemony, while others occupy a “peripheral” function because they are relegated to the margins of the structures of power.” For one sector of contemporary traditional theory, this is an un- comfortable perspective because it casts doubt upon the idea that the cog- nitive, moral, and expressive development of different societies obeys the unfolding of specific competencies of the human race. Even while accept- ing the idea that the world-system functions as an a priori mechanism that quasi-rranscendentally organizes the social experience of the three spheres described by Jiirgen Habermas (1973). we do not find ourselves before a transcendental structure invested with anthropological status. It is rather a historical structure, with a genesis in the long sixteenth century, a maximum systemic equilibrium berween the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that currently finds itself in a moment of instability and disarticulation. From this point of view, the truc, the good, and the beautiful, that is, the set of his- toric objectifications of human activity we call “culture,” are not rooted in the species’ transcendental abilities, but rather in relations of power thar are socially construed and which have acquired a “global” character. “Culture” is indicative then not of a level of aesthetic. moral, or cognitive “develop- ment” ofan individual, a group. or a society, but rather, as Wallerstein (1994) affirms, signifies the world-system’s field of ideological battles. We arrive thus at the second of the characteristics of the modern world-system: the “colonial” logic that since the sixteenth century has con- ditioned its workings. In effect, the historical formation of the world-system was fueled for a long time by the incorporation or military “annexation” of new geographic zones by stares that achieved a hegernonic position within510 Nepanila the system. But this process of colonization was something constitutive and not merely additive to its logic of operation, since the basic imperative of the world-systern has been, and continues to be, the incessant accumulation of capital.“ To accomplish this, it was necessary that the hegemonic states of the world-system (Spain and Portugal first. then Holland, France, and England, and later the United States) open up new sources of supply for their internal markers, with the gual of increasing the margin of henefits. ‘The power relations configured by the world-system thus acquired a “colo- nial” character, which affected not only the old European colonies but also a great number of peuples within the colonizing countries themselves. The Peruvian sociologist Anibal (Quijano (1999, 99-100) has coined the concept of “coloniality of power” to indicate this very situation. But what has all of this to do with culrure? A great deal, if we keep in mind the fact that the social division of labor between central and peripheral zones, both at the general level of the world-system, as well as in the interior of its basic units, the nation-states. needed to be legitimized ideologically by hegemonic groups or contested, alsu ideulogically, by sub- altern groups. While traditional theory “naturalizes” culture, projecting it into an ideal space in which order and harmony (aesthetics of the beautiful) reign, critical theory emphasizes the political and social, that is the cun- flictive, nature of culture. In other words, culture is seen as the battlefield for the control of meaning. This means that critical theory does not isolate culture from the process af its social production and from its structural function inside the world-system and its subsystems, but rather advances toward the question of the geopolitical econumy of culture.’ Postcolonial theories radicalize this question by suspecting thar the “culrural logic” of the world-system is traversed by the social grammar of colonization. Seen from this perspective, culture has been the space wherein the coloniality of power has been legitimized or impugned from diverse social perspectives. For rcasuns uf space, ! will cunsider only the ways in which the coloniality of power was legitimized in ideological terms since the sixteenth century, and not occupy myself here with the type of contestation tu which it has heen submitted by what Wallerstein (1yyq) has named “anti-systemic movements.” As I will argue, the colonial annexation of new zones of the world-system was accompanied by the birth of two ideologies rhat served as cultural pillars of the modern world-system: racism and universalism.” Although sucial hierarchies have always been justified on the basis of the presumed inferiority or superiurity of same peuples uver others, the cancept of race is a theoretical construction characteristic uf the modernSil Gastro-Gémez: Traditional aud Critical Theorles of Culture world-system. It arises in the heat of the debates that took place in Spain concerning the necessity to submit the American Indians to colonial domi- nation, and it takes form in institutions like the escomienda and resguardo. ‘The idea of race served as a criterion for social differentiation between the “white” colonizers and the “mulatto” or “mestizo” colonized, seen as infe- rior for their color and social origins.” In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, once the hegemony of the world-systcm had migrated from Spain toward France and Holland, the concept of race was incorporated into the theoretical register “philosophy of history.” Here, the hierarchical differ- ences between peoples—and, concomitantly, their corresponding “place” in the social division of labor—are justified according to their level of “de- velopment,” measured on a temporal-evolutionary scale. ln consequence, the peoples that appear more “advanced” on this scale could legitimately occupy the territory of the more “backward” peoples and bestow the bene- firs of civilization upon them with no troubling pangs of conscience. In the nineteenth century, coinciding with the consolidation of British hegemony, the concept of race was finally unhitched from the philosophy of history and “scientificized,” incorporated into the methodology of positive sciences and the nascent social sciences.'° The superiority of same races over others was seen as the inevitable result of the evolution of the species; it was an inexorable law of nature, capable of being empirically “verified.” What interests me here is the intrinsic relationship between the colonial idea of race and the ireditional concept of culture. Lf the maximiza- tion of benefits was the systemic imperative that impelled the territorial annexation of colonies, then it was necessary to justify why their inhabi- tants needed to be used as inexpensive labor for the benefit of the coloniz- ers: Indians, blacks, and mulattos could and should be enslaved because they shared a series of values, beliefs, and forms of knowledge that im- peded them from attaining the fruits of civilization on their awn. There was something in their culture, and perhaps in their very biology, that sct them at odds with the universalistic values shared by the white man. There was no point of contact possible berween the culture of the colonizers and colonized. because either they possessed two different “natures,” as Juan Ginés de Septilveda posited (1987 [1892], 27-28), or they possessed a sin- gic nature but in different phases of historical “evolution.” In either case, we find ourselves before a naturalist or ideological concept of culture that legitimizes the social and political inequalities of the world-system."' The intrinsically colonial character of the world-system also tra- verses the second ideology considered in this essay: universalism. If racism512 Nepantla serves to legitimize the inferiority of the colonized ur subaltern groups in the colonies. universalism sanctions the superiority of the colonizers ur hegemonic groups at the national level. As an heir of what | have in this essay called the “metaphysics of the cosmos,” modern universalism is, above all, an epistemological posture. [t proclaims the possibility of acceding to objectively valid knowledges concerning the physical and social world once the adequate “method” is found. It affirms that the “validity” of this method is guaranteed by its neutrality in terms of value, since it transcends the mati- vations historically conditioned by “culture.” Its ground is not thus history. and its traditions, but a faculty shared by all men, independently of race. gender, age. or social condition: reason. Viewed from the perspective of the world-system, universalism is fully integrated into the logic that Weber called “rationalization.” It is not now the inscrutable will uf God that decides the happenings of individual and social life, but man himself who, using reason, is able to decipher the inherent laws of narure in urder tu place them at his service. This rehabili- tation of man goes hand in hand with the idea of a domination over nature through science and technology, whose true prophet was Francis Bacon. In fact, nature is presented by Bacon as man’s great “adversary,” the enemy to be overcome in order for the contingencies of life to be domesticated and the regnum hominis established over the earth (Bacon 1984 [1620]). The value-free character of sciences and technologies was cunverted thusintothe ideological guarantee of the “modernization” promoted by the hegemonic states af the world-system and, concretely, by the bourgeoisic of these states. The political institutionalization of the regawm hominis dreamt by Bacon and Descartes becomes thus a problem of technical character, addressed by economists, social scientists, educators, administrators, and experts of all kinds. ‘The founding imperative was to climinate the “cultural” barriers that obstructed the expansion of capital and the maximization of profits. On an internal level, universalism served as the instrument of ju- ridical and social control within nation-states. Insofar as it was an integral part of the modern world-system, the structural function of the state was to “adjust” the body and mind of all individuals belonging te a specific territoriality to the global imperative of production. All state politics and institutions (school, constitutions, law, hospitals, prisons, etc.) were canal- ized toward the disciplining of the passions through work. The purpose was to link all citizens tu the glubal process of production through the sub- jection of their time and bodies to a series of norms that were defined and sanctioned by scientific-technical knowledge. In order for this to work, the513 Gastro-Gdmez- Traditional and Critical Theorles of Culture state needed to be able to guarantee an “impartial” juridical framework within which the people under its jurisdiction could be conremplated as “subjects of law.” The juridical-political function of constitutions was pre- cisely ta invent citizenship, that is, create a formal field of legibility which would, on a microphysical level, render the macrostructural imperative of the accumulation of capital viable. Atthis point iris necessary toclarify that although postcolonial the- ories take up the microphysics of power analyzed by Miche! Foucault, they complement his perspective by working with what lurked in the French theorist's blind spot: relations of power are marked by macrophysical imper- atives of a colonial character.” ‘Thus, for example, citizenship was not only restricted to men who were married, literate, heterosexual, and proprietors, bur also, and especially, to men who were white. In turn, theindividuals that fell outside the space of citizenship were not only the homosexuals, prison- ers, mental patients, and political dissidents Foucault had in mind, but also blacks, Indians, mestizos, gypsies, Jews, and now, in times of globalization, “ethnic minorities,” immigrants, and Ausidadern (foreigners). In this way, the genealogy of the microstructures of power is broadened by postcolonial theories into a genealogy of the macrostructures of “long duration.” It can besaid, then, that postcolonial theories take the program of the “ontology of the present,” masterfully begun by Foucault, co its ultimate consequences. | want to conclude by pointing out two things. The first is that, ar feast until the first half of the twenticth century, racism and univer- salism configured the dominant geoculture of the modern world-system. Racism is a legacy of what Dussel calls the “first modernity,” the Hispanic- Catholic one, while universalism is a legacy of the “second modernity,” the eighteenth-cenrury Enlightenment and its extension into ninereenth- century positivism. Both ideologies created a “representational” site—a culture—that legitimated the unprecedented mobilization of the labor force and financial resources, of military campaigns and scientific discoveries, of educational programs and juridical reforms; in short, of this whole set of Faustian politics of social control, never before seen in history, which we know as the “project of modernity.” Of course—and this is the other side of the story—the unequal distribution of riches also generated antisystemic movements that were successful ro the extent that they could “negotiate” with the hegemonies created by the systemn.'* ‘The second point is of a diagnostic nature. If one of the character- istics of globalization is to have mined the capacity of the nation-states to organize all of social life, then we find ourselves before a profound structural51a Nepantle crisis of the modern world-system. This, as has been noted, was organized ‘an the hasis of smaller units, nation-states, which guaranteed the fulfillment of the imperative thar assured the internal equilibrium of the system: the endless accumulation of capital through the annexatiun of new territories. Butat the outset of the twenry-first century, we find ourselves in a situation in which there are no longer any territories to annex and in which social life is organized by supranational instances. The slightly ambiguous cate- gory of “postcaloniality” points toward this situation. The end of rerritorial culunialism, propelled by hegemonic nation-states, runs parallel to the ex- haustion of the project uf modernity. that is, with the end uf the institutional capacity of these states to exert cuntrol over the social lives of peoples.” But this does not necessarily mean that the world-system is mortally wounded, nor that its structural geoculture has ceased to be operational. Rather, we are in a historical moment in which there are no culunizing countries, but unly countries colonized by a capital that has become invisible, that has assumed a “spectral” character. Faced with this new situation, the critical theory of socicty faces the challenge of recuperating the horizon of totality that contemporary cultural critique seems to have lust in the name of the postmodern attack on metanarratives and runs the risk of converting itself into a new traditional theory. A cultural analysis rhat limits itself to thematizing the exclusions of gender, race, ethnicity, or knowledge, that hamogenizes differences, is not sufficient to articulate a criticism of capitalism. It is necessary to think the world-system that “structured” social subjectsand toask why this historical project of sucial control (“modernity”) has exhausted itself, yielding to new forms of global (re)structuration. In other words, it is necessary to think the historical transformations suffered by the geoculrure of the modern world- system in its present moment of crisis. This is, tu my mind, the main agenda for a social theory that understands itself as a critical theary of culture. Translated by Adriana johnson Motes L. Ido not want tn emphasize here any “progress” of thought or any historical teleology: Critical theory did not substitute for traditional theory after the eighteenth century. What 1 want to underscore is that at this time the material conditions$15 Gastro-Gémoez: Traditional sud Critical Theorles of Culture were created for the emergence of a type of theorization chat was previously impossible. 2. Here, “relatively independent” means that the social totality is not an entity char is ontologically prior to the individual elements that constirute it, and in which these simply assume predetermined roles, as is proposed by classic strocturalism, bu rather that the reproduction of social life takes place as a process of negotiation between the whole and its parts. Giddens (1994119790) has shown that this process implies a certain “structuration” of subjects but also and at the same time a “subjectivizarion™ of structures. 3 By “postcolonial theory” I mean a madel of theorization that («) interrogates the ma- terial conditions of possibility of the production of knowledge in modernity and (b) specifically points to the colonial experience as ane of these condi- tions. Although considerations like rhose of Walter Mignolo (1998}—and his distinction between the different critical theories’ loci of enunciation—are suggestive, they are not relevant for my argument here. 4- Both Dussel and Wallerstein have pointed oui—confronting other Marxist theorists like Erik Wolf and André Gunder Frank—that in contrast to previous social systems, which revolved around a hind of centralized political unity, we live today in a system that gothers different political units around a single world economy: capitalism. Furthermore, the modern world-system is the only historical structure in which the incessant accumulation of interests is taken, asa value in and of itself, In all other social structures, the accurnulation of riches was perceived ara means for obtaining something. and nor asanend per se. The maximization of surplus value converts itself thus into individual or collective virtue, rewarded or punished by an institution called the “market.” See Dussel 1gga and Wallerstein 1994. 5 | emphasize the idea of “social zone” ro avoid canfusing it with the concept of “geo- graphical zone.” By “social zone” I mean a hegemonic set of social relations (what Marx called “class”) thar is primarily configured under the political auspices of the national state, but whose structural function transcends in some cases the political limits set down by the state. ‘Thus, for example, the hegemonic social zones in the European countries in the nineteenth century certainly functioned as centers of the interior of their own societies, but their economic and cultural hegemony also extended itself to all the peripheral social zones of the world-sysuem. In addition, the appropriation of surplus value, generated by labor in the colonies, was concentrated in these peripheral zones. In this sense, as we shall see, the hegemony of power assumesa colonial character.316 Nepentle 6. Inorder toreproduce itself, the world-system has developed institutional mechanisms (established in nation-states and now in the global logic of consump- tien) to materially reward and punwh individuals according to whether or not they adjust themselves tu the imperative of the maximization of benefits. Horkheimer and Adorno (1gyq) spoke in this sense of the universalization of “instrumental reason,” even if they erroncously extrapolated this concept until it accounted for the totality of human history. 7. Formulated in this way, the problem we are posing eludes any determinism of the “base on the economic “superstructure” of sacicty. The critical theory of society proposes 5 dialectic between subject and structure, in which neither element can he rhaught independently of the other, since both mutually am- dition cach other. In other texts I have dealt with this idea more extensively (Castru-G6mez 1997, 1998). §& Racism and universalism are “ideological knowledges” configured in the sixteenth century that serve to legitimize and give meaning to Spain's economic and po- litical duminion over her colonies. After the seventeenth century, when Spain began to cede the hegemony of the world-system tv other European powers (France and England), these ideological knowledges began to permeate the “scientific practices” that lie at the origin of what we know today as the sucial sciences. From this point of view, sucial sciences, as they were insti nal - ized in the nineteenth century and after, did not succeed in establishing an “epistemological rupture” with ideological knowledges such as racism and universalism. Concepts elaborated by the sucial sciences, such as “madernity.” “yociety.” and “progress,” are founded upun ideologicul knowledges conhig- ured in the sixteenth century. A genealogy of social sciences and humanities should hegin thi Spain, and not in France or England. g In this sense, Magnus Mdrner speaks of a racial “pigmentocracy” based upon the suncept of “racial purity” (Méiener rq6y, 60-77). This is an ethnicization of the labor force. 10. In fact. as Edward Said (1995) has demonstrated. social sciences. especially anthro- pology, ethnology, and orientalism, generate their languages on the basis of the colonial experience and as 2 consequence of the occupation of overseas colonies by France and England. 11, It should be remembered that when I refer to “center” and “periphery” | am not speaking only of the relationship between metropolis and colonies, but also of the relationship between hegemonic and subaltern groups within European national states. 1a, Foucaul’s renunciation of methodological holisrn impedes him from tracing a ge- nealogy of structures of “long duratinn.~ For the critique Foucault will levelau Castro-Gdmez- Traditional and Critical Theorles of Culture at the category of totality. see the discussion proposed by Martin Jay (1984: 510-37). 13. This is the case, for example, of the labor movements in Europe and the United States, or of third world “national liberation” movements. 14. [have developed this idea of the end of modernity as a project of political-social control in Castro-Gémez 1998, 78-102, References Bacon, Francis. 1984 [160]. Noose Orgenune. Madrid: Sarpe. Beck, Ulrich. 1986. Risitagesellschaft: Asef dere Weg in cine andere Moderne. Frankfurt: Subrkamp. Castro-Gémez, Santiago. 1997. “Los vecindarios de la ciudad letrada: Variaciones filoséficas sobre un tema de Angel Rama.” in Angei Rama y los estudior (atinoarnericancs, edited by Mabel Morafia. Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh Press. _——. 1998. “Latinoamericanismo. modernidad. globalizacién: Prolegomenos a una erftica poscolonial de Ia raz6n.” In Teorfas sia disciplina: Latinoamericanismo, poscolonielided y globalinacién en debate, edited by Santiago Castro-Gémez and Eduardo Mendieta. Mexico City: Porria. de Sepiilveda, Juan Ginés. 1987 |1892]. Tretado sobre las juste: causes de la guerra contra Jos indios, Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Econémica. Dussel, Enrique. 1992. 2493 ¢! encabrimicnto del otro: Hacin el origen del ‘mito deta modernided.” Santafé de Bogoté: Antropos. Giddens, Anthony. 1994 |1979]. Censnad Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure, and Contradiction in Sacial Analysis. Berkeley: University of California Press. Habermas, Jargen. 1973. Exkesmtnis and Interesse. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. Horkheimer, Max. 1974 [1937]. “Teorfa tradicional y reorfa critica.” In Teorka evftica. Buenos Aires: Amorrormu. Horkheimer, Max, and Theodor W. Adorno. 1994. Dialéctics de la Hestraciéa: Fragrentas filostficos. Madrid: Trotes. Jay. Martin. 1984. Marxizm and Totality: The Adventures of a Concept from Lukdcs 10 Habermas. Berkeley: University of California Press. Mignolo, Walter. 1998. “Postoccidentalismo: E] argumento desde América Latina.” In ‘Teorias sin disciplina: Latinoamericaniimo, porcolonialidad y globalinacion en debate, Edited by Santiago Cestro-Gémez and Eduardo Mendieta. Mexico City: Porréa. ‘Miurner, Magnus. 1969. Ls meacia de nenas en le hintoria de Américe Latina. Buenos Aires: Paidos.518 Nepantia Quijano, Anibal. 19gy. “Colonialidai del poder, cultura y conocimiento en América Latina.” In Penser (en) los intersticive, edited by Santiago Castrn-Gomez. Oscar Guardiola Rivera, and Carmen Millan de Benavides. Santafé de Bogotd: CEJA. Said, Edward. 1995. Orientalinm: Westera Conception: of the Orient. London: Penguin. Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1944. Geopolitics wed Geoculiwre: Essays on the Changing World System. London: Cambridge University Press.Copyright © 2003 EBSCO Publishing