Modernity: One, None, or Many?

European Origins and Modernity as a Global Condition Author(s): Bjrn Wittrock Source: Daedalus, Vol. 129, No. 1, Multiple Modernities (Winter, 2000), pp. 31-60 Published by: The MIT Press on behalf of American Academy of Arts & Sciences Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20027614 . Accessed: 25/05/2013 19:51
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Bj?rn Wittrock

Modernity:

One,

None,

or Many?

European Origins and Modernity as a Global Condition

MODERNITY:

TEMPORAL OR SUBSTANTIVE?

When we speak of modernity we seem to mean one of speak as if we were giving a whole in world

and two an

of modern First,

things.1

societies, we may

name to encompassing as the modern distinct age, epoch history, Such a ter say, the medieval from, age or classical antiquity. to as it makes to when discuss minology legitimate questions come the modern be said to have into exist age may exactly its origins may have been, or, indeed, if it has now to an end. Second, we may as we were if speak actually distinct in a given and processes characterizing phenomena at a given time. We may used say that the technology society in some branch of industry of a country is modern but that ence, come what of patterns to determine ena of The It is then an empirical life are not. family to what extent different institutions and question phenom

a country as modern. be described may first perspective to locate the the of where poses problem and the of the modern end, age. However, maybe beginning, once this has been determined, we the question of whether live in one or many modernities In this perspective, becomes trivial. we all live in the age of and there is one such age, modernity, not many. course there will of be an infinite number However, of possible in cultural varieties and commit patterns, beliefs,

is University at Bj?rn Wittrock Professor of Government Director and Permanent Fellow of the Swedish Collegium the Social at Uppsala. Sciences (SCASSS) 31

and Uppsala University in for Advanced Study

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32
ments work

Bj?rn Wittrock
as well of this as in institutional the frame within specificity then speak of differ epoch. We may itself refers but the term modernity to the different age in the varieties first place. and

ent varieties to those that world allow

encompassing of modernity, that are common features us to speak of

a modern

This type of usage may be helpful inwriting

backwards. it has

the history of the

if it is to carry any analytic However, weight, to rely on a delimitation institutions of which and prac we ones when use the term modern to tices are the defining an epoch. it immediately into the leads characterize Thus, to be as substantive has i.e., something perspective; an to institutions habits of which and We have idea serted. have are not. A society are modern is modern and which only if some second

key defining
modern. coherence tional tries, To

institutions and types of behavior can be said to be

the extent that there is a correspondence and behavioral about the have between patterns and strong, such defining across different of modern empirical not exist growing, institu coun societies support. between

and

structures

be may Whatever different two

hypotheses to said other countries it

convergence increased received or may differences may is irrelevant to the

countries

are modern

we when decide whether any or not. Unfortu same extent

nately, version

at this point of some that advocates is precisely as as tend their critics, well of a theory of convergence, to conflate and empirical questions. conceptual of Talcott often These advocates, by the works inspired tend to and trends all kinds of societal about speak How as giving for their hypothesis. support conditions in defining the necessary succeed a modern society. Instead, they such as whether and have other told direction. tend to delve pat family of the parts is often This

Parsons,

of values changes ever, they rarely that characterize

into empirical questions, endlessly States terns and Europe in the United or dissimilar in a similar evolve world interesting, all this has cal debates but unless to do with just blur of modern is to speak the convergists of the concept the of "the basic certain societies.

multiplicity definition industrial

us clearly what these empiri the modern, or the unity about question to a come closest The they broad trends revolution," such as and "the "the

revolution,"

democratic

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Modernity:
educational the evolution similar revolution." of these in at trends

One, None,
of the

or Many?
last two to have

33

In the course

ciently mately modern twofold. First,

in all parts age. The the tend

least the world, and ulti to allow us to speak of a global of the world, with this type of terminology is problem of the the theory convergence, by and one society? specific of measuring rod to assess of to achieve that a sufficient rod ori the measuring remain in, say, value of

is supposed some parts of

centuries, been suffi

advocates to take

large, development a kind the United States?as namely, or failure of other societies the success of modernity. To the extent degree indicates that substantial differences

or family the advocates entations, relations, religious practices, of this theory tend not to reject or revise the original hypoth esis. Rather, be confirmed, albeit at they tend to say that it will a point in the future. In the long run, this is not a very satisfac tory procedure. even if attention Second, ization and democratization is limited to processes in North America of industrial

and Western

in the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Europe it is quite clear that there have been very substantial always differences between countries. It is simply not true that all these countries matter not societies However, ries there tries in of have some had roughly similar types of economic and po

litical institutions
concern

in this historical
technical

period.

If this were only a

political To take

the last two centu Throughout coun differences Western between deep a society, a market the way and modern economy, are best organized. forms the have been but in one more example: prominent most a much countries have European to the state in overseeing interactions than has North role

or, this

and divergences, it need peculiarities the the basic question of of all modern convergence at the very Western societies. least, of all modern is not case.

assigned and indeed America. just as

market shaping In many of these countries the state has not been seen a form of rulership to as the but, paraphrase Hegel,

embodiment
shaping cluding the the

of the idea of ethical

framework economy and for all other family. the

life, with
societal In this

a specific task of
interactions, perspective, in civil

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34
society ethical

Bj?rn Wittrock
can only flourish not if it occurs in spite a failure of of within this framework, it or in opposition be encompassing to it. This in due, if will not do.

may
distant, Rather, Europe

of course

be discarded

as just a sign of their lack of

that will such those remedied an explanation in North-Western countries are

democratic

maturity, course. Unfortunately, it is precisely that by any some

reasonable the most

measure

and open economically of have the closest web and

interactions

politically between

the most among democratic that their economic, in authori a seamless

family political, tarian that civil society settings, structures. institutional of mutually web supporting with the modern economic The order associated seen to be that of a liberal that to of market and order a nation-state

institutions.

It is there, and not and the state form

political lic. In order polities determine if we immediate

age is often free the economy trade, or a constitutional repub these that

as modern democratic orders, qualify are assumed to have the institution of free elections the our composition attention of to

limit

if we problems to order be the sine necessary characteristics, political defining era. to It is sometimes customary qua non, of the modern speak as a period or of organized late nineteenth of the century as to a and interventionist modernity capitalism previ opposed forms of eco and nonregulated of more genuine period as some For is true for Britain. such nomic order. This countries, no previous noninter of there simply was others many period coun In these free trade. interactions and ventionist market ous a state-oriented indicated, tries, as already not a late aberration. It was constitutive from its very of modernity inception. a break with countries there was Of economic of order even was order in these the economic

Even the executive of the polity. run we into the European setting, forms of economic and take these

course,

forms of many previous of guilds, but via princely decrees and the operation regulation mar an a was far from their economy cry unregulated always as late as the 1930s trade. free international ket with Indeed, on were restrictions most Western drastic countries imposing a concomitant in world trade. sharp decline imports with As Until to political order, the end of World the War situation I, what is even more was as the problematic. time called the

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Modernity:
Great

One, None,

or Many?

35

no European the type of had country War, virtually now define as emblematic of mo that theorists order political a nation-state. The of democratic central and i.e., that dernity, eastern polities polities ernance part of Europe was neither that were where and were electoral the composed nation-states had of multinational nor imperial i.e., gov these democracies, a decisive effect on

outcomes

polities constitutional tional

Most of the executive. of composition in a process various of transition toward forms of some na often with form of elected monarchy, a

as a complement, or indeed a balance, to assembly or less closely to the prerogatives linked still more government of the monarch. In the western

at the turn of the nineteenth part of Europe, were most in a period countries slow of often and century, monar transition embattled from forms of constitutional highly Some of these form of parliamentary democracy. chy to some countries vian tary these (such countries) assemblies countries as Britain, could draw and could local be by not the Netherlands, and on age-old traditions self-government. said to have been the to be turn of the the Scandina of of parliamen none However, full-blown nineteenth parlia century.

mentary by gender

democracies and was

Even in the France of the Third Republic,

extended

suffrage was
to women until

limited
after

World War
the Russian tury present

II. Paradoxically,

Finland?still

a grand duchy within

in the first decade of the new cen empire?could and democratic the most modern form of maybe of in Europe. the Thus, the representatives on traditional of four national was suffrage assem trans for estates, of universal

representation bly, composed into one formed women socialists tional and men came miracle

based the principle in a unicameral national to have occurred 40 percent after the Not of of of defeat

the

the (where assembly constitu This seats). of Russia in the war

against Japan all autocratic dencies did

racy.

of

1904-1905. new forms

framework to a wholesale

within the over surprisingly, its ten the Russian with empire, this reform nationalism, to parliamentary democ

toward lead

not

imperial transition

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36

Bj?rn Wittrock
ONE OR NONE? at the conclusion on that a temporal conception a substantive one. However, that defines conception?one

MODERNITY: We have

arrived

rests of modernity ultimately as just outlined, a substantive modernity institutions in terms of

of the prevalence of a few key societal to lead and economic the political order?seems a to the absurd result that modernity has short history, very even in the European context. Modernity to is suddenly reduced a phenomenon in some parts of Western that can be found of the twentieth century. Indeed, periods as a general Western of the phenomenon Europe, would World War after be that and II, period if all of Europe is considered. Modernity in time to witness its own demise arrived prophets of this postmodernism. is hard conclusion Given to the avoid. would as her facts Yet of some

Europe during for modernity relevant even barely alded time have the shorter

it history, a and schol of innumerable makes literary, political, mockery course in the of the nineteenth debates Europe throughout arly mean It would the coming of the modern about age. century have might society truly modern as modern were never theories that we to there has ever been ask whether any in Europe. institutions European Maybe as social scientists have claimed. Maybe ideology of late-nine these be

by institutional

are little but an of modernity science. social teenth-century in an affirmative is some truth There a general There misleading. As in the also of statement,

potheses.

to response it would however,

hy seri

ously tive changes but Europe, two ficulties

have, institutional

the world

Unfortunately, a coherent account A in providing of these changes. an can account reason if the be such is that only major provided is brought back constitution of modernity cultural in, and this own science has that social is precisely the side of its legacy tended they research-oriented grounding to neglect. a democratic The

centuries.

been profound qualita of intellectual landscape at large, in the course of the last science social has had great dif indeed, and

of modernity?be institutional projects or a a liberal market economy, nation-state, their unless be understood university?cannot conceptual changes is recognized. Ulti

in profound

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Modernity:
mately, sumptions conceptual constitute tional these institutional projects

One, None,
were

or Many?

37

on new as premised These human their rights and agency. about beings, came to notes that entailed promissory changes affiliations, identities, and, ultimately, institu

new

realities.

notes in this sense presuppose that six conditions Promissory can be formulated are met. to that desiderata First, they point a range as statements be about of achievements that may reached issory refers terms. by note to a the members a prom of a given Thus, community. or a It is not desire vague just fleeting preference. state of affairs in explicit that may be expressed this state of affairs refers to the situation not of

Second,

an individual but of a community. Third, this state of affairs is not just something to be hoped for in general; it is something that may validly be expected and may be regarded as implied by deeply held values. Thus, it, fourth, depends for its assertability
on the validity of claims about the nature and as members of the beings posited community. of human history as In particular, of human beings and have

will be highlighted
depend place social been and on a range

later on, the promissory

of new conceptualizations

notes of modernity about their

and their ability to act individually and collectively

in history as well as about Ultimately, belonging. to some of the most related nature inherent cosmological these

the proper forms of polity kinds of assumptions basic ideas of in a culture.

an ontological

at any given point in time, the prevalent insti political a to a range of of and give expression society embody notes. in other words, These institutions, promissory imply the Fifth, tutions reasonableness community and legitimate
course.

of of these

set of expectations that members to assume institutions feel entitled they take for granted

of

the of It

as valid

and which to see that to see

as a matter set.

It is important is also articulated and important

that

any polity any new

some such implies set of promissory

notes

will be formulated against such a background. Thus,

in the context the promissory ones. The legitimate reaffirms and

itwill be

of existing macroinstitutions political notes as the that they officially proclaim new set will so be that it always presented resurrects the original set or rejects and

either

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38

Bj?rn Wittrock
it. In periods rejection notes been these of major cultural the crystallization, and transcendence?will be the preva are not put fora Public of forth have just expressible in some public been are of in principle. In the forum.

transcends latter mode?of lent one.

Sixth, promissory to have have They age of modernity, namely, matters discourse rulership. and

public spheres. are the focus is not It has that

spheres and debate about

a particular type, common fora where but and where form of rulers

deliberation the access at

only occurring to be a discourse

to which also directed

open often

or the objective of influencing enough the polity and the sphere of officialdom. changing a successful cannot If so, modernity be identified just with It has to be understood in industrial and democratic revolution. notes of promissory in debates reference points terms that and served in the as ever more formation forms. The of notes generalized affiliations

is, furthermore, on with carried

is in principle the rulers and

general serve not that the promissory point reference of departure for various and proposals projects only as a point to realize notes. the ideas of the promissory because Precisely serve as also become reference points, they they generalized ized means points
forms.

and

the creation

of new

institutional

term

of

departure promissory

for

reinvigorate In this the fact cannot programs

counter-proposals notes contained

and in older

for

efforts

to

institutional

the age of modernity perspective of emblematic that the opponents their express with reference

is characterized modern institutions

by their

but

cannot but formulate opposition, to the ideas of modernity.

Thus, modernity and institutionally generalized tions. However, focal become

as culturally be understood constituted may serve as notes entrenched. may Promissory in debates reference and political confronta points these points generalized in ideational reference points not they of confrontations; behind the formation only also new

structuring provide principles in a perspective It is only of this type that institutions. a European as having sense to talk about modernity across two centuries. the past extending

it makes history

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Modernity:
ORIGINS Despite tion, institutions for the OF WESTERN important cultural at era the MODERNITY similarities constitution turn of the in world

One, None,

or Many?

39

to earlier of a set

periods of new century is so not

of crystalliza macrosocietal set the because stage of a

a new

eighteenth This history.

triumphant attention notion associated

In fact, even if of reason and light. breakthrough to just some areas of Western is restricted the Europe, of those institutional of an actual realization projects with modernity at a precise moment the configuration in time of those is highly institu

Furthermore, misleading. the role of a civil and a public tional e.g., society practices, to state power, has always been quite different relative sphere even in different Western of parts Europe. a meaningful notion of modernity that does not involve Thus, and events will, processes complex as already in the relationship of also have to bring emphasized, to cultural and various institutional projects cognitive projects. is so not merely This because these institutions exhibit features misreading of that differ from notes those of of previous these new periods. An equally important a historicist

justification for the use of the term modernity

promissory extent to which institutional

has to do with
and

the

the projects were on new based they presupposi radically tions about human historical the and agency, consciousness, new in forging institutions. role of reason societal The tion, out of processes emerged at and political urbanization, upheaval of the Eurasian landmass. caused They modern world across the world to become of industrializa transfor by re the northwestern societal

edge mations

American and North European move a whole from vision range Far from being cultural order. ies, as they were evolving of the fourteenth period derwent but Yet three the India.2 formation that a process differed rapid internal Ming examples,

so deeply as preeminence forms

dislodged to almost

of earlier

just "traditional," in different in the parts of the world un to the eighteenth often centuries, This is equally true Japan, China, Tokugawa of, to take and Mogul

of political and these societ

change.

was in the European context of modernity in from elsewhere the developments

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40
world

Bj?rn Wittrock
and in other of European Of course, the epochs history. to the formation of distinctly modern societies last two centuries have roots. Thus, already it may in the when

European paths in the course of be possible

the

European four interconnected An wake de

to speak of a type of early modernity context in the twelfth and thirteenth processes was element of

important of the so-called facto

centuries, of deep transformation occurred. the emerging in the realization,

likely ecumene has

that the long-standing Papal Revolution, was ecclesiastical and mundane power separation not to be overcome a to remain but of the key feature of Western to be Christendom. termed of the Feudal and Equally important was what an be Revolution, obligations involving that could

come

articulation The entailed tended ernment. effective

of a variety

rights

claimed and upheld

in various public
life?the trade with of and Urban

fora.
Revolution?not activities; only it also

of urban growth a stimulus for to be In associated some

economic

parts had become such as power greatly weakened, new Northern forms of rule took Italy, city republican shape. on an association Sometimes modeled for common trade pur came to exert a deep influ poses, government city republican ence on notions same in In of political the rulership Europe. a were as universities formed of self type period, particular imperial governing corporation set the Church. This scholarly fora for cal part and of activities intellectual institutional one of the least partial from the autonomy in revolution both stage for an intellectual themselves and in the possibility of multiple in a multiplicity nested of politi activities, arenas across a Europe that yet formed order, of that this of Western ecumenical Christendom. order and the with at

wide-ranging municipal self-gov Roman the Holy where Empire

ecumenical breakdown

Similarly,

emergence teenth century

It is possible as the result of a series political, reinforced cific path

from the late fif delimited territorially polities a set created of onward unique preconditions. to depict in Europe the formation of modernity and of basically intellectual each that bordered where processes transformations mutually a spe is indeed other. There continuous

economic, and conditioned of development continent that

European

in those parts of the originated on the Atlantic seaboard and

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Modernity:
characteristic. It would be

One, None,
to trace

or Many?
the diffusion and but and time. also

41

that had a plurality of intellectual and political

possible in space forms of societal organization analogous an involve of Western would Christendom, analysis urban assemblies, parliamentary self-government, sities as sites East-Central across learning It would Europe. of the vast trace the regions

fora as a key
of It of and

univer

of Central of

impact the Reformation, the Scientific the establish sance, Revolution, ment of a system of mutually delimited balancing territorially a and the but also of states, great revo Enlightenment, period new in lutions ushering the formation of order. types of political seem unreasonable to impose It may artificial notions of differ ent epochs or ages on the continuous flow of loosely structured events run a risk of in historical time. Such an account would the inevitable of historical just reproducing complexities changes an to without In particu of them. contributing understanding the rupture in both underestimate that occurred lar, it would terms in institutional and intellectual in the late eigh Europe events teenth and early nineteenth The centuries. involved did not emerge ex nihilo, but they involved the appearance of a radically distinctly new configuration modern societies. of phenomena, the formation of

the Renais

THE CULTURAL CONSTITUTION There

OF MODERNITY

a need this essay, for a funda is, as argued throughout mental of a long-standing revision and predominant view among as as in social well the about formation scientists, lay debates, in terms of a conjunction of modernity of a technological and a revo transformation?the industrial and the democratic political lutions, respectively. the underestimates occurred There modern are at the reasons This traditional deep-seated epistemic turn of the eighteenth and to examine the ways understanding in the late interpretation radically transformation that nineteenth in which of centuries. distinctively emerged and early

of an key concepts the transition great during nineteenth centuries. One and such history, shift and

society

eighteenth the of

to pertains precisely to the new awareness

of society concepts the structural and

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42

Bj?rn Wittrock
nature of societal in the to a social life beyond political science the domain sphere that but much of com interactions, transition of the and proper. Thus, the transcends also traces further the than True Baker, in eigh of

constraining municative there is a boundaries implications notion that

political conditions is a

proper sphere of that sphere

the old political philosophy.

Pierre Manent

has put forward the

discovery."3 by Keith

society "postrevolutionary as is and demonstrated convincingly enough, a the term society undergoes long conceptual the French context in the course of the teenth centuries?with a dramatic increase

development seventeenth and in the utilization true

the term critique summary):

in the mid-eighteenth of Louis Dumont's

century. analysis

It is also of Western

that, in his individualism

and holism, Marcel Gauchet

Individualism of was not

argued that (this is Baker's elegant

of the simply a symptom of the dissolution as in that had been understood the social whole, primacy was a terms. It also condition for traditional necessary religious what he once again called (following Karl Polanyi) the "discovery in strictly sociological of society"?its discovery in which it from the religious representations Not its existence. until the ideological pressed he argued, could vidual interests was postulated, in the operation these interests be discovered social order subject to its own laws.4 an inquiry has pursued Johan Heilbron In the course interests.5 of of individual eighteenth to nable particular, virtue, was borders would the of centuries, the constraints given there such of interests various condition for a human imposition outcomes Such of were notions short terms, disengaged ex had hitherto of indi primacy constraints upon of an autonomous

into the

the constitution seventeenth as of of and ame

conceived

a human

In sociability. true religious beyond order pursuit pursued were the that of

a prospect a Leviathan-like

existence absolute of the

involve self-interests

socially acceptable of human beings? in the different

inquiries

in various and

ways late seventeenth many of event

the parts of Europe throughout centuries. and the eighteenth Heilbron However, even is a long if there others agree that, today of the modern gestation of revolutionary upheaval concept requires of the society, that discursive

process unique

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Modernity:

One, None,

or Many?

43

in the forma become and political controversy joined practice a era. Pierre Manent modern has elaborated tion of a distinctly the original "The Revolution offered similar spec argument: no of unheard-of tacle of a political scope, yet change having

stable political
settle, This nable most of an description of process

effects, of a political
and of revolution as an

upheaval
irreversible was

impossible
and thinkers intermi

to

interminable fundamental

indeterminate

event."6 formulated

clearly by one of nineteenth century, Alexis

change the most well-known

perhaps of the

In his memoirs, de Tocqueville. Souve as in the summer of 1850, he describes revolution nirs, written one long upheaval of "that our fathers have seen the beginning we shall not see the end of. Every in all likelihood, and which, thing that In fact, duration remained Reinhart of of the old regime was Koselleck's conception to its destroyed in his its spatial, forever."7 early and work indeed

Kritik und Krise

is quite similar. He
of upheaval as well as to

also links the temporal

the process

in extension, worldwide, increasing intensity as a process terms of modernity that affects all human beings, or certain not in central institutions just, say, those political cities: major The the unfolding of bourgeois soci century witnessed eighteenth saw new as which itself the claim to ety, world, laying intellectual the whole world and simultaneously the old. It grew out denying states and, in dissolving of the territories of the European this link, a in line with the process. The progressive developed philosophy subject to be unified from a better future.8 its

was all mankind, of that philosophy centre led and towards European peacefully

because the eighteenth witnessed the cre century Precisely ation of a political the whole world and project encompassing at the same time shattering the existing absolutist the order, main of this the agent up European change, bourgeoisie, opened of expectations horizons that were unknown: "The previously can be seen as the antechamber to our century eighteenth present erbated cess epoch, since one whose the French tensions have as been increasingly exac pro to all and the revolutionary revolution, around the globe and intensively it is also this sense of openness

spread mankind."9

extensively However,

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44

Bj?rn Wittrock
that from serves as a forceful and moral impetus to an examination

contingency passage are more

of the structural conditions

political

of the political
philosophy

body and entails a

to a social science.

This transition entails that five key problematics?which

today

to reinterpretation than they have been open acutely or at if not for a century?are for decades, formulated being into the new reformulated and are entering least fundamentally discourse. social-science the whole the one the role of historical historical inquiry becomes becomes an a crucial integral reason

First, one. On part itself of

hand, intellectual historicized on the

becomes

phy. However, sciences break course number of

up into the nineteenth

philoso the moral and political hand, a variety of new discourses that in the to a coalesce and are reduced century other

reasoning and even abstract transition, in early-nineteenth-century

is set for the of disciplines. This means that the stage a historical and between discipline divergence professionalized a we that still the other social and human sciences, divergence as a intellectual divide. major today experience in language interest Second, of the human into all domains and and linguistic analysis as sciences social constitution second of A enters a key textual

One problematic. and hermeneutic from contemporary

outflow modes the

of of

this

is the

debates

poststructuralism?is tion, and consciousness. language link was historic This collective a certain continue tic. That, of societal In the subject and provided construction leads identities. or linguistic to

and analysis text, interpreta relationship to historicize A third one is the effort a crucial itself. Thereby development various collective entities such as the linguistic between the notion of different peoples. constituting could no new longer

analysis. on

one?familiar

of

to a third

that of problematic: a in collectivity Membership region. Nor could

be taken for granted in the life experiences of the inhabitants of

village a relationship core the most of of obliga the body poli

tion and loyalty between

to constitute however, existence late

the princely

ruler and his subjects

basic such as categories ruler They and are,

an unquestionable meant that even were open century,

to doubt. categories

were

eighteenth by no means

irreversibly

superseded.

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Modernity:
however, Revolution, remained to doubt open to the necessity the dominant such of more as these

One, None,

or Many?

45

in the aftermath of the French and, in turn meant of reconstitution. This

a deep challenge

to those
form

imperial-like
of political and of

political
order

entities
in the

that

eastern

part of Europe until the end of World War

part, some Wokler, strong categories of the results perhaps "citizen" processes than clearly

I. In the western
capture Robert

"compatriot" reconstitution.

anyone

warning notion lutionary

any hasty against equating a commitment of a nation-state with of rights of human

a issued else, has revo of the French to a truly of civil

universal

conception as repeatedly Fourth, the relationship between succinctly The fact

emphasized, notions and

beings.10 the whole problematic of polity, and society,

society was of transition. and were but

fundamentally in many indeed rather discovered

in this period reformulated acutely are probed that once again these notions not conceal reexamined should that they not ways or even just reformulated invented. in this period

to act about what human Fifth, prompts assumptions beings to interpret a broader and how their actions within framework are at the very core of any scholarly in the social and program At the turn of the eighteenth human sciences. and nineteenth the fundamental that we still by and large centuries, categories or four such draw upon were and proposed. elaborated Three were fundamental categorical conceptualizations propounded. to a conceptualization Each of them of what corresponded comprised follows: "society." These categories with might be described as

(a) Economic-rationalistic, ety as a form of (b) Statistical-inductive, aggregate; (c) Structural-constraining, an organic totality; (d) Linguistic-interpretative, ety as an emergent The losophy transition to a social from

a corresponding

view as

of

soci

collective; compositional a view with of society with and with totality. a discourse on moral and a conceptualization a view of society

a systemic in terms of of

soci

political

science?analyzed,

for example,

phi by Robert

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46

Bj?rn Wittrock
and late shift of To some form had already taken rudimentary in France 1790s after the Revolution. from an would agential?some to one that emphasizes in the place a It entails

Wokler11?in middecisive tic?view tions.

ing away political eco In the course of the nineteenth agency. century, "average cast in a web nomic man" instead of structural becomes prop erties and dynamic fundamental and twentieth regularities categories centuries rather of than in a moral and universe that

society a similar in economic shift occurs extent, a broad concern from about moral and

say voluntaris structural condi reason

of individual action.
Thus, nineteenth tary form can some to affect One favor on agency society

came to be elaborated and refined during much of the rest of the

can be discerned in rudimen transition. the great already during or less tacit, explicit of the more these endeavors. tacit but crucial feature and in a concerns endowment So too, however, features that came the abandonment

such

of the truly universal heritage of the Enlightenment

of forms territoriality cally constituted was an emerging and other of representation or membership and and of constructed growing linguistically Another moral Thus, political

project

in

of rights based and histori feature discourse an earlier sciences

community. between chasm about the moral or the society. and

forms

encompassing was replaced gradually a to reasoning marginal

reasoning of conception by

social

sciences

that

position of

to a place

moral relegated within the spe

cialized
which the one turn

discipline
had of been

of philosophy.

Third,
intellectual

historical
to find of

reasoning,
at

at the core

transformation

the eighteenth

separate discipline, a permanent divide century the social to the We sciences. This

also century, the and toward had

came end

a place as the nineteenth and history unknown that stating not just on

divide

emerged remains today and

between but was

late-eighteenth-century summarize the may as it took

moral previous in Europe,

political

philosophers.

modernity, "a package

shape and organizational of technological developments."12 was a set it constitution of of the institutional Rather, projects were not nature. the institutions of a specific Thus, just new, but they were to serve as vehicles for the enhancement of

argument by was premised

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Modernity:
continuous tional process frameworks because rather of innovation. themselves

One, None,
At the same to be

or Many?

47
institu stabil on about

were

time, the with endowed to be

ity precisely universalistic human

assumptions societies. beings, was a wide of Of course, there array contesting philosophical across schools and political confronta However, groupings. a fundamental tions and divergences there existed acknowledg of the idea that help sciousness might constitution agency, construct and historical reflexivity, a new set of institutions. set of societal macroinstitutions.

claimed they were than on particularistic and human human agency,

premised

ment

con Thus,

there existed a limited number of thematic foci underlying

cultural of a new

the

THE INSTITUTIONAL In the wake teenth of

FORMATION

OF MODERNITY the turn of the

institutional century, projects at large. emblematic of modern that became the world emerged One economic in the form such project concerned organization a a of rather than mercantil liberal market economy regulated came ist economy. order Similarly, political nation-state ized as a modern of compatriots tional of fellow citizens rather than republic absolutistic subjects. arose for In to be or conceptual as a constitu form ruler of an and

the deep cultural shift at a distinctively new set of

eigh

in the

was only to make and undertake allowed interventions sanctions that were and foreseeable. clearly specified The focus on the nature of the public and political sphere on ontological order was thus based of a new assumptions nature life was about human on premised For the first time beings. a radical and irreversible the idea of ethical about the stance

its distinction with between monarchy new the realm of private interactions, a legally protected state where the sphere

demands

principled
sense, other gence Europe.

equal rights of all human beings to participate

of

in the

macroinstitutions

the public In this and of the state. sphere was not in Europe the formation of modernity just an or reminiscent of the axial of the age period early emer of a bifurcation between in secular and sacred power

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48

Bj?rn Wittrock
sphere, order tolerance the but Thus, estates new also institutions and some involved a con as constituted in terms legitimated form of active acqui ideas of repre centuries-old

In the political of political ception of not escence sentation mented ereignty. associated Democratic life from only and with silent

participation. in the form of demands with these

In the western

were comple parliaments sov for participation and even popular wave the of of demand part Europe, and

to as the Parsons referred ideas, what was a constant feature of political Revolution,13 to the mid-twentieth the late eighteenth century when terms, monar form of monar of Eu

across In political the board. they were finally victorious it had entailed the gradual limitation of constitutional their eventual chical and regimes replacement by some democracy. parliamentary from the transition rope, chies In the Central-Eastern to constitutional part absolutistic

was in the wake of World War I. by no means complete were In the private there age parallel developments: sphere, from acts of arbitrary rulers abstain old demands that princely intervention there rules be that a and violence were basis and legal-rational are transparent that by demands superseded for all actions of government. allow for of ac consequences and predictability

Thus, official acts are legitimate only if they are based on legal
to be predictable. tions Such transparency a reality only can become if the nature of political order accepts as a basic principle of than the volition the rule of law rather as Such de its of ruler basic principle the princely operation. mands not application no means century, for legal only of legal order all?European protection had long countries. they were voiced but At also for the universal by traditions in some?but

however, their Furthermore, new New emies, sanction commercial

the turn of the eighteenth with intensity. increasing by the demands of of acad

was urgency and industrial

reinforced activities.

also outside spheres emerged public and outside of the control and salons, and are control. created not enable public Whether that in scholarly, on are based

courts,

purview

life, fora discourse should political

political, the idea

of royal or artistic

should and

rather

to persecution be subject of opinion the expression life. One may say that

that public or censorship but on all aspects of these fora were

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Modernity:
premised
state.

One, None,
of

or Many?
not

49
only

on

the

legitimate

articulation

a discourse

about but addressed to and critical of the official power of the

In what tute that could projects half. sense do form these different may institutional associate consti projects with the notion of

a societal these at be

that we

modernity?
context

Clearly
projects the time

it would
became of

be highly misleading
realized

to suggest

universally their intellectual truth. and is than

in the European

further remained

from

the

Instead, highly to

conception. Nothing the new institutional controversial the western were still in prac part of constitu

embattled attention states

tical affairs in Europe throughout

Even most if our Europe, European tional monarchies rather

the following

century and a

limited in that

region democracies parliamentary by eastern In the end of the nineteenth the century. part, as already to constitutional the transition from absolutistic out, pointed was no means monarchical forms of government by complete century. by the turn of the nineteenth Indeed, end across Europe on the eve of World of 1789. of War Even truly I, radical inWestern universal

conservatives
Europe,

spoke of the ideas of 1914 as finally putting an

effects political of those order in terms

to the detrimental a modern

suffrage did not become a full institutional reality until the end of World War II. Despite these facts, it is still possible to speak
in a meaningful of modernity and its institutional way projects as a societal a sense in as of the word: reality specific namely, a new set of promissory notes. These formu notes, promissory lated and promulgated and even partially if for implemented, came brief periods of time, at the turn of the eighteenth century, to have core were At relevance. their notions self of global and historical consciousness. agency, reflexivity, tional projects became of continuous the object never institutional battles; they could again be the attention of such These discursive exorcised institu and from

in the European context. is battles This so what stated in his memoirs. Tocqueville clearly were a compre The Vienna and the Holy Alliance Congress to unthink hensive effort the consequences of the French Revo lution and to restore It became the Old almost Regime immediately and make clear tradition. safe for Europe that this program

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50
was cal

Bj?rn Wittrock
an unrealizable one in the French the politi it impossible to of pre-Revolutionary France. forces found and 1820s not only the reactionary thought context. Even

of the pro-resurrection thought return to the intellectual landscape

in the 1810s France witnessed Instead, of such post-revolutionary confrontation

with
of

a strong tradition of radical political unexpected rise of a live liberal discourse.

thought but also the Similarly, the period

in of

if centrally and state directed, reform efforts fundamental, a war in few in after its the defeat of Prussia years Germany

1806

against Napoleon
became

was

a decisively
feature

brief one. Yet

of intellectual

its
and

implications

a permanent the Decembrist not an

political
down a long

life far beyond the borders of the German

Russia, the regime, was of decisively rising of 1825, isolated but event,

lands. Even
easily put the first in often cen

in absolutist by series of new

modernist

enough
tury.

a desperate institutional initially on

nature,

political the throughout

projects, following

The or, reference makes posing wieldy

as was

often

points

whether projects, they were adopted the case, became inevitable rejected, a truly global It is this feature scale. that modernity institutional without gridlock is not Thus, reality. modernity set of philosophical of a small and Such implementation universal acclaim of has a im unduly on an un

to talk about it possible a rigid and misleading and complex historical to universal or acclaim endorsement

equivalent

the principles crucial institutional existed

adoption recent and then only past, even cases when in those these reality early on, Even more their internal

projects. in any European country of a set of institutions

few never

at any point in time. Universal the very did not exist until in parts of Europe. Furthermore, institutions became differed need notes. a societal dramati to rethink relationships is an urgent there of promissory

cally. the collapse GOOD-BYE

important, of whole regimes

TO ALL THOSE HOPES: TWO FIN-DE-SI?CLES of of the the nineteenth intellectual, century political, it seemed and in the elite self of

RETHINKING At the turn

understanding

cultural

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Modernity:
Europe about ket and America alike as to be overcome.

One, None,
if the crisis of

or Many?
of modernity an unbridled

51
were mar

economy might naive The policies. be overcome

the dangers Thus, be countered through scientific through determinism an appreciation in Strindberg's of their own bureaucracy and light.

well-informed social era of a previous of the importance phrase, with be for an era a

might

of volition

and aesthetic

judgment. Antiquated
famous

and inefficient

bureaucracies?preoccupied, the payment administering replaced by of a legal-rational era of air

salaries?might appropriate

modern
arrival

constitutional
a new

polity. World pollution,

exhibitions
It was

heralded

the
of

to be

industrial growth without

of social change with

an

of traditional values and customs, of urban growth appreciation cities amidst and invented of garden newly pastoral landscapes, movement communication and of without social global friction, without of national without strife, development competition war. was to be contained National assertiveness in colonial endeavors science An and Olympic games. was to thrive amidst at the turn increasingly international im nationally conferences. rule, to be colo

of the century, constitutional and seemed property parliamentary rights, democracy even within reach everywhere in the civilized world. Yes, nies might maturity. civility, violence the of To be elevated It was in due to course to the status

portant To liberals

of dominions

and equal partners once they had achieved the required level of
a world of measured envisage and home self-control, rule, with personal political to outer and uncontrolled the impulses relegated fringes possible or whether distant deserts and mountains world, interior of persons and continents, those hearts it seemed of uprooted be. Conservative as and long nightmare masses enraged rising intellectuals even if the of in

of the civilized inaccessible darkness. the

conservatives, commune, as can

the Paris was

armed rebellion, had subsided for good and that social order
as stable seemed

to hold out the promise that the pernicious and divisive ideas of 1789 might be relegated to the ideological past. And the social
a steady growth with of parliamentary ists, confident represen tation and membership in trade unions and the socialist party, a firm guarantee the Socialist of per and, with International,

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52
petual become

Bj?rn Wittrock
peace, proudly proclaimed the century of socialism. of humankind. at the cannot end but of such evoke a century, these The sadness. scale that expectations tragedies evade our of of the a time twen that And the new some to century was even Utopians spoke

of the new century as the century of the child, if so the first in

the history Today, long tieth past

century even when we unimaginable soldiers were

are of

they imagination are cognitively aware of them. It is today almost to consider tens of thousands the time when of the consent of their governments and

sent, with

the blessing of public opinion in their home countries, each day to their deaths during the major battles of the Great War. It is
unfathomable permanent the corner to overtake the sixteenth and have the fear of deeply never for his embark how peace when even and for socialists and universal the scale of in fact and pacifists brotherhood the could were and lower that imagine around just came rapidly civil wars of

of bloodletting

the horrors seventeenth and of

religious centuries. The

the masses

the revolt

of the

conservatives. long perturbed the ruthlessness and presaged

revolution, had classes, it could However, terror that the very

fear of

same Bolshevists who

policies upon of of

had so eloquently
and a vastly in Eastern

condemned
larger scale.

the Tsar
soon

imprisonment if on themselves, towns and cities

deportations

would

To
comed Russians

read accounts

today from World War

I of how Jewish

inhabitants

reading It is even graphical painful counts

wel Europe warmly in the German because and Austrian troops ousting seen to bring orderliness is like and safety they were an account from an unknown and unimaginable world. difficult notes, to of learn human The that for us today to read Klaus and Mann's autobio that German tormented ac Turning Kafka's Point, short to realize his

high culture in Prague was by and large a Jewish culture. It is

trauma?and stories, think about that most terrible

story, "In the Penal Colony," a story painfully difficult to read with the knowledge of the events of the 1930s and 1940s?
when met human read with aloud laughter, condition.14 in literary in Prague in the salons as hilariously accounts humorous 1920s, were of the frail

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Modernity:
When moment epitomized Friedrich that Paulsen wrote science

One, None,
his and account German of

orMany?
for the great

53
uni

versity exposition

in Chicago

in 1893, he did not doubt for a

higher education American

German

scholarship. in particular Abraham Flexner, scholars, by and large agreed. so When Paulsen?later much admired reading by educational Tse the world, and teachers around Mao scholars including tung?or was Weber, or Dilthey, or Husserl, within that or Meinecke, a few decades, or Hiritze, be

the highest

achievements

it is not possible
the notion but nothing of crimes beyond so much scholars the To road write not

to envisage

that anywhere
a devastated

in their thinking
might

that Germany, a heap of rubble, comprehension, admired and

nation, pariah guilty the high culture all these was but one step on epitomized

to the German about

fundamental simply

catastrophe. these modernity today without rethinking notes breaches of the promissory of modernity is have forced of cultural processes possible. They that are yet to be completed.

reinterpretation MODERNITY:

ONE OR MANY?

in terms of a conjunction, thus be delineated may Modernity a set with of of and cultural, institutional, global implications, In shifts. the discussion about the contemporary cosmological or two of modern have societies, diversity uniformity positions occupied First, In the wake racy institutional parts vide forms the will a prominent there is a stance of outside of academic discourse. place that might be labeled liberal historicism. the collapse of the Soviet Union, liberal democ in the come form particular to exhibit in recent are that decades seen to pro These these in

and market of North sole

economy, have practices America

the world. so naive entail

Europe, of social models legitimate organization. to be embraced, then come if with time lags, across to say, the adherents are not Needless of this view

and Western

as to assume that this type of global diffusion would a development or even toward homo cultural, linguistic, mean no reason It does, to that there is however, geneity. fundamental innovation institutional that would any expect transcend these types of liberal institutional arrangements.

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54

Bj?rn Wittrock
If such an innovation were sense to occur, and would it would be unreasonable from sense entail a departure or variation. This

in an almost modernity, "More already may

Hegelian not its further

development that

has been nicely

important, contains had

captured
I think the

by the philosopher
contemporary for its own revolution

Richard
liberal

Rorty:
society

institutions last

improvement....

Indeed, my hunch
have the

is that Western
conceptual a common that with

social and political

that

thought in the
cultural as

it needs."15 and

Other
coming order.

less sophisticated
emergence It is ironic of

liberals have expressed

global political these views tend culture ever these have about

beliefs

to observe authors Prussia.

to exhibit

features many of the countries

in common

the political as Hegel's views To that

of the home early are arguments been taken up the of thesis a of

did with

extent, nineteenth-century same to kinds that the of open objections in connection with the discussion earlier elevate the

convergence. experiences single They simply to the status of a world historical However, country yardstick. as of modernity the notion be rejected while this position may a common be retained. condition may global on the attention is a position focuses that there Second, to of each them current life forms and cultural of array assigns are seen to a larger civilizational entities These compose entity. to cultural amount tectonic that move what almost and, plates each but sometimes merge other, upon rarely violently, impinge or blend what tions as into each that other. At a kind is based on least of might research constitute since Toynbee, there has been in international-rela tradition of this type. Sometimes, served as this view a multiplic have tended

a view

in the case

a basis

and his of Toynbee of a plea for understanding, In other

followers, even respecting, the inferences

forms. ity of cultural to be more hard-nosed, that values To natural their diffused "the others" the that might authors close about

cases,

against cautioning come to embrace do. to this or to a multiplicity

naive hopes allegedly the same "Western" it is positions, True enough, with institutions, become also as

scholars, to speak

analogous of modernities.

a set of

technological, in the origins across

and political economic, context have of Western Europe, at least as ideals, sometimes the globe

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Modernity:
working realities. do These at not

One, None,

or Many?

55

and adaptation, of diffusion processes mean cultural and all that however, deep-seated Western differences say, between, China, Europe, cosmological are about to disappear. It only means that these and Japan to adapt to and refer to a set of entities have cultural different

globally
these

diffused

ideas and practices.

characterized

In their core identities,

societies

remain

earlier periods during much are located these periods centuries. These thirteenth ways in themselves but been

by the form they acquired of cultural whether crystallization, or to in in the axial tenth the age core identities have, of course, al

reinterpretation, profound zations, are now I think

cosmological and it would

they and

of change and processes undergoing to structure have continued the most societal of their civili assumptions to believe naive that they theo convergence the conception of Modernity in this its

suddenly this is a valid

be exceedingly to disappear. about critique a valid

of different of

ries. However,

it is not

that I have modernity sense so much is not

tried a new

critique to outline above. unified

extensiveness, unparalleled ness. Rather, is a set of promissory notes, modernity some minimal of hopes and expectations that entail of adequacy that may be demanded of macrosocietal tions no matter how much these institutions may In both cultural and institutional respects. from the very of its basic ideas inception

in civilization, global in its intrusiveness and destructive

i.e., a set conditions institu in other

differ

terms, modernity, in Europe, has been

characterized
forms and that points as structuring wide certain scale.

by a high degree of variability

constructions. globally It has relevant institutional

in institutional

conceptual have become

behind principles we look may Thus,

reference provided and that have served on a world projects

structuring principles condition. The existence global does not mean that members are about to relinquish their sumptions, much that the less their however, and transformation tures cannot but continuous of those take account

as an age when upon modernity come a common to define have of this common

condition global of any single cultural community as and ontological cosmological institutions. It means, traditional reinterpretation, struc institutional of the global

interpretation, and commitments of

the commonality

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56
condition has

Bj?rn Wittrock
been an of modernity. inherent part This feature basic even characteristic in the restricted of modernity context of that is

the Western becoming MODERNITY

It is now of Europe. on a global scale. apparent AS A GLOBAL CONDITION

a characteristic

In all periods of fundamental cultural and institutional a new sense a new of historical lization, consciousness,

crystal sense of

the place of the thinking and acting self, has emerged. Indeed, intense activities intellectual of a critical, and reflex historical, are among ive nature the key defining features of periods of major middle of cultural of crystallization. the first millennium and renaissance This b.c.16 of is true of It is also cultural the axial true of ecumenes age in the the period in many thirteenth in a range in Empire

assessment These

parts of centuries.

the world

in the period from the tenth to the were manifested latter developments and Ottonian caliphate

of phenomena, from the Carolinian in the Western Western and Europe to those of neo-Confucianism. Spain cultural the late constitution eighteenth In all these other of

Similarly, in the European of modernity and early nineteenth centuries.17

of Umayyad it is true of the context of

personal it also form generalizable chasm the between bridge order. all Consciousness also of cases

limits

such reflection has had periods, as one of its existence finite out brought the mundane the existence a discourse

the physical in but foci, to in

on ways and the transcendental of such a chasm were

to consciousness about institutional linked prac serve to The discourse tices that might transcend that chasm. about such transcendence be religious and philosophical, might or as in the as in the axial age, ecumenical, ecclesiastically twelfth and thirteenth in Europe philosophical the first time centuries in the reflection in world matters say, in Europe. In the formation of late eighteenth and early nineteenth was, po however, explicitly history, located or reflexivity and political public as ecclesiastical sphere, such critical

modernity centuries, litical. For about sphere,

fundamental rather than,

the

a religious

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Modernity:
the locale necessary efficacious for

One, None,

or Many?
to be

57
institu

transcendental

reflection

tionally

However, there were societies. order this between the most

an idea of ethical in manifesting life. to see that already it is important in this respect, dramatic differences between different European is maybe political

in a number of countries, and France Thus, noticeable the formation of a modern case, a strongly stance. In some involved anticlerical involved the sphere political described not a mundane of

anticlericalism

transposition transcendental Endowing times been totalitarian famous

periods, of the chasm only a rejection a and a transcendental it involved realm; in the of a temporal linearity conception to order as the mundane with sphere. a millenarian telos has some

democracy, book.18 However, tinuation of a medieval As becomes

Jacobinism, to paraphrase it may also tradition

the origins of signaling the title of J. L. Talmon's as the con be described

Gnostic, thought. of political order

a consequence that of serving as a tool for the forces of light in an inescapable and uncompromising against struggle the forces of darkness and evil. However, nor stance in many parts a Jacobin-Gnostic goes for Britain. of Europe, neither one was ever In the Low Countries, an very antireligious prominent. Scandinavia, Protestant

to say not of millenarian, of such thought, the telos

This and

clearly

a widely diffused and state-supported Prussia, sometimes of a pietistic in the seventeenth had nature, ethic, so to not as served bolster much the century spirit of capitalism state. In these countries the spirit of the early modern territorial a such religious sentiments remained in societal vital force life. In Prussia to be and some other German this ethic tended states, linked to a notion reformed

greatly on the other from within manifested so-called backbone of

to royal prerogative, if in a state of service in the early nineteenth In century. Scandinavia, movements and opposition reform hand, sprang up state churches the Lutheran and sometimes also in the formation of Protestant came sects and a Churches. In many opposition to form in the course

themselves Free of democratic

cases, they to royal power

the nineteenth

century.

Thus,

itwould
as

be deeply misleading
involving a uniform

to describe the formation

process of secularization.

of modernity

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58

Bj?rn Wittrock
that a previous came sphere societies. chasm between a mundane and to be differentially

it meant Rather, a transcendental in different nineteenth lization are directly in particular axial age

reinterpreted

European centuries

The formation of modernity

when

in the late eighteenth

of cultural parts of

and early
crystal the world

is the first major period in different transformations For of the other associated with

interconnected. those in the middle

transformations, epochal of the so-called the concept b.c. and first millennium the in the of the world parts co are striking temporal case there are no demon an In apparently the second

in many transformations profound to thirteenth there tenth centuries, occurrences. in the first However, strable similar case, linkages nature some to account in different

of for developments of the world. parts

connectedness have been about historical hypotheses rather substantiated. remain than but suggestive they proposed, came a series of developments In the formation of modernity, a crystallization of a new and jointly constituted type together of its societal and order. This occurred teenth early to this consequences specific events for immediate repercussions Of discourses at the nineteenth in the period of the was not it but centuries, context. and It had civilizations late eigh in limited direct across and the

course, globe. institutions and societal involved There

about turn

history, language, of the eighteenth wide of differences political

agency, century not reform,

only but between and tional was There there never was

contesting positions. as already were, emphasized, and adversaries between proponents the were one never restricted of modern advocates significantly in different single of different different European

schools, philosophical institu and intellectual countries.

traditions

homogeneity European societal

homogenous of

there Thus, of conception modernity. even in societal institutions, There an was, from the very undeni cultural This

the most origins able and forms, became had other

setting. institutions, of variety of Western once the

easily observable even in the context even more obvious

empirically and institutional and Central institutional in Europe

Europe.

been

regions

conceptualized originally This of the world.

multiformity

that projects were to spread means that we

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Modernity:
may that reason and be speak of a variety of institutions origins still to assume that an all and these

One, None,
roots of

or Many?

59

of different

civilizations cosmological will that across we may condition in dialogue just now

in the sense thinking

are highly different

in different parts of the world. There

differences worldwide

is no

encompassing, by replaced is a global condition However, modernity our and actions, habits, interpretations, irrespective to. claim scale that we of which In this have civilizational roots it is a common sense, live in and with, engage to reach out to grasp.

fade away civilization. affects all and

nations have on

that we

or lay a global and about,

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For helpful comments on an earlier version of this text, I am John grateful Hall, to Johann Hans Joas,

Veena S. N. Eisenstadt, Arnason, Das, Tu Weiming, and Peter Wagner.

Stephen

Graubard,

ENDNOTES
^he distinction between temporal and substantive conceptions of modernity is

taken from Bernard Yack, The Fetishism of Modernities: sciousness in Contemporary Social and Political Thought
University of Notre Dame Press, 1998). While I share

Epochal Self-Con (Notre Dame, Ind.:

basic epistemo and cultural

Yack's

logical critique, I disagree with his argument that it is not possible and mean
to analyze ingful transformations. 2This theme was modernity as the conjunction of a set of societal

explored

in the

Summer

1998

issue

of Dcedalus

on

"Early

Modernities."

3Pierre Manent,
versity Press,

An Intellectual History
1994), 80-83; see also

of Liberalism
Pierre Manent,

(Princeton: Princeton Uni

La cit? de l'homme (Paris:

"The Modern State," inNew French Thought: Fayard, 1994) and Manent, Political Philosophy, ed. Mark Lilla (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), 123-133. 4KeithMichael Baker, "Enlightenment and the Institution of Society: Notes for a inMain Trends in Cultural History: Ten Essays, ed. Conceptual History," Willem Melching andWyger Velema (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1994), 95-120.

5Johan Heilbron, The Rise of Social Theory (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995); "French Moralists and the Anthropology of theModern Era: On Heilbron,
the Genesis of the Notions of 'Interest' and 'Commercial Society,'" in The Rise

of the Social Sciences and the Formation ofModernity: Conceptual Change in ed. Johan Heilbron, Lars Magnusson, and Bj?rn Context, 1750-1850, Wittrock (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1998), 77-106.

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60

Bj?rn Wittrock
of Liberalism, Compl?tes, 82. Tome XII, Souvenirs (Paris: of

6Manent, An Intellectual History 7Alexis de Tocqueville, Oeuvres Gallimard, 1964), 30.

8Reinhart Koselleck, Critique and Crisis: Enlightenment Modern Society (Oxford: Berg, 1987): 5 f.
9Ibid., 6.

and the Pathogenesis

10Robert Wokler,
Pangs of Modernity,"

"The Enlightenment
in Heilbron,

and the French Revolutionary

and Wittrock, eds., The

Birth
Rise

Magnusson,

of the Social Sciences and the Formation

of Modernity,

35-76.

nRobert Wokler, "Saint-Simon and the Passage from Political to Social Science," in The Language of Political Theory in Early Modern Europe, ed. Anthony Pagden (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 325-338. 12Such a definition of the concept of civilization is proposed by Willard G. Oxtoby in his article "Rivals, Survivals, Revivals," inWorld Religions: West ern Traditions, ed.Willard G. Oxtoby (Toronto, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), chap. 5. 13See, e.g., Talcott Parsons, The Evolution Prentice-Hall, 1977). of Societies (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:

am grateful to Professor Ion Ianosi in Bucharest for pointing this out to me in 14I a conversation during the time in 1996-1997 when we were both Fellows of the Collegium Budapest. 15Richard Rorty,
University 16See, e.g., Press, Karl

Contingency,
1989), The 63. Jaspers,

Irony, and Solidarity

and Goal of History

(Cambridge: Cambridge
(New Haven, Conn.:

Origin

Yale University Press, 1953); "Wisdom, Revelation, and Doubt: Perspectives on the First Millennium b.c.," Dcedalus 104 (2) (Spring 1975); Shmuel N.
Eisenstadt, ed., Kulturen der Achsenzeit, 3 vols. (Frankfurt am Main:

Suhrkamp, 1992); and Eisenstadt, ed., The Origins (New York: SUNY Press, 1986). Age Civilizations
17For a discussion of early modern Europe and its

and Diversity
to

of Axial
Islam, see

relationship

(Princeton: Princeton Univer Judith Herrin, The Formation of Christendom sity Press, 1987); but also the essay by David Abulafia, "Islam in the History in Islam and Europe in Past and Present, ed. Henk of Early Europe," Institute for Advanced Study in the Hu (Wassenaar: Netherlands Wesseling manities and Social Sciences, 1997), 9-23. (New York: Praeger, 18J.L. Talmon, The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy 1960). See also S.N. Eisenstadt, Paradoxes of Democracy: Fragility, Continu ity, and Change (Baltimore, Md.: John Hopkins University Press, 1999), 33-41.

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