Comparative Civilizations Review
Volume 25
Number 25 Fall 1991
Article 7
10-1-1991
Nationalism, Modernization, and the Polylogue of
Civilizations
Vytautus Kavolis
Dickinson College
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Kavolis, Vytautus (1991) "Nationalism, Modernization, and the Polylogue of Civilizations," Comparative Civilizations Review: Vol. 25:
No. 25, Article 7.
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Kavolis: Nationalism, Modernization, and the Polylogue of Civilizations
NATIONALISM, MODERNIZATION,
AND THE POLYLOGUE OF CIVILIZATIONS
V Y T A U T A S KAVOLIS
T h e resurgence of nationalism in Eastern Europe, in both
h u m a n e and violent forms, invites a reconsideration of the
theoretical perspectives in which it is most frequently viewed. Not
only its vitality, but also its variety of forms need to be accounted
for.
Social scientists have tended to explains nationalism either as a
product of industrialization exacerbated by uneven economic development, or as a response to external domination and division
of lands claimed as sacredly one's own, or as a deflection f r o m
class struggle, or as an atavistic throwback. In most of these explanations, nationalism is considered as in principle both temporary and abnormal.
It is evident that nationalism must also be viewed in relation to
the accelerated modernization of culture and intensifying intercivilizational encounters, and interpreted as a perennial, not
necessarily unhealthy feature of these processes. 1
The Inevitable Diversity of Modernizing Culture
"Modernizing" trends are as ancient as civilization itself. They
can certainly be traced f r o m the Axial Age of Karl Jaspers. 2
European cultural modernization may be said to have started in
the twelfth century (Abelard). It came in several waves with distinguishable programs and in several ideological and national
variants.
T a k e n as a whole, cultural modernization begs to be understood as a process that occurs on several levels and is capable of
moving in opposite directions at different times or even simultaneously. First there are the modernizing thrusts toward individualism (recognition of the substantive claims of separate individualities), historicity (the conception of everything meaningful
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as created by h u m a n beings over time), impersonally systematized
and f u n c t i o n i n g rationality, universalism (application of the same
normative a n d legal s t a n d a r d s to all h u m a n beings), a n d h u m a n i zation (evaluation of rules by w h e t h e r they benefit o r h a r m
h u m a n beings).
T h e s e thrusts p r o d u c e a collection of thinking a n d acting practices so d i f f e r e n t i a t e d , abstract, a n d seemingly artificial that, at
the "archaic" level of any tradition u n d e r g o i n g modernization,
local, unified hierarchies of values repeatedly reconstitute themselves. It is at this level that archaic nationalism, with its reliance
on ex toto reasoning a n d heavy ritualization, arises. It is quite
d i f f e r e n t f r o m m o d e r n i z i n g nationalism, of which the A m e r i c a n
case, with its ex parte logic a n d light ritualization, is a prototype.
W h a t constitutes itself as archaic designs within m o d e r n i z i n g
cultures promises the restoration of some sense of undivided
unity that is perceived to have been d i s r u p t e d by modernization. 3
While this process draws u p o n existing "survivals" f o r some o r a
great many of its raw materials, the restorationist e n e r g y derives
f r o m the dynamics g e n e r a t e d by cultural modernization. T h e
merely decorative uses of "folk culture" lack this energy.
In addition to its p r e s u m e d antecedent, m o d e r n i t y also constructs its inverse (or r a t h e r an assortment of inverses). W h a t is
a f f i r m e d in t h e m o d e r n i z i n g p r o c e s s is r e j e c t e d in a n t i m o d e r n i s t reactions. But what is a n t i m o d e r n i s t has absorbed
the impact of modernization a n d carries it within its own attitudes
even while p r e s e n t i n g itself as its opposite. T h e a n t i m o d e r n i s t
p h e n o m e n o n is not an "organic" wholeness. It r a t h e r manifests
itself as o n e o r a n o t h e r kind of r e p u d i a t i o n (or "deconstruction")
of the several modernistic thrusts—traces of which it continues to
carry within itself as its negative identity, its polemical context.
I n s o f a r as the a n t i m o d e r n is the inversion of the modernistic, it
remains within the same "system" as the modernizing. 4 But in
seeking to destroy the m o d e r n i z i n g "system" the a n t i m o d e r n i s t
subverts the legitimacy of hierarchy a n d duality, which are generally employed by the "system"-oriented m o d e r n i z e r s as well as by
m a n y archaic reconstructionists, especially those w h o draw u p o n
a b a c k g r o u n d of monotheistic religion. (Western archaic reconstructionists w h o a r e inspired by traditional Asian religions o r by
a quest f o r a mythical women's culture may consciously reject
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dualistic and hierarchic models. T h e s e frequently c r e e p in
nevertheless into what they construct.)
T h e r e is also a structurally problematic but ever-reviving
egalitarian, democratic-culture, "life-world"-oriented stream of
cultural modernization. It tends to flow over into antimodernism,
but ought to be distinguishable f r o m the latter by the continued
affirmation of rationality, historicism, individuality, humanism,
and universalism—"the unfinished project of the Enlightenment" (model: Habermas) at its most mystical, that is without
hierarchy or duality in it. T h e disconnectedness f r o m everything
archaic is most complete here.
T h e antimodernist seeks either an inversion of the symbolic
structure of modernity or its annihilation. In the f o r m e r case, a
search for archaically firm points of reference, which modernism
tends to eliminate, may result. In the latter case, as a result of the
repudiation of both archaic and modernizing principles of o r d e r
as well as of the directional orientations ("metanarratives") of
modernism, there arises a strong inclination toward cognitive incoherence. This is in s h a r p contrast to various versions of the
modernizing culture which may conflict with each other and refuse to be ontologically or metaphysically g r o u n d e d but which are
generally, in each case, ideologically only too coherent.
It seems analytically efficient in sociological usage to reserve the
concept of the /ws^modern to either (a) perceptions of unmotivated side-by-side presences of elements of modernizing projects
and antimodernist reactions to them (the aggregative or assemblage phase of postmodernity), or (b) efforts to establish connections between them (the configurational or bridge-building
phase of postmodernity, these phases being possible steps of its
c u l t u r a l m a t u r a t i o n ) . In each case, diversity, flow, multiperspectivalness, and a fragmentary multiculturalism are features of the postmodern. 5
We argue that cultural modernization is a process occurring
necessarily, though not always simultaneously, on three levels:
the modernizing-antimodernist split at the center of the process;
archaic restorationist programs in its depths (where the "inner
demons" not only of E u r o p e are most likely to be generated); 6
postmodern reconfigurations of differentiated entities in the
outer space of its most experimental enterprises.
Essential to this conception are the different modes by which
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elements o n each "level" of the process are integrated—to use a
traditional t e r m — i n t o systems o r networks of mutually comprehensible meanings. O n the archaic level, the m o d e of integration is that of a particularistic hierarchy of values. T h e principle
of symbolic hierarchy is retained in most versions of the m o d e r nizing project, but to be valid any m o d e r n hierarchy—as well as
any m o d e r n equality—must m a k e claims to universality. ( T h e
universalizing thrust, originating in the monotheistic religions,
accounts f o r m u c h of the "totalitarian t e m p t a t i o n " in m o d e r n
c u l t u r e — b u t also f o r any prescriptive theory of modernization o r
of "universal civilization").
A n t i m o d e r n i s t reactions generally d o not take cultural integration as a serious issue (or they treat it as an incomprehensible
mystery). A n t i m o d e r n i s m is strongly motivated by a reaction
against established hegemonies which both archaic and m o d e r nistic cultures may be employed to legitimate, w h e t h e r u n d e r the
aegis of a god o r of n a t u r e , reason, o r history.
But the result of suspicion of e v e r y t h i n g that may allow
h e g e m o n i c control is that a n t i m o d e r n i s m comes to rely on t h e
aesthetic imagination nearly alone a n d becomes a f o r m of literat u r e o r theatre b u t not also, in sufficient measure, a crucible of
practical responsibilities. It thus forfeits the capacity, which any
viable culture most possess, of g a t h e r i n g a n d protecting.
T h i s capacity is at least l a t e n t — t h o u g h also fragile—in what is
h e r e conceived of as p o s t m o d e r n culture. T h i s type of culture
does not rely o n hierarchic designs into which both archaic a n d
m o d e r n i z i n g cultures slip easily, t h o u g h sometimes u n i n t e n t i o n ally. P o s t m o d e r n culture can best be described as a collection of a
large, potentially unlimited n u m b e r of m o d e s of discourse in
which o n e m o d e is not in principle subject to the control of any
o t h e r . It attains its own version of cultural integration t h r o u g h
u n e x p e c t e d resonances a m o n g m o d e s of discourse that have been
separated by the m o d e r n i z i n g project into d i f f e r e n t i a t e d realms
of aesthetics, morality, a n d politics, o r into religious a n d secular
m o d e s of t h o u g h t , o r into oppositions between "tradition" a n d
"modernity," the "global" a n d the "local."
Its p o s t m o d e r n culture, the differentiation of spheres of life
a n d of culture accomplished by modernity is not only taken f o r
g r a n t e d b u t a f f i r m e d as a liberating advance. But while m o d e r nizing culture stops h e r e (and e n d s u p in the closed circle of
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infinite fragmentation), postmodern culture, as here conceived,
opens itself u p to the possible congenialities, or resonances, or
even partial conjunctions a m o n g that which modernity has put
asunder.
If archaic restorationism remains a cultural and does not become a political program, the main risk is that it will retard the
development of those who identify with it (unless they find a
futuristic language for talking about the archaic or, vice versa, by
coming "closer to the archaic sources of the national language,"
manage "to say things which had not been said before"). 7 T h e
modernizing thrust possesses tremendous destructive but also
self-correcting capacities. Antimodernist reactions contribute a
great deal of vitality to present-day expressive culture, but also
feed antinomian tendencies in contemporary life, to which a
"normative reaction to normlessness" is a frequent response.
T h e greatest dangers in cultural modernization arise f r o m a
politicized conflation of the modernistic with the archaic—when a
culture aspiring to modernism organizes itself in an archaic manner, as until recently in the Soviet Union, or when archaic culture
adapts modernistic technical means to its purposes, as in Nazi
Germany. 8 When religious fundamentalism, especially of the
monotheistic type, merges with a political purpose, it tends to
follow the latter course.
Globality as the Polylogue of Civilizations
We now shift to another analytical model—that of globalization
theory, which proclaims that the world is becoming "a single,"
though not a unified, "place." 9 It is approaching a condition in
which ontological understandings entertained in its various parts
(though not necessarily of all of its parts at all times) impinge
u p o n the making of decisions in any part.
But most of us take part in the world only t h r o u g h o u r image of
o u r own civilization. W h a t e v e r m i g h t be said a b o u t t h e
emergence of a network of practical interdependences conceivable as the "central civilization," 10 particular civilizations still provide taken-for-granted symbolic frames in contemporary relations of Islam and the West, or East or South Asia and the West, or
Islam and South Asia 11 (and within the West, the f o u r "subcivilizations" of Latin and North America and Western and Eastern
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E u r o p e insist on their distinctiveness, with Western E u r o p e f u n c tioning as the base of extensions to the o t h e r three). T h e surviving
civilizations possess a vital comprehensiveness of symbolic organization that i m p a r t s a large-scale a n d deeply g r o u n d e d ,
t h o u g h frequently latent, self-confidence of which those who subsist outside of the "world-historically significant" sociocultural
f o r m a t i o n s are d e p r i v e d .
T o be sure, c o n t e m p o r a r y civilizations are (as p e r h a p s the ancient N e a r Eastern civilizations were between 1,700 a n d 500
B.C.) 12 in the process of self-reconstruction as a result of m o d e r nization a n d inter-civilizational e n c o u n t e r s . T h e m a i n t e n a n c e of
their own identities has become problematic. T h i s has the conseq u e n c e that b o u n d a r i e s are b l u r r e d , contents i n t e r p e n e t r a t e ,
even central m e a n i n g s become subject to contestations both
within a n d o u t s i d e of p a r t i c u l a r civilizational-traditions-int r a n s f o r m a t i o n , alien g e n r e s suggest themselves f o r uncovering
native experiences. 1 3 Bicivilizational, multiethnic identities o r
identity difractions arise, either f u n c t i o n i n g imaginatively as
workshops in critical translation o r dissolving into the waste
products of "cosmopolitan" consumerism. While this is consciously grasped by a relatively small (though larger than d u r i n g
the p r e c e d i n g millennium o r so) p r o p o r t i o n of h u m a n i t y a n d
proves to be a weak force w h e n it comes to matters as weighty a n d
b i n d i n g u p o n large populations as national interest, religion, o r
economic survival, it is the m a j o r worldwide s p o n t a n e o u s t h r u s t
of f o r m a t i o n of cultural perceptions, against which o t h e r forces
can act only defensively. In the r e m a i n d e r of this essay, we focus
on the majority of h u m a n i t y , who continue in various d e g r e e s of
c o m m i t m e n t a n d sophistication to conceive of themselves in relation to, o r in the implicit terms of, particular civilizational traditions, as even the most "global-humans" d o some of the time.
In the course of globalization, immemorial b u t limited intercivilizational e n c o u n t e r s a r e t r a n s f o r m e d into a continuous, allaffecting polylogue of civilizations. O n the surface level, intercivilizational e n c o u n t e r s take the f o r m of borrowing. Due to various kinds of developmental unevenness, differential power, traditional prestige, and waves of fashion, b o r r o w i n g is frequently,
even commonly asymmetrical. But even while b o r r o w i n g takes
place o n the surface level, m u t u a l criticism (the most primitive
f o r m of which is m u t u a l misinterpretation) occurs o n a d e e p e r
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level—and this can be symmetrical even when uneven development and power differentials are present.
What is meant by mutual criticism is not ritualistic harping on
the other's defects but the coming to grips with another's distinctiveness by engaging one's own distinctiveness with it, a process
which at its deepest approximates Emerson's conception of
friendship as a relationship of "beautiful enemies." Understanding the other's individuality is of course impossible. But one can
aim at formulating mutually intelligible terms for discussing each
other's imponderables, and even cross-cultural misunderstandings can be fruitful: by misreading the text in a particular way one
gives warning of one's own true measure.
Within the globalizing f r a m e of consciousness, mutual criticism
acquires a two-way communicative structure. O n the one hand,
everyone is sooner or later constrained to seekjustification of one's
own behavior in a "universally understandable" idiom—that is, its
explanation either in the m a n n e r of a globally accepted mode of
discourse, such as the rhetorics of culture, nationalism, democracy, or h u m a n rights; or by some demonstration of the empirical
consequences of accepting one or another set of premises. O n the
other hand, one is constantly engaged in judging the "universal
understandings"—that is, the globally accepted modes of discourse and the assumptions of "empiricism"—by one's own
(though not necessarily "traditional") values and in the light of
one's own historical and current experience. 1 4
T h e need tojustify one's own nation, religion, or movement not
only in one's own language but also in a "universally understandable" idiom arises f r o m the increased political and moral relevance of the world system of communications ranging f r o m science to literature to journalism—anything beyond the purely instrumental exchanges of messages in multinational economic and
political relations. T h e j u d g i n g of what functions, at any given
time, as "universal understandings" by one's own standards and
experiences becomes a necessary response, by members of any
self-respecting collectivity, to the impact u p o n them of "international" or "world" systems of communication. But unless efforts
to recover "local," "subjugated" or "marginalized" knowledge—
o r to practice c o m m u n a l l y r o o t e d criticism a la Michael
Walzer 1 5 —are at some point oriented to seekingjustification in a
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universally u n d e r s t a n d a b l e idiom, they stand in d a n g e r of selfindulgence o r provincialism.
" T h e universally u n d e r s t a n d a b l e " is to some extent the immediately h u m a n that transcends all cultural d i f f e r e n c e s (but
c a n n o t be relied u p o n if not symbolically c o n f i r m e d ) . T h e cultural meanings, ideological formulations, s t a n d a r d s of j u d g m e n t
that are "universally u n d e r s t o o d " all come f r o m the culture of
modernity (which is not identical with "Western culture") a n d
consist of those of its elements which, over time, best e n d u r e the
reality tests of the polylogue of civilizations a n d cultures, acquiring s p o n t a n e o u s world-wide a p p e a l — f r o m technological adv a n c e m e n t to notions of h u m a n rights. T h i s revisable selection of
meanings constitutes the idiom in which each particular culture is
increasingly constrained, b u t to varying extents, in p r o p o r t i o n to
its involvement with the "world system," to justify itself. T h e universal is viewed no longer as a substantive set of meanings but as
the ability to communicate, in a mutually u n d e r s t a n d a b l e m a n ner, across all cultural lines, translating what an outsider would
r e g a r d as "illusions" into "hypotheses."
While all cultures, u n d e r conditions of globalization, may challenge the "universal u n d e r s t a n d i n g s " by their own values a n d
experiences, only civilizations possess sufficiently d i f f e r e n t i a t e d
intellectual f r a m e w o r k s to sustain o r develop a m u t u a l critique as
entities equally capable of a d d r e s s i n g the broadest conceivable
r a n g e of problems. T h i s is what gives a special significance to the
polylogue of civilizations, as distinguished f r o m "intercultural relations" f o r which the possession of a c o m p r e h e n s i v e c o m p e t e n c e
is not r e q u i r e d . T h e r e is an asymmetry between the political a n d
cultural m o d e s of participation in the "world system": a nationstate is sufficient in the first case, civilizations serving as matrices
within which less c o m p r e h e n s i v e entities assert themselves remain the main players in the global culture. S u p e r p o w e r s a r e
e x p e n d a b l e , civilizations are not.
By i n c o r p o r a t i n g the habit of critical responsiveness to universal discourses, a r e p e r t o i r e of translations, into at least their activities that have been a f f e c t e d by m o d e r n education and extensive travel abroad, the m o d e of o p e r a t i o n of c o n t e m p o r a r y civilizations changes irretrievably, even when many of their structures
a p p e a r to r e m a i n "traditional" to themselves. T h i s in some ways
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complicates or even confuses their operational procedures by introducing a dual inner-outer system of reference, a bifocal vision
(not the same as Arnold Toynbee's "schism in the soul"). But the
dual r e f e r e n c e may also provide an otherwise unobtainable
source of pressure for updating aspects of civilizational traditions
which the universal-particular kind of reality testing reveals to be
"outdated without redeeming merit." T h e present period has, in
the world-wide communications network, more effective means,
with self-correcting, "democratic" and "balancing" procedures
built into it, f o r seeking the latter outcome than have earlier times
of "civilizational crisis."
T h e polylogue of civilizations and cultures can occur wherever
m i n d s o p e n u p b e y o n d the t a k e n - f o r - g r a n t e d systems of
categories and balancing styles of one civilization. This could be
the universal purpose of post-high school humanistic education.
Its primary social supports will be the universities, world media,
international scholarly associations, a n d culture-critical
movements—to the extent that they are all set u p in such a way as
not to consist of "official representatives" of collectivities or
ideological bodies; and, on the other hand, are not committed to
some blandly programmatic "citizenship of the world" (the incomplete humanity of which becomes evident when it comes to
raising one's children). 1 6
T h e universal justification—particular j u d g m e n t dialectic allows civilizations, nations within them, and multinational religions and ideological movements to retain nonprovincial cultural
vitality (and a sense of realism) even when inundated by borrowings f r o m elsewhere, whether of "high" or of "mass" culture. It is
thus a precondition for the maintenance of civilizational identities
in today's world. And a c o n t e m p o r a r y definition of "being
civilized."
T h e globalizing process poses problems for postmodern culture which the latter in its perpetually unfinished, exploratory
condition, may lack firmness of s h a p e a n d balanced selfconfidence to be able to resolve. Unless the postmodern is rooted
in something other than itself, it falls short in stabilizing capacity,
reliable moral commitments, even practical j u d g m e n t .
But other forms of modernizing culture are no better in providing guidance in coming to grips with globalization. Antimodernist
c u l t u r e , in dissolving reliable s t r u c t u r e s of m e a n i n g into
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"simulacra," 1 7 cannot sustain anything. Modernistic culture bec o m e s f o r m a l , h e g e m o n i s t i c , over-explicit, m i n d - b o g g l i n g l y
c u m b e r s o m e . Even the practical gifts it distributes to g r a t e f u l
recipients t u r n o u t to be m e a n s f o r s u b d u i n g , absorbing, o r
e x h a u s t i n g the vitality of the identities of others. A n d archaic
restorationism is always provincial, with unbridgeable gaps between g r o u p s : tears only f o r the fallen on one's own side, perpetual chewing of one's own totemic beast in the cultural j o u r nals.
For these reasons, I hypothesize that viable responses to the
challenges of globalization can be p r o d u c e d only by culturally
stratified entities—that is, by nations, c h u r c h e s o r civilizational
m o v e m e n t s which i n c o r p o r a t e into their symbolic designs the
modernistic-antimodernist split, archaic restorationist p r o g r a m s ,
a n d p o s t m o d e r n resonances—and are not so u n c o m f o r t a b l e
about the d i f f e r e n c e s of content a n d accent a m o n g t h e m as to
become either rigidly polarized o r frenetically stagnated.
Neither science n o r a generalized "religion of h u m a n i t y " can
become a viable response to globalization, if only because n e i t h e r
is capable of g e n e r a t i n g a g e n u i n e archaic e l e m e n t in which particular communities a r e g r o u n d e d . Stratified m o d e r n i z i n g cultural systems—not only religion but also nationalism—are better
qualified to r e s p o n d to globalization.
Toward a Postmodern
Nationalism?
G r o u n d e d in the principle that all collective individualities of
the same type are morally entitled to equality of t r e a t m e n t , nationalism is a p r o d u c t of m o d e r n Western civilization, compelled
to assert itself by the r e q u i r e m e n t of the international system that
only entities possessing their own state organizations will be fully
recognized as significant political a n d t h e r e f o r e also cultural
presences in the world.
Civilizational c o n f i g u r a t i o n a n d international system account
f o r the general " m o d e r n i t y " of nationalism (and f o r its Westernderived elements everywhere), b u t they d o not explain either the
strong presence of " n o n m o d e r n " f e a t u r e s in most versions of
nationalism, o r its variability along the h u m a n e - v i r u l e n t axis, o r
its s h o r t e r - t e r m resurgences a n d submergences, p e r h a p s best
conceived as activations a n d deactivations, in particular regions.
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T h e theory of stratified cultural modernization is intended to
account for the first of these problems. T h e second is best approached t h r o u g h a comparative culture history focusing on the
social uses of traditional and emergent symbolic designs (in which
globalization becomes an increasingly central issue), and the third
by drawing u p o n structural and functional explanatory logics as
they are currently employed in empirical social research.
A nation is a community of participation and of historical experience; imagined by its members as either a representation in
action of a "natural" language (as tends to be the case in Europe
and the eastern Mediterranean) or as the creation of a series of
collective decisions to establish a joint f o r m of existence (Switzerland and the U.S.); and in fact held together both by a shared,
distinctive set of cultural premises and an evolving political purpose respected by most of its members. 1 8
Nationalism is a conception of the cultural identity of a nation
which becomes a mobilizing political p r o g r a m even when the nation is (as to some extent it always is) in the process of being
invented. National identity is what, unless it is either culturally
put into question or politically endangered, does not need to be
explicitly declared about one's sense of being more at h o m e in one
this-worldly community of participation and historical experience than in any other.
T h e close alignment of culture with politics is perhaps the most
general source of the dangers which nationalism has presented
not only to the world, but to the members of the nations it sought
to represent, to revive, or to "build." This alignment gives to
nationalism a deeper, quasi-religious kind of power, an ability to
overwhelm, which "normal" political forces generally lack. It
leads to the exploitation of culture by politics.
Democracy in particular benefits f r o m loosening the connections between culture and politics, so that important symbolic
quests cannot be monopolized by particular political forces. 1 9
Like religion, national identity operates optimally in a democratic
setting when its distinguishing marks are distributed over a range
of political organizations and over a series of cultural programs,
the two distributions far f r o m coinciding with each other, and not
divided rigorously along the lines of "majority" and "minority"
groups. In what follows we will be mainly concerned with na-
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tionalisms as conceptions of collective identity—in their cultural
r a t h e r than political aspect.
In its cultural f o r m , nationalism is similar to o t h e r civilizations h a p i n g m o v e m e n t s of the last two c e n t u r i e s — f r o m romanticism
to feminism—in that it relates to all levels of modernization of
culture. In n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y G e r m a n y a n d Eastern E u r o p e
a n d present-day N e a r East, nationalism tends toward the archaic.
American nationalism a n d , to a lesser extent, m a i n s t r e a m F r e n c h
nationalism since the Revolution have been modernizing. 2 0 T h e
crucial issue in distinguishing m o d e r n i z i n g f r o m archaic nationalism is w h e t h e r o n e derives society f r o m individuals having
" h u m a n rights" o r perceives individuals as e m b o d i m e n t s of the
"collective soul" of the nation. 2 1
Nationalism p r e t e n d s at an archaic f o r m w h e n the nation to
which it is o r i e n t e d still needs to be constructed f r o m tribal entities, as currently in sub-Saharan Africa, w h e r e what in E u r o p e
would be "archaic" may a p p e a r as an advance f r o m the " p r i m o r dial." 2 2 In India, a m o r e complex "archaic-modernizing" nationbuilding has not reconciled its conflicting civic, nationalistic, a n d
religious aspects. 2 3 In the Soviet U n i o n a p r o g r a m , modernistic in
its rhetoric b u t archaic in its logic, to force "Soviet patriotism" o n a
largely unwilling multinational population has failed. 2 4 But what
is reasserting itself as a result of the "collapse of C o m m u n i s m , "
even in Russia, is not necessarily nationalism ca. 1917. In Central
E u r o p e , H u n g a r i a n nationalism has probably c h a n g e d most since
1939, toward the modernistic model, Yugoslav nationalisms have
c h a n g e d least. Eastern a n d central E u r o p e is currently a laboratory of the diverse trajectories of the "modernization of nationalisms."
Some less stable twentieth-century f o r m s of nationalism, of the
"blood a n d fire" variety (and Fascism), contain strong c o m p o nents of a n t i m o d e r n i s m . 2 5 It seems possible to identify a postm o d e r n nationalism in some intellectual leaders of the c u r r e n t
upheaval in Central a n d Eastern E u r o p e (Vaclav Havel). 2 6 Anticipations of it could be f o u n d as early as in Mazzini, 2 7 whose cast
of m i n d may in fact be closer to that of today's Central E u r o p e a n
nationalists t h a n Havel's.
A n t i m o d e r n i s t nationalisms manifest themselves as ecstatic
m o v e m e n t s sweeping away both the restraints traditional in ac-
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tual societies (which would be taken seriously in archaic nationalism) and the differentiating, universal categories of modernism. P o s t m o d e r n nationalism conceives society as a nonexclusive, open-frontiers, polyphonic, "multicultural" cooperation integrated by a shared sense of adequacy, an Angemessenheit.
T h e latter may yet come to serve as the "spirit" of the coming
E u r o p e a n supernationalism (from which at least some Central
and Eastern E u r o p e a n nations would p r e f e r not to be excluded).
It seems less likely than other forms of nationalism to lend itself to
"mobilizing" uses.
What distinguishes most clearly a m o n g the four types of nationalism is the notion of the h u m a n quality most to be promoted
by nationalizing political and cultural activities including education. In archaic nationalism, this is the collective dignity derived
f r o m acting in accordance with g r o u p tradition and guaranteed
by the g r o u p to all of its members in proportion to their conformity to its values. A collective conception of dignity is indeed to be
imposed on g r o u p members whether or not, as individuals, they
want to be directed by it. (This is the sense of dignity granted to
women in "orthodox" versions of various religious traditions.) In
modernizing nationalism, the key notion is equality of individual
rights protected by the laws of the nation and enforceable even
against the current consensus prevailing in it, the nation viewed as
the creation of the laws—and increasingly of the international
understandings—it respects. Antimodernistic nationalism centers its attention on the quest for purity, an enthusiasm experienced
in intensified fusion with others presumed to be like oneself,
without being guided by an established framework of g r o u p customs or universal laws. (This characteristic imparts to antimodernistic nationalism more of a quality of "religious" fervor than
other kinds of nationalism tend to possess.) Postmodern nationalism would allow for and recognize the h u m a n quality of
openness and the cultural characteristic of translucence, 2 8 —a
Milosz-like commitment to one's own nation permeated with a
responsiveness to others, a sense of multiple, communicating
identities. (Antimodernist and postmodern activities and h u m a n
beings have tended so far to be less stable than the archaic and the
modernizing, with tendencies to "regress" toward the archaic or
to "seek institutional stability" in the modernizing, as the rhetoric
of contemporary sociology might put it.)
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In o r d e r not to rely o n a single dimension in distinguishing
types of nationalism, we f u r t h e r m o r e anticipate that they will be
m a r k e d by d i f f e r e n t styles of social action f r a m e d by d i f f e r e n t
conceptions of time. Archaic nationalism generally p r e s u m e s a
heritage (or restorability) of reliable habits, simultaneously practical a n d symbolic, in all areas of life. T h e y are seen as o p e r a t i n g in
"sacred," ritualistically c o n f i r m e d (or restorable) time. Modernizing nationalism t e n d s to favor reasoned pragmatics—behavior
controlled by reflection o n principles to be accepted a n d calculations
of practical consequences. Such practices p r e s u p p o s e an "empty,
h o m o g e n e o u s " time always available (in the m o d e r n West, b u t not
quite as m u c h in eastern E u r o p e ) to be filled u p a n d given content
only by t h e m . Antimodernistic nationalism engineers spectacular
stagings—an expressivism o r i e n t e d to a t t a i n i n g c o n c e n t r a t e d
political effect. Such actions r e q u i r e a n "explosive," discontinuous conception of a self-creating a n d self-destroying time, ree m e r g i n g f r o m the graves of some G e r m a n i c o r Scandinavian
mythology. P o s t m o d e r n nationalism o r national identity reveals
itself t h r o u g h spontaneous resonances across p e r m e a b l e b o u n d aries. T i m e t e n d s to become f r a g m e n t e d into a multiplicity of
potentially b u t uncertainly interacting "slices." T h e s e distinctions
are i n t e n d e d to pertain to types of nationalism as well as to o t h e r
civilizational m o v e m e n t s since the French revolution. T h e p u r pose of having two sets of criteria is to get g r e a t e r clarity on what is
m e a n t by locating particular nationalistic o r o t h e r p h e n o m e n a in
relation to cultural modernization.
T h e f o u r basic types of nationalism a n d their various mixes a r e
specific foci of crystallization, p o p u l a r transmission a n d testing of
cultural modernization a n d can be expected, in its course, to recur. But an analysis of the m o r e fully developed p h e n o m e n a of
nationalism—those which e n d u r e in c o n t e m p o r a r y nations—is
likely to reveal the presence s o m e w h e r e in their configurations of
elements located o n all levels of cultural modernization, a n d appealing to d i f f e r e n t g r o u p s in varying intensities. Only this kind
of nationalism, in any case, is likely to m e a s u r e u p to the d e m a n d s
by which cultures are now being j u d g e d .
Nations are not the only foci of crystallization of such cultural
processes. But nationalism (in this respect c o m p a r a b l e to the
"traditional" religions) r e f e r s m o r e t h a n the o t h e r civilizational
m o v e m e n t s of m o d e r n i t y to a c o m m u n i t y that is g r o u n d e d in
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everyday practices, and is "complete" in including, at least potentially, the widest range of individuals regularly active in it. For
these reasons, nationalism has proved to possess a reality rootedness and resiliency superior to that of other civilizational movements of modernity and is likely to persist or keep reviving for a
long time to come.
How much weight the various possible components of nationalism will acquire in a particular case presumably d e p e n d s on
the raw materials of religious and political tradition which a nation can draw u p o n in modernizing its cultures, 2 9 on the current
interplay of influential groups in a society, and on its international setting. T h e most important issue in contemporary studies
of nationalism is whether conditions can be identified which
promote either a virulent or a h u m a n e (that is, neither repressive
n o r violent) kind of nationalism.
Comparative economic failure, perceived externally generated
cultural inundations, a widespread sense of anomie, and large
influxes of immigrants differing in language, religion, or physical
characteristics a p p e a r to be a m o n g the conditions that reduce the
likelihood of nationalism taking a h u m a n e aspect. 30 All of these
conditions are likely to become more prevalent d u r i n g globalization and may set off militant reactions to the polylogue of civilizations. In addition, fusion of nationalism with religion and unsettled territorial claims, particularly those concerned with archaic
(and therefore uncompromisable) sacred spaces and centers,
promote virulent nationalism.
T h e symbolic design of nationalism may be as important as
external social conditions. While there are "traditional" cultures
of moderation into which some nationalist movements may be
absorbed, 3 1 I would expect that in today's world h u m a n e nationalism will d e p e n d on a strong presence in its symbolic designs
of both modernizing and postmodern culture, 3 2 a n d on the participation of its bearers in the polylogue of civilizations, 33 —in the
creation of universally understandable idioms, a n d simultaneously in the j u d g m e n t of universal understandings by their own
values and their own experiences.
This is a position which nationalist intellectuals can take without compromising either their intellect or their identity and without becoming flabby or naive. It is likely that, responding to the
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inevitable challenges of globalization, a significant fraction of
t h e m will c o n t i n u e to take such positions.
Dickinson College
NOTES
1. Cf. Anthony D. S. Smith, Nationalism in the Twentieth Century (New
York: New York University Press, 1979), Chapters 7 and 8.
2. S. N. Eisenstadt, ed., The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations
(Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1986).
3. Undivided unities properly belong to primordial cultural designs.
T h e archaic can be defined by efforts at unification of what has already
been divided, whether by "evolutionary" differentiation, breakdown, or
migration. Such unifications can have either a forward-looking, contraanomic, or a backward-looking, antimodernistic, imaginary restorationist thrust. O r even be both at the same time for different people.
4. T . J. Jackson Lears, No Place of Grace: Antimodernism and the Transformation of American Culture 1880-1920 (New York: Pantheon Books,
1981).
5. Andreas Huyssen, After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture,
Postmodernism (Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana University Press, 1986). For
some efforts at moving toward a configurational postmodernity, see
Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic
Act (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1981), pp. 281-299; Richard
Kearney, The Wake of Imagination: Toward a Postmodern Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), pp. 359-397.
6. T h e "inner demons" of a civilization which emerge in its archaizing
restorationist programs are elaborations, in a contemporary idiom, of
persistent (or recollected) ancient symbolic designs already present in its
make-up. Norman Cohn, Europe's Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the
Great Witch-Hunt (New York: Basic Books, 1975), and Warrant for
Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World-Conspiracy and the Protocols of the
Elders of Zion (New York: H a r p e r and Row, 1967). But, as Kampuchea
has demonstrated, the inner demons can also be acquired in peripheral
modernizing societies by borrowing from the "more advanced."
7. H. D. Harootunian, "The Consciousness of Archaic Form in the
New Realism of Kokugaku," in Tetsuo Najita and Irwin Scheiner, eds.,
Japanese Thought in the Tokugawa Period 1600-1868 (Chicago: T h e University of Chicago Press, 1978), p. 64.
8. Cf. Jeffrey Herf, Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar Germany and the Third Reich (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986).
9. Mike Featherstone, ed., Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and
Modernity (London: Sage Publications, 1990). For a suggestion that the
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"global scene" is best conceivd as a series of flows a n d locations in which
they intersect, see Arjun Appadurai, "Disjuncture and Difference in the
Global Culture Economy," Public Culture, 2 (Spring, 1990), pp. 1-24.
10. David Wilkinson, "Central Civilization," Comparative Civilizations
Review, No. 17 (Fall, 1987), pp. 31-59; V. S. Naipaul, " O u r Universal
Civilization," The New York Review of Books, J a n u a r y 31, 1991, pp. 22-25.
11. Bernard Lewis, E d m u n d Leites, and Margaret Case, eds., As Others
See Us: Mutual Perceptions, East and West (New York: International Society
for the Comparative Study of Civilizations, 1985).
12. William H. McNeill describes this period as one of "the emergence
of a cosmopolitan world system." "The Rise of the West after Twenty-Five
Years "Journal of World History, 1 (1990), p. 12.
13. Anthony D. King, ed., Culture, Globalization and the World-System:
Contemporary Conditions for the Representation of Identity (Binghamton,
N.Y.: Department of Art and Art History, State University of New York
at Binghamton, 1991), esp. Stuart Hall, " T h e Local a n d the Global:
Globalization and Ethnicity," pp. 19-39, and J a n e t Abu-Lughod, "Going
Beyond Global Babble," pp. 131-137.
14. Depending on the genre, historical context, and personal disposition, the polylogue of civilizations can take the widest diversity of
forms—at present f r o m the precision of Louis D u m o n t to the ambiguities of Salman Rushdie. T h e contemporary polylogue differs f r o m
age-old syncretistic efforts by (a) more explicit attention in j u d g i n g ideas
to their practical consequences, (b) a post-totalitarian refusal of the temptation of "universal syntheses."
15. Michael Walzer, The Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political
Commitment in the Twentieth Century (New York: Basic Books, 1988). Cf.
Walzer's community-attached critic with the committed stranger of
Agehananda Bharati: "I believe that cultural criticism is the only contribution we can make to cultures not originally o u r own, o r not our own
by choice. . . T h e method tends to avoid the disastrous distinction between 'outsiders' and 'insiders,' for the fact that one contributes to a
culture makes one an 'insider,' a n d if cultural criticism is successful then
the critic becomes an 'insider' by virtue of the value of his criticism; or to
be more exact, the distinction between 'outsider' and 'insider' becomes
irrelevant." The Ochre Robe: An Attempt at Autobiography (Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday and Company, 1970), pp. 275-6.
16. Anne Roiphe evokes a mother's anxieties about her cosmopolitan
children: ". . . will they join other tribes or will they be so universal, such
citizens of the world, that they will be bland, ineffectual, gracious but
ridiculous, like the meetings of the United Nations? In their universalism
will the furnishings of their souls look like Olympic stadiums?" Generation
Without Memory: A Jewish Journey in Christian America (New York: Linden
Press, 1981), p. 214.
17. Jean Baudrillard, Simulations (New York: Semiotext[e], 1983).
18. Anthony D. Smith, Theories of Nationalism (New York: H a r p e r and
Row, 1971); Benedict R. O'G. Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections
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on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 1983); Philip
Schlesinger, "On National Identity: Some Conceptions and Misconceptions Criticized," Social Science Information, 26 (1987), pp. 219-64.
19. T h u s in the current East European context the development of a
moderate-democratic culture would probably be helped along if the liberals did not let the extreme right to monopolize the symbolism of "national rebirth" and "collective roots" and the religious parties that of
"repentance" and "moral standards."
20. Yehoshua Arieli, Individualism and Nationalism in American Ideology
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1964).
21. See Louis Dumont, Essays on Individualism: Modern Ideology in Anthropological Perspective (Chicago: T h e University of Chicago Press, 1986),
pp. 113-148, on differences between French and German nationalism.
Dumont contends that in French thought since the mid-eighteenth century the person embodies the dominant modern principle of individuality and therefore is the controlling criterion for comprehending the
nation, whereas in German thought nations represent (collective) individualities and persons are parts of the totalities which their nations
constitute for them. This has to be qualified by the support for Fascism in
interwar France, which was stronger by first-rank intellectuals than anywhere in Europe (Zeev Sternhell, Neither Right nor Left: Fascist Ideology in
France [Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986]), and by the shift
toward a "constitutional patriotism" in Germany after World War II.
Jiirgen Habermas, "Yet Again: German Identity—a Unified Nation of
Angry DM-Burghers?", New German Critique, 52 (Winter, 1991), pp. 84101. Habermas considers "linguistic community, culture, or history" as
"prepolitical imponderables" and argues that a "post-traditional" national identity "exists only in the method of the public, discursive battle
around the interpretation of a constitutional patriotism made concrete
under particular historical circumstances" (p. 98). This is a distinction
between archaic and modernizing nationalism conceived in exclusively
political terms—and t h e r e f o r e f o u n d to be surprised by the reemergences of cultural nationalism which it lacks the conceptual equipment to comprehend.
22. Human or individual rights are rarely given an important place in
African studies of nation-building. More characteristic are beliefs in "collective autonomy and collective distinctiveness without subscribing to the
primacy of the individual in the liberal sense." Ali A. Mazrui, Cultural
Engineering and Nation-Building in East Africa (Evanston, 111.: Northwestern University Press, 1972), p. 117.
23. D. L. Sheth, "Nation-Building in Multi-Ethnic Societies: T h e Experience of South Asia "Alternatives, 14 (1989), pp. 379-388.
24. A distinctive feature of the reviving post-Soviet Russian nationalism
is insistence on the importance of individual and collective repentance
for the sins of Stalinism and the weakness of the resistance against it. Cf.
Alexander Kabakov, "Moral Purification—Nothing Will Get in the
Way!", Moscow News, December 23-30,1990, p. l . T h i s theme seems to be
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far stronger than the comparable sense in post-Nazi Germany and more
explicitly associated with nationalism, which can more plausibly be perceived as opposed to totalitarian dictatorship in the Soviet Union at present than it was in post-Nazi Germany.
25. Emilio Gentile, "Fascism as Political R e l i g i o n J o u r n a l of Contemporary History, 25 (May-June, 1990), pp. 229-551. In distinguishing between
nationalism and fascism, it is helpful to recall Anthony Smith: " T h e vital
fact is that [European] nationalism has largely accepted the European
heritage and attempted to build u p o n it, whereas fascism involved a
wholesale and deliberate rejection of it." Nationalism in the Twentieth Century, op. cit., p. 84. This may be valid, with qualifications, elsewhere as
well. Saddam Hussein is not an Arab nationalist.
26. Havel's postmodernism is clearest in his plays. His politicalphilosophical essays and speeches contain strong archaizing longings.
T h e h u m a n rights theme, expressed more in action than in philosophy, is
modernist. This confluence allows him to be described as a culturally
balanced modernizer (an equivalent of David Riesman's autonomous
man)—and, to the extent this is related to his struggle on behalf of
Czechoslovaks against imposed Soviet "cosmopolitanism," as nationalist.
T h e latter, in Havel's case, can only mean humanist in a national idiom.
For more one-sided interpretations, see Aviezer Tucker, "Vaclav Havel's
Heideggerianism," Telos, No. 85 (Fall, 1990), pp. 63-78; Caroline Bayard,
" T h e Intellectual in the Post Modern Age: East/West Contrasts," Philosophy Today, 34 (Winter, 1990), pp. 291-302.
27. Hans Kohn, Prophets and Peoples: Studies in Nineteenth Century Nationalism (New York: T h e Macmillan Company, 1946), pp. 76-104.
28. O n t h e t r a n s p a r e n c y of t h e " i n t e g r a l " s t r u c t u r e of
consciousness—roughly equivalent with what is frequently designated as
the postmodern—, see Jean Gebser, The Ever-Present Origin (Athens,
Ohio: Ohio University Press, 1984).
29. T h e general theories of nationalism, such as Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1983), or E.
J. H o bsba w m, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), fail to take into account
the importance of national cultures in producing different kinds, or
symbolic designs, of nationalism. This has the unjustifiable practical consequence that all nationalisms are treated alike—usually, by most social
scientists, either with some hostility o r with anticipations of their demise.
30. But the influx of Turkish workers in Germany since the 1960's did
not produce as much of a virulently nationalistic reaction as the immigration of the Algerians, at the same time, in France. It may be that while
immigration can activate prejudices, it is not in itself a crucial factor in
generating politically relevant nationalistic aggressiveness.
31. As Lebanon has indicated, a climate of mutual tolerance supported
only by a tradition of accepting that each isolated g r o u p is entitled to its
own values (and all of its members obligated to a d h e r e to them)—rather
than by the liberal consensus that each individual, freely interacting with
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all others, can choose by his or her own lights—is under modern conditions fragile. T h e r e is some danger of this in some contemporary versions of "multicultural education."
32. Archaic nationalism can be both virulent and humane (Solzhenitsyn). So can modernistic nationalism. It is difficult to imagine h u m a n e
antimodernist or virulent postmodern nationalism.
33. National identities in the globalizing stage of history need to be
open to and critical of not only their own but also all other civilizations.
Who can still bear to live with a standard-issue parochial nationalism?
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