Beyond the dichotomies of History: A reconstruction of the dynamic of modern society in light of its apparent fragmentation
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2015
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Sociology & Anthropology
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Thesis (B.A.)
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en_US
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Abstract
One of the major sources of discord within the contemporary Left is that between the proponents of post-colonial theory and those of traditional Western Marxism. At the heart of this antinomy lies the interface of culture and economy, of identity and structure. In the attempt to grapple with the inequalities and oppressions of modernity, each takes a fundamentally one-dimensional approach to contemporary society. Analyzing the theoretical bases of each reveals misinterpretations and misunderstandings of modern life. Post-colonial thought, can be traced back to the work of Michel Foucault, despite its subsequent rejection of much of his critique, and Western Marxism is based on the work of its namesake, Karl Marx, interpreted in light of the historical understanding of Marx’s predecessor Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Moving beyond the one-dimensional analyses of each system to one that captures the critical insights of each offers the possibility of a fuller and, ultimately, more productive account of society.
I will attempt to reframe this debate as one that began with Georg Wilhem Friedrich Hegel’s account of history and totality as the basis of modern historical representations. This position, I argue, is open to a number of critiques levelled against it by Michel Foucault, who counterposes an emphasis on contingency and concrete particularity with regard to history. Foucault, I argue, recasts the issue of history in terms of abstract systems of domination oriented around relations of power. Finally, I will differentiate traditional Marxists understandings of capitalism, which are equally susceptible to Foucault’s critique, from one that fundamentally reinterprets the role of labor in society. This reinterpretation, I will argue, is capable of avoiding the theoretical pitfalls of traditional Marxism. Moreover, it is capable of grasping two apparently contradictory understandings of historical development outlined by Chakrabarty, the first in which institutions and social practices serve to reproduce the specific relations of capital, and the second in which these social practices exist outside capitalism and resist its universalization, as immanent to capitalism. Finally, it avoids the one-sidedness of both Chakrabarty’s and Chibber’s analyses and points to a possibility of structural transformation that is more adequate to contemporary society.