The Great Revolutions and the Civilizations of Modernity [99] 9004148124, 9789004148123, 9789047417651

Table of contents :
Cover
Backcover
Copyright
Contents
Preface
PART ONE: SOME COMPARATIVE OBSERVATIONS
I. Introduction: The Historical and Civilizational Frameworks of the Great Revolutions
I
II
III
NOTES
II. The Distinctive Characteristics of the Revolutionary Processes and Ideologies
IV
V
VI
VII
VIII
IX
X
XI
XII
XIII Comparative excursus—radical non-revolutionary change—the Meiji Ishin
NOTES
PART TWO: THE “CAUSES” AND HISTORICAL—CIVILIZATIONAL FRAMEWORKS OF REVOLUTIONS
III. Structural and Social Psychological Causes
XIV
XV
NOTES
IV. The Historical Settings— The Contradictions of “Early Modernity”
XVI
XVII
NOTES
V. The Civilizational Frameworks of the Great Revolutions—The Axial Civilizations
XVIII
XIX
XX
XXI
XXII
XXIII
XXIV
NOTES
PART THREE: THE VARIABILITY OF AXIAL CIVILIZATIONS AND POLITICAL DYNAMICS—THE DISTINCTIVENESS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PROCESS
VI. “Other-worldly” Civilizations— The Hindu Civilization
XXV
XXVI
XXVII
XXVIII
XXIX
XXX
XXXI
NOTES
VII. The Political Dynamics in “this-worldly” Civilization—the Chinese Confucian Political Order
XXXII
XXXIII
NOTES
VIII. Monotheistic Civilizations— Islam
XXXIV
XXXV
XXXVI
NOTES
IX. Christian Civilizations— the European Complex
XXXVII
XXXVIII
XXXIX
XL
NOTES
X. A Comparative Excursus: Japan—the Non-Axial Revolutionary Restoration and Concluding Remarks
XLI
XLII
CONCLUDING REMARKS—CONCEPTION OF SOCIAL ORDERS; ACCESS TO THE POLITICAL ORDER AND THEIR IMPACT ON POLITICAL DYNAMICS
XLIII
XLIV
NOTES
PART FOUR: COSMOLOGICAL VISIONS, MODES OF REGULATION AND REVOLUTIONARY POTENTIALS: POLITICAL DYNAMICS IN AXIAL CIVILIZATIONS
XI. Revolutionary Potentials in Axial Civilizations
XLV
NOTES
XII. Cosmological Visions, Modes of Regulation, and Political Dynamics in Imperial and Imperial-Feudal Societies
XLVI
XLVII
XLVIII
XLIX
L
NOTES
XIII. Cosmological Visions, Modes of Regulation, and Political Dynamics in Patrimonial Regimes
LI
LII
LIII
LIV
NOTES
XIV. Concluding Observations— The “Causes”, Historical Contexts and Cavilizational Frameworks of Revolutions
LV
LVI
PART FIVE: THE OUTCOMES OF REVOLUTIONS
XV. The Outcomes of Revolutions—The Crystallization of the Political and Cultural Program of Modernity
INTRODUCTION
LVII
THE CULTURAL AND POLITICAL PROGRAM OF MODERNITIES—THE LOSS OF MARKERS OF CERTAINTY AND THE STRUGGLES AROUND THEIR RECONSTITUTION
LVIII
LIX
LX
LXI
THE ANTINOMIES AND TENSIONS IN THE CULTURAL AND POLITICAL PROGRAM OF MODERNITY
LXII
FAILED REVOLUTIONS—THE TENSIONS BETWEEN NATIONALISM AND REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS
LXIII
MULTIPLE MODERNITIES
LXIV
THE EXPANSION OF MODERNITY—THE IMPERIAL AND COLONIAL DIMENSION
LXV
LXVI
LXVII
NOTES
XVI. The Outcomes of Revolutions—The Variability of Revolutionary Symbolism in Modern Societies—Preliminary Indications
INTRODUCTION
LXIX
LXX
LXXI
THE ALTERNATIVE TOTALITARIAN MODERNITIES
LXXII
THE INSTITUTIONAL ORDERS AND SYMBOLS OF PROTEST IN THE U.S. AND JAPAN
LXXII
THE IMPERIAL AND COLONIAL EXPANSIONS OF MODERNITY
LXXIV
LXXV
THE INCORPORATION OF SYMBOLS OF PROTEST AS CONSTITUTIVE OF PROCESSES OF INTEGRATION INTO THE FRAMEWORKS OF MODERN CIVILIZATIONS IN THE ERA OF NATION AND REVOLUTIONARY STATES
LXXVI
LXXVII
LXXVIII
NOTES
XVII. The New Setting —Changes in the Modes of the Models of the Nation and Revolutionary State
LXXIX
LXXX
LXXXI
LXXXII
LXXXIII
LXXXIV
TRANSFORMATION OF THE MODELS OF THE NATION- AND REVOLUTIONARY STATE
LXXXV
THE RECONSTITUTION OF SYMBOLS, THEMES, AND ARENAS OF PROTEST
LXXXVI
LXXXVIII
THE VARIABILITY OF PROTEST AND OF REVOLUTIONARY IMAGINAIRE IN THE CONTEMPORARY SCENE
LXXXIX
THE “VELVET” REVOLUTION AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF COMMUNIST REGIMES
XC
XCII
XCIII
FUNDAMENTALIST AND COMMUNAL-RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS
XCIV
XCVI
XCVII
XCVIII
A DIFFERENT COMBINATION OF MODERN AND ANTI-WESTERN ORIENTATIONS AND THEMES DEVELOPED IN THE COMMUNAL RELIGIOUS MOVEMENTS
XCIX
THE ISLAMIST (KHOMEINI) REVOLUTION IN IRAN
C
SHIFTS AND TRANSFORMATIONS IN THE THEMES OF PROTEST IN THE DISCOURSE OF MODERNITY AND IN THE REVOLUTIONARY IMAGINAIRE
CI
CII
CIII
NOTES
INDEX

Citation preview

ee ae

iti 3 1430

05205957

5

Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2022 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation |

https://archive.org/details/greatrevolutionsO000eise

The

Great Revolutions

Civilizations

and the

of Modernity

International

Studies

in Sociology and Social Anthropology Editors

Tukumbi

Lumumba-Kasongo

Rubin

Patterson

Masamichi

VOLUME

Sasaki

99

The Great Revolutions and

the Civilizations of Modernity by S.N. Eisenstadt

BRILL LEIDEN - BOSTON 2006

This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Eisenstadt,

S.N. (Shmuel

Noah),

Data

1923

The great revolutions and the civilizations of modernity / by S.N. Eisenstadt. p. cm, ISSN

—

(International 0074-8684;

studies in sociology and social anthropology,

v. 99)

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 90—-04-14812-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Revolutions. 2. Social change. 3. Civilization, Modern. civilization. I. Title. I. Series HM876.E57 2006 303.4—dce22

4. Comparative

2005054257

ISSN ISBN

0074-8684 90 04 14812 4 N\

© Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording written permission from the

be reproduced, translated, stored form or by any means, or otherwise, without prior publisher.

Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change.

PRINTED

IN

THE

NETHERLANDS

Contents ¢ v

Contents Preface

PART

ONE

THE GREAT REVOLUTIONS AND THE ORIGINS AND CRYSTALLIZATION OF MODERNITY: SOME COMPARATIVE OBSERVATIONS Chapter One Introduction: The Historical and Civilizational Rrameworks aut tue (reat Mevolutions ter oes semen ye Chapter Two The Distinctive Characteristics of the Revyomupnary Processes. anos Lueolowtes Misa steeds doxesacsasterse

PART

THE

2 Ls)

TWO

“CAUSES” AND HISTORICAL-CIVILIZATIONAL FRAMEWORKS OF REVOLUTIONS

Chapter Three Structural and Social Psychological Causes_...... Chapter Four ‘The Historical Settings—The Contradictions of 8 REE ap Erg Fee Ek nee AOE ET SRO Re AT eee p ETO a MAES Chapter Five The Civilizational Frameworks of the Great Brew ois oris—— 0 ie ial CZ ALS as oat pcktreices

PART

| Su,

ame)

THREE

THE VARIABILITY OF AXIAL CIVILIZATIONS AND POLITICAL DYNAMICS—THE DISTINCTIVENESS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PROCESS Chapter Six “Other-worldly” Civilizations—The Hindu agi Sahay haeope ee 2, ER eae, AS-aRE ROS Me Le Pe oh MORES AE 2 et mee heats The Political Dynamics in “this-worldly” Chapter Seven Civilization—the Chinese Confucian Political Order. ................

oy 7

vi © Contents

Chapter Eight

Monotheistic Civilizations—Islam_

Chapter Nine

Christian Civilizations the European

...........:0e0

CLOMAPIER Fercevecvnsnavanreccsandvaneosusadenni vecatvrven-abtday sentyiiceoad: #2ptbecgensaananese Chapter Ten A Comparative excursus: Japan—the Non-Axial Revolutionary Restoration and Concluding Remarks— Conception of Social Orders; Access to the Political Order and Political IDyiarines. :

i

Gs

> 4 Abel

7

>

aya

oa

wy

67 @

Pme~

7

F Ody

Tf e400 LE joel p> vel

etait’

Ft

a

2S

2

—_

ge

tony

ue

sO Y

ae

-

Lo

aS

©

os

> >

eo

hy perme, ea eo

oe?

1

an) -

>

.

Team

epiieweFL Tee Demers

Neen 0 Gb) Gul Peed

Pad

-

a;

OS ae

7 as

é

Pr

es

1U¢

Aap

ipiens ee

:

9 a

7d er

sole .

>

——

:

sn :

;

bhi © _

a

age

fey ti ~—— Sno &

Se

Mate’

nO

.

os

may onl

eit

ee)

abeoesa ine ives

ose

-

Cosa, fo Toros Wepkamme

®

we.

io

Cue:

ae

ie -

ie ca

@

Te

7

i

oe

ie

Nipighet sl, fjate

2

|

Ghat

SeASey

mp:

ie

pts amphiiny My (hart Gataies

¢

i

=

imi Fe

ie

P

_

/

7

vedo a - ~ 7

.

4

=

.

Li7

-

7

>

_

’

A

ie

a

7

6we

=>

=

@

we

=

a19

A=

a

ae

TS

(ee

een

eee

We fcr tattra, 74? a ‘“ie

Barat

ae

ait F)

GR ip-add

2a

a =

“eon O¢

& Geb 109. Cel Pie ~

Structural and Social Psychological Causes ¢ 31

Ill. Structural and Social

Psychological Causes XIV

The Great Revolutions constituted some of the greatest, most dramatic events of human history. For many they epitomized the very essence of modern times. But they occurred in very specific situations, in very specific periods. What were the conditions or causes which gave rise to them? The literature on such conditions is immense, ranging from detailed case studies of each of the revolutions through comparative studies up to more general studies. Three broad types of explanations are predominant in the literature. The first deals with different types of structural conditions, the second with socio-psychological preconditions of revolutions, and the third with specific historical causes. Several types of structural conditions have been singled out. The first deals with the various aspects of internal struggle leading to revolutions. Among the more important aspects which have been singled out, with different emphases in different works, have been class struggles between the major classes predominant in the pre-revolutionary societies—be it between aristocratic and urban classes, or between landlords and peasants—and of course, above all, in respect to the first revolutions, between the “ancien regime” and the rising bourgeoisie. Second, there was a very strong emphasis on inter-elite struggle—struggle between different components of the ruling or upper class—be it between different echelons of the aristocracies, between them and the more professional elements of the bureaucracy or between each of these and the monarchy. A special subtype of this kind of analysis, to be found in the work of Theda Skocpol' and of other scholars building on the earlier work of Barrington Moore,’ has been the emphasis on the relations between the state and the major social strata, especially the aristocracy and the peasantry, on their relative strength vis-a-vis one another. Closely related to this type of explanation were those which emphasized the weakening or decay of the pre-revolutionary political regimes, either through internal causes such as various economic or demographic

32 © Chapter Three

trends, or under the impact of international forces—such as international economic trends—wars or some combination thereof.’ This emphasis on the importance of international factors became especially pronounced in the literature of the last two decades with the growing sensitivity to the study of the international system or systems. The correct and salutary emphasis on the importance of international conditions in the genesis of these revolutions, should not blind us to the fact that the importance of such international influences lay above all in the way in which they impinged on the internal forces and constellations. The international forces did not, in contrast to the many “leftist” revolutionary movements of the second half of the twentieth century, impose a distinct revolutionary vision or model. Earlier studies were also devoted to the analysis of broad economic factors or trends, economic fluctuations and rising inflation with the resultant impoverishment of large sectors of society——not only of the lower strata but also of large sectors of the middle and even of the upper sectors—and to the analysis of their influence on the development of the revolutionary situation. In some of the Marxist literature such economic explanations, taken together with those of class struggle, were transformed

into the ineluctable contradictions between old modes of production and new emerging forces of production. Such studies were often connected with the second type of explanation, the socio-psychological one. ‘These studies, often following ‘Tocqueville’s

brilhant analysis, have emphasized the importance of processes of relative deprivation and frustration coming in bad times following good ones—when the aspirations of large sectors of the population were raised— in generating widespread dissatisfaction, which could give rise to rebellions or revolutionary predispositions.* Thus it was the interclass and inter-elite struggles, the demographic expansion, the internal and international weakness of the state often caused especially by fiscal crises of the state, economic

imbalances

and

socio-psychological frustrations attendant on the worsening of economic conditions that constituted the most important items in the list of causes of revolutions. The literature on revolutions has also pointed to some of the most important psychological and attitudinal aspects of the revolutionary process, especially the widespread dissatisfaction with the regime, the crystallization of a situation in which the dissatisfied sectors of society are ready not only to engage in isolated protests or outbursts, but also to become mobilized into some continuous frameworks, and the existence of leaders with the organizational capacity to organize such mobilization, bearing ideologies which can help in this process.°

Structural and Social Psychological Causes * 33

XV The

literature on revolutions is full of controversies,

as to the relative

importance of each of these factors or constellations thereof in causing revolutions. A critical perusal of this literature indicates that it is only some combination of frustrations which generate rebellious attitudes, with successful political mobilization and organization that gives rise to contests over sovereignty—to use Charles Tilly’s expression—which may effectively topple the pre-revolutionary regime.° The literature also indicates that the key to crystallization of such movements is the development of some relatively autonomous new social and economic forces, which are blocked from access to the center. At the same time a perusal of this literature quite clearly indicates that the exact constellation of these factors varied from case to case, and

that no generalization about the relative weight of these components can be made. The concrete constellation of these different causes, their relative importance

in each of these revolutions,

constituted—and

continues

to con-

stitute —foci of historical and social science research. Yet some general patterns can indeed be identified, as has been lately very succinctly done by Jack A. Goldstone.’ In his work he analyzes the crises, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, of four states, England, France, Ming China and the Ottoman Empire. He identifies a set of common course, of basic common process in their decline: “The periodic state breakdowns in Europe, China, and the Middle East from 1500 to 1850, were the result of a single basic process. ‘This process unfolded like a fugue, with .a major trend giving birth to four related critical trends that combined for a tumultuous conclusion. The main trend was that population growth, in the context of relatively inflexible economic and social structure, led to changes in prices, shifts in resources, and increasing social demands with which agrarian-bureaucratic states could not successfully cope.” “The four related critical trends were as follows. (1) Pressures increased on state finances as inflation eroded state income and population growth raised real expenses. States attempted to maintain themselves by raising revenues in a variety of ways, but such attempts alienated elites, peasants, and urban consumers, while failing to prevent increasing debt and eventual bankruptcy. (2) Intra-elite conflicts became more prevalent, as larger families and inflation made it more difficult for some families to maintain their status, while expanding population and rising prices lifted other families, creating new aspirants to elite positions. With the state’s fiscal weakness limiting its ability to provide for all who sought elite positions, considerable turnover and displacement occurred throughout the

34 © Chapter Three

;

elite hierarchy. This gave rise to factionalization as different elite groups sought to defend or improve their position. When central authority collapsed as a result of bankruptcy or war, elite divisions came to the fore in struggles for power. (3) Popular unrest grew, as competition for land, urban migration, flooded labor markets, declining real wages, and increased youthfulness raised the mass mobilization potential of the populace. Unrest occurred in urban and rural areas and took the various forms of food riots, attacks on landlords and state agents, and land and grain seizures, depending on the autonomy of popular groups and the resources of elites. A heightened mobilization potential made it easy for contending elites to marshal popular action in their conflicts, although in many cases popular actions, having their own motivation and momentum, proved easier to encourage than to control. (4) The ideologies of rectification and transformation became increasingly salient.” The exploration of how these various causes coalesce into specific patterns, and their relative importance does and will continue to constitute foci of continually ongoing research. But in themselves such analyses, important as they are, will not provide an adequate answer to the search for “the causes” of revolution. It is not that the answers to the questions posed in this literature are sometimes unsatisfactory or controversial. This is, of course, given in the nature of any scholarly enterprise. What is more important is that they are not sufficient for the analysis of some of the mast important aspects of the problem. This is for a very simple reason: most of these causes are not specific to revolutions.

The

same

causes,

in different constellations,

have been

singled out in the vast literature on the decline of Empires—the Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Chinese, and other Empires—or, as Jack Goldstone has shown, in the crises of the Ottoman and Ming Empires in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.® This should not be surprising. Revolutions are, after all, first and foremost synonymous with decline or breakdown of regimes and with results thereof. Hence the causes of decline and breakdown of regimes, especially, as we shall see in greater detail later, of Imperial or Imperial feudal ones, are necessarily also causes or preconditions of revolutions. But they do not explain the specific revolutionary outcome of the breakdown of regimes. These causes do not tell us what “happens the morning after,” after the breakdown of the regime. The same causes, or rather different constellations of such causes, necessarily differing in details, explain the downfall of the Abbasid, Roman or Byzantine Empires, the decline of the Ming dynasty in China. Hence by themselves they cannot explain the revolutionary outcome. Without a doubt they constitute

Structural and Social Psychological Causes ¢ 35

necessary conditions of revolutions, but by themselves not sufficient ones, if we use these rather problematic terms. For the sufficient causes we have to look beyond them. NOTES ' Skocpol, T. 1979. States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France, Russia, and China. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. > Barrington, M. 1960. The Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Boston: Beacon; Skocpol, T., G. Ross, T. Smith, J.E. Vichniac

1998 (eds.). Democracy, Revolution, and History.

Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press. * Skocpol, T. 1979. States and Social Revolutions. op. cit. * De Tocqueville, A. 1955. The Old Regime and the French Revolution. Garden City, NY: Anchor, Doubleday. ° On the analysis of these aspects of revolutions see: Foran,J. 1997. Theorizing Revolutions. op. Cit. ® Tilly, C. 1993. European Revolutions, 1492-1992. Oxford: Blackwell. ’ Goldstone, J. 1991. Revolution and Rebellion. op. at. ® Idem; Eisenstadt, $.N., 1993 (1963). The Political Systems of Empires. New Brunswick: Transaction Pubbshers.

» ice Aetna veh eindthe clirerd teen Pie Chine WrweT

|

Wien?

dab.

=

DWN: & Vier

Ria nr

6) uP abil, oP WS cake ails ie

=He

ar,

anls

a

ey

oe

|

oo wel

atalteteulane

ott. amma au

a ;

;

(at a= ieee Bf the V ped Aw ‘ ea in arr i ate

-

Ls

Toca ten

GSS

rei

Sha: rans

ha

ap aay J

}

pa

Udi Ry siet oe: 1S Ae setts NSiP INS ayer

Vict

Ory).

Ve

Narn

an

dove, Ga) Qe“ ate.

ew!

(itn

Pkt ia =

»

aves

ee

ee

~-—

40g)

>:

ed

z

1 ayareres

#

ee

=

oa

wn

wh

@ *

,

Se ”

a

ae

ena -

A> pe) e

=

7

in

ie be |

=

y

De

ieary>

Te id

@aliz

lee

7 etal :

7

ae e

te | =

cert

~

ee

8, a

es

-— o

Ae

le thas

aif fort an?

0 egies ae uns re. @ Piers

Ci

Pan

as

Mal ar ingeeet He

Gand

&

enr

v= Uernee,

bee

ink

ee

=

BY his Karten oe “314

clint tare

Teepe

Thin

thenge Yq ‘dime

ENS T

of

:

bias

‘ia

Tate Oy. 84 Deeg

ea

Tey

A

ey

Say phi

wi?

22.6

he UU

Tgtive

4.

OPiter

ee

oe

Water

tre

em

hed

_

“Cy

S* 7

.?

nar

‘

.

@

ql mage

OF

wo “en

cet

(oem

stp!

7

e

(0

Adland _s

:

ued

We *

af citer

Clnes onl Si

ow”

Rings

a)

Qi fh quart we

‘

‘

©

©

Ma?

OS

;

a

or

i

'

:

‘

v=

»%

45a-

Sires

im

yk

&

feb

iv

ae

Toe

LS

Ws

aehreld

4 iris

VY

S

‘

wy

7 Tre

iA

a

a

TF

i

One

a

ae

i)

%

antSs

>

pit

oe

ie) °s ae Airy ¢

:

i

ee

;

jpehasad ¥

&

“anes

oe ee

ates oun Ae ore

_

byte

‘ce

-

7

ey

vile

0+ p Olen

sy

1

Gas

2

;

nam

i,

ot le UNeet

2a)

Ive

vowed’

wale

:

Pastp

ter

_ -

re

>and

ee

Se

>

A

2

Ons

iL

sours

e-aiihe

7s

,

_

&é

‘a

—

> Ow

-

ol.

ale

peas Ag

Hehe,

ice

rhe ere

iar

ee

ieJ

7

ie

=

Genre

g/t

Gad,

r Iirvy

rena

lt

le ioe

- Loess

a

a Lote rian

“herald

eras of seen

~ Cum ale SF ab-Stohn «.

bo WM

eG

Ge

a)

b»

je tineh) tf Peptlipee wilh ahd ia Coram Ai teswi ew hw

7

mawiy

@

_

OF ihe aa

+3 ose Rew deme

Se coun

ie

aa

we

or

19

cate

06

«

oe

SP

wifes( ce n>

jee, lies Qe

=e)

1b

-

i os

emeede

Ly

om

or”

YA

ww

Re

hie®

pata se = CwGiate

aD

le@hea

&

Gap

06

ve aay

%

ow

oF

hits ot

6 Gey

one ieee casic®enie t Bites

=A

2658

i

~~

-

“Wea

— ew

7 lp

ee? ope »Mabe vet Tee

i

Yee Valiant >

i _

7?

us

eI

i

a

Axial Cwilizations ¢ 43

V. The Civilizational Frameworks of the Great Revolutions—The Axial Civilizations XVII

In our search for the sufficient “causes” of revolutions (a term which is not in itself very helpful), it is important to point out that the explanations referred to above do not address themselves to what is probably the most important distinctive element in the revolutionary process, namely that of the crystallization in distinct new ontological visions or cosmologies and of a distinct type of bearers of such visions—the autonomous cultural or intellectual groups, and of their connection with other components of the revolutionary process. Even when the fact that the revolutions promulgated new ideological and cosmological visions was not emphasized in the literature, it was indeed recognized that the revolutions did entail important ideological changes in the legitimation of regimes. Yet relatively little attention was paid to the systematic analysis of the cultural or ideological forces which were important in shaping the revolutionary process and outcomes and which provided the reasons or justification to such changes in legitimation. In large parts of the literature, the ideological factors, the development of new ideologies, of religious beliefs, have not been often analyzed among the major causes of revolution. They have usually been seen, even among non-Marxist historians, more as epiphenomena of the “deeper” social processes or as a sort of general background to the development of the revolutionary processes.' This was perhaps related to the fact that in the literature on revolutions there developed a strong emphasis on major social forces, especially on class relations. Accordingly, there developed a much smaller emphasis on distinctive cultural or intellectual groups. But these groups provided, as we have seen, one of the most important reservoirs of the new type of political leadership and organizations which were most characteristic of these revolutions. Already above we have briefly mentioned (especially when discussing the “negative” case of Japan) that heterodoxies, which provide the back-

44 © Chapter live

eround for the development of such groups, did not—contrary to such types of political strugele as rebellions and political struggle at the center— develop in all societies. It might therefore be worthwhile to first, examine under what condi-

tions, or in what type of societies, do such ideologies and the groups, which bear them, become so central and important. Second, to look for

distinctive cultural or civilizational settings or. frameworks as well as political frameworks within which the revolutions occurred. Let us first of all take a look at the broader civilizational or cultural settings in which these revolutions have taken place. The first revolutions took place within the frameworks of Christianity—European civilizations in its Protestant and Catholic manifestations; the Russian in the realm of Eastern Christianity and the Chinese and Vietnamese in the

realm of Confucian civilization. If the Turkish revolution is to be counted as revolutions, then we have to include also the realm of Islam, and this

is certainly the case with respect to the Iranian (Khomeini) revolution. The common characteristic of all of these societies, of these Imperial regimes—is that they all developed within the frameworks of the socalled Axial Civilizations. By Axial Civilizations we mean those civilizations that crystallized during the thousand years from 500 BC to the first century of the Christian era. The crystallization of such civilizations can be seen as a series of some of the greatest revolutionary breakthroughs in the history of mankind, which changed the course of human history. During this period new types of cosmological visions emerged, one of which was the development and the institutionalization of new conceptions of a basic tension between the transcendental and mundane orders. These new types of cosmological visions were institutionalized in many parts of the world—in ancient Israel, later in Second-Commonwealth Judaism and Christianity; Ancient Greece; very partially Zeroastrian Iran; early Imperial China; Hinduism and Buddhism; and, beyond the Axial

Age proper, Islam.’ These conceptions, which first developed among small groups of autonomous, relatively unattached “intellectuals” (a new social element at the time), particularly among the carriers of models of cultural and social order, were ultimately institutionalized. That means, they became the predominant orientations of both the ruling as well as of many secondary elites, fully embodied in the centers or sub-centers of their respective societies and transformed into the basic “hegemonic” premises of their respective civilizations. The core of these specific “Axial” developments has been the combination of two strong tendencies. The first such tendency was to follow

Axial Cwilizations ¢ 45

Johann Arnason’s formulation between on the one hand a radical “distinction between ultimate and derivative reality (or between transcendental and mundane dimensions, to use a more controversial formulation),”.... “This is connected with an increasing orientation to some reality beyond

the given one;’ with a radical problematization of the conceptions of cosmological and social order, and with growing reflexivity and second order thinking, with the resultant models of order generating new problems (the task of bridging the gap between the postulated levels of reality).” The second tendency was the development on the structural level of farreaching decoupling of many aspects of social structure, and their disembeddment from relatively closed kinship or territorial units and the concomitant development of many free-resources which can be organized or mobilized in many different ways, constituting challenges for the hitherto institutional formations. The development and institutionalization of such conceptions of a chasm between the transcendental and the mundane gave rise to attempts to reconstruct the mundane world-human personality and the socio-political and economic order according to the appropriate transcendental vision, to the principles of the higher ontological order formulated in religious, metaphysical and/or ethical terms, or in other words to imple-

ment some aspect of such vision in the mundane world. The given, mundane, order was perceived in these civilizations as incomplete,

inferior, often, at least in some

of these civilizations, as evil

or polluted and as in need of reconstruction or reconstitution. Such reconstitution was to be effected through the implementation of the basic transcendental ontological conceptions prevalent in these societies; especially according to the conception of bridging over the chasm between the transcendental and the mundane orders according to the precepts of the higher ethical or metaphysical order. Implementation of this order was

closely related to, to use a Weberian

term,

“salvation’”*—hasically

a Christian term, some equivalents of which are however to be found in all the Axial Civilizations. The development on the one hand of such cosmological conceptions and on the other hand of decoupling of many aspects of social structure and the concomitant development of free resources took place to some extent at least independently of one another; by the internal momentum of these dimensions of social order—albeit continually reinforcing one another in a variety of ways. Accordingly there developed within these societies, multiple constellations of power, of collective identities and of economic formations, each with its own dynamics. All these visions entailed strong tendencies to the reconstruction of mundane life—of social

46 © Chapter Five

order, personality as well as of cultural activities; and there developed conceptions of a world beyond the immediate boundaries of their respective societies—a world open, as it were, to such reconstruction. Accordingly, the institutionalization of such conceptions in these civilizations was closely related to the attempts at the reconstruction of their major institutional contours, according to new institutional visions, the common core of which has been the broadening, opening up of the range of institutional possibilities and options—be it of conceptions and patterns of political order, of collective identities and hence also the weakening of their perception as being “naturally given,” and the concomitant growth of possibility of principled contestation about them. The most important among such broader institutional tendencies that developed within all Axial Civilizations in connection with the visions were strong tendencies to the constitution of societal center or centers. These societal centers served as the major autonomous and symbolically distinct embodiments of the implementation of the transcendental visions, as the major loci of the charismatic dimension of human existence, attempting to permeate the periphery and restructure it according to their own

autonomous

visions, conceptions, and rules.

The centers’ symbolic distinctiveness from the periphery and their tendency to permeate the periphery and restructure it according to its own autonomous

visions, conceptions,

and rules, were

sometimes

accompa-

nied by a parallel impingement by the periphery.on the center. The process of center formation was connected to the construction of Great Traditions’ as autonomous and distinct symbolic frameworks, and to the transformation of the relations between the Great and Little Traditions.

Hence the carriers of the Great Traditions attempted to permeate the periphery and absorb the Little Traditions into their orbit. Concurrently, the carriers of the Little Traditions attempted to profane the Great ones, to dissociate themselves from them, and in addition to generate a distinct ideology of the Little Traditions and the periphery. Thus, the center or centers emerged as distinct symbolic and institutional arenas, but their “givenness” could not be always taken for granted. The very constitution and characteristics of these centers tended to become a focus of the reflexivity and concomitant constellations that developed in these civilizations.° Concomitantly, in close connection with the institutionalization of the various Axial cultural programs, there developed a strong tendency to define certain collectivities and institutional arenas as the most appropriate ones

to be the carriers of the distinct broader

transcendental

visions,

and of new “civilizational”—often “religious”—collectivities. They were indeed distinct from political and from various “primordial” “ethnic”

Axial Cwilizations

¢ 47

local or religious ones, yet they continually impinged on them, interacted with them, and challenged them, generating continual reconstruction of their respective identities. Such processes were effected by the continual interaction

between

the various

autonomous

cultural

elites, the

carriers of solidarity and political elites of the different continually reconstructed “local” and political communities. Concomitantly the constitution of Axial Civilizations, with their distinctive cultural programs and the continual confrontation between the civilizational and other collectivities and different constellations of power, was also connected with the development of new patterns of cultural creativity, and to the patterns of reflexivity that developed in them. On the purely ‘intellectual’ level it was above all the theological or philosophical discourse that flourished and became constructed in much more elaborate and formalized ways, organized in different worlds of knowledge in manifold disciplines, and generating continual developments within such frameworks. Within these discourses many problems attendant on the relations between the autonomous developments in different arenas of cultural creativity and some central aspects of the constitution of collectivities and of the relations between them became very central, giving rise to the construction of new types of collective memories and narratives thereof. These were, for instance, the concern

with the con-

ception of cosmic time and its relationship to the mundane political reality, different conceptions of historia sacra in relation to the flow of mundane time, of sacred space in relation to mundane one.’ In close relation to these developments emerged also a new type or level of reflexivity, focused on a critical examination of the existing social and political order and to some extent also of its premises. XIX

These visions were promulgated by specific autonomous cultural and religious or secular carriers of models of cultural and social order (“Kulturtrager”),® such as the ancient Israelite prophets and priests and later on the Jewish sages, the Greek philosophers and sophists, the Chinese literati, the Hindu

Brahmins,

the Buddhist

Sangha,

and the Islamic

Ulema. These groups constituted a new social element, a new type of elites, which were distinctly different from the ritual, magical and sacral

specialists in the pre-Axial Civilizations. The new elites—the intellectuals and clerics—were recruited and legitimized according to distinct, autonomous criteria, usually promulgated by themselves, and were organized in autonomous settings distinct from those of the basic ascriptive or political units of the society. They acquired a potential countrywide status consciousness of their own. They also tended to become poten-

48 © Chapter Fwe

tially independent of other elites and social groups and sectors, but at the same time, these changes effected also other political economic elites and of the carriers of the solidarities of different collectivities. With the institutionalization of these new elites, a parallel transformation had taken

place in the structure of other elites and in the constitution of differentiated and autonomous roles in large sectors of the society. All the elites tended to develop claims for an autonomous place in the constitution of the cultural and social order. They saw themselves not only as performing specific technical, functional activities—be they those of scribes, initiation, and the like—but

also as potentially autonomous

carriers of

a distinct cultural and social order related to the transcendental vision prevalent in their respective societies. All the elites—the cultural elites and the political ones, as well as the carriers of the solidarity of different communities—saw themselves as the autonomous articulators of the new order, with the other elites potentially inferior and accountable to themselves. When these elites succeeded in becoming highly influential in their respective societies they forged coalitions with other elites. It was such coalitions that enabled the institutionalization in all Axial societies of their respective visions and the crystallization of distinct institutional patterns. The possibilities of institutionalization of such visions were dependent on the development of certain openness in the social structure, of the development of a combination of free resources with that of public opinion, which made possible a certain responsiveness from among the broader strata to the visions promulgated by such elites. It was above all cultural elites or intellectuals- that promulgated the new cosmologies, the new transcendental visions and conceptions that were of crucial importance in the development in these societies of the new “civilizational” formations and the concomitant new patterns of collective identity and world visions. Once such new ontological or conceptions, and new cosmologies became institutionalized, the new cultural groups became relatively autonomous partners in the major ruling coalitions. They did also—and this is crucial for the dynamics of these civilizations—became leading elements in the protest movements that developed in them. These groups of elites were not homogeneous. In all these civilizations there developed a multiplicity of secondary cultural, political or educational elites and roles, each very often carrying a different conception of the cultural and social order. These elites were also the most active elements in the restructuring of the world and the institutional creativity that developed in these societies.

Axial Cwilizations « 49

XX

The reconstruction of the social and civilizational orders and of social and cultural change gave rise to continuous tensions in the very premises of these civilizations and in the processes of their institutionalization. Such institutionalization was never a simple peaceful process. It has usually been connected with struggle and competition between many groups and their respective visions. This very multiplicity of alternative visions gave rise to an awareness of the uncertainty of different roads to salvation, of alternative conceptions of social and cultural order, and of the seeming arbitrariness of any single solution. Such awareness became a constituent element of the consciousness of these civilizations, especially among the carriers of their Great Traditions. This was closely related to the development of a high degree of “second order” thinking, i.e. of reflexivity turning on the basic premises of the social and cultural order. In connection with the development of alternative ways of the implementation of transcendent visions, of alternative cultural and social orders,

there emerged another element, which is common tions. It is the element

to all these civiliza-

of the utopian vision, of an alternative cultural

and social order beyond any given place or time. Such visions contain many of the millenarian and revivalist elements, which can be found also in pre-Axial or non-Axial “pagan” religions. But, they go beyond them by combining these elements with a vision based on the emphasis on necessity to construct the mundane order according to the precepts of the higher one, with the search for an alternative “better” order beyond any given time and place. XXI

The different modes of reflexivity that developed in these civilizations focused to a large extent on constitution of the political order—giving rise to the transformation of the conception of the accountability of rulers. The political order as one of the central loci of the mundane order was usually conceived as lower than the transcendental visions and had to be reconstituted according to the precepts of the latter. It had to be reconstructed above all according to the perception of the proper mode

of the implementation

of the transcendental

order, or, to use the Weberian

vision and the mundane

term, “salvation.” The rulers were usu-

ally held responsible for organizing the political order according to such precepts.

50 © Chapter Five

At the same time the nature of the rulers was greatly transformed. The king-god, the embodiment of the cosmic and earthly order, disappeared, and a secular—even with strong social attributes—ruler, in prin-

ciple accountable to some higher order, appeared. Thus, it emerged the conception of the accountability of the rulers and the community to a higher authority, God and Divine Law. The possibility of calling a ruler to judgment arose. One such dramatic appearance materialized in the priestly and prophetic pronunciations of Ancient Israel. A different “secular” conception of such accountability to the community and its laws materialized

in the northern

shores

of the Eastern

Mediterranean,

in

Ancient Greece, and also in the Chinese conception of the Mandate of Heaven. Concomitantly with the emergence of such conceptions of accountability of rulers there began to develop autonomous spheres of law distinct from ascriptively bound custom and customary law. Such developments also entailed the beginnings of a conception of rights. The scope of these spheres of law and rights varied greatly from society to society, but they were all established according to some distinct and autonomous criteria. XXII

The institutionalization of these political conceptions and of the premises of accountability of the rulers to some higher law was closely connected to the rise of distinct new roles and groups who saw themselves as the representatives and promulgators of such law, and as being able to call the rulers to accountability—those very groups which were the initial carriers of the new Axial cosmological visions and which played a central role in the institutionalization of the Axial Civilizations. It is these groups—the carriers of models of cultural and social order, autonomous intellectuals, such as the ancient Israeli prophets and priests and later on the Jewish sages, the Greek philosophers and sophists, the Chinese literati, the Hindu

Brahmins,

the Buddhist

Sangha,

and

the Islamic

Ulema, as they evolved with the institutionalization of the Axial Civilizations—that with the institutionalization of these civilizations presented themselves as the carriers of the higher law to which the rulers were called to be accountable. But at the same time, as we have seen, they competed continually with other elites. Indeed these different elites in general and the intellectuals in particular constituted also, and this is crucial for our analysis, the most active proponents of the various alternative conceptions of the social and cultural order among them, of the different types of utopian vision. In conjunction with this multiplicity of visions and elites there

Axial Civilizations ¢ 51

developed in these civilizations sectarian movements with heterodox tendencies, and the concomitant confrontation between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. The confrontation between heterodoxy and orthodoxy, however defined, was not limited to matters of doctrine, ritual, religious observance, or patterns of worship. It had also, as indicated above, far-reaching implications with respect to the very structuration of society. The institutional implications were rooted in two closely interconnected facts. First, they were rooted in the fact that these “orthodox” and “heterodox” conceptions usually had very strong orientations to the construction of the mundane world. Second, these conceptions were closely connected to the struggle between different elites, and turned all of them, to follow Weber’s designation of the ancient Israeli prophets,’ into “political demagogues,” who often attempted to mobilize wider popular support and to link these sectarian or heterodox visions with more popular rebellions. These activities were closely connected with the conception of accountability of rulers to a Higher Law, and of very strong utopian visions and orientations. Such continual potential reconstitution of different combinations between cosmological visions and different structures of power and of collective identities was reinforced in Axial Civilizations by the fact that, with the

institutionalization of these civilizations a new type of inter-societal and inter-civilizational revolutions developed. Many cultural interconnections and some conceptions of a universal or world kingdom emerged in many pre-Axial Civilizations, like that of Genghis Kahn, but only with the institutionalization of Axial Civilizations did a more distinctive ideological and reflexive mode of expansion develop. Within all these civilizations there developed in close connection with the tendencies to reconstruct the world, a certain propensity to expansion, in which ideological, religious impulses were combined with political and to some extent economic ones. Although often radically divergent in terms of their concrete institutionalization, the political formations which developed in these civilizations—which can be seen as “ecumenical”—comprised representations and ideologies of quasi-global empire, and some, at moments in their history, even the facts of such Empire. This mode of expansion also gave rise to some awareness of creating possible “world histories” encompassing many different societies. ‘The impact of “world histories,” of different conceptions of world histories,

on the constitution and institutional formation of collective consciousness and identities of the different societies became more clearly visible.

52 © Chapter Five

XXII

Within the framework of Axial Civilizations there developed indeed a very great variety of political formations—be it full-fledged empires— such as Chinese,

Byzantine or Ottoman;

or the earlier Abbyonde

ones,

rather fragile kingdoms or tribal federations (as in ancient Israel); combinations of tribal federations of city-states (e.g., ancient Greece); the complex decentralized political patterns thatdeveloped in the Hindu civilization; or the imperial-feudal configurations of Europe.

Each of these

types denoted different combinations of structural differentiation and cosmological visions as carried by different elites and the coalitions forged by them. The

concrete

contours

of these societies,

of their centers

and their

dynamics varied considerably according to the+structure of the predominant elites and their coalitions, the cultural orientations they promulgated, and the modes of control they exercised. Thus for instance in India a very high degree of autonomy of the religious elites as against a lower one of the political elite appeared. By contrast, there was a rel-

atively small degree of differentiation of political roles of the broader strata, while in Europe there developed a much greater degree of autonomy and differentiation of all the elites. Similarly, within the imperial agrarian regimes, as for instance the comparison between the Byzantine and Chinese Empires clearly indicates, there emerged far-reaching differences in the structure of their centers. Desptte the fact that they shared rather similar degrees (and relatively high ones for historical societies) of structural and organizational differentiation in the economic and social arenas. These centers also varied, of course, according to different

organizational, economic, technological, and geopolitical conditions of their respective societies. But whatever the differences between these different political frameworks, which developed in the different Axial Civilizations, the ideological and structural characteristics common to them had far-reaching impact on the political process in the different regimes that developed within them. They generated distinct political dynamics, which distinguished them from seemingly similar tribal, patrimonial semi-Imperial, or city states that developed within the framework of non-Axial Civilizations. Needless to say, the routine political processes that developed within such regimes did not necessarily differ greatly from those of others, nonAxial societies. But beyond such routine processes there repeatedly arose within them strong tendencies to coalescence between different processes of change, movements of protest and heterodoxies, giving rise to semirevolutionary processes. Indeed these characteristics anteceded to some extent, as it were, some of the distinctive features of the revolutions. But

Axial Civilizations ¢ 53

it was only in some of these civilizations that these tendencies have ultimately developed into full-fledged revolutions. XXIV The close elective affinity between the political process that developed in many of the Axial civilizations and the central characteristics of the revolutions does not indeed mean that, as the illustrations of India, South

Asia, or most Islamic societies clearly indicate, revolutions developed with the onset of modernity in all Axial Civilizations. It is only in some Axial Civilizations that with the breakdown of regimes in the “early modern” stage of their histories the revolutions did develop. Thus, obviously some additional factors have to be taken into account.

Two seem to be of special importance; one such factor, which can be most clearly seen especially in India and in the Buddhist societies of South Asia, are some aspects of the basic cosmological and transcendental visions that developed within these Axial Civilizations. The second factor which applies to the different Axial Civilizations—perhaps most visible in most of the Islamic states (and even some European ones) but also of importance in India and in the Theravada Buddhist societies—is the nature of the political regimes and political ecological settings, political regimes as well as of economic factors that developed within them. Among the aspects of the cosmological visions, which are of central importance in this respect, is the extent to which the political arena was in these civilizations conceived as a major one for the implementation of the transcendental vision of salvation and of utopian reconstruction. Here the major distinction is that, to follow with great caution Weber terminology, between other-worldly and this-worldly conceptions of salvation. These differences have greatly influenced the conceptions of accountability of rulers in these civilizations and the institutional derivatives of these conceptions. The impact of these conceptions on the political dynamism of these civilizations could be most clearly seen in the ways in which major heterodoxies and the cosmological and utopian visions promulgated by them became interwoven with socio-political movements in these civilizations, in which political actors drew on the cultural reservoirs of their respective civilizations. The political implication of sectarianism and heterodoxy, indeed, differed greatly between the various Axial

Civilizations.

54 © Chapter Five

NOTES ' Goldstone, J. 1991. Revolution and Rebellion. op. cit. * Eisenstadt, S.N. 1986. The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Cwilizations. Albany: State University of New York Press;

Arnason, J.P., S.N. Eisenstadt and B. Witrock 2005 (eds.). Axtal Cwilizations. Leiden, and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers. 5 Eisenstadt, S.N. 2005. Axial Civilizations and the Axial Age Reconsidered. in Arnason, J.P., S.N. Eisenstadt and B. Witrock 2005. Axial Cithzations. op. cit. pp. 531-565; Arnason, P. 2005. The Axial Age and its Interpreters: Reopening a Debate. in Arnason, J.P., S.N. Eisenstadt and B. Witrock 2005. Axial Cwilzations. op. cit. pp. 38ff Witrock, B. 2005. The Meaning of the Axial Age. in Arnason, J.P., S.N. Eisenstadt and B. Witrock 2005. Axial Cwilizations. op. cit. pp. 51-87. * Weber, M. [1915] 1970. Gesammelte Aufsaetze zur Religionssoziologie. Tuebingen: Mohr. Weber, M. [1904/05] 2004. Die protestantische Ethik und der Gast des Kapitalismus. Edited by Dirk Kaesler. Bern: Munde. ’ The concept of Great Tradition is derived from Redfield, R. 1962. Human Nature and the Study of Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ° Kedar, B.Z. and Z.R,J. Werblowsky 1998 (eds.). Sacred Space: Shrine, City, Land. Macmillan and The Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities: Jerusalem. ” Witrock, B. 2002. Modernity: One, None, or Many? European Origins and Modernity as a Global Condition. In S.N. Eisenstadt Multiple Modermties. New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers; Eisenstadt, S.N. 1988. Explorations in the Sociology of Knowledge: The Sotertological Axis in the Construction of Domains of Knowledge. Knowledge and Society: Studies in the Sociology of Culture Past and Present: A research Annual. Greenwich, Ct, Philadelphia: JAI Press, pp. 1-73.

®* Eisenstadt, S.N. 1986. The Ongins and Diversity. op. cit. Arnason, P., S.N. Eisenstadt, B. Witrock 2005. Axial Cwilizations. op. cit.

° Weber, M. 1952. Ancient Judaism. Translated D. Martindale. New York: Free Press.

and edited by H.H.

Gerth

and

PART

THREE

THE VARIABILITY OF AXIAL CIVILIZATIONS AND POLITICAL DYNAMICS—THE DISTINCTIVENESS OF THE REVOLUTIONARY PROCESS

ab : oo) fle

Sino

§ See

foe,

1)

YS

>

:

an

irs

iG Yer aid a

eae

be Cage

es

wf © 7

aohteg acta, MP 1@

VO,

ON,

Pr

Peaned

fram >

Cage

&

Be

PS Wpae

OAS

Dye

Teese

7

a

Ve?

2

A

us Wu

Gaufitn

.

iP

Kao

Ceca se

&

Be

* pate,

PSa"

fae? A

Al

7

Welty

ere

bihew eel

(Pap

@

Aigdiee®

PREG

ba 7

>

gan

‘ara?

2

a,

ain't owe

&

% 24%

be

a

Pate

aff

Cut

te

7

hee

hen Se

ep. VV se

ae

—— ot

*

Seba v

hes >ae

wait

Tite

YP

oe

7)

\died

1@ Ome

¢

(>

ia

Him we

°)

ASD

Sih

Det Vai

® >

a Ieee

Gh!

—-

ON

hed

GED

fe -2

*

945

@

ae

po

©

2.

wn,

—

i

Th

aya shin

e. pid

ee

aaa

sa mars

Sew yale

hn

:

é

ly

hers

iu sear

TOTAAL Aa aN ide: 10.7

|

LS TWF Geb Gan PETT gMt Valet art Lonmeanunedite

Peon

0 Sees Seria oo,

FAAPONTO

2 te PE

aS. >..=26 :

7

-

-»

eves

m

ot

®

=

ERE

Ya

dead

iheahe

;

S84

oe)

~

=

a

mi)

= 7

_Aindu Cwilization ¢ 57

VI. “Other-worldly” Civilizations— Lhe Hindu Civilization XXV In the following section we shall analyze in greater detail the relations between different cosmological visions and their utopian orientations, the characteristics of their carriers—the sects and heterodoxies—and the major characteristics of the political dynamics, and of processes of transformations of these societies. We shall start with the analysis of major “other-worldly” civilizations— above all India—the impact of the specific modes of cosmological conceptions prevalent and of movements of protest that developed within it on the constitution and reconstitution of centers and collectivities in India.' The basic ontological conceptions prevalent in Hinduism were probably among the most complicated of the major Axial Civilizations. On the level of the Brahminic ideology and symbolism, Hinduism was based

on what could be seen, among the Axial Age Civilizations, as the most radical conception of the tension between the transcendental and mundane orders. It was derived from the perception that the mundane order is polluted in cosmic terms, because its very creation constituted a breach of the original cosmic harmony. ‘This pollution can be overcome in two different ways, which are at the same time complementary and contradictory. One such way is the faithful performance of the ritual and mundane, above all occupational activities ascriptively allocated to different groups, especially to caste and sub-caste groups. These activities signify different degrees of social and ritual purity or pollution. Closely related is the arrangement of social ritual activities and nexuses in a hierarchical order that reflects an individual’s standing in the cosmic order and the performance of his duty with respect to it. Here we encounter the other level or dimension of the ontological conceptions prevalent in Hinduism, namely that in many ways the mundane activities are, perhaps paradoxically from the point of view of the pristine conception of purity and pollution, endowed dent orientations.

with some

sacral elements and transcen-

58 © Chapter Six The two approaches to mundane arenas were based on two distinct value orientations, on two “axes of sacred value”, values of auspiciousness and purity. These two distinct value orientations were always closely interrelated. Although purity was hierarchically higher, it could never be concretely realized without auspiciousness, in which other—non Brahaminic castes, especially the Ksatriya from which usually the ruler came, were more predominant. on The concrete working out of the tension between the two axes of orientations to mundane activities, and between the acceptance of the mundane life in terms of the sacred and the emphasis on renouncement, constituted one of the major motive forces of the dynamics of Indian ideologies, institutions, and history. They were of crucial importance in the constitution of caste interrelations, of political formations and dynamics and of sectarian activities. The most distinct—even certainly not the only—way in which the cosmological conception which became hegemonic influenced the social formations that developed in India was in what has been designed, without great precision, as the presumably countrywide—but in fact more local or regional—caste orders. These castes and caste-networks were not simple primordial or territorial units of the kind known in many tribal or non-literate societies, that were defined in terms of relatively restricted kinships or territorial “given” criteria. They were, in fact, highly elaborate ideological continuously reconstructed constructions, which imbued such primordial givens or attributes with a more sophisticated level of symbolization and ideologization, giving rise to wide-ranging sectors-and communities, and especially, to the broader ascriptive local and regional caste-networks, which were also in continuous interaction with the political formations and arenas. ‘The caste networks were characterized by.several distinct features. Organizationally, castes were local or regulated units interlocked in a combination of ritual, economic and political ways above all through a series of inter-caste gifts. At the same time, the basic cultural premises or schemata according to which castes and inter-caste relations were constructed were in principle countrywide, but with very many local variations. It was such schemata and tropes, the various networks which bore them, that constituted the major focus of some broad, potentially continent-wide civilizational identity, with multiple local variations. Of great importance in this context is the distinction between the castes of the nght, those economically based on land and the castes of the left, the more mobile castes of merchants and artisans. Significantly,

Brahmins did belong to both castes of the right and of the left and in

Hindu

Civilization

« 59

this way served as the main mediators or points of inter-linkage between different local jati organizations, often in close relation to the kings. Such inter-caste relations were constructed in either hierarchical principle and/or in terms of center-periphery relations. These relations were usually effected through multiple gifts and presentations, often in public displays and ceremonies, in which the ritual power and economic relation between the different castes were symbolized. The inter-relations between castes were constructed according to the different schemas or principles rooted in the basic cosmological visions prevalent in the Hindic civilization. In so far as it was the more transcendental otherworldly orientation of purity which was prevalent, it was indeed the Brahman and the renouncers that constituted the pivot of this orientation. Other castes, especially but not only the Kshatrias, were also imbued with sacral dimensions, rooted much more in the cosmology of auspiciousness which was very powerful in its own realms. But they did not challenge the Brahman’s predominance in its own specific context though the Brahminic orientations were not the only effective factor in inter-caste relations. However they could by effective collective activities, often in cooperation with the rulers, change their relative place especially in the local or regional caste hierarchies and forge for themselves broad arenas of autonomous economic and ritual activities. At the same

time, however,

the stress on the pollution of the world

gave also rise to attempts to reach beyond it, to renounce it: the institution of the renouncer (Sannyasa) has been a complementary pole of the Brahminic tradition at least since the post-classical period. Such renunciation could be the last stage of one’s life-cycle, but it could also entail the breaking out from this life-cycle. Such breaking out was usually manifest not only in purely individual acts, but also in the development of various group processes centered around the figure of the renouncer, which could become the starting points of sectarian formations. XXVI

In close relation to these basic cosmologic conceptions and the constitution of caste networks, there developed in India a rather complex picture from a comparative point of view of definition of the political arena—or rather, as in India there barely developed a conception of this arena as an autonomous entity of rulership. In contrast to monotheistic civilizations or to Confucianism the political arena did not constitute a major arena of the implementation of the

60 © Chapter Six

predominant transcendental vision. The major center of Indian civilization was not political but the religious-ritual one. In close relation to the prevalent otherworldly emphasis, its wide ecological spread, and it being strongly embedded in various ascriptive units, this center was not organized in a homogeneous,

unified, organizational

setting. It rather con-

sisted of a series of networks and organizational-ritual sub-centers, pilgrimage shrines and networks, temples, sects, schools, spread throughout the subcontinent, and often cutting across political boundaries. In “historical” “pre-modern” India the major arenas of the implementation of basic civilizational conceptions and visions were not the political, but the religious-ritual—even when borne by military Kshatriya groups. Concomitantly, while the political component certainly was not of negligible importance in the constitution of the multiple and multifaceted

identities

of the different

collectivities—local,

national

or

religious and indeed also of caste identities—as they crystallized in India, it did not play a central, and certainly not an exclusive, role in such construction. Yet, within this entire context the King played a very central and rather complex and unusual role. According to the view of Dumont and to a smaller extent of Heesterman,’ the king’s symbolic authority was in principle derived from the overall Brahminic cultural-religious vision and was symbolized through religious rituals. Even some degree of authority seems to have been attributed to him independently of religious legitimation. According to these views, while the political arena in India was characterized by a relatively high level of symbolic and organizational distinctiveness and imbued with strong universal even if not universalistic orientations, yet its “sanctity” was ‘derivative. Recently, however, there have developed strong revisionist approaches to this conception. It was more and more emphasized that the political ruler achieved a high level of sacral or semi-sacral status, distinction and honor. ‘The king was often portrayed as “king of the universe,” his rule extending to the four corners of the earth, his coronation ceremony and its accompanying horse sacrifice renewing his powers annually. The king’s claim to universal sovereignty, as “lord of all lords,” and the manifestation of his greatness through temples and monuments attested to the power and distinctiveness of political authority. The symbolic portrayal as king of the universe also reflected an ever-present desire to extend political domination and constant attempts to aggrandize mundane power, primarily through territorial expansion or, even more so, through the encompassing of the loyalty of peoples in the area. Although the king’s symbolic authority was in principle derived from the overall cultural-religious vision and was symbolized through religious

Hindu

Civilization « 61

rituals, some degree of authority seems to have been attributed to him independent of religious legitimation. Yet, given the basic orientations prevalent in Hindu civilization toward mundane affairs, the political arenas maintained a certain, even if only partial, detachment from the more “other-worldly” religious arena. This was an opening for foreign rulers to be accepted, and for potential rivals to try to usurp power. One manifestation of the distance of the political center from the religious one was that political leaders would enter into office without the appropriate varna qualifications. Chandragupta, for instance, came from obscure origins, yet became one of the greatest emperors. Concomitantly, while classical Indian religious thought has a lot to say about formation

of policies, the behavior of princes, and the duties

(though less about the rights) of subjects, yet to a much greater extent than in other civilizations, politics was viewed in non-transcendental terms

that emphasized its distance from the religious center of the civilization, even if the situation was seen as necessary for the upholding of the mundane and cosmic orders along and hence was endowed sacral attributes. “... Recent anatyses of the meaning of Hindu kingship in diverse historical contexts have confirmed Gonda’s view that to separate the ‘secular’ aspects of kingship from the ‘religious’ is to misrepresent the nature of Hindu social reality. Or, to put it another way, the dharma or the code-for-conduct of the king is as laden and as culturally specific as the dharma of the Brahman...” “...As Marriot had earlier suggested, it is not only the Brahman varna that is the source of values in caste society. And in the textual discourses, these images of lordshipwyare, according to Inden, ‘the fundamental categories of... Hindu social thought.’ ‘Thus, while the Brahman stands at the apex of the hierarchy of varnas his ‘purity’ or renunciatory capacities do not stand in opposition to a supposedly ‘secular’ Ksatriya power. Both exercise lordship and mastery over their respective ritually defined domains, and caste itself appears to be organized, in Inden’s text, in terms of this essentially Ksatriya image of lordship . . .” “..To assume that Brahman cannot be hierarchically preeminent while

being,

at the same

time, in some

ways

equivalent

to Barbers,

Untouchables, and other recipients of gifts from the ritually central jajmani, is to fall prey to an unnecessarily reified and concretized notion of social structure and social order. The order lies not in one fixed or internally consistent ranking, but in a pragmatically constituted set of shifting meanings and shifting configurations of castes...” The very openness of the top of the hierarchy could, as Pamela Price has shown, make this system very flexible and open. At the same time,

62 © Chapter Six

however, this openess allowed different criteria of access to power, based

on mundane criteria of success—military strength, wealth and articulation of solidarity of different local and regional groups or centers or on some previous traditions of kingship in the area, to develop in the political arena, and thus also often to change the place of different castes (except for the untouchables) in the local or regional caste hierarchies. XXVII

These conceptions of the political arena were closely related to the concept and practice of sovereignty that developed in India. As A. Wink, the Rudolphs® and others have shown, within India there developed a

concept and practice of sovereignty, which emphasized the multiple rights of different groups and sectors of society and nat the existence—real or ideal—of a unitary, almost ontological concept of the state. Concomitantly, a rather specific combination developed of a tendency to civilizational, universal or “Imperial” expansion with such “fractured” sovereignty. The tendency to such expansion did not however give rise to autonomous political centers, distinct from the periphery, with strong Imperial orentations, like it did in China and in monotheistic

civilizations.

Political imagery did play a crucial role in the construction of Indian collective consciousness, especially in the encounter with other alien, above all Islamic, civilizations. It was such encounter that has, as Sheldon

Pollock’ has recently shown, generated the growing importance of the cult of Rama in large parts of India since about the twelfth century, and has intensified the importance of the political components in the self-definition of the Indians, and of the new “others”. Significantly enough, however, even the intensification of this political component did not give rise to attempts to impose on the Indian civilization the given Axiological vision against the other (Islamic) one. The intensification of the political component in such self-definition did not entail the attempt to confront the other civilizations in terms of universalistic exclusivity of one’s own. XXVIII

Several characteristics of this relatively flexible and open social system and of political organization are of great importance for the understanding of the constitution of public spheres, political participation and dynamics in “historical” India. The first of these characteristics is the relate autonomy of the major social sectors and networks, the complex and networks of castes, villages,

Hindu

Civilization « 63

guilds, occupational groups such as those of merchants. These various sectors of “civil” society were characterized by a very high extent of autonomy fully embedded in ascriptive, albeit wide and continuously reconstructed, units whose place in the social order was in principle prescribed by their ritual standing in the purity-suspiciousness scheme. The nature of this autonomy has been captured by R. Inden,° who defines the various local and caste groups as both subjects and citizens who, although taxed and controlled by the kings were also allowed a high degree of self-regulation: they “had an inherent, but limited and partial capacity (we might call it mghts) to combine within and among themselves and order their own affairs.” But it was not only the relative autonomy of these networks or groups from the rulers that is important. Of great significance from the point of view of our discussion is the fact that this autonomy was connected with the possibility of at least some autonomous access to the rulers, an access rooted not in a conception of “rights,” certainly not of individual rights, but rather in that of the duties of rulers to listen to the problems raised by the subjects. Moreover at least some attention to the demands of the subjects and their problems or demands was effected not just through petitions and behind-the-scenes bargaining, but in open public occasions such as for instance in those described by Pamela Price.” It was because of this combination of relative autonomy of such sectors from the ruler; the possibility of autonomous access to the ruler, and the public nature of some at least of the negotiations between them, that these networks which constituted the major components of the public spheres that developed in Indian society, can be seen as kernels of an equivalent of civil society in the European scene—albeit one rooted in conceptions of duties, and not of rights and organized in a highly hierarchical and in principles collective ways. In the context of these relations between the different sectors of society, the political components and the political arenas or rather the arenas of rulership played indeed a crucial role in the construction of collective identities and characteristics, including caste identities. Thus to follow Pratep Mehta, “rather

than seeing civil society as autonomous from the state, it should be seen as being more state-centered, with social turbulence more or less following the contours of political turbulence.”!° At the same time, given the strong hierarchical roots and assumptions on which this model was based, the civility and tolerance that developed within these public spheres were of a “segregative” and limited type. It was not only that many of the “lower”—“scheduled”—castes and the untouchables were basically excluded from such public arenas.

64 © Chapter Six

Beyond this the relations between different sectors in the public spheres were indeed regulated by a hierarchical concept of duties. Yet, significantly enough, these relations were also imbued with very strong emphasis on reciprocity, which—formulated in terms of reciprocal even if not egalitarian duties—when combined with the relatively flexible mode of constitution of concrete caste groups (jatis) on the ground, could serve as ground for some common discourse. XXIX

Thus the seeming and of course, partial similarity to the “European” model of civil society was based on premises dramatically opposite to those that were

connected

in Europe with the development,

already in

the pre-modern period, of constitutional regimes and of the kernels of civil society, of access of limited but continually expanding sectors of society to the political arena, and their participation in the political

process. But interestingly and possibly paradoxically, in the public spheres which developed in Indian societies and in which the participants had greater access to the political arena than, for instance as we shall see, in most Islamic societies, in India there developed only very weak tendencies to the reconstitution of the political regimes than in the sectarian sectors in the Muslim societies due to that one of the most important derivatives of this situation was that the basic definition of ontological reality and of the political arena prevalent in India did not give rise to strong alternative conceptions of the political order. ~ ‘

XXX

The weak development of such tendencies were rooted ia the fact that the political arena, at least in late ancient and medieval Indian history did not constitute a major focus of the implementation of the prevalent transcendental vision, even if kings were imbued with very strong sacral

dimensions. ‘Therefore, it did not serve as a major arena of institutional reconstruction. ‘The highly developed conceptions of sacral kingship, of kingdoms as pivots of cosmological visions, which are characteristic of many Indian kingdoms, and the conception of the great kings as kings or kings of the Earth, did not entail strong transcendental conceptions, entailing a far-reaching reconstruction of the periphery in the name of such conception. The basic definition of ontological reality and the strong other-worldly conceptions of the mode of implementation of the transcendental vision that developed in these civilizations did not generate as was the case

Hindu

Civilization « 65

in Europe, and to a smaller extent in Islamic societies—strong alternative conceptions of the social and political orders and the principled, ideological reconstruction of the political (or economic) arena according to basic transcendental orientations. The principled reconstruction of the political (or economic) arena did not constitute—unlike in Europe or in China—a major focus of the movements of protest, or of the numerous sectarian activities that devel-

oped in India, Bhakti, Jain, or Buddhism itself,'' and other minor sects or movements in Hinduism, even if in many cases segments of such movements, participated in the change of political regimes and in the wars between different kings and princes. The orientations of many of these sectarian movements often focused on attempts at the promulgation of more universalistic definitions of the religious communities, and on attainment within them of greater equality rooted in a pure unmediated devotion to the Absolute, taking them beyond any ascriptive communal and above all caste settings. In these otherworldly civilizations there also developed many utopias. However, they were usually not focused on the reconstruction of the political arena and the mode of political involvement of the religious elites, sects and heterodoxies developed in these civilizations in a direction different from those in the monotheistic or Confucian civilizations. The utopias that developed in these civilizations, and were promulgated by their major sectarian movements, were oriented against those institutional arrangements, which seemed as compromising the negation of the mundane world. Additionally, they were very strongly onented to the reconstruction of inner experience of the believer. The most important of these sects—Bhakti, Jainism, originally Buddhism itself—were all closely connected with the traditions and orientations of the renouncer—the Sanyasi who promulgated a pristine utopian otherworldly orientation. These utopian or semi-utopian conceptions developed not only as intellectual or ascetic exercises, as elaborations of esoteric doctrines in which only small groups were engaged, but as full-fledged sects, each of which offered its own interpretation of the proper way to salvation and gave rise to far-reaching innovation in different social arenas. These various Hindu sects and Buddhism itself, originally a sectarian movement

within Hinduism,

the religious sphere ilization—but they political arena. These dynamics ria of membership munities,

had far-reaching impacts not only on

but on the entire institutional framework of this civdid not entail the principled reconstruction of the focused on the continuous restructuring of the critein ascriptive-primordial and religious political com-

the redefinition

of the boundaries

of these communities

and

66 * Chapter Six

access to them with periodic attempts to imbue them with a strong emphasis on equality. Here indeed the most dramatic innovation within these civilizations was the rise of Buddhism itself from within the Indian civilization and beyond it. The dynamics generated by these sects, in coalition with other social groups, very often with different local caste groups, led to the restructuring and expansion of the civilizational, political, and religious frameworks and collectivities, as well as to far-reaching changes in the scope of political and economic units. They were not, however, oriented to the reconstruction of political centers or of the basic premises of the political regimes. These movements were oriented above all towards the religious and civilizational symbols and collectivities. They could become closely connected with the extension of the borders of political communities or with the establishment of new ones, with changes of dynasties, but rarely with the reconstruction of the premises of the political centers. Buddhism gave rise to such new premises. But, they became fully institutionalized only outside India, in the new Theravada Buddhist polities of Southeast Asia, and in Mahayana ‘Tibet. The socio-political demands voiced in these movements were focused on attempts to change the concrete application of existing rules and to persuade the rulers to implement more benevolent policies. Moreover, they have often connected with attempts of different caste groups to upgrade their status in the caste-hierarchy. Such demands were not usually seen as new principles of political action or of accountability of rulers to different sectors of the population, but rather as an articulation of the latent moral cosmological premises of these societies. In this way these demands differed radically from those which developed in those Axial Civilizations in which—in line with their strong thisxworldly (as in Confucian civilization) or as in the case of the monotheistic civilization of combined this- and other-worldly conceptions of salvation—the political arena was conceived as the major or as one major arena of the implementation of the transcendental vision. The impact of these sects on the dynamics of Hindu or of Buddhist civilization was closely related to the fact that, while the various sectarian “religious” groups, organizations, or conglomerations were on the whole autonomous in the religious sphere in the cultural-religious arena, in the more “mundane” sphere they were usually embedded in various ascriptive groups in the political frameworks of the rulers. At the same time they could play a very important role in the upgrading of different castes in the overall, local or regional-caste-hierarchy. Hence, while the leaders of these sects were able to form many new

Hindu Cwilization ¢ 67

coalitions with different social groups and movements, these coalitions were very similar to those, which existed in the major arenas of their respective societies. They rarely generated markedly different principles of social organization, especially in the political arena. Within the various secondary elites and sectarian movements developed only very weak attempts to reconstruct the political centers, their symbols, and the general criteria of access to them, although many of these movements did participate in political struggles attempting to construct a wider space for themselves and to influence the policies of the ruler. XXXI There were of course very important but never absolute exceptions to the relatively weak principled political orientations of the various sectarlan movements. Thus on the one hand there developed, as Shulman and Subrahmanjah'* have shown, in South India, especially in Tamilnadu, a rather distinct type of polity, which was characterized by a much greater autonemy of the political arena rooted in the castes of the left hand with strong sectarian tendencies and seemingly without the Brahminic mode

being predominant.

Moreover,

as M.L.

Reiniche

has indicated,”

among some of these sectarian movements there developed far-reaching challenges to the Brahminic hegemony, often indeed closely connected to such political endeavors. And yet significantly enough in all these cases, there developed a very strong process of Brahminization of such sectarianism, which was originally connected with very significant transporting of the religious orientations beyond the Brahmanic caste order, into yet another component of this order. Thus for instance, as David Shulman has shown,'* the Viraisva movement in the twelfth century, which started as a protest against this order with its triple pivot of temple, caste, and king, “ultimately the Revolution was in fact transformed.” Parallely, and again in contrast to Europe, the reconstruction of the major collectivities and the development of new types of social organization in India was not, on the whole, connected with radical shifts in

the modes of their legitimation, or with principled struggles concerning the bases of such legitimation. The bases of legitimation of the various mundane activities—political, economic, and the like—defined in terms of their respective dharmas and auspicious performances, were relatively continuous throughout Indian history, even if their concrete applications were often rather flexible. Throughout its long history, “traditional” India, including Mughal India, witnessed far-reaching changes in its political and economic organization, in technology, and in levels of social differentiation—redefinition

68 © Chapter Six

of the boundaries of political units, some restructuring of the economic sphere, and changes in social and economic policies—all effected by coalitions of entrepreneurs rooted in different caste and sectarian networks and of economic groups such as merchants. But except for the ultimately unsuccessful attempt of Asoka, most of these processes of movements of change did not succeed in—and possibly did not even aim at—restructuring the basic premises of the :political arena, or the basic center-periphery relations. NOTES ' Bayly, S. 1999. Caste, Society and Politics in India from the Eighteenth Century to the Modern Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Heesterman, J.C. 1985. The Inner Conflict of Tradition: Essays in Indian Ritual, Kingship, and Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press; Kaviraj, S., 1996. India: Dilemmas of Democratic Development. in A. Leftwich (ed.). Democratic Development. Cambridge: Polity Press. 2 Dumont, L. 1970. Homo Hierachicus. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. § Heesterman, J.C. 1957. The Ancient Indian Royal Consecration. The Hague: Brill; idem. 1985. The Inner Conflict. op. cit.; idem. 1992. Die Gebrochene Ordunung: Indiens ‘nachachesenzentliche’

Erfahrung,

in S.N.

Eisenstadt

(ed.) Aultwren

der Achsenzent

2: Ihre

Institutionelle und Kulturelle Dynamik. Teil 2 (Indien), Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, pp. 80-102. * Price, P. 1986. Kingship and Political Practice in Colomal India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. » Wink, A. 1986. Land and Sovereignty in India. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; idem 1991. Al-Hind: The Making of the Indo-Islamic World. Leiden: Brill. ® Rudolph, L. and S. Rudolph 1987. Jn Pursuit of Lakshmi: The Political Economy of the Indian State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ” Pollock, S. 1993. Ramayana and Political Imagination in India. Journal of Asian Studies, vol. 52, no. 2, pp. 261-297; idem. 1989. Mimamsa and the Problem of History in Traditional India. Journal of the American Onental Society. vol. 109, no. 4, pp. 603-608; idem. 2000. Indian Knowledge Systems on the Eve of Colonialism. Jnéellectual History Newsletter, 22, pp. 1-16; idem. 1985. The Theory of Practice and the Practice of Theory in Indian Intellectual History, Journal of American Oriental Society, vol. 105, no. 3, pp. 499-519. ® Inden, R.

1982.

Hierarchies

of Kings in Medieval

India. In T.N.

Madan,

(ed.).

Way of Lafe:King, Householder, Renouncer, Essays in Honour of Louis Dumont. New Delhi: Vikas Publishing, pp. 99-126; Inden, R. 1990. Imaging India. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. * Price, P. 1986. Aingship and Political Practice. op. cit. '" Mehta, P.—Private Communication. '' Kirfel, W. 1959. Symbolik des Hinduismus und des Finismus. Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann; Reynolds,

F.E.

and

C. Hallisey

1987.

Buddhism:

An

Overview.

in E. Mircea

(ed.).

The

Encyclopedia of Religion. New York and London: Macmilan Publishing. Vol. 2, pp. 334-351; Carman, J.B. 1987. Bhakti. in E. Mircea (ed.). The Encyclopedia of Religion. New York and London: Macmilan Publishing. Vol. 2, pp. 130-134; Caillat, C. 1987. Jainism. in E. Mircea (ed.). The Encyclopedia ofReligion. New York and London: Macmilan Publishing. vol. 7, pp. 507-514.

" Shulman, D. and S. Subrahmanjan, 1992. Symbols of Substance—Court and State in Navace Period Tamilnadu Delhi. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Hindu

Ciwwilization « 69

'S Reiniche, M.-L. 1998. Des “brahmeins” et des “dieux’” en sociologie. Le systeme indien des castesc revisite. Arch. Europ. Sociol. vol. 39, no. 2, pp. 283-308. '* Shulman, D. 1984. The Enemy Within: Idealism and Dissent in South Indian Hinduism, in S.N. Eisenstadt, R. Kahane and D. Shulman (eds.). Orthodoxy, Heterodoxy and Dissent in India. Berlin: Mouton Publishers, pp. 11-57.

et

es,

'

: fa >

7

Ly

‘3

ee

a

eben \Aser

ewad, &

oye prpeeVe oils

Ae

GtCSOT

he dul Wk

|e 0)

si 7

aw

7

pees

_

Pre A ee) aera]

o

orn)

1A

ans

;

'

Onmrgr

-

-

g

OVP

as

_

i

ban

-

N

Pom9 -

2

_

i

x

——— ou

=

> 7

a

7

ote© ine

®

5p

# *

wa

sv

;

=

cz

”

.

;

i

» aa

i

7

i

ba

Tusa

ow

via

a

ety, be TP Meheyy

tel)

}

7

—

waa

i

-

:

ithe

:

a

i

aX

~~

ve

tay

:

Gtpeal

si

a

—

:

I

at,

an

ae

ro

©

Pram

5

We

——_|

‘

Rate

nar) Sita

»

®

ee

a

é

KA

tag

i

-

;

2

‘

=

i

2

:

a>

7

~ _

.

;

»@

Owe

>

6

%

Pe cap

>

bee

=

Py

«

O06 ome

_

1°

lea

Win >

=

atan,

= 4

_

¢.

oe

7

‘,

7

—

4 *

vote

6

4

:

ch

_

nae ® al Beg

Hb dae Ai Mighell tite Tia ta

_

>

nan

iw

&

Tes

re

ees

i

ine

4

:s

is

A-~g joan

a

| _

t

idee

weenes ie,”

ee

|

Ad

|

2 5

~prmenrour

3!

'’

‘

foe

. ;

\/

ie)

?

sana

&

a

>) & (wh

»

ets

Nor (aguas

Cai.

Vet) Uae

Oo Guay hae Oheed

\ Wee 7

a

‘Soni

Doe Maeaae allot Yel le Qupgy are

Vey

oa. i

es.

i Thiet,

£ ory

* |

a

@ i

—_

DE

1D >.

ay

a

a)

7

.

Thhw Poe

-

=

g

eo

i

Chinese Confucian Political Order ¢ 71

VII. ‘The Political Dynamics in “this-worldly” Civilization—the Chinese Confucian Political Order XXXII

In China there developed a special mode of definition of the tension between the transcendental and the mundane arena, as well as a special conception of its resolution. The Chinese Confucian—or Confucianlegal— Civilization as it crystallized in China from the Han and above all the Tang Empires was possibly together with the Hellenistic and Hellenist Civilization the clearest case of a “this-worldly” civilization.! In the classical Chinese-Confucian cosmology the tensions between the transcendental and the mundane arenas was couched in relatively secular terms, 1.e. in terms of a metaphysical and/ethical—and

not a reli-

gious—distinction between these two arenas. The secular definition of these tensions became connected with a tendency to the development of an almost entirely this-worldly conception of the resolution of such tension. The thrust of the official Confucian civilizational orientations was that the resolution of this tension was attained through the cultivation of thevsocial, political and cultural orders, as the major way of maintaining the cosmic harmony. Thus it focused around the elaboration of what Herbert Fingarette has defined’ as the cultivation of the “secular as sacred” and of “The Human Community as a Holy Rite.” The Chinese—the-Confucian-legal-one—this-worldly orientation stressed the proper performance of worldly duties and activities within the existing social frameworks, i.e. the family, broader kin groups, and Imperial service, as the ultimate criterion of the resolution of the tension between the transcendental and the mundane order and of individual responsibility. The major thrust of the Confucian orientations was the conscious taking out of these social relations from their seemingly natural context and their ideologization in terms of the higher transcendental orientations, the proper attitude which could be only acquired through a largely demysticized and demagicized ritual, learning, and contemplation. This learning and contemplation, paradoxically enough, not only allowed, but—as can be seen especially in

72 © Chapter Seven

neo-Confucianism,

the roots of which

exist also in the earlier, classical

Confucianism—generated very strongly a non-traditionalistic, reflexive definition of the nature of the cosmic order and of human existence. This definition contained within itself a continuous principled awareness of the tension between the cosmic transcendental ideal and any given reality; of the imperfectability of the mundane order in general and the political one in particular; of the only partial legitimation of the existing political order in terms of the basic cosmic harmony, and the great personal tensions involved both in the attempts to maintain such harmony through proper conduct and attitude, which necessitates a very stringent and reflexive self-discipline; as well as in the development of a critical attitude to the existing mundane world in general and political

order in particular, all of which did of course develop in China among the many Confucian and especially neo-Confucian schools. This vision was promulgated by a distinct type of elites—the literati— who were characterized by a rather unusual combination of autonomy with strong embedment in the Imperial bureaucracy in the service of the rulers, which was however to a large extent constituted according to the Confucian premises and criteria. These elites exercised a virtual monopoly over access to the center. They constituted, together with the emperor and to some degree the warlords, the central power elite, carriers of the Confucian hegemony, which ruled in China—one of the clearest cases in_ the human history of Gramscian hegemony.’ They controlled the flow of resources in the society, the constitution of the social and cultural arenas and the social orientations of the major social groups. Unlike in-the Christian (and to some degree Muslim) civilizations in general, and in Europe and in the Byzantine Empire in particular, no separation of Church and State developed in the center of Chinese society. Only secondary sects, Taoists, Buddhists, and the like, were distinct from the State; but their impingement on it was limited. It was these elites that developed the very complex mechanisms of control and which assured, until the fall of the Empire in the early twen-

tieth century, its basic institutional continuity. The first aspect of these mechanisms of control has been the tendency to structure the flow of resources between the center and periphery, more in the direction from the periphery to the center than vice-versa and the strong control of this flow—as well as to some degree the flow within the periphery—by the center. This also includes the concomitant tendency to make it easier to convert the setting up by the political (and cultural) center of the rates (except on the local interpersonal level) of conversion between these spheres and the conversion of political resources

Chinese Confucian Political Order ¢ 73

into economic ones rather than vice-versa. Second, there developed in China continuous attempts by the center to minimize the development of autonomous linkages between different institutional spheres or social sections or of the possibility of their becoming mutually restructured. Third, was the control and semi-monopolization by the central elites of the major channels of communication through which the premises and formations of the central social order, its key symbols and reference orientations, were developed. In common with Europe and India, there did develop wide social sectors, which were autonomous from the state. In contrast to Europe and in different mode

to India, however, in China such autonomy was only

de-facto. It was not fully legitimized by the hegemonous elite. Although in fact wide social sectors and spaces had far-reaching autonomy in China, in principle, most arenas of social life were regulated by the state, according to the Confucian-legalist precepts. But the most important difference from India and Europe was the fact that none of these sectors had any autonomous access to the state, or to the center. Such access was almost totally monopolized and controlled by the center— and the center constituted the major macro-societal reference orientation of most sectors of the society. The central public arena was limited to the court, bureaucracy, and to some other literati groups. Access to it was in principle entirely controlled and regulated by the center. Other sectors of society, even those like the gentry, from which most of the literati were recruited, were not allowed any autonomous access to or participation in the central public arena. There developed many “local” public arenas. ‘Their access to the center, however, was controlled*by the central public arena. The range and impact of their autonomous activities on the center and on the political arena was necessarily restricted. Lineages, local groups and the like could serve as bases for autonomous local activities. But, except in periods of turmoil, or of Imperial breakdown, they did not develop

any autonomous access to the central arenas. Concomitantly, given the fact that the Confucian vision emphasized a very strong ex-toto vision of the social order, and did not entail any

conception of citizenship, there did not develop in China any general principles of civic participation in the political arena according to which such different policies and institutional formations could be evaluated. It was the successful implementation by the major ruling coalitions of these mechanisms of control that shaped the basic characteristics of the major institutional areas as they crystallized in China. It was also this successful implementation that gave rise in China to a very specific pattern, as compared to other Axial Age Civilizations, of the absorption

74 © Chapter Seven

within the basic institutional framework of the major types of processes and movements of change that developed there. That means, it gave rise to a specific type of civilizational and political dynamics. XXXII In close relation to these characteristics of the hegemonic elites, and to the modes of control exercised by them, thére developed some distinct characteristics of cultural and institutional dynamics in China. The various innovative activities promulgated by various sectors of the literati or in close relation to them in the cultural arena had an immense impact on the general cultural ambiance of Chinese society and on the constitution of the institutional frameworks of Chinese society. But the fact of their very strong involvement in the political arena, the fact that they constituted a continuous component of the ruling coalitions and that they had but few autonomous resources outside the central political arena, and the nature of the public arena itself, had some very important repercussions on the mode of their participation in the political arenas and of their impact on processes of change. Truly enough, in common with other Axial Civilizations—such as Europe and India—the far-reaching structural and organizational changes that developed in China contained a very high potentiality for combining very strong ideological dimensions with marked overall institutional changes or breakthroughs. But these processes had,in comparison with those which developed in other Axial Age Civilizations, and especially in the great monotheistic ones, relatively limited institutional effects. Thus, unlike in other, especially monotheistic’ civilizations, seemingly no new breakthroughs developed in the institutional realms in China, at least not from the time of the full institutionalization of the Confucianlegalistic Imperial system under the Tang. From that time and throughout the long period of the Empire there basically developed no far-reaching changes in the overall political formations or in the modes of political economy, such as the development of a fully fledged feudal economic pattern, or the transition from tribal to patrimonial formations, as in Europe, India or Japan, even if it naturally happened in different ways in each of these civilizations. The important breakthroughs that did take place in the cultural, especially in the philosophical, educational, and artistic arenas, were hemmed

in through rather distinct control processes effected by the hegemonic Imperial Confucian elites. This was even more true of the potential economic and political breakthroughs. Thus, ultimately the numerous new ideological developments, which emerged in China usually provided only secondary interpretations of the

Chinese Confucian Political Order ¢ 75

dominant value structure — even if the development of Neo-Confucianism, in the twelfth and thirteenth century, can in many ways be seen as a major new development breaking through the existing mold. Most of them emphasized the ideology and symbolism of the Mandate of Heaven. They did not spawn radically new orientations or new institutional patterns, above all with respect to the accountability of rulers. The political orientations of the military governors and warlords were also usually set within the existing value system and political framework. Although they strove for greater independence from, or seizure of, the central government, only rarely did they aim at the establishment of a new type of political system. It was only with the downfall of the Empire that “real,” full-fledged warlordism developed as a major mode of constitution of the central political framework. Here the interpretation of Neo-Confucianism is of great importance and it has often constituted a focus of scholarly controversy. There can be no doubt that Neo-Confucian groups were intensively concerned with the reconstruction of the Imperial order in accordance with their metaphysical and moral visions, and that they had far-reaching impact on some aspects of policy, such as land allotment, taxation, and to some extent of the examination. Confucian thinkers of different generations, especially the Neo-Confucians were concerned from the Sung period on, with the imperfection of the political system, of the Emperor, of the examination system and of the bureaucracy. They continuously called for government based on the golden rule. At the same time, they rarely challenged the basic premises of the political order. Even when they advocated that the political order had to conform to the moral one, they never challenged the very foundation of the Imperial order, or the view that political-cultural arenas, as represented in this order, were the main institutional arenas for implementing the Confucian transcendental vision. Given their basic adherence to the conception of the political-cultural center in the broad sense, and especially the political arena, as the major arena of implementation of the Confucian vision, they did not go beyond suggestion of reforms to concrete attempts at reconstructing the basic premises of the center itself. Consequently, they attempted to find some fulfillment beyond them. The major thrust of their transformative orientations was in the direction of cultural,

and

to some

extent

educational,

activities of greater

moral sensibility and responsibility, even of critical appraisal of political arena, though nor to its transformation. The strong emphasis on individual responsibility and on the moral cultivation of the individual which was highly developed, especially among the Neo-Confucians, was oriented either towards perfecting the philosophical premises of respective

76 © Chapter Seven

oo

:

—_-

sy

systems or towards the development of private intellectual or mystic religious tendencies and reflexivity. These connected with other-worldly tendencies, but mostly on the private level. Parallel to this, the relations between the secondary religions or heterodoxies like Buddhism and Taoism, and the central political struggle did not exert (except in the Tang period, when the Buddhists were pushed out of the center) any far-reaching transfarmative influences on the Chinese social and political order, although they brought about many changes in the different institutional arenas. The various Neo-Confucian schools incorporated some Buddhist or Taoist concerns into their intellectual system and attempted to provide more explicit rules for defining the basic ontology. ‘The development of these Neo-Confucian schools can be seen as a reaction to the strong attraction of Buddhism and ‘Taoism for many strata, including the literati,

in times of trouble and division. But the incorporation of some Buddhist or Taoist themes into Neo-Confucianism was effected within the basic framework of the Neo-Confucian this-worldly orientations. The cultivation of other-worldly orientations was left to the various sects in their relatively segregated arenas, or to the private life of the literati. Above all, these movements of protest—as well as religious movements that arose in the peripheries or in secondary institutional arenas of these societies—evinced despite some broader orientations and obviously incipient tendencies in this direction, had only few capacities to become linked with the central political struggle, and to develop new common ideologies and frameworks of political action oriented to the centers. Accordingly, however strong ascetic or religious like attitudes- and internal tensions developed within them they were limited to the private realm. Similarly, few enduring organizational, structural, and ideological connections developed between these sections, the different potentially heterodox ideologies and policies emanating from the center, and the more popular movements. ‘True, many (usually unemployed) literati and members of the gentry participated in secret societies and rebellions. But those either tended to articulate the ideology of the Mandate of Heaven or to provide different secondary interpretations of the predominant ideologies. A rather parallel pattern developed in conjunction with the impact of the utopian visions that developed in China. Powerful transcendental, potentially utopian visions and orientations did develop in China, especially among the Neo-Confucianists from the time of the Sung on. These visions were also oriented, as was the case in other Axial Civilizations, against many specific aspects of the institutionalization of what was conceived as the major metaphysical and ethical messages of the Confucian visions.

Chinese Confucian Political Order ¢ 77

Yet, while

these

utopian

or semi-utopian

visions

had

far-reaching

impact on the cultural scene in general and on the philosophical political discourse in particular, their impact on the more practical arrangements was usually limited to ad hoc proposals, and did not entail a strong possibility of changes within the major institutional formations of the political arena. In China, unlike in the monotheistic civilizations, utopias and utopian and sectarian movements did not lead to far reaching institutional reconstitution of the political centers of the society. Thus, while many important attempts at reform grounded in Confucian and Neo-Confucian visions abounded in China, especially from the Sung period onward, in none of these attempts do we find those tendencies to the reconstruction of the premises and centers of the regimes that can be found in the monotheistic civilizations. The relatively weak ideological and structural linkage between the various movements and processes of change and the central political struggle in particular between their own activities and those of the different secondary institutional elites were connected with the basic characteristics of the literati. They were

especially connected,

first, with the fact

that the literati constituted both an autonomous intellectual stratum and a political, and administrative elite; and that, paradoxically, they did not have many resources independent of the political arena, which could serve as bases of independent action. Second, they were closely connected to the fact that their major cultural orientations entailed the assumption—that the political and cultural arenas constituted the major arena of resolution of the tension between the transcendental and mundane orders. Accordingly,

there did not tend fo develop in China

strong orienta-

tions towards political action and organization which went beyond the existing political order or at least not against its basic premises, nor any continuous and strong bases of independent action and contacts with broader groups, sects and movements which could serve as basis of such action. Thus the uniqueness of the Chinese case lay in the ability of the ruling elites to regulate the numerous actual and potential internal and external impingements on its symbolic premises and institutional frameworks, without these impingements being able to change or restructure the basic premises of these frameworks, although the different NeoConfucian schools did generate far-reaching reinterpretations of such premises. It was the combination of these characteristics of the political and institutional dynamics that developed in China that explains, as we shall yet see in greater detail later on, that the revolutionary potentials developing in it became actualized only as “late” Revolution.

78 © Chapter Seven

NOTES ' On the China Empire see: Reischauer, E.O. and J.K. Fairbank 1960. A History of East Asian Civilization, vol. 1, East Asia, the Great Tradition, Boston:

Houghton

Mifflin,

chaps. 2-10; Eberhard, W. 1950. A History of China. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul; Balazs, E. 1964. Chinese Civilization and Bureaucracy: Variations on a Theme. New Haven: Yale

University Press; Bodde, D. 1956. Feudalism in China, in R. Coulborn (ed.), Feudalism in History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 49-92; Eberhard, W. 1952. Conquerors and Rulers: Social Forces in Medieval China Leiden: EJ. Brill; Ping-ti Ho and Tang Tsou 1968 (eds.). China in Crisis: China’s Heritage and the Communist Political System. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1, pp. 1-448; Lattimore, O. 1951. The Inner Asian Frontiers of China. New York: Capitol; Elvin, M. 1973. The Pattern of the Chinese Past. London: Eyre & Methuen; Willmott, J.W.E. 1972 (ed.). Economic Organization in Chinese Society. Stanford: Stanford University Press. * Fingarette, H. 1975. Confucius: The Secular as Sacred. New York: Harper & Row. * Gramsci, A. and D. Forgacs 2000. The Gramsci reader: selected writings, 1916-1935. New York: New York University Press; Gramsci, A., D. Forgacs, et al. 1985. Selections from cultural writings. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press.

Islam ¢ 79

VIII. Monotheistic Civilizations— Islam XXXIV

The major monotheistic civilizations—the Jewish, Christian and Muslim— as they developed in different political and political-ecological settings gave rise to the distinct patterns of civilizational and political dynamics, and were characterized by the prevalence within them of different combinations of this and other worldly orientation. The pattern of political dynamics that developed in Islam was closely related to its basic drive to create a civilization with its own specific premises, a crucial aspect of which was the conflation of the political and religious communities (in which military conquests constitute an important component) as expressed in the ideal of the wmmah. Indeed it was the ideal of the ummah—the community of all believers—that was the major arena for the implementation of the transcendental and moral vision of Islam; of the strong universalistic component in the definition of the Islamic community, and the closely connected emphasis on the principled political equality of all believers. This pristine vision of the ummah, probably implicit only in the very formative period of Islam, entailed a complete fusion of political and religious collectivities, the complete convergence or conflation of the sociopolitical and religious communities. Indeed, the very conceptual distinction between these two dimensions, rooted in the Western historical experience, is basically not applicable to the concept of the wmmah. The continual confrontation of this ideal with the political realities attendant of the expansion of Islam constituted a most important factor in the development of political dynamics in Islamic societies. Thus, already early in the formation and expansion of Islam the possibility of attaining the ideal fusion between the political and the religious community, of constructing the wmmah as a basic tenet of Islam, was actually abandoned. Instead the mainstream of Islamic (Sunni) religious thought stressed the legitimacy of the existence of the Muslim community and of any ruler who assures the peaceful existence of this community.

80 © Chapter Exght

In this vision strong tensions developed from the very beginning of Islam’s history between the particularistic primordial Arab elements or components, seemingly naturally embodied in the initial carriers of the Islamic vision and the universalistic orientation. These tensions became more important with the continual expansion of Islamic conquest and incorporation of new territorial entities and ethnic groups.’ The final crystallization of this universalistic ideology took place with the so-called Abbasid Revolution. Paradoxically, also in this period —indeed, in close relation to the institutionalization of this universalistic vision—developed, especially within Sunni Islam, a de facto (and to a much smaller extent

and in a different mode in Shiite Islam especially in Iran) separation between the religious community and the rulers, a separation between the khalifa and the actual ruler, the sultan, heralding de facto separation between the rulers and the religious establishment (u/ama). This separation, partially legitimized by the religious leadership, was continually reinforced, above all by the ongoing military and missionary expansion of Islam, far beyond the ability of any single regime to sustain it. This process culminated in the eleventh century and became further reinforced under the impact of the Mongol invasions. In the various (especially Sunni) Muslim regimes that developed under the impact of the continual expansion of Islam, the khalifa often became de facto powerless yet continued to serve as an ideal figure. The shalifa was the presumed embodiment of the pristine Islamic vision of the ummah and the major source of legitimation of the sultan, even if de facto he and the uwlama legitimized any person or group that was able to seize power. Such separation between the khalifa and the sultan was reinforced by the crystallization (in close relation to the mode of expansion of Islam, especially Sunni Islam) of a unique type of ruling group, namely, the military-religious rulers, who emerged from tribal and sectarian elements. It also produced the system of military slavery, which created special channels of mobility, such as the ghulam system in general and the Mameluks systems and Ottoman devshisme in particular, through which the ruling groups could be recruited from alien elements.2 Even when some imperial components developed—as was the case in Iran, which became a stronghold of Shrite Islam—a complete fusion between the political ruler and the religious elites and establishment did not ensue. Indeed the possibility of implementing that pristine vision of Islam, of achieving that ideal fusion between the political and the religious community, of constructing the wmmah, was actually given up already relatively early in the formation and expansion of Islam. The fact that political issues constituted a central focus of Muslim theology was to no small extent rooted in this disjunction between the ideal of the Islamic

Islam ¢ 81

ruler as the upholder of the pristine transcendental vision of Islam and the reality of rulership in Islamic religion.’ Yet although never fully attained, it was continually promulgated, as Aziz Al Azmeh has shown, with very strong utopian orientations in the later periods by various

scholars and religious leaders.’ The impact of the fact that the ideal of the wnmah was never fully given up, and that it was never fully implemented became evident in specific characteristics of the political dynamism of Islamic regimes and sects, and in the strong chiliastic and utopian components thereof. These dynamics were very often imbued with a strong religious vision, as could especially be seen in the potentially strong “semi-revolutionary” sectarian activities oriented to religious-political change. Such dynamics were also rooted in Islam’s initial patterns of expansion and the constitution of its international system. XXXV

It was in the framework of the continual tension between the ideal of the ummah and the sociopolitical realities that there developed the specific characteristics of the public spheres in Islamic societies and of their major actors characterized by the autonomy of the ulama, the hegemony of the sharva, and their relationship with the rulers. In most Islamic countries there developed a very vibrant public sphere, in which the schools of law, the multiple institutions of the wagf and the different, especially sufi,

orders played a very strong autonomous role in relation to the rulers, in constituting and upholding the moral order of the country. Yet, with all the vibrancy of these public spheres there developed a limited autonomous access of the major social actors active within these spheres to the rulers’ decision making to the sphere of rulership. This combination gave rise in Muslim societies to a very paradoxical situation with respect to the impact of these actors on changes in the political arena. The most important fact here—one that seemingly strengthens the view of these regimes as despotic—is, that despite the potential autonomous standing of members of the ulama which did not develop in these societies, fully institutionalized effective checks on the decisionmaking of the rulers. There was no machinery other than rebellion through which to enforce any far-reaching “radical” political demands. And yet in contrast to other, for instance South East Asian or Meso American patrimonial regimes, the potential not just for rebellion but also for principled revolt and possible regime changes was endemic in Muslim societies. True, as Bernard Lewis has shown,° a concept of revolution never developed within Islam. But at the same time, as Ernest Gellner indicated in his interpretation of Ibn Khaldoun’s work,’ a less

82 © Chapter Light

direct yet very forceful pattern of indirect ruler accountability and the possibility of regime changes did arise. This pattern was closely connected with a second type of ruler legitimation and accountability in Muslim societies that saw the ruler as the upholder of the pristine, transcendental Islamist vision, a conception promulgated above all by the different sectarian activities that constituted a continual component of the Islamic scene. ‘These sectarian activities were connected with the enduring utopian vision of the original Islamic era, of the fact that this vision was neither fully implemented nor ever fully given up. Such sectarian-like tendencies with strong renovative tendencies have indeed existed in the recurring social movements in Muslim societies. Such renovative orientations were embodied in the different versions of the tradition of reform, the Mujaddid tradition. They could be focused

on the person of a mahdi and/or be promulgated by a Sufi order in a tribal group such as the Wahabites or in a school of law. Such political and/or renovative orientations could be directed toward active participation in the political center, its destruction or transformation, or toward a conscious withdrawal from it. But even such withdrawal, which

developed in both Shvism and Sufism, often harbored tendencies to pristine renovation, leading potentially to political action. These tendencies were related to the basic characteristics of Islamic sects and heterodoxies, which played such an important role in its history, and to the place of such sectarianism in the expansion of Islam. One of their distinctive characteristics has been the importance within them of the political dimensions, frequently oriented toward the restoration of that pristine vision of Islam, which has~never been given up. This dimension could be oriented towards active participation in the center, its destruction or transformation, or towards a conscious withdrawal from it. A withdrawal which, as in the case of Sufism and Shi’ism,

often harbored potential political reactivation. This political orientation or dimension was potentially inherent in any Islamic religious setting, and generated some of the major movements, political divisions, and problems in Islam, starting with the Shi’a. In appropriate historical circumstances it could be activated by new and dynamic political elements. A very important characteristic of Islamic societies was that the internal sectarian political impact was often connected with the processes of the expansion of Islam, and especially with the continuous impingement on Islamic societies of tribal elements, that presented themselves as the carriers of the original ideal Islamic vision and of the pristine Islamic polity.

Islam ¢ 83

XXXVI

The fullest development of the political potential of such renovative tendencies took place in Islamic societies where such tendencies became connected with the resurgence of tribal revival against “corrupt” or weak regimes. In these cases the political impact of such movements became connected with processes attendant on the expansion of Islam and especially with the continuous impingement on the core Islamic polities of relatively newly converted tribal elements, who presented themselves as the carriers of the original ideal Islamic vision, and of the pristine Islamic polity. Many tribes (e.g. some of the Mongols), after being converted to Islam, transformed their own “typical” tribal structures to accord with Islamic religious-political visions and presented themselves as the symbol of pristine Islam, with strong renovative tendencies oriented to the restora-

tion of pristine Islam.” This tendency became closely related to the famous cycle depicted by Ibn Khaldoun,'” namely, the cycle of tribal conquest, based on tribal solidarity and religious devotion, giving rise to the conquest of cities and settlement in them, followed by the degeneration of the ruling (often the former tribal) elite and then by its subsequent regeneration by new tribal elements from the vast—old or new—tribal reservoirs. The Abbasid Revolution can in many ways be seei as one point in the Khaldounian cycles of political dynamics of Islam. Ibn Khaldoun emphasized above all the possibility of such renovation from within the original, especially Arab, tribal reservoir, and not from reservoirs acquired as it were through the expansion

of Islam.

Moreover,

he focused more

on the dilution of

internal tribal cohesion as an important factor in the decline of Muslim dynasties and paid less attention to the “dogmatic” dimensions of Islam. But the overall strength of Ibn Khaldoun’s approach is that it provides an important analytical tool for understanding the dynamics of Islamic societies beyond the geographical scope of his own vision. Such new “converts,” along with the seemingly dormant tribes of the Arabian peninsula, of which the Wahabites constituted probably the latest and most forceful illustration, became

a central dynamic political force in Islamic

civilization. By virtue of the combination of this mode of Islamic expansion with such sectarian, renovative orientations, Islam was probably the only Axial Civilization in which sectarian-like movements—together with tribal leadership and groups—often led not only to the overthrow or downfall of existing regimes but also to the establishment of new political regimes oriented, at least initially, to the implementation of the original pristine, primordial Islamic utopia. But significantly enough once these regimes

84 © Chapter Eight

became institutionalized they gave rise to patrimonial or Imperial regimes within which the “old” Ibn Khaldoun cycle tended to develop anew. But, in which

also the pristine ideal of the unusual,

of its renovation,

constituted a continual component of the political symbolism. NOTES ' Sharon, M. 1983. Black Banners from East. Jerusalem: Magnes Press; Shaban, M.A. 1990. The Abbasid Revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. > Ayalon, D. 1996. Le Phenomene Mamelouk dans Vorent Islanuque. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France; Crone, P. 1980. Slaves on Horses. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Pipes, D. 1981. Slave Soldiers and Islam: The Genesis of a Miktary System. New Haven: Yale University Press. * Hodgson, M.G. 1974. The Venture of Islam. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. * Rosenthal, E. 1958. Political Thought in Medieval Islam. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Crone, P. 2004. Medieval Islamic Political Thought. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. See also Crone, P. 2004. Political Thoughts, Edinburgh University Press: Scotland. ° Al Azmeh, A. 1996. Jslam and Modernities. London and New York: Verso. ° Lewis, B. 1973. Islam in History: Ideas, men and Events in the Middle East. London: Alcove Press, pp. 253-66. ” Gellner, E. 1981. Muslim Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ® Landau-Tasseron, E. 1989. The ‘Cyclical Reform’: A Study of the Mujadin Tradition, Studia Islamica 70, pp. 79-118. * Khaldun, I. 1958. The Muqaddimah, trans. F. Rosenthal. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. '° Tdem.

European Complex ¢ 85

IX. Christian Civilizations— the European Complex XXXVII The pattern of cosmological vision, conceptions of salvation and the concomitant tendencies and dynamics developed in different ways in the Christian civilizations. These

tendencies

were

rooted, as was

the case in other civilizations,

in the combination of the basic civilizational premises of this Christian civilization, and their multiple historic roots—Jewish, Hellenistic and tribal—in the specific historical experience of the different parts of this civilization. Within the Chrisuan civilizations there developed from the very beginning strong conceptions of the transcendental order and of salvation, which contained within themselves some combination of this-worldly and other-worldly orientation. Christianity’s inherent this-worldly orientations, i.e. the vision of the reconstruction of the mundane world as one of the ways of salvation, that the mundane world constitutes, indeed stands in marked contrast to the up Buddhism. This vision of the mundane world as at least one arena of activities which are relevant to salvation, for the implementation of its transcendental vision has been rooted in its Jewish origins and reinforced by its encounter with the heritage of the Greek, Hellenistic and Roman antiquities. Such this-worldly orientation, in constant tension with the other-worldly one, has been manifest by Christianity both in its basic orientations and dogma as well as in its institutional settings. Such this-worldly orientation was evident already in the very central place of the Christ, who in distinction to Buddha was conceived not only as a carrier of an otherworldly vision but as the earthly embodiment or at least aspect of God. This relatively strong this-worldly orientation of Christianity was evident also for instance in its polemics—even those of its extreme ascetics— with the Platonic and gnostic schools, which have stressed to various degrees strongly negative attitude to the holy and to the physical world.’ The difficulties of Christianity with Neoplatonism, despite the strong attraction of Platonic trends of thought to patristic writers, are also important indications of this tendency. Closely related has been the strong

86 © Chapter Nine _

emphasis on the lack of a complete separability or even opposition between body and soul in general an in resurrection in particular. This concept entails in itself already a strong this-worldly element or emphasis and was strongly disputed by Platonists. Similarly strong this-worldly orientation—even in constant tension with the out-worldly or otherworldly ones—is manifest in the Christian conception inherited from Judaism, of God

as the Creator

of the Universe, of this world, of the

centrality of eschatology in general and of the historical dimension of this eschatology in particular, i.e. in the conception of salvation as going to occur in history for the whole of humanity. This strong orientation to activities in the mundane world can already be found within the Christian ascetic and monastic communities, which

from the early centuries (the fourth on) were oriented also, unlike the Buddhist or the Indian renouncer,

towards this world and not to total

escape from it. XXXVITI

Historical circumstances—the initial low political status of Christianity, its being a persecuted sect or sects—made such this-worldly orientations in the earlier period of Christianity rather subdued, but did not obliterate them. More propitious historical circumstances, above all the conversion of Constantine, brought out these this-worldly ideological orientations in full force, which have existed in early Christianity from its very beginning. Since then tension between them and the pure otherworldly or out-worldly ones became a continuous part of the history of Christianity. 4 These potentialities and the tension between this-worldly and otherworldly orientations developed in different ways in different parts of the Christian civilizations (in the Catholic one, the Eastern, the Byzantine and later Russian Christianity). They developed according to the specific combination of this- and other-worldly orientations that emerged in the respective centers; the geopolitical circumstances, the structure of political power, and elites in each of them. XXXIX

The most widespread, continuous and dynamic of these civilizations developed in Western, Northern, Central, and Central-Eastern Europe. Here, in conjunction with rather specific geopolitical circumstances, there developed some quite distinctive institutional characteristics and political dynamics, which are of great importance. First of all it is important to stress one characteristic, which Europe shares with India and to a smaller degree with the Islamic world, namely

European Complex * 87

the existence of relative continuity with the boundaries of the civilization’s framework, together with the multiplicity, and continuously changing boundaries of political and economic settings. Within this setting there developed in Europe distinct characteristics, the most important among which were structural and cultural ideological pluralism. The type of structural pluralism that developed in the European institutional framework differed greatly from mere decentralization as well as from the type of structural differentiation that developed in compact Imperial systems. This type of pluralism differed greatly from the one that developed, for instance, in the Byzantine Empire, which shared many aspects of its cultural traditional models with Western Europe. Within the Byzantine Empire this pluralism was manifest in a relatively high degree of structural differentiation within a rather unified socio-political framework, in which different social functions were performed by different groups of social categories. The structural differentiation and the structural pluralism that developed in Europe were characterized, above all, by a strong combination between low, but continuously increasing, levels of structural differentiation on the one hand and continuously changing boundaries of different collectivities, units and frameworks on the other.

Between these collectivities and units there did not exist a clear-cut division of labor. Rather, there tended to develop among them a continuous competition over their respective standing in relation to the different attributes of social and cultural order; over the performance of the major societal functions—be they economic, political, or cultural—as well as over the very definition of the boundaries of ascriptive communities. Paralleiy, there developed in Europe a multiplicity of prevalent cultural orientations and a closely related multiplicity and complexity of ways to resolve the tensions between the transcendental and mundane orders, through either worldly (political and economic) or other-worldly activities. This multiplicity of orientations was rooted in the fact that the European civilization developed out of the continuous interaction between, on the one hand, the secondary breakthrough of two major Axial Civilizations—the Jewish and the Greek—and on the other hand numerous “pagan” tribal traditions and societies. The combination of such multiple cultural traditions with the pluralistic structural and political-ecological conditions, explains the fact that in Western and Central Europe there developed—more than in other Christian civilizations—continuous tensions between conceptions of hierarchy and equality as the basic dimensions of participation of different sectors of the society in the political and religious arenas; and between the strong commitment and autonomous access of different groups and strata to the religious and political orders, on the one hand, and the

88 © Chapter Nine

emphasis on the mediation of such access by the Church or by political powers, on the other.’

The full crystallization of the structural tendencies combined with the specific cultural orientations, rooted in Christianity and its encounter with the German heritage and in some tribal traditions, gave rise in Europe to (a) multiplicity of centers; (b) a high degree of permeation of the peripheries by the centers and of impingement of the peripheries on the centers; (c) a relatively small degree of overlapping of the boundaries of class, ethnic, religious, and political entities and their continuous restructuring; (d) a comparatively high degree of autonomy of groups and strata, and of their access to the centers of society; (e) a high degree of overlapping among different status units combined with a high level of countrywide

status

(“class”)

consciousness

and

political

activity;

(f)

multiplicity of cultural and “functional” (economic or professional) elites with a relatively high degree of autonomy, a high degree of cross-cutting and close relationship between them and broader, more ascriptive strata; (g) relative autonomy of the legal system with regard to other integrative systems, above all the political and religious ones; and (h) the high degree of autonomy of cities and autonomous centers of social and structural creativity and identity-formation. One of the most important repercussions of those tendencies was the structure of centers and collectivities that developed in Europe. The various centers and collectivities that developed in Europe did not simply coexist in a sort of adaptive symbiosis, but tended to become arranged in a complicated but never unified rigid hierarchy. In this hierarchy no center was clearly predominant, but many of them aspired not only to actual but also to ideological predominance and hegemony.’ The existence of multiple centers, both of different kinds of centers — political, religious and others—as well as of different regional ones, was characterized by several distinct features, for instance, from the Indian,

and to a smaller degree from the Islamic ones. What distinguishes the European experience is not just the multiplicity of centers but their structure, and the relations between them in general and between the religious and political ones in particular. The most important of these characteristics is the fact that they did not coexist—as in India and to a smaller degree in Islam—in just a sort of adaptive symbiosis, i.e. the religious legitimizing the political and the political providing the religious with protection and resources, and battling with each other over the relative terms of such adaptation. Beyond this the relations between the religious and political centers in Europe were characterized first by the fact that each of these types

_ European Complex * 89

of centers claimed some autonomy and standing role with respect to the “central” functions of the other, i.e. the religious in the political and social and vice-versa. Second, these relations were characterized by the fact that each of these centers could support its claim by autonomous access to both the material as well as power and prestige bases of resources. Third was the fact that there developed various “graded”— primary, secondary—centers with some degree of autonomy, also claiming some such autonomous access to the higher center, which attempted in its turn to superimpose the higher on the lower ones. Naturally enough, the activities of the more central or “higher” centers were of a wider scope than those of the local ones, but the former did not have a monopoly over any component of “central” activities. Each type of center claimed some autonomous standing and autonomous access with respect to the “central” functions of the other, i.e. the religious towards the political and vice-versa. Hence, the various centers were never completely separate from one another. This was true not only of the relations between Church and State, but also of those between different religious, political or ethnic centers and sub-centers. All these collectivities and central institutions were legitimized in a variety of terms—in terms of primordial attachments and traditions of sacred transcendental criteria, as well as in terms of civic traditions. The

continuous restructuring of centers and collectivities that took place in Europe was closely connected with the continuous oscillation and tension between these different bases of the legitimation of these centers and components

of these collectivities.

While,

for instance,

many

col-

lectivities were defined mainly in primordial terms and the Church was seemingly defined mainly in sacred 6nes, yet, at the same time, however, each collectivity, institution and center also attempted to arrogate

all the other symbols of legitimation to itself. Closely related was the structure of center-periphery relations that developed in Western and Central Europe. In common with Imperial! societies, such as China or the Byzantine Empire, Western and Central

European societies were usually characterized by attempts of the centers to permeate the periphery in order to mobilize support for its policies and by the periphery’s impingement on the center in order to influence the shaping of its contours. Many of these centers aimed at universal expansion which would encompass other centers and communities. Such

expansion was often legitimated in universal terms, very often in religious and ideological terms, often giving rise to wars of religion or to ideological wars.’ In contrast, however, to purely Imperial regimes (like for instance the Chinese, the Byzantine and later the Russian Empires),

90 © Chapter Nine

not only did there develop in Europe a multiplicity of centers and collectivities, but there also developed a much stronger impingement of the periphery and of various sub-centers on their respective centers. Another characteristic which, while not specific to Europe, has yet been most fully developed in it, has been the relatively high degree of the impingement of the periphery and of secondary centers on the higher centers, a characteristic which in such intensity could be found only in some of the ancient city-states. XL

The combination of the ideological and structural dimensions has also influenced the mode of change that has developed in Western Europe, from at least the late Middle Ages on. This mode of change was characterized by a relatively high degree of symbolic and ideological articulation of the political struggle and of movements of protest; by a high degree of coalescence of changes in different institutional arenas; and by a very close relationship between such changes and the restructuring of political centers and regimes. Concomitantly changes within various institutional arenas in Western Europe, such as the economic or the cultural arenas, impinged very intensely on one another and above all on the political sphere. These changes gave rise to a continuous process of restructuring of the boundaries of these different arenas,

which

did not however

obliterate

their

respective autonomies. These changes gave rise to continuous mutual restructuring of these spheres, without necessarily coalescing into one continuous political or cultural framework. se The very frequent attempts at the reconstruction of centers and collectivities were closely connected, first with very strong ideological struggles, which focused on the relative symbolic importance*of the various collectivities and centers; second with attempts to combine the structuring of the boundaries of these centers and collectivities with the reconstruction of the bases of their legitimation; and third with a very strong consciousness of discontinuity between different stages or periods of their development. Concomitantly, as compared with the pure Imperial systems, Western Europe was characterized by a much lesser stability of regimes, by continuous changes of boundaries of regimes and collectivities and restructuring of centers. At the same time it evinced also a much greater degree of capacity of institutional innovation cutting across different political and “national” boundaries and centers. These patterns of change were activated by: (a) a high degree of predisposition of secondary elites, relatively close to the center, to be the

European Complex ¢ 91

major carriers of religious heterodoxies and political innovations; (b) a relatively close relationship between such autonomous secondary elites within broader social strata, and hence also to movements

of rebellion;

(c) a concomitant predisposition on the part of these elites and broader social strata to develop activities oriented to center-formation and to combine them with those of institution-building in the economic, cultural and educational spheres. Out of these tendencies there developed a continuous confrontation between the constitution of centers, movements of protest and the process of institution-building. First, institution-building in most spheres was often seen as very relevant to the construction of centers and judged according to its contribution to the basic premises of these centers, while at the same time centers were also judged according to their capacity to promote such institutions. Second, was the continuous competition between different groups or strata and elites about their access to the constitution of these centers. Third, there was a continuous impingement of movements of protest, heterodoxies on the political struggle in the center and the incorporation of many themes of protest into the center. It was such combination of cosmological visions and political-ecological settings that provided the specific framework for the development of the Great Revolutions. NOTES ' Stroumsa,

G.G.

1981. Ascese et Gnose: aux origins de la spiritualite monastique.

* Daadler, H. 1987. European Political Traditions and Processes of Modernization: Groups, the Indundual and the State. in S.N. Eisenstadt (ed.)Patterns of Modernity. Volume I: The West. London: Frances Pinter Publishers, pp. 22-43; Pocock, J.G.A. 1987. Modernity and Anti-modernity in the Anglophone Political Tradition. In S.N. Eisenstadt (ed.) Patterns of Modernity. op. cit., pp. 44-59. * Rutenberg, V. 1973. Revoltes ou revolutions en Europe aux XIV-XV siecles. Annales E. S. CG, Vol. XX VIL; Cam. M.M. 1954. Medieval Representation in Theory and Practice. Speculum, Vol. XXIX;

Lindsay, J.O. (ed.) 1957. The

Social Classes and the Foundation

of the State.

in J.O. Lindsay, (ed.), New Cambridge Modern History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Eisenstadt, S.N. 1987. European Ciwilization in a Comparative Perspectwe: A Study in the Relations between Culture and Social Structure. Oslo: Norwegian University Press; Le Goff, J. 1994. La Vieille Europe et la notre. Paris: Editions du Seuil. * Troeltsch, E. 1931. The Social Teachhng of the Christian Churches. New York: Macmillan. Tilly, C.H. 1975. The Formation of National States in Western Europe. New Jersey: Princeton University Press; Mellwain, Ch. H. 1959. The Growth of Political Thought in the West. From Greeks to the end of the Middle Ages. New York: Macmillan; Eisenstadt, S.N. 1987. European Civilization in a Comparative Perspectwe. op. cit.

© » i aires Neary AS

_

7

omega pee!

1a 10 sepetee hao Mig Hp a” enc ogre

‘ete 2 ip

jr den Th identi repemer@ tbe eee bu epee “are Trised bes) @arisrc® Ie frig sult

; ts tend rmetadld G-ewuee C4) (cau wpe bate he eplimenly?e prepara: a higrtieetei—cailé Gd prai twas Mtr stir bry see trie

tad

: ;

;

cul.

ee

oeadt

eouabes

¥ xh

Waa)

ioe

SS

:

= aggrege inthe vite

Me

uv

Ch

tara"

are)

9

~~ aa

,

eeeuyr bl cgrabecendt

ee

ll yer Tes id ww fo

eal

=

lo Reiinhiienurs at) soya cei) qpthido apie

omy? wet! arava coll hen eehiy We retin are redhead of qin?)

is

von ve ® 7’ ‘ hires purty " pally ale«4 sievaloy. ses *

ia cwettlhair isue dia eel tpte) i will Ps pelvis nm * (a. , @ cil Phieg! rs Hust ny ait Ey afl Leee mis ae elias earn

c

bel Pit t Bol a Hr coeet pasty ean sin? > et en uf, uM ar Lainey gt! mt at a a) ne UpteA

i 4 ins

ily aire, tite abase

Yok

© “pba

nare 4

os

eT iar

>

a.

.«

Are

:

.

7

( __

4

ey

aarn

.

rem

is

ballq

mw Haine

(*

sit

ng: al! ‘i aay- 44 tal oe

i ent

Me route ite

yey

+e peta Foose ining gue Myler be ayn patbh

S$

aol fran ujactie. vyey

4 ul “abil

M ‘io - ) pay

ctlng

chhind

#

cuueth

ay

a “oe. a ne i,

tr ak 20 ne ria bana

“3 “ee

-

¢

’

é

———

4

S|

V4tetha)

J

7

way hi sl: hes ‘s

ce

iT

CB GN

ae

@

Bsa)

Re

.

Meer are UDB ’

oS Had Gor

:

:

gers We

=

ae

One

1oeee

ful

We

=

.

yp an

Ow A)

bee

lied

(»

6

7

Posen

i406

’

Ad

CDHA«wRo

ee

the

;

1

=

He

.

7

>

'©&

trea

&

.

ee

7. gl

:

A

eit

7 ee > |

°

oe.

ye cee

©

ah!

%

»

53

7

w~

'

a ow

s

av

S

te

f

rs

a

= ae

—— ee

_-

*

7 een

4

fA 6

en LOVEE

®

774

—,

|

ie

ee

a Aas

_

“

we

aed ihre Hluae: ;

‘arweal?

had ANA pens (its Wi ZMARVOS

'

®

(fenton

euviny

eI

4] te

KA

oun ©

a

ic

a

lars,

a

( 7

wae Ve

Teen

oy

ite PMN MA

arin pay

at

weer

(aca

fiiisyi kiea

a

lms

9 7

al

a

(aoe

oe

Sv

Wl)

Pe

ee

Q

'y

12

wel

guria

a

-

Ue

"

te

Gotmeae

Qarnive: sone

paleo 4@ Wires

erat

aed

is

WT

-

-

lh ar walt

ovva onl te dist

Peo

igi

in ;

Gidd

prare He

Oe

(Pye

r

+

0 i

ae. 16

ohm

tpg)

5

Fh Se net @ V0 ~

Pen

6D

s) thy

'

ee

Si « OG

Ganon

(>

sm

Oo on

a

FRAC

AA

:

Revolutionary Potentials ¢ 103

XI. Revolutionary Potentials in Axial Civilizations XLV

In the preceding sections we have analyzed the patterns of change and of political dynamics that developed in major Axial Civilizations, with a continual comparative glance at Japan. Above all, we have examined the extent to which within these civilizations there developed, under appropriate historical conditions—1.e. in context of early modernity— some potentials for revolutionary transformations, as most fully epitomized in the Great Revolutions. What are then the civilizational conditions conducive to the development of revolutionary, and non-revolutionary patterns of change? The starting point of our exploration is the fact, abundantly illustrated throughout our analysis that the Great Revolutions crystallized in the framework of some Axial Civilizations. This fact points out to the existence of some elective affinity between on the one hand some of the basic characteristics of the revolutionary process and on the other the cultural and institutional premises of the Axial Civilizations. As we have seen above, an indispensable aspect of the revolutionary process is the possibility, by would-bé revolutionaries, to mobilize political support from different social sectors. Such mobilization presupposes the existence of first, wide-ranging “free floating’—not embedded in “traditional” ascriptive communal or corporate frameworks—material and political resources, commitments and loyalties. Second, it presupposes the existence of relatively autonomous elites, including political ones, competing for the mobilization of such resources.

In other words,

crucial conditions for the development of revolutionary potentialities, or of patterns of change in a revolutionary direction, is the concomitant development within the respective societies of a large extent of “free resources” and of multiple competing elites, capable to mobilize such resources in the revolutionary direction. But such “free” resources and leadership develop only in very specific civilizational frameworks and structural conditions, especially in specific formats of political and economic regimes and ecological settings. ‘These conditions can indeed often be found within the framework of many Axial Civilizations.!

104 © Chapter Eleven

These two processes, however—the generation of free resources and the disembedment of cultural orientations, and the growing problematization of the perception of the dimensions of human existence and of social life—are generated by different, even if closely related processes. The development of free resources is above all related to levels of economic development and to processes of structural differentiation of decoupling of major aspects of social action and arganization as they develop in different sectors of a society under the impact of technological and ecological processes. The development of autonomous leaders or elites is closely related to the growing problematization of the cosmological visions, of social order and of the understanding of human existence, as they are promulgated by different carriers. Or, in more general terms, these two processes are rooted in two major dimensions of social action, of social life—of what has been often designated as “social structure” and “culture.” These two basic dimensions of social and cultural life do not develop in any specific situation in any predetermined way. That means, these processes do not determine one another in a fixed way. The different cosmological conceptions or visions do not “cause” or naturally generate the development of “appropriate” processes of structural differentiation and of distinct patterns of social division of labor, of economic

and political formations,

nor do the latter cause the former. Each of these dimensions of social action, on the one hand cultural orientation of the cosmological visions,

and on the other hand of decoupling of major aspects of social structure and the concomitant development of free resources, develops to some extent at least independently of one another by the internal momentum

of these dimensions

of social action, albeit continually

influencing

one another in a variety of ways. The processes of structural differentiation and development of free resources as they develop in different historical contexts greatly influence the range of institutional possibilities that develop attendant on different situations—but not which possibility, which institutional patterns will be concretized, will crystallize out of the connection between the structural and cultural processes. The connection between the “structural” and “cultural” processes is effected through the activities of distinctive elites, whose activities are oriented not only to taking care, as it were, of the major organizational problems of social division of labor, but to the problems which are generated by the constitution thereof, i.e. to the constitution of trust, regulation of power and provision of meaning in their interaction with each other and with the broader sectors of their respective societies. It is through the interweaving of the patterns of social division of labor with

Revolutionary Potentials ¢ 105

such elite activities that different institutional formations are crystallized. It is the concrete constellations of such elites and above all some of their basic characteristics, especially their respective cultural orientations, the visions promulgated by them and the contestations between them, which are analytically distinct from processes of structural differentiation—and the continual interaction between such structural processes and the different constellation of elites—that are of crucial importance in shaping the concrete contours of institutional formations. A major aspect of these processes is the attempts of different elites to exercise hegemony, i.e. to regulate the flow of different resources, the promulgation of cultural orientations, as well as the activities of the major social actors. Of special importance in shaping such different institutional patterns is the degree to which the different elites are autonomous or embedded in various ascriptive units, or act as representatives of such units or settings, as well as the relation between different elites and broader sectors of the respective societies. These different institutional formations develop in different historical contexts, in different “internal” and “international” settings. Of special importance in the shaping of such settings are first, the respective concrete economic political-ecological constellations and frameworks, 1.e. whether they were small or great societies, societies characterized by continuous compact boundaries, or crosscutting and flexible ones. Second is the specific historical experience of these civilizations and societies, including encounters with other societies, especially in terms of mutual penetration, conquest, or colonization. Thus, the concrete contours of societies, their centers and the dynam-

ics that develop within them, are shaped by the combinations of the structure of the predominant elites and coalitions, the cultural orientations they promulgate, the relations between ruling and secondary elites, the modes of control they exercise and the economic and ecological formations within the framework of which these societies developed—and this has been also true of Axial constellations. The distinct Axial component in the crystallization of the respective institutional formations was first the emergence within them of new types of institutional visions, the common institutional core of which has been the broadening, opening up of the range of institutional possibilities and options be it of conceptions and patterns of political order, of collective identities. Concomitantly there developed also the tendency not to perceive these institutional frameworks as being “naturally given” or divinely ordained, and of the possibility of even principled contestation about them. Second, was the development of dissent, of potential heterodoxy, and of changes generated by the connection of such potentialities with contestations over

106 © Chapter Eleven

power, and resources, and hence also about the legitimation of their respective regimes. Of special importance in this context is that it is such sectarian activities that have often been among the most important carriers of the broader, often universalistic, Axial cosmological and institutional visions. The continual confrontation between hegemonic and secondary elites and between orthodoxies and sects or heterodoxies has been of special importance in shaping the concrete institutional formations and dynamics of different Axial societies, the patterns of change— including their revolutionary potentials—that developed within them. Such continual potential reconstitution of different combinations between cosmological visions and structural dynamics, different structures of power and of collective identities in Axial Civilizations’ was reinforced by the fact, as we have seen above, that with the institutionalization of Axial Civilizations, a new type of inter-societal and inter-civilizational world

history emerged. Thus, in Johan Arnason’s words’ “the relationship between Axial cultural horizons and structures of social power is profoundly ambiguous. New and more elaborate patterns of legitimation are counterbalanced by new possibilities of articulating dissent and protest as carried by different elites and coalitions, whose composition varies from one case to another, act as “carriers” of the Axial paradigm.” Thus, contrary to the presuppositions of classical evolutionary analyses which have also influenced, even if only implicitly, the major hitherto analyses of Axial Civilizations, and as has been indicated above, the processes of structural differentiation and decoupling of major aspects of social action, and the development of free resources and the growing problematization of the perceptions of the sources/dimensions of human existence do not always go together in tandem, in a predetermined way. Indeed with respect to all the institutional frameworks—be it political formations of constitution of collective identity or economic formations—there developed in Axial Civilizations or societies a very great autonomy which was to some extent independent of, even if closely interwoven with, the distinctive Axial cosmologies. At most there developed a certain affinity with respect to ranges of institutional choices which were generated by the openness of both of the cosmological visions, as well as by processes of structural differentiation and the concomitant development of free resources. The struggles and contestations around the formation of different collectivities, political regimes and economic formations constituted a continual aspect of the dynamics of Axial Civilizations, creating—as it were —different institutional choices, and patterns. Accordingly the concrete institutional constellations not only varied

Revolutionary Potentials ¢ 107

between different Axial Civilizations; the crystallization of such constellations often constituted foci of contestation and struggle between different groups and accordingly such constitutions also could change greatly within them, giving rise to a much greater range of variability and changeability of patterns than in non-Axial societies. The concretization of any such choice, which could be very long-lasting as in the case of China or of a much shorter span as in other cases, was contingent on a variety of historical forces, which certainly were not fore-ordained in either the cosmological vision or their ecological setting. Once such choices were concretized there developed different patterns of change of political systems and, with the onset of modernity, different revolutionary or non-revolutionary patterns of change. NOTES ' Arnason, J.P., S.N.

Eisenstadt

and

B. Witrock

2005.

Axial

Ciwilizations and

World

History. Leiden, Boston: Brill Academic Publishers. 2 Idem. > Arnason, J.P. 2005. The Axial Age and its Interpretations: Reopening a debate. In J.P. Arnason, S.N. Eisenstadt and B. Wittrock. Axzal Ciwilizations and World History, apsccit.. pp- 42=/7.

bt

aneerad

—

=

—

eee aes

nein: Che tr Sequerytele.

mise

MRS 1 1S

sciail hemp! op tllgy {ihe aw ~e . a (le - Cb Ver Ginhagn |

tae OS

Lay Pit Pireen

ee

jsesilaatiok

|

Heaps pww.® Pen yx)

sar on et

A foggy vigil eaepen i bali alt in pees

y

ai Gedy, Wee vies Sn rete Srerddeee cabslgeniepald

me

seep inyenttils O yQtterdi Leni Uiirternts eae ke arian hive oh ee song wemedts Lev beay tw a" ee .

UM

7

wah on

wun Pachntagit iit

a

fl

: ra

ae

me we

A i

a

fie

Wittrock, B. 2000. Modernity: One, None or Many? European Origins and Modernity as a Global Condition. In S.N. Eisenstadt, (ed.). Multiple Modemities. New Brunswick/London: Transaction Publishers, pp. 31-61; idem 2000. Multiple Modernities. in idem, pp. 1-31. ° Tiryakian, E. 1996. Three Metacultures of Modernity: Christian, Gnostic, Chthonic, Theory, Culture and Society. vol. 13, no. 1, pp. 99-118.

Political and Cultural Program of Modernity ¢ 157 ” Faubion, J.D. 1993. Modern Greek Lessons. A Primer in Historical Constructivism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 113-115. ®* Idem. * Lerner, D. 1958. The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East. Glencoe, Nispbree Press: ’ Inkeles, A. and D.H. Smith 1974. Becoming Modern. Individual Change in Six Developing Countries. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. '' Cassirer, E. 1960. The philosophy of the enlightenment. Boston: Beacon Press; Gay, P. 1977. The Enlightenment: an interpretation. New York: W.W. Norton; Israel, J.I. 2001. Radical enlightenment: philosophy and the making of modernity, 1650-1750. Oxford: Oxford University Press; Salomon, A. 1963. In praise of enlightenment. Cleveland: World Pub. Co; Herf, J. 1984. Reactionary modernism: technology, culture, and politics in Weimar and the Third Reich. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press; Porter, R. 1990. The enlightenment. London, U.K.: Macmillan. ' Lefort, Democracy and Political Theory. op. cit.; Arnason, J.P. 1990. The Theory of Modernity and the Problematic of Democracy. Thesis Eleven, 26, pp. 20-46. '* Weber, M. 1978. Die Protestantische Ethik: Kritiken und Antikritiken. Giitersloh Germany: Guetersloher Verlagshaus; Idem. 1968. Polittk als Beruf. Berlin: Dunker and Humbolt; Idem. 1968. On Chansma and Institution Building: Selected Papers. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. '* Eisenstadt, S.N. 1999. Paradoxes of Democracy. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press; Eisenstadt, S.N. 2000. Muitiple Modernities. New Brunswick/London: Transaction Publishers; Blumenberg, H. 1987. Die Legitimitdt der Neuzert Frankfurt, Suhrkamp. '° Eisenstadt, Paradoxes of Democracy. op. cit. '© ‘Tiryakian, E. 1996. Three Metacultures of Modernity: Christian, Gnostic, Chthonic, Theory, Culture and Socety. vol. 13, no.

1, pp. 99-118.

'7 De Tocqueville, A. 1945. Democracy in America. New York: Vintage. '® Kamenka, E. 1983. ed., The Portable Karl Marx. New York, Viking Press. 'Y Durkheim, E. 1973. On Morality and Society. Selected Writings, Chicago, The University of Chicago Press. *0 Weber,

1978. Die Protestantische Ethik; 1968. Politik als Beruf; 1968. On Charisma

and Institution. op. cit. Weber, M. [1904/05] 2004. Die protestantische Ethik und der Geist des Kapitalismus. Edited by D. Kaesler. Beck: Munchen; Idem 1968. On charisma and institution building: Selected papers. edited and with an introduction by S.N. Eisenstadt. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. *! Jay, M. 1996. The Dialectical Imagination: A History of the Frankfurt School and the Institute of Social Research. Berkeley: University of California Press. » Elias, N. 1983. The Court Society. Oxford: Blackwell; Idem 1978-1982. The Ciwilzing Process. New York: Urizen Books. 23 Foucault, M. 1973. The Birth of the Clinic: An Archaeology of Medical Perception. New York: Vintage Books; Idem 1988. Technologies of the Self? A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: University of Massachussetts Press; Idem 1975. Surveiller et Punir: Naissance de la Prison. Paris: Gallimard; Idem. 1965. Madness and Cwilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. New York: Pantheon Books. 24 Wagner, P. 1994. A Sociology of Modernity. Liberty and Discipline. London: Routledge. 25 Toulmin, S. 1990. Cosmopolis. New York: Free Press. 26 Mitzman, A. 1969. The Iron Cage: A Historical Interpretation of Max Weber. New York: Grosset & Dunlap; Bendix, R. and G. Roth, 1971. Scholarship and Partisanship: Essays on Max Weber. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London” University of California Press.

158 * Chapter Fifteen’

7 Sombart, W.

1976.

Why ts there no Socialism in the United States? New York: M.E.

Sharpe. ** Hartz, L. 1964. The Founding of New Societies. New York: Brace and World *” De Tocqueville, A. Democracy in America. op. cit. *” Wallerstein, I. 1974. The Modern

World System. Orlando: Academic

Press; Tiryakian,

E.A. 1985. The Changing Centers of Modernity. in E. Cohen, M. Lissak and U. Almagor, (eds.), Comparative Social Dynamics. Boulder/London: Westview Press. 1! Tilly, CG. and G. Ardant, 1975 (eds.). The Formation of National States in Western Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press; Grew, R. 1978 (ed.). Crises of Political Development in Europe and the United States. Princeton: Princeton University Press. *® Kolakowski, L. 1990. Modernity on Endless Trial. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Revolutionary Symbolism in Modern Societies ¢ 159

DOA FaeBolom @ Irixeoyentocmmeye Revolutions—The Variability of Revolutionary Symbolism in Modern Societies—Preliminary Indications INTRODUCTION LXIX With the institutionalization of the different orders of modernity, of different multiple modernities, the imagery of revolutions remained an inherent component of these orders, of the legitimation of the new regimes. Revolutionary symbolism constituted a basic component of the new institutional framework and symbolic repertoires of these new orders, and the crystallization of different institutional programs of modernity entailed also the incorporation of such symbolism and activities. Concomitantly, social movements, often presenting themselves as revolutionary and as the continuation of the Revolutions, become very prominent in most societies and on the international scene. Parallelly, nationalist movements, also rooted as we have seen, in the heritage of the Great

Revolutions,

which

focused not on the reconstitution

of the

bases of their respective regimes, on changes of their premises and of power relations within them, but above all on the constitution of new collective and political entities, developed within the new orders of modernity, and national symbols constituted a basic component thereof. Between these two types of movements there developed in most societies, first of all as we have seen in Europe and later on beyond it, continuous tensions and confrontations. The contestations between these movements was played out in the new institutional playground that crystallized after the revolutions attendant on the institutionalization of the cultural and political order of modernity which, as we have seen, changed the basic premises of political process, of the relation between rulers and ruled in all modern societies. The institutionalization of this playground was gradual and halting,

160 © Chapter Sixteen

but continual. Truly enough, in some cases, as for instance in France, the Bourbon Restoration under Charles X seemingly went back to the “ancien regime”, but only seemingly. It is not only that it was a very short reign, bringing in its wake the more “progressive” monarchy of Louis-Philippe. What is of greater importance is the fact that even the Bourbon restoration was in fact already institutionalized within the framework of the new post-revolutionary premises, just as was the case with the Stuart Restoration in England. Counter-revolutions did not simply recreate the ancient regimes; their very institutionalization was predicated on the confrontation with the new political ideologies and processes, played out in the new type of political playground. A central aspect of this playground was the development of the major types of modern regimes—the constitutional pluralistic slowly developing in democratic directions, the autocratic or authoritarian, including praetorian or sultanic ones, and the later totalitarian ones—their different mixtures, and of the continual ideological confrontation between them. Among the most important characteristics of this new political playground, was indeed the emergence of the distinction between regimes according to their ideological stand, and with respect to the basic problems and tensions of the modern political program. One of the best known manifestations of such distinction was that between left and nght, which was an incidental by-product of the arrangement of seats in the French Revolutionary Assembly. This distinction developed later into that between “reactionary” and “progressive,” “bourgeois” or “proletarlan” parties and regimes, and between the last two.' The very possibility of such ideological variability and of the centinuous confrontation between these regimes and their respective ideologies constituted a relatively new phenomenon in the history of mankind. It was part and parcel of the new cultural and institutional framework ereated by the revolutions. The central focus of contestation between these ideologies and regimes as they were most continually promulgated by the different social movements, and political and ideological activists that developed throughout European

societies, was

that between

on the one

hand the

pluralistic ones, and on the other hand the autocratic “traditional” and later the more radical totalitarian ones. In the late eighteenth and in the nineteenth century the major contenders in this contestation were on the one hand the autocratic regimes, most of which were rooted in the “ancien regime”, often promulgating semi-traditional modes of legitimation, and the more revolutionary forces carrying the heritage of the French Revolution. In the period between the two World Wars this struggle was intensified by that between the Soviet and the liberal constitutional regimes, and likewise between the

Revolutionary Symbolism in Modern Societies ¢ 161

latter and the fascist and national socialist ones. It was most fully intensified between these two types of totalitarian regimes and the movements promulgating their visions. The combination of national and international dimensions of this struggle was best epitomized—in the inter-war period— in the Spanish Civil War. The Cold War between the Soviet and the liberal democratic regimes constituted the major focus of such internal and international struggles after the Second World War. This variability and confrontation between different regimes was closely related to the fact that the image of revolutions became a continual component of the repertoire of modern political symbols. The development of revolutionary upheavals of new revolutions became a continual possibility—and often also aspiration—in modern regimes. Second, this confrontation was rooted in the fact that the different visions of the new social and political orders were continually promulgated—albeit in continually changing ways—by the new modern movements of protest, especially revolutionary, social movements. The contestations between the different ideological camps as promulgated and carried by the various revolutionary movements and regimes constituted, especially when connected with continual processes of democratization, a continual aspect of the political dynamics within each of these regimes, and continual challenges to the emerging modern regimes, especially but not only, the pluralistic ones. All these regimes faced first the problems of how to incorporate, or reject—basically to transform— the various revolutionary symbols and themes, above all of the socialist class-symbols, as well as the “rightist” or national ones, and to incorporate them into the central symbolic repertoire of collective identity and of legitimation of their respective’ regimes. Second, all these regimes faced the continual challenge of the potential or actual revolutionary movements to the continuity of their institutional frameworks. In other words, they faced challenges of incorporation or the rejection of the symbols and the would-be revolutionary—as well as of national—movements; of their ability to “domesticate” these movements within their institutional frameworks and premises, while at the same time transforming many of these premises. The modes of incorporation of these movements, entailing different patterns of their transformation, were of crucial importance in shaping the different modern regimes in Europe, testing their capacities for transformation as against their possible breakdown. Concomitantly, all these societies faced also the problem to incorporate the intellectual dimension of the revolutionary—especially but not only of Marxist—ideologies into the general framework of their intellectual repertoires.

162 © Chapter Sixteen

The continual confrontation between these different movements, ideo-

logies and types of regimes, rooted as it was in the basic tensions inherent

in the political program

of modernity,

were

not

confined,

in

Europe—and later also beyond Europe—to any single political society, to any single “state.” These confrontations constituted also foci of international movements and of international relations, an integral part of the dynamics of the new international system that developed in Europe and beyond, with different states constituting as it were the bases or the fortresses of one of these types of regimes. LXX

The different ways in which the imagery of revolutions and revolutionary activities were incorporated into the symbolic and institutional frameworks of different modern regimes—as well as the tension between the constitution of national collectivities and revolutionary premises and movements—constituted a central aspect of the constitution of the different orders of modernity,

of multiple modernities,

and were

constitutive

of

their basic characteristics. The different modes of incorporation of revolutionary symbols into symbolic repertoires and of potentially revolutionary movements in the institutional frameworks of the different modern regimes—which were greatly influenced by the mode of the initial “revolutionary” or “non-revolutionary” entries of the respective societies into modernity—constituted a basic and continual comiponent or aspect of the formation of different nation and revolutionary states; of their continuity and transformation, as well as of the inter-state relations, of the international scene. Such differences in the impact of revolutionary symbolism and movements as manifested in the different modes of incorporation of revolutionary tropes, symbols, and themes into the cultural and political repertoires of different modern societies, developed continually in different countries, in different phases or stages or constellations of modernity—be it in the period of the hegemony or predominance of the model of the nation and revolutionary states, and in the “post-modern” constellation as it developed from about the seventies or eighties of the twentieth century. The mode of incorporation of various symbols of protest, above all of revolutionary as well as national symbolism, into the repertoire of central symbols of collective identity of the respective societies to which they have expanded, differed greatly between different societies. Not all societies incorporated the socialist or communist symbols into their new symbols of collective identity. Those that did differed as to which aspects of the revolutionary, especially socialist tradition they incorporated, and

Revolutionary Symbolism in Modern Societies ¢ 163

how important this incorporation was in shaping their new symbols of collective identity. LXXI

While a full and systematic comparative analysis of these processes is beyond the scope of this chapter, a few very preliminary illustrations and indications of such developments would not be out of place.! Given the European origins of the “Revolutions,” it is but natural that it was in Europe that most continual challenges of these movements and ideologies to the new institutional orders of modernity became most fully articulated. It was indeed in Europe that the major types of modern regimes—the

constitutional pluralistic, the autocratic, authoritarian and

totalitarian ones as well as the confrontations and the contestations between them—first developed and was closely related to the specific ways in which the cultural program of modernity and its tensions crystallized in Europe, and to the closely related patterns of the specific European historical experience. In Western and Central Europe, where socialism originated, such symbols were forged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as part of the European tradition and of the processes of reshaping it. Most of the specific characteristics of socialism—above all the close connection between concrete political and economic demands, and class symbolism oriented towards the reconstruction of the centre—have been closely related to the premises of European civilization, and to the political traditions that evolved in the historical experience of different European societies. In all European countries, with the only partial exception of Great Britain, the symbols and tenets of revolution, of revolutionary protest,

as well as of nationalist images, were incorporated into—albeit in different ways in different societies—their central symbolic repertoire. ‘The modes in which they were incorporated in different combinations of domestication, rejection—hbasically of transformation—were constitutive of their respective regimes. A central focus in the selection of such themes in different European societies was the symbolic and institutional tension between hierarchy and equality, and between state and civil society, an endemic and basic theme in the European political tradition. In those highly industrialized countries in which this tension was not central, Socialism in the sense

defined above did not develop or developed only very weakly. Concomitantly, movements which promulgated the idea of revolution and the revolutionary imaginaire, designating themselves as revolutionary, did continually develop in Europe, becoming a constant component

164 © Chapter Sixteen

of the political scene. They were especially prominent, as in the case of the Paris Commune, or of the Communist movements that emerged in Germany at the end of the First World War, when the existing postrevolutionary regimes, be it the “Imperial” regime of Napoleon III or the Imperial German regime, crumbled-—-when they attempted to institutionalize new revolutionary regimes. But in most of the Western European societies these pristine “leftist” nxevements were not successful in taking over these regimes through revolutionary action, and to establish new revolutionary regimes. This was partially at least because of the difficulty, nay impossibility, to develop those types of coalitions between different groups, especially

between bourgeois, workers and intellectuals that were characteristic of the “true” revolutions—a fact already recognized by Marx—and basically rooted in the fact that they all developed in the framework of modern and not of “ancient regimes.” These new regimes portrayed themselves as modern, often legitimating themselves in terms of the basic premises of the modern program, even if in fact they were highly autocratic and repressive regimes. They also portrayed themselves in terms of the major symbols of protest, very often in terms of revolutionary symbols, even if by this very fact these symbols have become greatly transformed. Hence the revolutionary movements confronted not ancient regime but modern “conservative,” or the new nghtist movements. At the same time, in most Western European countries socialist symbols and themes, as well as socialist parties became integrated—albeit in different ways—in the institutional framework of these countries, becoming on the way as it were “domesticated.” Theyr themes and programs became a part of the institutional frameworks and played very important roles in the continual transformation of these regimes. But at the same time, it was indeed in Europe that the confrontation between the two revolutionary movements—the socialist and the nationalistic, both rooted in the specific European revolutionary heritage, in the heritage of the Great Revolutions, especially when connected with the continual process of democratization and with economic crises—constituted the greatest threat to the continuity of pluralistic regimes. In some but not in all European societies, in Germany or Italy, these regimes crumbled, giving rise to extreme rightist fascist and national socialist regimes. In Southern European peripheries it was the autocratic with strong fascist regimes that took over. Only on the periphery of Europe and later on in Asia—in China and Vietnam—the revolutionary movements were able to take over and institutionalize alternate revolutionary modernities. The challenges to the pluralistic regimes in Europe subsided after the

Revolutionary Symbolism

in Modern Societies

© 165

Second World War, with the defeat of Germany and Italy, and the defeat of the national-socialist and fascist programs respectively. In the West, the pluralistic nation state, based on the growing participation of all citizens, including women, in the political arenas was attained, as was

also the development of a new social economic program, that culminated in the establishment of new forms of regulated capitalism, of “social markets,” and different types of welfare state. But the threat of the scepter of communism as embodied in the Soviet regimes and as promulgated by the Communist movements, especially in Italy and France, continued to constitute a constant threat to the pluralistic regimes. But even beyond this then the revolutionary symbols continued to constitute a powerful force, as manifest in the student and anti-(Vietnam) war movements of the late sixties and early seventies—giving rise not to breakdowns

of regimes

but rather

far-reaching

transformation

thereof,

entirely new “postmodern” interpretations of modernity—which entailed as we shall see in greater detail later on, far-reaching transformation

of

the revolutionary imagery and movements, of the nature of symbols and movements of protest in the constitution of the continually changing modern civilization.

THE

ALTERNATIVE

TOTALITARIAN

MODERNITIES

LXXII It was also out of Europe, in Europe and beyond, that socialist revolutionary symbols became very prominent in the alternative modernities,

which developed out of the internal tribulation of European modernity and in the first phases of its expansion to Eastern Europe and then to Asia. This is also true—albeit in a small and only very partial degree— of the extreme fascist or national-socialist regimes, the ideologies of which, especially the fascist regimes, were often adopted by various autocratic regimes beyond Europe. They negated the universalistic components of the cultural program of modernity, but attempted to appropriate to them-

selves also the socialist symbols.” It was however above all the alternative modernities espoused by the major radical leftist totalitarian movements that radical symbols of socialism were fully adopted and transformed—and constituted the core of the late revolutions. They were set within the distinctive frameworks of European cultural programs and historical experiences, epitomizing the distinct ways in which the tensions, contradictions, and crises of modernity crystallized in Europe; and in other ways, with the expansion of modernity, beyond Europe.

166 © Chapter Sixteen

It was indeed in the regimes that crystallized in the wake of the later revolutions, which developed within the framework of the historical expansion of Europe—but beyond Western and Central Europe—in the Eastern periphery of Europe and later on in Asia, that the alternative radical revolutionary modernities crystallized in the Communist regimes. The socialist and communist movements were fully set within the framework of the cultural program of modernity, above all of the Enlightenment and of the Great Revolutions. Their criticism of the modern capitalist bourgeois society was made in terms of non-completeness of the modern program, that the most enduring and continual alternative modernities became actualized. The cultural-ideological program of modernity that was espoused—and institutionalized—by the totalitarian Soviet, its satellite Eastern European

regimes, and also by the Chinese

and Vietnamese system, constituted in a way the inverted mirror image of the pluralistic constitutional one but at the same time its strong opponent and counterpart. The various communist regimes gave rise to the crystallization, institutionalization, and ideological hegemony of totalitarian Jacobin regimes of the “left,” with their specific salvationist mission. The communist regimes appropriated the major themes of this program and presented themselves as the ultimate bearers of the pristine vision of instrumental vision, progress, technology, mastery of nature, and of the rational, emancipatory restructuring of society. The programs promulgated by these regimes emphasized the exploration of human and natural environments and destiny, and that their direction and even mastery can be attained by the conscious effort of man and society. It emphasized strongly the possibility of the active formation of crucial aspects of the social, cultural, and natural orders by conscious human activity. The distinctive characteristics of this program or programs entailed the attempt to overcome the contradictions between the premises of the cultural and political program of modernity, and the emerging institutional reality of modern societies by recasting them in a highly Jacobintotalitarian ideology and regime. These regimes epitomized, as Luciano Pellicani has shown,” the fullest crystallization of the gnostic and utopian orientations of the modern political program. It was these orientations, which guided the selection, and interpretation of different components of the modern cultural and political program and their reinterpretation. These selections were informed by a strong revolutionary Jacobin leftist orientation formulated in terms of a salvationist mission and vision, the

central focus of which was the total transformation and reconstruction of man and society. Like the latter fundamentalist movements they espoused universalistic orientations, and attempted to ground their legitimation in such universalist “transcendental”, social “secular” terms. But

Revolutionary Symbolism in Modern Societies ¢ 167

unlike the latter fundamentalist regimes, they attempted to constitute a modern universalistic community of the workers or proletarians, and not universalistic religious communities. The ultimate legitimation of the Communist regime and its elites was presented by their being the bearers of the salvationist vision and mission of modernity. In principle it was the entire community that was not only the object but also the bearer of the salvationist vision or mission. The elite “only” represented it—possibly instituting it—promulgating the “real” will of the society. In this way this regime was based on, as Melia Marcus’ has put it, legitimation from the top—i.e. on a legitimation which seemingly, but only seemingly, was in no need of popular approbation, like that of the bearers of many transcendental religions. Yet the legitimation of the Soviet regime differed in several crucial respects from that of either traditional religious salvationist, or from that of historical absolutist regimes, the pre-revolutionary ancient regimes. The most important of such difference was that this salvationist mission was couched, from the point of view of the accountability of rulers, as

well as in its aims in modern terms. The mode of legitimation of these regimes rooted in the basic premises of modernity was couched in terms of very strong far-reaching revolutionary mobilizatory visions, a vision entailing the transformation both of man and of society. It was in the name of salvationist visions that the mode of legitimation demanded total submergence of the individual in the general totalistic framework, thus negating, as an eminent Bulgarian sociologist, Lyuben Nickoloy, has formulated it,’ everyday human experience. The revolutionary symbols of protést became basic components of the legitimation of the regime, but they were totally transposed to the outside world—to the enemies, external or also internal, of the regime— and also totally bracketed out from the internal discourse. Revolutionary symbols could be paradoxically invoked by the ruling elites, when they felt threatened by internal developments in the Communist societies, as most fully and tragically seen in the Chinese Cultural Revolution, embodied by Mao Tze Tung.

THE

INSTITUTIONAL ORDERS AND SYMBOLS PROTEST IN THE U.S. AND JAPAN

OF

LXXIi

In contrast to Europe social revolutionary-socialist or communist symbols played a much smaller role in two other centers of capitalism and

constitutional regimes—the U.S. and Japan.”

168 © Chapter Sixteen

In the US and Japan crystallized two distinctive modern orders, in which the modern revolutionary symbols and movements were—albeit in sort of mirror ways—in a sense neutralized and transformed. The American Revolution constitutes a clear exception—to which we have referred above—to the axiom that revolutions do not easily develop in situations of construction of new nationalities and of wars of independence.

It is, of course, true that it was alsoa war of independence,

but

not of an ethnic or national community suppressed by an alien conqueror. It was a war of independence of various communities of settlers and sectarian-ideological groups, most of who come from the same “mother-country,” bringing their language and institutions. The latter were continuously transformed in the new country, and gradually developed also, within

and

between

the different

colonies,

a common

new

collective identity. The fact that the constitution of the American collective identity was one of the outcomes, but in many ways also one of the aims of the American revolution, belies the assertion that this was not a revolution. Such a claim has often been made basing itself on two reasons; the relative mildness of the revolutionaries towards the former rulers, and the

weakness in it of class struggle and class ideology. While this latter claim is certainly exaggerated, it is true that the American Revolution was not couched in terms of class-relations. The latter did not constitute an important component of the American revolutionary program. It denoted a distinct cultural program of modernity, which shared many components with the programs of the other revolutions, but reconstructed them in a new way. The relative mildness towards the-former rulers is probably to be explained not only by some inherent predispositions of the revolutionary groups—there were plenty of vicious encounters—but also by the geographical distance from the center of power in England. All these facts, however, do not imply that this program was not radical. Its radicalism hes in the construction of a new political collectivity, based on a new political and ideological program. Thus the American Revolution was the only one from among all the Great Revolutions that created a new collectivity, a new political ideology, a new Republic, and a new nation—“The First New Nation.” But paradoxically it shared with all the other revolutions the disinterest in primordial symbols. Out of this paradox developed the unique way of constructing a modern American—United States (U.S.)—political and national community. But this identity was not based, as was the case in Europe, and later on in the “third world,” on primordial components— territory, history, fictive kinship, language and the like. This collective identity crystallized around a political ideology rooted in religious conceptions of the puritan and legal perceptions of the English tradition of

Revolutionary Symbolism in Modern Societies « 169

the Enlightenment. It was the construction of this new collective identity and of the new political ideology, the new “civil religion,” and the new

constitutional

order, that constituted

the crux

of the American

Revolution, and distinguished it from other wars of independence, even from the Latin American ones. Accordingly there crystallized in the U.S. a new modern order, the premises of which entailed a far-reaching transformation of the modern revolutionary program, promulgating a metaphysical conception of equality, and the continual self-constitution of society. In this modern institutional order, socialist symbols and movements have not, as Sombart has observed, become a central component of the political system, nor did socialist revolutionary symbols become central components of the symbolic repertoire of the society. At the same time the social movements and movements of protest that developed in the U.S. were characterized by very strong religious and moralistic orientations, deeply rooted in the specific premises of the distinctive modern order that developed in the U.S. A distinctively different institutional order of modernity and incorporation of protest developed in Japan, constituting in some way a mirror image of the one, which developed in the U.S. The Japanese programs of modernity ushered in by the Meiji Restoration were rooted—as we have seen above—in non-Axial, immanentist ontolo-

gies. It guided the crystallization of the Meiji state and later on the development of modern Japanese society, and shaped to some extent at least the specific characteristics of the major institutional formations and dynamics, including different modes of incorporation of protest, of modern Japan. These formations were not grounded in the conceptions of principled, metaphysical individualism or in a principled confrontation between state and society as two distinct ontological entities. One of the most important such characteristics was the strong tendency to the conflation of the national community, of the state, and of society. Such conflation has had several repercussions on the structuring of the ground rules of the political arena, the most important of which have been the development,

first of a weak

broader overall, in modern defined

in sacral, natural

concept

terms

of the state as distinct from

national community

and primordial

terms);

the

(national being

second,

of a societal

state characterized by a strong tendency to emphasize guidance rather than direct regulation and permeation of the periphery by the center; and third, a very weak development of an autonomous civil society, although needless to say elements of the latter, especially the structural, organizational components thereof (such as different organizations) have not been missing.

170 © Chapter Sixteen

All these characteristics of the political arena, and of the relations between nation, country, state and society were very closely related to the specific strongly immanentist and particularistic ontological conceptions, and their dynamics that have been prevalent in Japan throughout its history. The strong universalistic orientations inherent in Buddhism, and more latent in Confucianism, were subdued and “nativized” in Japan.

When Japan was defined as a divine nation, this meant a nation protected by the gods, being a chosen people in some sense, but not a nation carrying God’s universal mission. Such transformation had farreaching impacts on some of the basic premises and conceptions of the social order, such as the Mandate

of Heaven,

with its implication

for

the conception of authority and the accountability of rulers, as well as conceptions of community. Unlike China, where in principle the emperor, even if a sacral figure was “under” the Mandate of Heaven, in Japan he was

sacred and seen

as the embodiment

of the sun.

Therefore,

he

could not be held accountable to anybody, but only the shoguns and other officials, in ways not clearly specified. The specific type of civil society that developed in Japan is perhaps best illustrated by the continual construction of new social spaces which provides semi-autonomous arenas, in which new types of activities, consciousness and discourse develop, which however do not impinge directly on the center. Those participating in them do not have autonomous access to the center, and are certainly not able to challenge its premises. The relations between state and society have been rather effected in the mode of patterned pluralism, of multiple dispersed social contracts. Closely connected to these characteristics of civil society in modern Japan there has also developed a rather distinct pattern of political dynamics, especially of the impact of movements of protest on the center. While Socialist and Communist movements or parties.developed in modern Japan far beyond what happened in the U.S., becoming especially visible in the period after the Second World War—but they were not successful not only in taking over the government—but even in becoming central members of the governing coalition. Above all they did not aim, as did those in Europe, at the reconstitution of the center of the regime. But this does not mean that they did not have an important impact in the social and political arenas.’ The most important characteristic of this impact was the relatively weak principled ideological confrontation with the center, above all the lack of success of leaders of such confrontational movements to mobilize wide support; the concomitant quite far-ranging success in influencing, if often indirectly, the policies of the authorities and the creation of new autonomous but segregated social spaces, in which activities promulgated by such

Revolutionary Symbolism in Modern Societies ¢ 171

movements could be implemented. Accordingly, changes in the types of political regimes, or in the relative strength of different groups, have not necessarily implied in Japan changes in principles of legitimation, and in the basic premises and ground rules of the social and political order. THE

IMPERIAL

AND COLONIAL OF MODERNITY

EXPANSIONS

LXXIV

A great variety of modern institutional orders developed under the impact of colonial, imperialist and capitalist expansion of modernity into Eastern Europe and above all in Asia and Africa—as well as in a different mode in Latin America—in all of which revolutionary, especially symbols of socialism and nationalism constituted a very important, sometimes central component of their respective political repertoires or of symbols of collective identity. With the expansion of modernity first through conquest and colonization in the Americas, later on by capitalist, colonialist and Imperial expansions into Eastern Europe, Asia and Africa, there developed different types of modern institutional order beyond Europe, entailing different modes of legitimation, of movements and symbols of protest and of revolutionary imaginaire. All these societies appropriated the tenets of modern nationalism and of the nation-state, changing radically the constitution of collective identities and of their relations in political frameworks to the state. Such appropriation of models of the modern nation state and of national identity, however changed and transformed from its original European mode, signaled the incorporation of these societies into the emerging modern international systems, their acceptance of some of the basic premises thereof. At the same time, it laid the basis for the possibility of their challenging the Western hegemonies of these international systems. But the ways in which this model crystallized, its basic premises—and the mode of incorporation of themes and symbols of protest, including revolutionary symbols which constituted a continual component of such crystallization—-varied greatly between different modern institutional orders, greatly influenced by their specific revolutionary or restorative experiences and their initial crystallization as modern regimes. Contrary to the situation in the U.S., and also, even to a somewhat lesser degree in Japan, in most of these societies around the world there developed a strong attraction not only to the modern symbols of nationalism but also to the revolutionary symbols, to symbols of socialism or communism, and even in the societies which did not incorporate these

172 © Chapter Sixteen

symbols into their basic symbolic repertoire it constituted important reference orientations. The most general reason for the acceptance in all these societies of the basic premises, symbols and institutional formats of Western political traditions of modernity and of western institutions, as well as of movements and symbols of protest that initially developed in the West, was

the necessity and willingness of many groups, especially elites and counterelites within these societies, to become incorporated into the emerging international systems, and to find a place for themselves within them,

to counteract as it were the colonizatory and Imperialist dimensions of the expansion of modernity. Within the framework of these new collectivities and political regimes there developed in many of these societies also a strong attraction to symbols of protest, including especially revolutionary socialist symbols. The specific attraction of the symbols of protest, especially of socialist ones, for various groups in these societies was rooted in the fact that the promulgation of these themes permitted non-European societies to participate actively in the new modern (1.e., initially Western) universal tradition, together with the selective rejection of many of the aspects and of Western “control” and “hegemony,” making it possible to rebel against the international and institutional realities of the new modern civilization in terms of their own symbolic repertoires, their own tradition. The transposition of the ideology of socialism. from European to non-European settings was reinforced by the combination, in the socialist tradition, of orientations of protest with the institution-building and centre-formation. Moreover, the expansion of socialism entailed the trans-

position to the international scene of the struggle between hierarchy and equality. Although initially couched in European terms, it could find resonances 1n the political traditions of many of these societies. Concomitantly, this attraction was reinforced by the resonance, which many of these premises could find in the political traditions of these civilizations, above all in the conceptions and symbols of protest of accountability of rulers. Thus, various groups and elites in Eastern European and non-European societies were able to refer to both the tradition of protest and the tradition of centre-formation in their civilizations and societies, and to cope with problems of reconstructing their own centers and traditions in terms of the new setting. The appropriation of socialism, together with the idea and practice of the

nation

state,

enabled

different,

especially

elite groups

of non-

European nations to participate actively in the new modern (i.e., initially Western) universal tradition, together with the selective rejection of many of its aspects and of Western “control.” Participation in social-

Revolutionary Symbolism in Modern Societies ¢ 173

ist Movements and in national ones, and the incorporation of socialist symbols and adoption of socialist policies—or of policies designated as socialist—made it possible for the elites and other strata of many nonEuropean societies to incorporate some of the universalistic elements of modernity in their new collective identities, without necessarily giving up either their own traditions or their criticism of the Imperialist and colonial dimensions of the Western modernity. The adoption of socialism and not only of nationalism could serve as an expression of a commitment to this new civilization, or at least to some of its premises, and also as a verdict against the realities of the international new situation when judged according to the new ideological premises of modern civilization. Accordingly it made possible to rebel against the institutional realities of the new modern civilization in terms of its own symbols. The propensity to the incorporation of revolutionary symbols was reinforced by the fact that in these civilizations or societies, very intensive processes of social and economic changes, and numerous movements of protest as well as breakdowns of regimes were continuously taking place, seemingly bearing in themselves kernels of new revolutions. ‘Thus it often looked as if in many ways the basic institutional and cultural conditions, which were conducive to the emergence of revolutions were seemingly continually reproduced in these new, post-revolutionary modern orders. But a full coalescence of structural and historical conditions conducive to such revolutionary outcomes developed only in a few cases, in those societies in which there crystallized the main later revolutions—the Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, possibly the Turkish (Kemalist)—and later

the Ethiopian, and the Islamic Khomeini revolution in Iran, even in these cases there developed, as we have seen already and as we shall see later with respect to its differences from “classical” Revolutions. But this was not the case with respect to many other modern such as those, which have developed in different ways in Latin

although above— the first regimes, America

and in the many colonial and later post-colonial regimes in Asia, India,

Southern Asia and South East Asia in which there developed different multiple orders of modernity, differing in many crucial respects from the “classical” European or American ones. Concomitantly in Latin America, and in colonial and post-colonial regimes in Asia and Africa, there developed a relatively great diversity of revolutionary socialist and communist movements and ideologies. LXXV

Within the framework of the modern regimes that crystallized in Latin America, as well as of many colonial and post-colonial and post-Imperial

174 © Chapter Sixteen

states, there developed movements of protest, many revolutionary movements, which promulgated also a great variety of patterns of revolutionary symbols. In all of them there developed, starting already in the beginning of the twentieth century, multiple social and above all nationalist movements, with the revolutionary playing initially a secondary but a continual role, but gaining ground in the post-Second World War era of decolonization. “ Of special interest in this context is a brief analysis of Latin American countries.® In the Latin American

context,

in contrast

to the situation

in the U.S., the predominance of continual tensions between the hierarchical mode of political order and the strong egalitarian pressure in the public sphere, the appeal of socialism and other radical leftist ideologies was great, especially among intellectuals and the young generations, influencing the specific modes of incorporation of protest. Concomitantly, in Latin America elitist and populist parameters crystallized, that later on were transformed into corporatist patterns and into popular, massive waves of participative that distabilized the polities and generated recurrent waves of repression and democratization in these societies. In this context, of special interest is the comparative study of populism, of populist movements and their place in the political dynamics of the different Americas. In many Latin American countries populist movements and leaders constituted very important -agents in the incorporation of social sectors and in the restructuring of public order, very often under the auspices of authoritarian styles of government and regimes. In contrast to them, the North American

(U.S. ayid the Canadian)

coun-

terparts appeared as more egalitarian and, in some cases, more oriented to the extension of civil liberties. Accordingly in sharp contrast to the North American pattern of continuity of the constitutional democratic order, the Latin American patterns were characterized by recurrent political openings, followed by subsequent breakdowns of constitutional regimes and the installment of authoritarian governments there, either by personalist leaders or by the heads of the armed forces. All of them created very fertile grounds for the continual development of radical and revolutionary movements of protest and seemingly were much closer to various post-imperial and post-colonial societies than to Europe, U.S. or Japan ones. Given the combination of continuous social changes, the continual development of manifold movements of protest and the fragility of many regimes, it looked as if in many ways the basic institutional and cultural conditions which were conducive to the development of revolutions were seemingly continually reproduced in these new, post-revolutionary mod-

Revolutionary Symbolism im Modern Societies ¢ 175

ern orders. But as we have seen, a full coalescence of structural and his-

torical conditions conducive to such revolutionary outcomes developed only in a few cases, in those societies in which there crystallized the main later revolutions. This was not the case with respect to many other modern regimes—be it the post-revolutionary orders and regimes that developed in Europe and in the U.S., those which have developed in different ways in Latin America and in the many colonial and later postcolonial regimes in Asia, India, Southern Asia and South East Asia, in all of which there developed different multiple orders of modernity, differing in many crucial respects from the “classical” ones. The closest to the classical revolutionary movement seem to be the many movements of protest which developed after the Second World War in many post-colonial as well as within many Latin American societies, often designating themselves as revolutionary, as for instance in Cuba, Nicaragua, or Ethiopia, and in Asia in Cambodia—indeed modeling themselves on the Russian or Chinese revolutions. Truly enough, as in the case of the classical revolutions, in all these societies no revo-

lutionary crisis occurred until there is a conjunction of three necessary conditions: “a crisis in the old state, alienation of a significant segment of the elite, and mass mobilization.” (J. Goldstone)? And yet, despite some seeming similarities to the Great Revolutions, and despite the affinities of many of these movements and regimes to the classical revolutionary symbols and regimes, in very few of them developed something close to a “repeat” of the classical revolutions. The entire setting of these movements, including the revolutionary ones and of the new revolutionary, the contexts within which they developed, differed greatly from either those settings which anteceded the Great Revolutions. Of special importance were differences in the international settings, in which these breakdowns of regimes took place. To follow Jack Goldstone’s argument, However, revolutionary movements since the end of the era of the world wars have, in general, differed in three aspects from those that preceded 1945. First, the geopolitical setting has changed. Recent revolutions have occurred

in relatively small, often fairly urbanized

countries

with

semi-

modern colonial or dictatorial governments rather than in large and predominantly rural nations with long-standing traditional governments, such as formed the setting for the “classic” social revolutions of France, Russia, and China. Second, recent revolutionaries have been more often animated

by opposition to local colonial, racial, or superpower domination, and specific ethnic or religious claims, than by the quest for universal ideals that motivated most eighteenth and nineteenth century European and Latin American revolutions. And third, late-twentieth century revolutions unquestionably have been more shaped and constrained by international intervention than most of their predecessors. These changes seem to reflect

176 © Chapter Sixteen

more changes in the makeup of the international order than changes in the processes governing the development of revolutionary situations.

In close relation to these characteristics of the new international setting in which these movements developed, these movements and the new post-revolutionary regimes differed also from the Great Revolutions with respect to both their endogenous as well exogenous causes and frameworks. Most of them developed in the international setting of the Cold War; and their very existence

was

to a very large extent

dependent

on

their patron—the Soviet Union—and on the services they provided for the Soviet Union in the framework of the Cold War, especially as exporters of revolutionary ideologies or troops, training of rebels or terrorists, and constituting a potential threat to the U.S. or to its policies. One such difference was accordingly that they were in fact guided, financed, and to no small degree sponsored, by the Soviet Union—later on by China—and their leadership, becoming closely interwoven with the inter-state, international settings, above all with the contestation between the major camps in the Cold War. The second, closely related, characteristic of these movements was that, given these

international

relations,

their interweaving

with

other

“autochtonous” forces in their own societies could be relatively loose. To some extent they could be transplanted from the external revolutionary centers. Whatever the differences in incorporation of socialist symbols into the basic collective symbols of these societies, in most of them socialism was not closely connected either with highly developed industrialization or with the working classes. Hence, obviously, many important differences from the European, Sovaét or Chinese pattern emerged in the organizational structure of socialist parties or movements. Most of the socialist or communist parties or movements that developed in these societies mostly consisted of professional or serhi-professional political agitators or revolutionaries with varying degrees of organizational effectiveness,

quite often trained

abroad,

in their patron

states,

had relatively weak and intermittent relations to any broad social bases in their societies. Within the frameworks of these various movements there emerged forcefully a new type of the international revolutionaries, perhaps best illustrated by Ghe Guevara—who while fully rooted in the specific country or religion yet became part of growing international revolutionary networks, and a symbol of revolutions and of revolutionary aspirations,

and movements which spanned many continents. Third, these societies, and the regimes, which emerged out of these revolutionary upheavals, were characterized by the specific—mostly patrimonial or colonial—features of the political structure, and the closely

Revolutionary Symbolism in Modern Societies © 177

related types of political economy, Asian, Latin American

which were

characteristic of most

and African societies. In some cases, as in Cuba,

they did promulgate far-reaching egalitarian and welfare policies within these frameworks. Perhaps the most important characteristic, which distinguished most of these revolutionary movements from the classical early and also the later revolutions was that, with the partial exception of the Late Revolutions, they did not promulgate a new cosmological vision, a new cultural vision. They all already were set within the framework of the cultural and political program of modernity, very often in the framework of the specific alternative program

of modernity, which crystallized in the aftermath

of

the late revolutions. THE INCORPORATION OF SYMBOLS OF PROTEST AS CONSTITUTIVE OF PROCESSES OF INTEGRATION INTO THE FRAMEWORKS OF MODERN CIVILIZATIONS IN THE ERA OF NATION AND REVOLUTIONARY STATES LXXVI The preceding analysis, tentative and cursory as it has been, indicates that the transformation of symbols and tenets of socialism in different societies have been effected not only or even mainly by their inherent intellectual contents and orientations, but by the relationship between such contents and the broader historical frameworks and contexts within which they develop, or within which they are absorbed. The

different modes

of incorporation

of the various socialist, poten-

tially revolutionary syinbols and their transformation, some of which were illustrated—even if in simplified and cursing ways—in the preceding discussion, constituted a central aspect of the incorporation of different societies throughout the world into the symbolic and institutional frameworks of the civilization of modernity as they developed and became transformed attendant on their crystallization and expansion. These different modes of incorporation, of transformation of the symbols and themes of

socialism were shaped to a very large extent by the combination of the basic civilizational premises of these societies, the nature of their encounter with the modern economic, political, and ideological international systems, and their specific points of entry into those systems in the ways and the mode of their incorporation into these systems; and by the internal cohesion of their respective elites and the stability and relative openness of the new political regimes that developed in these societies. Or, in greater detail, the variations between different societies in the modes of incorporation and transformation of socialist, potentially

178 © Chapter Sixteen

revolutionary, symbols have been influenced by the basic civilizational premises of these societies, by the nature of relations that developed between these societies, their elite and sub-elite groups and the centers of Western expansion; and the different modes of their incorporation into the new modern international ideological and cultural frameworks. Second, the receptivity to the symbols of socialism depended also on the extent of the feelings of security of the major elites of these societies as well as on the internal cohesion of the societies as they were incorporated into the new international system; on the degree to which a discrepancy developed between their aspirations to participate in autonomous ways in the new universalistic Great Tradition, and their ability to forge an autonomous place in the framework of this tradition, incorporating their own traditions and maintaining their autonomy within them. Last, the mode of incorporation of these symbols—and movements—was also greatly dependent on the stability and continuity of the new political regimes, which developed in different countries attendant on their incorporation into these new international systems. The importance of these factors in the incorporation of symbols of protest was evident already in Western and Central Europe, where socialism originated, and in which the specific mode of incorporation of revolutionary symbols was forged in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries as part of the European tradition and of the processes of reshaping it. As we

have

seen, in those European

countries,

in which

there devel-

oped relatively stable, above all pluralistic, regimes the different socialist symbols and movements became as it were domesticated, and parts of their basic, continually changing institutional and symbolic frameworks, playing an important role in the transformation of the premises of their respective regimes. But it was above all beyond Western and Central Exrope that the importance of the different factors analyzed above that influenced the receptivity to socialist symbols and terms and their transformation can be seen. Such transformations developed in a great variety of ways, each of them entailing a far-reaching transformation of the meaning of the socialist revolutions symbols, of their place in the symbolic maps of their respective societies, and of their different connection with the organizational aspects of social movements. The receptivity to socialist symbols as components of collective identity and of the different societies depended first on the degree to which the traditions of these societies contained strong universalistic elements transcending tribal, ethnic, or national community, and strong this-worldly utopian, millenarian elements and orientations as well as on the degree to which within these orientations the tensions between hierarchy and

Revolutionary Symbolism in Modern Societies ¢ 179

equality were of great symbolic and institutional importance. Where universalistic and utopian elements were very strong, there developed within these societies significant attempts to incorporate socialism into the basic symbols of the new collectivity. Thus socialist symbols were incorporated in Western Europe, in Israel, then in Russia, China, to some extent Burma under U Nu and Ne Win in the Middle East and African countries. As against this, in the U.S. and in a different mode in Japan and Thailand, such symbols were not incorporated into the central repertoires of symbols of the collectivity. The same is basically true of India, despite the fact that many policies undertaken by Nehru and later by his daughter, Indira Gandhi, have been portrayed as going in a socialist direction, and that socialist declarations abounded

in Nehru’s and to

some extent also during Indira Gandhi’s period. Truly enough, the Communist Party played an important role in some states, especially in Kerala, but very much already within the constitutional framework of the Union of India. In Japan, such strong universalistic orientations and utopian orientations were missing. In India the political area was not perceived as the major area of the implementation of their dominant transcendental visions and the utopian orientations of the major movements did not focus on the political realm. The relative weakness of socialism in Japan was reinforced by the prevalence of the premises of hierarchy, as well as by the weakness of a strong transcendental dimension in the basic definition of the ontological realm prevalent in Japan. These factors explain also the non-incorporation of socialist symbols into the central symbolic repertoire of Japanese society, even socialist or communist movements played important” secondary roles. In the U.S. such non-incorporation was connected with the distinct way in which universalistic utopian orientations were transformed, giving rise to a distinct program of modernity with its strong emphasis on principled equality. The predispositions to the incorporation of revolutionary symbols was also greatly influenced by the extent to which the standing of different societies—as centers of a Great, potentially universalistic tradition, as was the case in Russia, China and Islamic countries—sharply undermined by their encounter with Western hegemonies. In the case of Japan, on the other hand, where

modern

collective cultural identity was

success-

fully reconstructed side by side with the attainment of strong international standing, the predisposition to incorporate socialist symbols into its central symbols was small and limited to marginal elites that were unable to influence the center and/or broader groups. Similarly, the non-incorporation of socialist components into the central symbols of American identity is closely related to both the predominance of a

180 © Chapter Sixteen

principled emphasis on equality and to the unchallenged place of the United States in the modern international system. In African and Middle Eastern societies, different and changing constellations of factors affected the incorporation of different aspects of socialism. In most African societies, colonialism has drawn into the international orbit political and cultural units with relatively weak, mostly pre-Axial, great Traditions and has given, rise within them—at least

among the more educated and urbanized elites—to a very strong predisposition to participate in the broader setting of the new Great ‘Traditions. It was in this context that there developed the ideologies of African socialism, later to recede with the development of more negative attitudes towards the West. In the central Islamic, especially Near Eastern societies, the predilection of some elites to incorporate socialist symbols into the central symbols of their societies was connected with the weakening of many elements of their own Great Traditions, and especially with the uncertainty about relations between the new emerging political centers and the universalistic claims of Islam. At the same time, the persistence of this ambivalence, as well as the fact of Islam being a universalistic civilization, resulted in the selection of some socialist symbols and broad socialist political programs, albeit with a tendency to legitimize them in terms of the Islamic tradition and symbols. These symbols became less important with the resurgence of Islamic identity and of so-called Islamic fundamentalism,

in which

claims were

often made

that Islam contained

the

pure non-materialistic aspects of social justice. It is significant that the predisposition to incorporate socialist symbols has been on the whole weakest in those African societies that held to or developed a strong Islamic identity, which gave them the possibility of participating in an already existing Great Tradition, as they often incorporated symbols of socialism into the generai Islamic symbols of the collectivity. It is very important to emphasize that these variations were not fixed in any society, thus very often changing according to changes in the modes of incorporation of socialist symbols and tenets in the respective standing and in central developments within these societies. In all these societies there developed a continuous reconstruction and renovation of concrete new themes and tropes, attesting to the continual dynamics of modernity—and, at the same time, to the fact that the cultural program of modernity, constituted a common positive or negative reference point for all of them.

Revolutionary Symbolism in Modern Societies ¢ 181

LXXVII

It might be worthwhile in this context to examine, even if very cursorily, and in a very preliminary way in which one central aspect of social-

ism—the tenet of “scientific materialism”—was incorporated into the intellectual frameworks of various societies. A cursory look does indeed indicate these processes of incorporation also closely related, albeit in somewhat different ways, to the various conditions analyzed above. From this point of view three types of societies or civilizations may be distinguished: first, most European countries, where the tenets or symbols of socialism became one component of their basic civilizational premises and of their intellectual-cognitive maps or universe of discourse; second, societies like Soviet Russia and communist China, and perhaps Cuba, where

the socialist-communist

beliefs became

central, hegemonic

components of their premises and intellectual maps; third, many of the Islamic and African countries, as well as a country like Burma, where—

while socialist symbols have become important components of their symbols of collective identty—“‘socialist” principles did not become components of the basic intellectual maps. Here the differences between the Communist and the Western pluralistic regimes can be most clearly illustrated. These different modes of incorporating the tenets of “scientific materialism” into the intellectual-cognitive maps of different societies had farreaching influences, not only on the official standing of these tenets, but on the intellectual developments in these societies. ‘Thus, in those societies—especially Russia—where the basic premises of socialism became predominant, incorporating and totally transforming the earlier “Christian” ones, “scientific materialism” became the official orthodoxy, with an impact felt on two levels. The simplest and obvious level was the promotion and promulgation of the “scientific materialist” doctrine as the official doctrine of the society. On a second and more complicated level, more pervasive and perhaps more important for our analysis, these tenets served to organize the structuring of worlds of knowledge and of scientific work, or at least as the basis for attempts at such structuring. While there developed within Soviet Russia a growing flexibility of control, as well as autonomy of different fields of knowledge and cultural—especially scientific—creativity, this took place against the background of attempts at overall organization of the various fields of cultural creativity according to the tenets of “scientific materialism.” The major mechanisms of control—beyond outright direct censorship—were the inculcation of these premises through educational agencies and the mass media among all sectors of the population, 1.e., the major ways of constructing many of the incorrigible assumptions about the nature of society, cosmos, and reality. At the same time, “scientific

182 ¢ Chapter Sixteen

materialism” itself increasingly petrified. With few exceptions, it was not open to impingement by the various domains of knowledge that managed to acquire some autonomy. In some areas and periods these tenets exercised, as it were, direct control over the contents of many fields of such creativity. But even when this control was relaxed, it had far-reaching consequences—parallel in a way to some aspects of the structuring of knowledge in Axial Age civilizations—bearing on the relative hierarchy, autonomy, and segregation of these fields. As against this situation, in most European countries where the symbols and scientific tenets of socialism constituted only one, and not necessarily the most central, component of their basic intellectual universe, “scientific” or socialist materialism occupied a different place on the intellectual maps. Here scientific materialism or Marxism was incorporated, and transformed in three major ways. First, “scientific materialism” became one model of intellectual and academic discourse, which had to

cope with other models in the open and pluralistic setting of these societies and could develop—in some sectors at least——great vitality and diversity. Second, in different periods and among different sectors of the population, it could become part of the general intellectual ambience, with a far-reaching and variegated impact on many fields of cultural creativity. Third, it could of course become central in a sectarian mode, attempting to acquire totalistic dominance among some intellectual groups. But even these sectarian tendencies had to face the “open” outside world. Hence the internal sectarian mode was weakened, leading to a multiplicity of sects as well as to the decomposition of some of their tenets, or, in their transformation, to a relatively open component of the broader cognitive maps of the general society. ‘ The situation differed in those societies where the tenets of socialism did noi become important components of the basic intellectual cognitive premises, even when they served as important symbols of collective identity. Here such tenets had but minimal impact on the cognitive maps prevalent in these societies and especially on the modes of organization and structuration of knowledge within them—but a detailed analysis of the situation in these societies still awaits systematic research. LXXVIII Thus, to repeat, the preceding analysis, tentative and cursory as it has been, indicates that the transformation of symbols and tenets of socialism in different societies have been effected not only or even mainly by their inherent intellectual contents, but by the relationship between such contents and the broader historical frameworks and contexts within which they develop or within which they are absorbed.

Revolutionary Symbolism in Modern Societies © 183

The differences in the modes of incorporation of symbols of socialism in different modern societies have been closely related to the different points of “entry” into modernity, to ways in which modern orders crystallized in these countries. This analysis indicated that of special importance in constitutions of such contexts of the different revolutionary and non-revolutionary modes of initial crystallization of modern regimes and of cultural and institutional patterns of modernity in these societies; the combination of the impact of the “original” program of modernity on their respective centers and on their elites and on their interrelations with the broader strata in their respective societies. These differences in the modes of incorporation and transformation of revolutionary symbols and activities have been constitutive of the development of the different patterns of modernity, different multiple modernities as they crystallized in the different modern societies; above all in the period of the predominance of models of the nation and revolutionary states as the epitomes of modernity, of the modern cultural and political programs. These differences were of special importance in the constitution of nation and revolutionary states as they crystallized in different societies throughout the world in the period dominated by the original program of modernity, which developed in Europe and in international systems in which the Western program constituted a central, even if often ambivalent, point of reference—and which has greatly changed the last decades of the twentieth century. NOTES ' Eisenstadt, S.N. 1999. The Cultural and Pohitcal Programs of Modernity: Basic Premesis. In S.N. Eisenstadt, Paradoxes of Democracy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, pp. 18-27; idem. 1987. European Cwilzation in a Comparatwe Perspectwe: A Study in the Relations between Cultural and Social Structure. Oslo: Norwegian University Press; Grew, R. 1978 (ed.). Crises of Political Development in Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press. ? Suny, R.G., 1993. The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Stanford:

Stanford University Press; Fainsod, M.

1955. How Russia is Ruled.

Cambridge: Harvard University Press; Brzezinski, Z.K. 1962. Ideology and Power in Soviet Politics. New York: Frederick Praeger; Armstrong, J.A. 1961. The Politics of Totalitarianism: The Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1934 to the Present. New York: Random House; Marc, F. 1985. The Bolshevik Revolution: a Social history of the Russian Revolution. London: Routledge & Keagen Paul Pipes, R.E. 1995. A Concise History of the Russian Revolution. London: Harvill Press. 3 Pellicani, L. 1994. Genesis of Capitalism @ the Ongins of Modernity. New York: Telos Press, Limited;

idem.

1981.

Gramsci,

an alternative communism?

Stanford,

Calif::

Hoover

Institution Press. * Malia, M. 1994. The Soviet tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991. New York: Free Press.

184 © Chapter Sixteen » Nickolov, L. 1992. The Round vol. 7, no. 1, March, pp. 99-117. ° De Tocqueville,

A, 1945.

Table: Sociology in Bulgaria. Jnternational Sociology.

Democracy

in America.

New

York:

Vintage;

Lipset, S.M.

1963. The First New Nation: The United States in Historical and Comparative Perspectwe. NY: Basic Books; Huntington, S.P. 1981. American Politics: The Promise of Disharmony. Cambridge: Belknap Press; See note 23 chapter 2—On

Meiji Ishin.

’ Eisenstadt, S.N. and Y. Azmon, 1975. Socialism and Tradition. Atlantic Highlands: Humanities Press. * on Latin America see note 6 chapter 1. ” Goldstone, J.A., T.R. Gurr and Mo. Farrokh 1991 (eds.). Revolutions of the Late Twentieth Century. op. cit.

The New Setting « 185

XVII. The New Setting —Changes in the Modes of the Models of the Nation and Revolutionary State LXXIX

The different modes of incorporation of revolutionary symbols and movements analyzed above constituted an important component of the development of the various institutional frameworks of the nation and revolutionary states in the nineteenth, and first part of the twentieth century. These modes developed within the framework of the original Western program of modernity, and of the attempts of the different elites of their respective societies to become incorporated within the institutional and ideological frameworks of this program, even if not accepting the concrete details of this “Western” program of modernity. During this period it was the nation and revolutionary states that played the central role in the international systems and frameworks. These frameworks constituted the major institutional arenas, in which the tensions and antinomies of modernity between its constructive and destructive tendencies were played out in this period; above all those between pluralistic and totalistic dimensions—in which the revolutionary symbols and movements played a central role. It was in the period from the end of the Second World War untl about the mid-1960s, till the Vietnam War and the anti-war movement

that the vision of modernity as manifest in the nation and revolutionary states attained its apogee, with these models epitomizing, as it were, the full maturation of the original program of modernity. In the Western nation states the growing participation of all citizens—including women— in the political arenas was attained, as was also the development of a new social economic program that culminated in the establishment of new forms of regulated capitalism, of “social markets,” and different types of welfare state. At the same time, the major revolutionary states—the Soviet Union and later on also China—started as it were to mature, to stabilize, becoming more and more industrialized, seemingly developing strong parallels to the development of the capitalist countries. At the same time, however,

186 © Chapter Seventeen

the revolutionary states were presented by their leaders as the major alternative to the capitalist pluralistic model. In this period attendant on the world-wide processes of de-colonization and the establishment of numerous new states in Asia and Africa, states were shaped after these two models, both the “Western” and the model of the revolutionary (Communist) mode that expanded throughout the world. These states were closely allied to the hegemonic powers—the U.S. and the Soviet Union—which continually attempted to foster and subordinate their respective satellites, even

if these satellites, as was

the case of many

of

the authoritarian regimes supported by the U.S., countered the basic ideologies of their patron states. Concomitantly after the Second World War, although many authoritarian regimes persisted in Eastern Europe and in Latin America with new ones crystallizing in the Middle East and in South Asia, the fascist and national socialist ideologies disappeared as an alternative modern ideology. The authoritarian regimes in Europe and Latin America started to crumble in the 1960s and early 1970s, and towards the end of this period the kernels of far-reaching transformations developed within them. The ideological parameters of this international system were set very much within the framework of the original “Western” cultural and political program—of the tensions and contestations that developed within them—most intensively in Europe. After the Second World War these ideological differences and contestations—the pluralistic and capitalist epitomized by the U.S. and in a different, yet forcible mode by Western Europe; and the totalistic collectivist one epitomized by the Soviet Union and again in a different mode by China and Yietnam—became a symbol and epitome of the struggle between these two camps. During this period the contestation between these models and their carriers—interwoven as they were, of course, with various, often “older,” geopolitical rivalries—constituted a major, possibly the major and certainly most distinctive component of the international scene. The former Imperial contestations were transformed into new global ideological political and economic ones, seemingly no longer connected, as was the case in the nineteenth century basically up to the Second World War, with expanding Imperial regimes in the older colonial territorial mode. After the Second World War there developed the bipolar international system of the period of the Cold War, which was characterized by very intensive rivalry between the two superpowers—the U.S. and the Soviet Union—waging a continuous struggle about geopolitical and ideological hegemony. ‘This rivalry encompassed the entire world with both superpowers attempting to control different parts of the world; to establish

The New Setting © 187

regimes, which would belong to their respective camps and to undermine the regimes close to their “enemy”. LXXX

This situation epitomizing the apogee of the classical age of modernity has started to change—first slowly, then much more intensively—from about the last two or three decades of the twentieth century closely connected with the development first in the West and then throughout the world of several processes, which crystallized in different constellations

in different parts of the world. These processes developed in a new historical context, the major characteristics of which were first, changes in the international systems and shifts

of hegemonies

within

them,

above

all weakening

of the older

Western and Soviet ones, signaling what Fritz Stern! has called “the end of the post-war era”; second the exhaustion of the Cold War ideological and political confrontations culminating in the disintegration of the Soviet regime; third, the development, throughout the world, of the mul-

tiple processes of economic and cultural globalization and in connection with these processes,

especially in non-Western

societies, of a series of

highly destabilizing processes. LXXXI The most important of these processes were first, far-reaching structural

transformations

in the Western, and later many other societies around

the world, manifest in the development of new technologies and the for-

mations of new patterns of political“economy and technology, moving in the direction of knowledge, information technology and information society; concomitant far-reaching changes and shifts in the crystallization of overall social formations, of class and status relations; continual

tendencies throughout the world of democratization as manifest in the growing quest of many sectors for greater participation in the political arenas of their respective societies and on the international scene; and processes of far-reaching ideological and cultural changes and transformations. These processes started to develop, in different tempi already from the late 1950s or early 1960s in continually transformed ways, continually expanding throughout the world, and coming together in the 1990s very much under the impact of new intensive processes of globalization, and of changes in the institutional arenas, above all those attendant on the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Until about the 1970s these

188 © Chapter Seventeen _

processes and the changes they entailed were played out as it were mostly within the confines of the different nation and revolutionary states. From about

the 1980s on, under the impact of new

“social movements”;

of

an intensive new process of globalization, the weakening of the welfare states in the West, and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, there developed and crystallized more and more trans-state or transnational arenas, organizations and networks, often combined with the growth of sub-national regional ones, giving rise to far-reaching changes in globallocal relations and in the formation

of institutional arenas, collectivities

and networks. LXXXII The common core of these processes was thé growing dissociation of major—social, economic, political, family, and gender—roles, organizations, and class relations; from the hitherto broader macro formations, especially from the hegemonic formations of the nation and revolution-

ary states; the development of multiple networks and clusters, which cut across many organizations and “societies;”? continual diversification of the major social roles and formations, and of life worlds; the weakening of relatively closed boundaries of these formations, their growing permeability and their concomitant diversification; the concomitant weakening of the cultural orientations, which were often perceived as the bases of legitimation of these formations; growing dissociations between political centers and the major social and cultural collectivities, and the development of nuclei of new cultural and social identity, which transcend the existing political and cultural boundaries. > Closely related, there developed strong tendencies to the emergence of the new types of definition of various arenas of life and to the crystallization of a multiciplity, of semantic-ideological connections between public and private arenas, work and culture, occupation and residence,

and to the blurring or recombination of these arenas. These developments entailed the weakening of the centrality of the model of the nation or revolutionary state with their strong homogenizing tendencies, and the development of new types of identity grounded in, on the one hand, smaller continually reconstituted different actual or

virtual local settings; and on the other hand in trans-local frameworks— the development of new political transnational or trans-state frameworks the most far-reaching being like the European Union; the concomitant reconfiguration of the relation between primordial and/or sacred (religious) and as against civil components in the constitution of collective identity entailing new modes of exclusion and inclusion.

__ The New Setting « 189

Concomitantly there developed continual decomposition of the relatively compact image of the “civilized man,” of the styles of life, of construction of life worlds, which were connected with the strong programs of modernity, giving rise to a growing pluralization and heterogenization of such images and representations, and of new patterns of differentiation and syncretization between different cultural traditions, so aptly analyzed by Ulf Hannerz,’ as well as the continual development of shifting “alternative” modernities. One of the most important institutional changes connected with those tendencies has been the development of various structural, semi-liminal enclaves, within which

new

cultural orientations, new

modes

of search

for meaning—often couched in transcendental terms—tend to be developed and upheld, partially as counter-cultures, partially as components of new culture. These enclaves, in which some people may participate fully, but most in a more transitory fashion, may serve in some situations as reservoirs of revolutionary activities and groups, but on the whole they tend to serve as loci or starting points of far-reaching changes in roles and cultural orientations. Closely related is the emergence of new Diasporas, such as the Muslim or Indian ones in Europe or the U.S.; or the extension, and growing self-consciousness of older ones, such as the Chinese or Indian ones. LXXXIHI

These changes became very closely interwoven in a process of continual feedback, with far-reaching cultural transformations, which developed from the 1960s, first of all in Western societies and then beyond them. These transformations entailed the weakening of the definition of ontological reality as promulgated in the Enlightenment, which has been hegemonic in the classical period of modernity. Its major premise was that the exploration and even mastery of continuously expanding human and natural environments and destiny can be attained by the conscious effort of man and society, an effort oriented to or guided by a very strong “this-worldly” transcendental vision. The belief in such endless exploration, as well as in the potential mastery over internal and external environments, implied the blending of “Zweckrationalitat” and “Wertrationalitat”, of “logos” and “mythos”, of theory and practice alike, and became most fully epitomized in the ethos of cognitive rationality. The fullest expressions of this attitude could be found in the incorporation, and partial predominance, of science and of the scientific approach into the basic premises and parameters of the cultural order; that is, in the assumption that the exploration of nature by man, the

190 © Chapter Seventeen

continuous expansion of scientific and technological knowledge, can transform both the cultural and social orders, according to the premises of this ontological vision. The new cultural trends entailed a far-reaching critique of these aspects of the cultural program of the Enlightenment, especially as it was promulgated and institutionalized as the hegemonic discourse of the classical period of modernity. There started to develop a growing tendency to distinction and dissociation between Castells, M.

2000. The Rise of the Network Wimmer, A. 2001. Globalizations Avant la Lettre: and Heteromorphization in an Inter-Connecting History. 43, pp. 435-466. * Hannerz, U. 1999. Cultural Complexity: Studies

Society. Malden,

MA: Blackwell, 2000; A Comparative View of Isomorphization World. Comparative Studies in Society and

in the Social Organization of Meaning. New

York: Columbia University Press; idem 1996. Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places.

London and New York: Routledge. * Eisenstadt, S.N. 2005. The Transformations of the Religious Dimension in the Constitution of Contemporary Modernities. Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers. > Eisenstadt, S.N. forthcoming. Cultural Programs, the Construction of Collective Identitites and the Continual Reconstruction of Primordiality. To be published in B. Gissen and D. Suber. (eds.) Religion and Politics. Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers. ° Hatzopoulos,

P. and P. Fabio 2003 (eds.). Religion in International Relations: The Return

from Exile. Palgrave Macmillan; Juergensmeyer, M. 2003 (ed.). Global Religions. Oxford University Press; Beyer, P. 1994. Religion and Globalization. London/Thousand Oaks/New Delhi: Sage Publications, pp. 97-111. ’ Habermas, J. 1981. New Social Movements. Telos. 49, Fall, p. 33; and see also Ingelhart, R. 1990. Values, ideology and Cognitive Mobilization in New Social Movements. in R,J. Dalton and M. Kuechler (eds.). Challenging the Political Order. Cambridge: Polity Press, pp. 44-45; Melucci, A. 1982. L’invenzione del Presente, Movimenti Socialnelle Societa Complesse. Bologna: Societa Editori I] Mulino; idem. 1985. The Symbolic Challenge of Contemporary Movements. Social Research, Winter, pp. 789-816; Eisenstadt, S.N. 1990. Some Observations on Post-Modern Society, in V. Bornschier et al., (eds.) Diskontinuitat des Soztalen Wandels. Frankfurt: Campus Verlag, pp. 287-296; Offe, C. 1996. New Social Movements: Challenging the Boundaries of“{nstitutional Politics, in idem. Modernity and the State, East, West. Cambridge Polity Press, pp. 817-829. ® Kymlicka, W. 1995. Multicultural Citizenship: A Liberal Theory of Minority Rights. Oxford: Clarendon Press. ° Juergensmeyer, Mark. 2003 (ed.). Global Religions. Oxford University Press. '° Goldstone, J.A., T.R. Gurr and F. Moshiri. 1991. Revolutions of the Late Twentieth

Century. Boulder: Westview. '! Konrad, G. 1985. Antipolitik—Mitteleuropaische Meditationen. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp; Eisenstadt, S.N. Tendencies to Deconsolidation of Democracy in Contemporary Societies. Baltimore/London: The Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 89-99. 2 Eisenstadt. S.N. 1999. Fundamentalism, Sectarianism, and Revolution: The Jacobin Dimension

of Modernity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. '3 Riesebrodt, M. 1993. Pious Passion: The Emergence of Modern Fundamentalism in the United States and Iran. Translated by Don Reneau. Berkeley: University of California. '! See note 4 on Iranian Revolution in chapter |. '> Gule, N. 1996. The Forbidden Modern: Civilization and Veiling. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

220 © Chapter Seventeen '© Yapp, M.E. 1987. The Making of the Modern Near East, 1792-1923. London: Longman. Gule, N. 1996. The Forbidden Modern, op. cit. '* Obeyesekere, Gananath. 1984. “Political Violence and the Future of Democracy in Sri Lanka,”

Internationales Asienforum

|Munich],

15, Nos.

1-2, May

39-60; Obeyesekere,

G. 1985. Depression, Buddhism, and the work of culture in Sn Lanka in Culture and Depression: Studies in the Anthropology and Cross-Cultural Psychiatry of Affect and Disorder. Arthur Kleinman and Byron Good (eds.) Los Angeles: University of California Press; Obeyesekere, Gananath. 2003. Buddhism in Global Religions, Mark Juergensmeyer (ed.), Oxford University Press. '9 See note 4 in Chapter 1. *” Antoine Compagnon, 2005. Les anti-Modernes. Paris: Galimar. *! Kermode, Frank. 1966. The New Apocalyptists. Partisan Review, 1966.

INDEX

Abbasid, caliphate, 13 Empire, 34, 123 regime, 38, 110 revolution, 13, 80 Abbyonde Empire, 52 inca w/- N40" W550 N85, Wie 9: 180, 186 Al Azmeh, A., 81, 84 American Revolution (see also early revolutions, Great Revolutions), 3, 6, Pe t>s 19 SBN Lil, 147 168" 169" 173, 201 Bill of Rights, 15 Declaration of Independence, 15 Preamble to the Constitution, 15 American

Way of Life,

15

Amineh, M.P., 10 Andropov, Y.V., 199 Ardant, G., 158 Arjomand, S.A., 10, 27, 13 Armenian Genocide, 155 Armstrong, J.A., 183 Arnason, J.P., 10, 28, 45, 45, 106, 107, 157 Asias 140) 164, 66, 171, 173, 175) 177, 186 Austro-Hungarian Empire, 148 Axial (Age) Civilizations, 5, 6, 44—48, 51-93, Di, 73.70; 05, 93-99. 103; WG 107 2 OS 0" 231072 134, 136, 142, 150, 151, 182, 204 Non-, 52, 95, 97, 120 Pre-, 47; 51, 119 Axial cosmologies, 6, 50, 106 Ayalon, D., 84 Azmon, Y., 184 Balazs, E., 78 Baum, R., 98, 100, 117 Bayly, S., 10, 68 Bendix, R., 157

Beyerjeh..w2 19 Bismarck, O., 148 Blum, J., 117 Blumberg, H., 157 Bodde, D., 78 Brahman (see also Hinduism), 47, 61, 67 Brahmins,

50, 58, 59, 99

Brahminic ideology, 57

Brzezinski, Z.K., 183 Brunschwig, H., 40 Buddhism (see also civilization), 26, 65, Doin JOR ey ee We SO), UN Sangha, 47, 50 Theravada, 53, 66

Bulgaria, 200 Bureaucracy,

3, 72; 73, 75, 140 115, 200 Burma, 179, 181 Byzantine Empire, 34, 38, 52, 72, 87, SOMOS aOL Caillat, C., 68 Cam, M.M., 91 Cambodia, 155, 175 Canada, 150, 174 Capitalism, 38, 167, 205 modern, 113 development of, 131, 138 Carman, L.B., 68 Car, EH 9 Cassirer, E., 157 Castells, M., 219 Castodiaris, C., 134, 156 Cavour, 148 Center-periphery relations, 46, 89, 119,

137-139; 64, 66, 169) 172 Chandragupta, 61 Che Guevara, 176 Chehabi,

H.E., 10

China, 5, 33, 40, 47, 50, 65, 71, 73, 74, 77, 94, 96, 99, 107, 116, 148, 149, 164, 166, 170, 176, 179, 181, 185, 186 Han Empire, 71 Ming Dynasty, 33, 34 Sung Empire, 75 Tang Empire, 71, 74, 76 Chinese Empire, 34, 52, 89, 111, 112, 117 Chinese revolution (see also Great Revolutions, late revolutions), 3, 6-8,

NS Sisio alll GAS NTPs, abiylay, AD) Christianity (see also civilization), 44, 45,

109, 110, 126, 141, 197 Catholicism, 44, 86, 121, 122 Protestantism, 44, 100 Russian orthodox/Eastern, 44, 86 Church, 88, 89, 113, 114

229 ¢ Index

Civil society, 39, 63, 64, 115, 116, 123, 126, 169, 170, 197 Civilization: Buddhist,

149,

151,

153,

154

Chinstian, 3557250795) Co, SOs LU 117, 134, 151 Confucian,

5, 94, 109, 122,

mina,

149, 151,

153 Hegemonic, 214 Hellimistic. /dawoos) )ou induist 527159) 60; ole 12 ag: 153, 154 Islamic, 109, 149, 151, 153, 154 Japanese, 153 Jewish, 79, 85, 86 Modern, 3, 4, 7, 84, 156, 172, 173 Muslim, 79, 87, 121 Monotheist, 59 Russian orthodox,

5 Tribal (see also tribes), 85 Class struggles (see also conflicts/struggles), 31 Classes, 20, 43 aristocratic, 18, 31, 114, 115 middle, 112, 131 peasants, 2252425, 3k 33, LA social, 141 upper, 31 urban, 24, 115 urban lower, 22 Click Gn. 20; Cochin, Avy 2252728 Cold War, 161, 176, 186, 187 Collective identities, 16, 45, 106, 139, 142, 145, 148, 162, 168, 178, 192, LOTR O5s8 209 Compagnon, A., 220 Conflicts/struggles, 6, 18, 19, 23, 155, 216 inter-class, 4, 5 inter-elite, 5, 31 intra-elite, 33 international, 155 concept of citizenship,

18, 98, 113, 155, 192 196, 203 Confucianism (see also civilization), 25, 269 59) Main 94, 97, LLG neo-, 24, 72, 75, 77 Cosmological themes, 16 Cosmological visions, 6, 8, 16, 43, 44, SOM Silay OooaeOr sO KO Gon OOn Oo. 109, 117, 133, 189, 190 Craig, A.M., 28 Crone, P., 84 Cuba ee lio. alu lols Czechoslovak Republic, 201

Daadler, Hs, 91 Daniels, R.V., 9 Descartes, R., 143 Dietrich, Z.R., 9 Diaspora, 189, 193, 196, 197, 208 Dims, P., 28 Dumont, L., 60, 68 Durkheim, E., 141, 149, 157 East Asia, 193 Eberhard, W., 78 Eisenstadt, S.N., 9, 10, 28, 35, 41, 54,

68, 69, 91, 107, 11750235157 184, 219

hese

Elias, N., 143, 157

Elites, 48, 50, 52, 72, 74, 80, 88, 105, LiOabtl LiZ iO, Aces Ae beta, 1675 173, Lit, APOs boo, LES Elvin, M., 78 Entzauberung,

145

Endzeit, 21

England, 33, 131, 140, 146, 160, 199 English Civil War (see also Great Revolutions),

3, 6, 14, 16, 18, 19, 23,

35. LE IS3. E7321 Enlightenment, 14, 37, 111, 133, 134, 142, 143, 144, 169, 189-191, 198, 199, 203, 206, 209, 210, 218 Anti-, 205, 208, 212 Erasmus, D., 143 Ethiopia, 7, 132, 175,

198

Ethiopian Revolution, 173 Burope;16, 33,407 525)63- 62) 12-74, 87-90, 95, 96, 110, 123, 134, 135, 151, 153,155, 1615162, 163, 9467, V7Os WA, E75, Lik, LBL 8s 9s. 196 Central, 86-89, 111, 140, 146, 147, 163, 166, 178 = Eastern, 86, 140, 146, 147, 148, 165, 171, 172, 186, 198-200, 201-203 Southern, 164 Western, 6, 86-90, 93, 96, 99, 111, 117, 135, 153, 163, 164, 166, 178, 179, 198

European Union,

188, 197

Fabio, P., 219 Fainsod, M., 183

Fairbank, J.K., 78 Farrokh, M., 10, 184 Fascism, 165, 210 Faubian, J.D., 135, 157

Feudalism, 74 Fingarette, H., 71, 78 First World War, 155, 164

Index ¢ 223

Poranya|ee9seoo

Hannerz,

Forgacs, D., 78, 118

Haroutounian, H.D., 28 lanza lam loO mos Hatzopoulos, P., 219 Havel, V., 199 Heesterman, J.C., 10, 60, 68 Hegemony, 44, 171, 172, 187, 196

Foucault, M., 143, 157 France, 33, 131, 140, 146, 148, 150 Frankfurt School, 141

French Revolution (see also Great Revolutions), 3, 6, 14, 16, 20, 23, 38, Le SORmlO2ea loSweOb te G Omawos 199; 201

Hellenistic

U., 189, 219

Empire,

Friedlander, J.S., 9

lata Jie, Woy job C65, 8)

Furet,) F422528

Hinduism

Gellner, E., 81, 84

Civilization, 153 Hobsbawm, E., 19, 27

Genghis Khan, 51 88, 146, 147, 148, 164, 165

Hodgson, M.G., 84

Gillis, J.R., 40 Globalization, 187, 196 Goff, Le, J., 91 Goldstone; J-A:, 4, 9; 10, 33-35, 54, WY O= 18Ay TSO SO19 Gramsci, A., 78, 116, 118 Gramscian hegemony (see also hegemony), 72 Gray, J., 10 Great

Britain (see also England),

Holocaust, 155 Holton, G., 9

Huber, T.M., 28 Humbaraci, A., 41 Hungary, 200, 201 Huntington, S.P., 184 Identities (see also collective identities), MIE Skshs AMOS Atsreyy: USM MSTaNSPAULe, il) Ideolosweo, Won AS Olre ot) ele: 139, 140, 168, 194, 208 Communist, 143 Jacobin-totalitarian, 166

163

Great Revolutions (see also revolutions), BO else kG. oik, Don 260 27, 405 100, 103 Ameniean, 3, 6, 14, 15, 19, 38, fT, 147, 168, 169, 173, 201 Chinese, 3, 6-8, 19, 38, 111, 167, LIS N78; 201 French, 3, 6, 14, 16, 20, 23, 38, 111, P33. 1525 158, 156. 60173; 199; 201 English Civil War, 3, 6, 14, 16, 18, 195°33,.38, VT, 173, 201 Iranian, 6-8, 15, 44, 111, 173, 212 Russians: 62 19 38. UUs 5 75} 200, 201 ‘Taiwanese, 6 Warkash: 3; 38, 173 Vietnamese, 3, 6-8,

(see also civilization), 57, 65,

oT 197, 211 Brahman, 47, 61, 67 Brahmins, 50, 58, 59, 99 Brahminic ideology, 57

Gay, Posy

Germany,

151

modern,

*

125

radical-leftist, 174 Inden, R., 68 Iraidiare (595.3) Ol of OU Oe OO mos TAS 38, O48) 99) 122 I W325 149: 7/2}, WAS, AS, 22K) caste, 60-66

Movements of protest: Asoka, 68

Bhakti, 65 Jain, 65 Buddhism (see Buddhism), Viraisva, 67

19, 38, 112,

73 Greece, 47 Ancient, 44, 50, 98

Greene, R.P., 9 Grew, R., 158, 183 Gule, N., 219, 220 Gum, JER, 10; 184,219

Sanyasi, 65 Indira Gandhi, 179 Industrialization, 123, 131 Ingelhart, R., 219 Inkeles, A., 136, 157 Intellectuals, 6, 20, 22, 23, 26, 44,

Aird 202 name SO

Habermas; J. 195, 219

Haller, W., 27, 28 Hallisey, C., 68 Halperin-Donghi, T., 11, 41

AL, MStep. Malay =Weyer Wee

liso) 75205) 20) Iranian (Khomeini) Revolution (see also Great Revolutions), 6-8, 15, 44, 111, ei PAZ Islam, 15, 44, 62, 80-83, 88, 99, 119,

224 ¢ Index

Lindsay, J.O., 91

122, 180, 197 Shrism, 80, 82, 211

Lipset, S.M., 184 Lnbasz, H., 9

Sufism, 82

Sunnism, 79, 80 Wahhabism, 82, 83 Islamic civilization, 153 Islamic community, 79 Israel, 44, 47, 50, 51, 52, 205 lshexelh YAS Uae, WAS,

Italy, 146-148,

Malia, M., 167, 183 Malloy, J., 11, 41 Mao Tze Tung, 167 Mardin, S., 41 Marc,

F., 183

Marx, K., 9, 141, 164

164, 165

Marx, Jacobines,

166, 194, 201, 205-207,

210

Jansen, M.B., 28 Japan (see also civilization), 7, 24, 25, A) 43) 14; 93-97 MOS e232 7 els2, 149, 154, 167, 168, 170, 174, 179 Tokugawa (Shogunal) regime, 24—26, 40, 96, 169, 170 Jay, M., 157 Judaism (see also civilization), 44, 50 Juergensmeyer, M., 219 Kahane, R., 69 Kamenka, E., 9, 157 Kaviraj, S., 10, 68 Kedar, B.Z., 54 Kermode, F., 216, 220 Khaldoun, [., 81-85 Khatami, M., 207 Khomeini, R., 10, 15, 111

Miton, D., 10

Kinship, 45, 96, 120, 122, 168 Kingship, 61, 62 Kirfel, W., 68 KuishanksipsMi Oe 2227, Kolakowski, L., 156, 158

L., 9 Marxism, 32, 43, 161, 182 McAlister, J.T., 9 Mcllwain, Ch.H., 91 McLane, J.B, 9; 10, 41 Mehta, P., 63, 68 Meiji Ishin (see also Japan), 7, 24-27, 40, 93, 123 oligarchs, 28 Rennovation/Restoration, 24, 25, 28, 40 Meisner, M., 10, Melucci, A., 219 Merleau-Ponty, M., 21, 27 Metzger, T., 99, 100 Meyer, G.P., 9 Middle Ages, 22, 90, 117 Middle East, 7, 33, 119, 179, 180, 186 Ming Dynasty (see also China), 33, 34

28

Milton, N., 10 Mitzman,

|

A., 157

Modernity: civilization of, 3, 4, 7, 8, 100, 177 crisis of, 165

Konrad, G., 202, 219

crystallization of, 4, 8, 166

Korea, 94 Kosellek, R., 37, 40, 41 Kossok, M., 9 Kosovo, 155

discourse. of; 38, 153,

Kulturtraéger, 47, 202

patterns of, 6, 7, 141, 144, 149, 150,

Kumar,

K., 10 Kymlicka, W., 219 Landau-Tasseron,

155, 213-219

expansion of, 150, 155, 165, 171 orders of, 6, 145, 153, 159; 162; 173,

219 Pos 32 be

E., 84

Lasky, M., 9 Latin America, 7, 39, 40, 99, 122, 127, 132) 134 N40 SIGS. Wile Wiss li5s 177, 186, 198 Lattimore, O., 78 Leadership, 19, 20, 22, 25, 43, 79; 80,

83, 103, 148, 176 Ibeforte, Ge lisye Vor Lemere D4 o6. lou Lewis, B., 27, 81, 84 Liberalism, 15 Lieuw, G. van der, 27

programs of, 4, 7, 8, 40, 141, 142-145, 149, 152, 165, 183, 216, 218 traditions of, 172 transition to, 5, 6 Modernization, 6, 37, 112, 123, 132, 136; 141, 157, 211 Modern civilization (see civilization) pre-modern, 95 Modern cosmologies, 23 Modern political parties, 19 Modern societies, 7, 8, 23, 100, 140, 159-165, 194, 202 Modern world, 3, 145 Mongol Empire, 80, 83, 114

Index ¢ 225

Montaigne, M., 143 Moore, B., 31, 35 Morris, R.B., 9 Moshiri, F., 219

American,

22, 199 English, 15, 22, 199, 211

Rafsanjani, H., 207

Movements: communist, 164, 170, 205, 213 fundamentalist, 166, 180, 197, 203,

Raynaud,

204. 2U6=2085 209; 212- Dis. 205. ay anti-Globalization, 195 leftist totalitarian, 165 nationalistic,

absolutist, 167 autocratic, 163, 164

159, 213

Chance, a= Ow lS. 2 27 colonial, 7, 39 communist, 166, 181, 186, 199, 203 constitutional pluralist, 163, 164, 181 fascist, 164, 165 manjoysnell, (hee, Se Gee tee cee INO): OS S25 ealtoo imperial-feudal, 34, 111, 119, 123, 125 hberal democratic, 161, 164 modern, 8, 133, 160, 161

postmodern, 216, 218 of protest, 6, 18, 91, 174 revolutionary, 168 romantic,

155

sectarian, 65, 168, 182, 204 socialist,

170,

P., 27

Rebellions, 18-24, 32, 44, 51, 81, 85, SO LUGS I265 137x199 Redfield, R., 54 Reformation, 134, 144 Regime:

164

Mughal India (see also India), 67 Mujaddid tradition (see Islam), 82 Mutliculturalism, 216

Multiple modernities (see also modernity), FI, 23. 149153. Woe M62 183 Mus, P., 9, 10

patrimonial,

Muslim

pre-revolutionary political, 31, 117 revolutionary, 164

societies, 64, 72, 81, 82, 149

171, 203

Ne Win, 179 Nicaragua, 175, 198 Nickolov, L., 167, 184 North America, 6, 99, 150, 174 Nove, A., 156, 131

Obeyskeyere, G., 220, 211 One 0-219 Ottoman Empire (see also Turkey), 33, B4, 39.52; 80, M0, 1171237 148 Pellicani, L., 166, 183 Ping-ti Ho, 10, 78 Pipes, D., 64 Pipes kee sella Platonic school, 85, 86

Neo-platonism, 85 Pocock, J.G.A., 91

113, 117, 149

totalitarian, 160, 163 Reiniche, M.L., 67, 69 Reinschauer, E.O., 78

Nahirny, V.C., 28

Napoleon III, 164 Nationalism, Nation, 17 Nehru, 179

119-121

post-revolutionary,

Ld

Religions, Woy Weg 25 249 6/6238 148) 1505 167, 1985 1965 1985 212 Renaissance, 99, 144 Revolutions (see also Great Revolutions): causes of, 40, 125 historical, 40 conditions of, economic, 3, B26) 52 demographic, 31, 152 historical, 5, 31, 125 socio-psychological, 31 structural, 31, 152 civilizational frameworks, 5 counter, 16, 126 Calla On oun osn lal

Ieive,, (oy, teh, ake, WE. Se modern, 3, 6, 8, 23, 38 process of, 5 velvet, 198 Revolutionary, change,

Ie

TE

3

Poland, 199, 201 Polanyi, K., 119, 123

cosmologies, 8, 22

Pollock,.S:, 11527, 68 Popkin, S.L., 41

ideologies, 3, 15 images, 3, imaginaire, 8, 163

crisis, 175

model, 8 movements

(see also movements), 3, 7

phenomenon,

3

226 © Index

potentials, process,

7p elo. LO 2s

199 regime,

123

2 eomelleay

state, 162, 188, 192, 193 symbols, 4, 8, 156, 159, 162, 168, 7A, 7, Way Mela, Pls! themes, visions, 8, 15, 156 Reynolds, F.E., 68 Riesebrodt, M., 206, 219

Ritter, A.R.M., 11 Rodinson, M., 15, 27 Roman Empire, 34, 38, 151] Romania, 200 Rome, 98 Rosenthal, E., 84 Ross G35 Roth, G., 157 Rozman, G, 28 Rudolph, L., 62, 68 Rudolph, S., 62, 68 Runciman, G.R., 131, 156 Russia vl6s Pole 179200 Tsarist, 99, 114, 115, 199 Russian

Empire, 89, 110-112,

modern, 16, 113, Stern, F., 219, 187 Stone, L., 9

Stroumsa, 114-115,

148 Russian Revolution (see also Great Revolutions, late revolutions),

3, 6, 19,

Sn, WL Ss ie, 2), PADI Rutenberg, V., 91 Rwanda,

Suuthy £3739 Social/cultural change, 4, 8, 40, 107, 156 Process of, 18, 23 Social forces, 22, 25, 43, 113 Social protest, 116 Socialisny, 163,171,172, 173; W677, 180 Sombart,, W., 149, 158 South Asia, 53, 119, 121, 127, 173, 175, 186 Southeast Asia, 66, 81, 173, 175 Sovereignty, 18 Soviet Union, 8, 155, 167, 176, 181, 185-188, 191, 193, 198 Spain, 146-148 Spanish Civil War, 161 Spencer, 149° Sreberny, A., 10 Sri Lanka, 155, 211 State system, 17, 153, 171 155

G.G., 91

Subrahmanjah, S., 67, 68 Sufism (see also Islam), Summer, B.H., 117 Sunnism (see also Islam), Suny, G., 115, Sweden, 140

118,

183

155

Salomon, A., 157 Salvation, 45, 49, 53, 65, 85, 109, 113, 165, 166, 205, 206

Sassanid Empire, 38 Saudi Arabia, 206 Schapiro, L., 9 Schnell Onl) Schoffer, I.,

Schurmann, F., 10 Schwartz, B.L., 10 Seaver, P.S., 9 Secterianism, 20, 53, 82 Second World War, 133, 142, 155, 165, 170, 174, 175, 185, 186, 198 Secularism, 50 Seligman, A.B., 9 Seton-Watson, H., 118 Shaban, M.A., 84 Sharon, M., 84 Shrism (see Islam), Shulman, D., 67, 68, 69 mkocpoly le Sil35

Skolinikoff, E., 9 Smith, D.H., 157

Taher, A., 10 Taliban, 206

Tang Tsou, 10; 78 Taoism, 72, 76 Thailand, 39

Tibet, 66 Willy Ces

2 ie 335.

oS Os

Tiryakian, E., 134, 141, 156-158

Tocqueville, A., 32, 35, 141, 150, 156-158, 184

Tokugawa (Shogunal) regime (see also Japan), 24, 25, 40 Bakufu, 24 Samurai, 24—26 Shogun, 24, 26

Tempor reforms, 24 Toulmin, S., 143, 157 Traditions, 14, 16, 62, 65, 87-89,

99,

113, 114, 122, 134, 142, 144, 152, 163, 172, 174, 179, 186, 208, 209 Great, 46, 49, 180 Little, 46 Transcendental visions, 5, 46, 47, 49, 50. 53, 116, 136, 142, 179 Tribes, 82, 83

Index ¢ 227

Troeltsch, E., 91 Turkey,

16, 39, 207, 208

Turkish Revolution (see also Great Revolutions), 3, 38, 173 Turner, I, 9 Tushkarev, S., 118 Ulam, A.B., 9 Ulema, 47, 50, 80, 81 Ummah, 79 United States, 131, 150, 167-171, LAW. WV9LSOs 1665 hos: 205 U Nu, 179 Urbanization, 131, 133, 138 Vatikiotis, P,J., 11 Venturi, F., 9

Vichniac, J.E., 35

Webb, H., 27, 28 Weber, Mi 28) 49) 51s 53, 94, 117, 137; 141, 143, 144, 149, 150, 152, 157 Weir, R.M., 9 Weltanschauung, 133 Werblowsky, Z.R,J., 54 Wertrationalitat, 143, 189, 190 Westernization, 214, 215 De-Westernization, 214, 215 White, C.P., 10, 28 Wiarda, H,J., 11, 41 Willmott, J.W.E., 78

Wimmer,

A., 219 Wink, A., 62, 68 Witrock, B., 10, 54, 107, 134, 156 Woodside, A., 10, 41, 122, 123 World system, 153 Wright, M.C.,

Vietnam, 5, 7, 39, 94, 186, 194 Vietnamese Revolution (see also Great Revolutions), 3, 6-8, 19, 38, 112, 173 Vietnam War, 185

Vacs

Bs 2

Waoner (Plt) low Wahhabism (see Islam) Waisman, C.H., 11 Wallerstein, [., 158 Walzer, M., 17, 27, 28

Zagorin, P., 9

10

277)

Yapp, M.E., 209, 220 Young, L, 117 Yugoslavia, 200

Zionism, 205 Zoroastrianism,

44

Zurcher, E., 10

Zweckrationalitat,

143, 189, 190

INTERNATIONAL

STUDIES

IN

SOCIOLOGY

AND

SOCIAL

ANTHROPOLOGY

The Great Revolutions and

the Civilizations of Modernity S.N. EISENSTADT This book is the analysis of the civilizational and historical context of the development of the Great Modern Revolutions; their relations to modernity, to the civilization of modernity, and to the development of multiple modernities; and the fate of revolutionary symbolism and dynamics in modern regimes, in the continually changing civilization of modernity, its dynamics and tribulations. S.N. Eisenstadt,

Ph.D.

(1947), Jerusalem,

is Professor Emeritus

at the

Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is member of many academies, recipient of honorary doctoral degrees of the Universities of Tel Aviv, Helsinki, Harvard, Duke, Budapest and Hebrew Union College. Recipient of many prizes and awards, he is author and editor of more than 50 books.

ISSN 0074-8684

ISBN 90 04 14812 4