Volume 44
Written By Elizabeth Boyle
ARTICLES
FORUM: DOES CULTURE EVOLVE?
W. G. Runciman, “Culture Does Evolve," History and Theory 44, no. 1 (2005), 1-13.Neo-Darwinian theories of cultural evolution are apt to be criticized on the grounds that they merely borrow from the theory of natural selection concepts that are then metaphorically applied to conventional historical narratives to which they add no more, if anything, than an implicit presupposition of progress from one predetermined stage to the next. Such criticisms, of which a particularly forceful example is a recent article in this journal by Fracchia and Lewontin, can however be shown to be seriously misconceived. The fundamental process of heritable variation and competitive selection of information affecting phenotype underlies both biological and cultural evolution despite the obvious differences between the mechanisms of information transfer by genetic inheritance and by exosomatic imitation and learning. Information transfer is in neither case a metaphor standing for any other thing, and in neither case does change over time proceed in accordance with developmental laws from which the future evolution of either species or cultures could be predicted in advance. For all the unresolved questions that remain, neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory has demonstrated the mutual compatibility of idiographic and nomothetic explanation in the study of species and of cultures alike.
Joseph Fracchia and R. C. Lewontin, “The Price of Metaphor," History and Theory 44, no. 1 (2005), 14-29.In his critical response to our skeptical inquiry, “Does Culture Evolve?” (History and Theory, Theme Issue 38 [December 1999], 52-78), W. G. Runciman affirms that “Culture Does Evolve.” However, we find nothing in his essay that convinces us to alter our initial position. And we must confess that in composing an answer to Runciman, our first temptation was simply to urge those interested to read our original article—both as a basis for evaluating Runciman’s attempted refutation of it and as a framework for reading this essay, which addresses in greater detail issues we have already raised. Runciman views the “selectionist paradigm” as a “scientific” “puzzle-solving device” now validated by an “expanding literature” that has successfully modeled social and cultural change as “evolutionary.” All paradigms, however, including scientific ones, give rise to self-validating “normal science.” The real issue, accordingly, is not whether explanations can be successfully manufactured on the basis of paradigmatic assumptions, but whether the paradigmatic assumptions are appropriate to the object of analysis. The selectionist paradigm requires the reduction of society and culture to inheritance systems that consist of randomly varying, individual units, some of which are selected, and some not; and with society and culture thus reduced to inheritance systems, history can be reduced to “evolution.” But these reductions, which are required by the selectionist paradigm, exclude much that is essential to a satisfactory historical explanation—particularly the systemic properties of society and culture and the combination of systemic logic and contingency. Now as before, therefore, we conclude that while historical phenomena can always be modeled selectionistically, selectionist explanations do no work, nor do they contribute anything new except a misleading vocabulary that anesthetizes history.
W. G. Runciman, “Rejoinder to Fracchia and Lewontin," History and Theory 44, no. 1 (2005), 30-41.In their response to my article, Fracchia and Lewontin have not refuted any of my three principal objections to theirs; they have ignored altogether my suggestion that evolutionary game theory illustrates particularly clearly the benefits that neo-Darwinian concepts and methods can bring to the human behavioral sciences; and they have attributed to me a version of “methodological individualism” to which I do not subscribe. It is, as is usual at this stage of a Kuhnian paradigm shift, too soon to say how much selectionist theory can contribute to the human behavioral sciences in general and comparative sociology in particular. But selectionism’s critics achieve nothing by alleging that its proponents are committed to propositions to which they do not in fact assent and deny propositions with which they in fact agree.
Anders Schinkel, “Imagination as a Category of History: An Essay concerning Koselleck's Concepts of Erfahrungsraum and Erwartungshorizont, “ History and Theory 44, no. 1 (2005), 42-54.
Reinhart Koselleck is an important thinker in part for his attempt to interpret the cultural changes resulting in our modern cultural outlook in terms of the (meta)historical categories of experience and expectation. In so doing he tried to pay equal attention to the static and the changing in history. This article argues that Koselleck’s use of “experience” and “expectation” confuses their metahistorical and historical meaning, with the result that his account fails to do justice to the static, to continuity in history, and mischaracterizes what is distinctive of the modern era. As well as reconfiguring the categories of experience and expectation, this essay also introduces a third category, namely, imagination, in between experience and expectation. This is done to render intelligible what is obscure in Koselleck’s account, and as a stimulus to a study of history that divides its attention equally between the static and the changing. In fact, it is argued that the category of imagination is pre-eminently the category of history, on the concrete historical as well as the metahistorical level.
Michael Bentley, “Herbert Butterfield and the Ethics of Historiography," History and Theory 44, no. 1 (2005), 55-71.
At the center of this important writer’s thought lies a paradox in his constant implicating of ethical norms in historical writing while simultaneously deriding all forms of moral judgment in history. This article investigates the relationship between Butterfield’s ethics and his religion in order to suggest ways of resolving the paradox. It focuses on his unconventional style of Augustinianism and the levels of historical analysis involved in what he called “technical history,” on the one hand, and his own search for a history that went beyond it, on the other, during a century that threw up particular challenges in barbarous war and genocide. The project requires some consideration of Butterfield’s own substantive historical writing against the background of such events, but also silhouettes something more decisive: the degree to which he came to see the enterprise of historiographical analysis as itself ethical. What emerges from the argument is a framework within which Butterfield’s search for meaning in the past (and his conception of historiographical investigation as an eirenic practice) can be laid beside his hostility to moral judgments of past actors on the part of historians without the contradictions that are often assumed. A further implication of the study is that Butterfield was often his own worst enemy in conflating distinctions that he himself had made and blurring lines of argument that demanded sharp separation.
Leo Catana, “The Concept ‘System of Philosophy’: The Case of Jacob Brucker's Historiography of Philosophy," History and Theory 44, no. 1 (2005), 72-90.
In this essay I examine and discuss the concept “system of philosophy” as a methodological tool in the history of philosophy; I do so in two moves. First I analyze the historical origin of the concept in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Thereafter I undertake a discussion of its methodological weaknesses—a discussion that is not only relevant to the writing of history of philosophy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but also to the writing of history of philosophy in our times, where the concept remains an important methodological tool. My first move is to analyze Jacob Brucker’s employment of the concept in his influential history of philosophy, Historia critica philosophiae, dating from 1742–1744. To Brucker, a “system of philosophy” is characterized by the following four features: (a) it is autonomous in regard to other, non-philosophical disciplines; (b) all doctrines stated within the various branches of philosophy can be deduced from one principle; (c) as an autonomous system it comprises all branches of philosophy; (d) the doctrines stated within these various branches of philosophy are internally coherent. Brucker employed the concept on the entire history of philosophy, and he gave it a defining role in regard to two other methodological concepts, namely “eclecticism” and “syncretism,” which he regarded as more or less successful forms of systematic philosophy. My second move is to point out the weakness of the concept of “system of philosophy” as a methodological tool in the history of philosophy. I argue that the interdisciplinary nature of much premodern philosophy makes Brucker’s methodological concept “system of philosophy” inadequate, and that we may be better off leaving it behind in our future exploration of premodern philosophy.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Ann-Louise Shapiro on 14-18: Understanding the Great War by Stéphane Audoin-Rouzeau and Annette Becker, History and Theory 44, no. 1 (2005), 91-101.
Jerry H. Bentley on The Human Web: A Bird's-Eye View of World History by J. R. McNeill and William H. McNeill, History and Theory 44, no. 1 (2005), 102-112.
Johannes Fabian on Time Maps: Collective Memory and the Social Shape of the Past by Eviatar Zerubavel, History and Theory 44, no. 1 (2005), 113-120.
Peter E. Gordon on German Idealism: The Struggle against Subjectivism, 1781-1801 by Frederick C. Beiser and German Philosophy, 1760-1860: The Legacy of Idealism by Terry Pinkard History and Theory 44, no. 1 (2005), 121-137.
Rex Martin on Oakeshott on History by Luke O'Sullivan, History and Theory 44, no. 1 (2005), 138-148.
ARTICLES
John Zammito, "Ankersmit and Historical Representation," History and Theory 44, no. 2 (2005), 155-181.
In Historical Representation Frank Ankersmit seeks a juste milieu between postmodern theory and historical practice. But he still insists that the meaning of a historical representation “is not found, but made in and by [the] text.” Thus “there will be nothing, outside the text itself, that can govern or check [the conceptualization].” Accordingly, “a (historical) representation itself cannot be interpreted as one large (true or false) description. I would not hesitate to say that this—and nothing else—is the central problem in the philosophy of history.” On the other hand, he affirms that “a historical representation ‘is about’ a certain part of the past,” that historical debate is a “semantic quarrel not about the exact meaning of words, but about the past.” Everything hinges on how to grasp this idea of “aboutness.” I propose an alternative reading of post-positivist philosophy of science in hopes of reaching the juste milieu. The issue is whether colligatory concepts in history have a more radically constructed character than theoretical terms in natural-scientific theory, and whether, as with the latter, they can make intersubjective claims to warrant. My view is that colligatory concepts in historical representations can be conceived to refer in roughly the same way that theoretical terms do in natural-scientific theories. All the problems I find in Ankersmit’s approach come to the fore in his fruitful analogy to portrait painting. First, the personality the portrait evokes is not restricted to the representation, but is of the sitter. We are offered insight not (merely) into painting but into an actual character. That is, there is a cognitive, not simply an aesthetic, dimension to representation. Historical terms pick out something intersubjectively affirmable in reality, and discrimination is possible among rival versions. The question is how to regard—to explain and to evaluate—these underdetermined objects of consideration, not to preclude them by stipulation.
José Carlos Bermejo Barrera, "On History Considered as Epic Poetry," History and Theory 44, no. 2 (2005), 182-194.
This essay defines history as an interaction of three elements: description, evocation, and expression. These three elements should interact and combine without any of them overwhelming the remaining two. In combining the three elements, history carries on from epic poetry, which was its source. Highlighting the three elements reveals the ways history synthesizes the three historical stages outlined by Comte, namely, the theological, the metaphysical, and the scientific.
RETROSPECTIVE
Laurence Shore, "The Enduring Power of Racism: A Reconsideration of Winthrop Jordan's White over Black," History and Theory 44, no. 2 (2005), 195-226.
As a history of the origins and development of American racism, White over Black received great acclaim upon its publication in 1968. Deeply researched and covering some 650 pages, it eschewed professional jargon and offered a deft prose style and close attention to matters of sexuality in revealing the origins and lasting influence of racist attitudes arising from Englishmen’s impressions of blacks before they became, pre-eminently, slaves in North America. Jordan’s careful weighing of evidence and causation made readers appreciate what he believed his evidence repeatedly demonstrated about white Americans’ attitudes toward African-Americans: “the power of irrationality in men.” Despite the initial acclaim and scholarly achievement, White over Black soon lost pace with the curve of politics and academic fashion. By the mid-1970s, the post-World War II liberal consensus on racial issues had disintegrated, and professional historians were writing principally for other professional historians. Within a decade after its publication, White over Black was relegated to the wasteland of the “suggested supplemental reading list.” However, the book’s grasp of the fundamental historical issues requiring explanation has received recent affirmation from influential scholarly and political quarters. A dispassionate review of the literature leading up to and following White over Black’s publication indicates that Jordan’s emphasis on the causal contribution of racist attitudes to the rise of African slavery in British North America was on target. Moreover, Jordan’s appreciation that academic historians should write for non-professionals is now widely held inside the academy. The historical accuracy and cogency of expression of Jordan’s perspective on race and slavery make White over Black worth re-examining.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Lloyd Kramer on Action and Reaction: The Life and Adventures of a Couple by Jean Starobinski, Sophie Hawkes, and Jeff Fort, History and Theory 44, no. 2 (2005), 227-239.
David D. Roberts on On the Future of History: The Postmodernist Challenge and Its Aftermath by Ernst Breisach, History and Theory 44, no. 2 (2005), 240-252.
Fred Spier on Maps of Time: An Introduction to Big History by David Christian, History and Theory 44, no. 2 (2005), 253-264.
Noël Bonneuil on Historical Dynamics: Why States Rise and Fall by Peter Turchin, History and Theory 44, no. 2 (2005), 265-270.
Charles Bambach on Rosenzweig and Heidegger: Between Judaism and German Philosophy by Peter Eli Gordon, History and Theory 44, no. 2 (2005), 271-288.
Ian Hunter on The Limits of History by Constantin Fasolt, History and Theory 44, no. 2 (2005), 289-303.
ARTICLES
FORUM: THE PUBLIC ROLE OF HISTORY
A. Dirk Moses, "Hayden White, Traumatic Nationalism, and the Public Role of History,” History and Theory 44, no. 3 (2005), 311-332.This article argues that Hayden White's vision of historiography can be appropriated for the “public use of history” in many ethnic and nationalist conflicts today. That is, it can be used to provide the theoretical arguments that justify the instrumentalization of historical memory by nationalist elites in their sometimes genocidal struggles with their opponents. Historians so far have not adequately understood the implications or possible uses of White's historiography, and therefore to that extent his case remains unrefuted. In the event, White has anticipated and held his ground against possible counter-arguments. The only way to answer him is to ask the question that he poses of historians: what is the purpose of history for “life”? The essay argues that Max Weber's advice to scholars to pose difficult questions and demand clarity about the implications and consequences of specific commitments is morally more responsible than White's in the current climate of ethnic and national conflict. The historical is not opposed to the ethical, as White maintains; the historical is the ethical. Historians should engage in “strong evaluations” (Richard T. Vann) in the construction of “bridging” narratives between historical communities, rather than redemptive narratives of liberation that often entail zero-sum claims to contested land.
Hayden White, "The Public Relevance of Historical Studies: A Reply to Dirk Moses,” History and Theory 44, no. 3 (2005), 333-338.I am grateful to Dirk Moses for taking the time to study my work so assiduously and to comment on it so perspicuously. His essay is eminently well-informed and even-handed, and I have little to add to or correct of his characterization of my many, long on-going, and admittedly flawed attempts to deconstruct modern historical discourse. He understands me well enough and I think that I understand his objections to my position(s). We do not disagree on matters of fact, I think, but we have different notions about the nature of historical discourse and the uses to which historical knowledge can properly be put.
A. Dirk Moses, "The Public Relevance of Historical Studies: A Rejoinder to Hayden White,” History and Theory 44, no. 3 (2005), 339-347.Hayden White wants history to serve life by having it inspire an ethical consciousness, by which he means that in facing the existential questions of life, death, trauma, and suffering posed by human history, people are moved to formulate answers to them rather than to feel that they have no power to choose how they live. The ethical historian should craft narratives that inspire people to live meaningfully rather than try to provide explanations or reconstructions of past events that make them feel as if they cannot control their destiny. This Nietzschean-inspired vision of history is inadequate because it cannot gainsay that a genocidal vision of history is immoral. White may be right that cultural relativism results in cultural pluralism and toleration, but what if most people are not cultural relativists, and believe fervently in their right to specific lands at the expense of other peoples? White does not think historiography or perhaps any moral system can provide an answer. Is he right? This rejoinder argues that the communicative rationality implicit in the human sciences does provide norms about the moral use of history because it institutionalizes an intersubjectivity in which the use of the past is governed by norms of impartiality and fair-mindedness, and protocols of evidence based on honest research. Max Weber, equally influenced by Nietzsche, developed an alternative vision of teaching and research that is still relevant today.
Zenonas Norkus, "Mechanisms as Miracle Makers? The Rise and Inconsistencies of the ‘Mechanismic Approach’ in Social Science and History,” History and Theory 44, no. 3 (2005), 348-372).
In the increasing body of metatheoretical literature on “causal mechanisms,” definitions of “mechanism” proliferate, and these increasingly divergent definitions reproduce older theoretical and methodological oppositions. The reason for this proliferation is the incompatibility of the various metatheoretical expectations directed to them: (1) to serve as an alternative to the scientific theory of individual behavior (for some social theorists, most notably Jon Elster); (2) to provide solutions for causal inference problems in the quantitative social sciences, in social history, and in the (3) qualitative research context; and (4) to serve as an alternative for narratives (Charles Tilly). Mechanisms can do (1) only as under-specified law-like regularities, deliver (2) as robust generative processes represented by models, and accomplish (3) as fragile generative processes (stories), but these are not all compatible. In particular, the mechanisms promoted by Tilly are bare mechanism-sketches, and their elaboration transforms them into the description of fragile generative processes; as such, they cannot accomplish (4). The extension of the concept of mechanisms to cover stories neglects the unique function of narrative to represent fragile contingent processes, and obscures the peculiarities of human action as the rock-bottom constituent of social and historical reality
Aviezer Tucker, "Miracles, Historical Testimonies, and Probabilities,” History and Theory 44, no. 3 (2005), 373-390).
The topic and methods of David Hume's “Of Miracles” resemble his historiographical more than his philosophical works. Unfortunately, Hume and his critics and apologists have shared the pre-scientific, indeed ahistorical, limitations of Hume's original historical investigations. I demonstrate the advantages of the critical methodological approach to testimonies, developed initially by German biblical critics in the late eighteenth century, to a priori discussions of miracles. Any future discussion of miracles and Hume must use the critical method to improve the quality and relevance of the debate. Hume's definition of miracles as breaking the laws of nature is anachronistic. The concept of immutable laws of nature was introduced only in the seventeenth century, thousands of years after the Hebrews had introduced the concept of miracles. Holder and Earman distinguish the posterior probability of the occurrence of a particular miracle from that of the occurrence of some miracle. I argue that though this distinction is significant, their formulae for evaluating the respective probabilities are not useful. Even if miracle hypotheses have low probabilities, it may still be rational to accept and use them if there is no better explanation for the evidence of miracles. Biblical critics and historians do not examine the probabilities of miracle hypotheses, or any other hypotheses about the past, in isolation, but in comparison with competing hypotheses that attempt to better explain, increase the likelihood of a broader scope of evidence, as well as be more fruitful. The fruitful and simple theories of Hume's later and better contemporaries, the founders of biblical criticism, offer the best explanation of the broadest scope of evidence of miracles. Moreover, they do so by being linguistically sensitive to the ways “miracle” was actually used by those who claimed to have observed them. The lessons of this analysis for historians and philosophers of history-that the acceptance of historical hypotheses is a comparative endeavor, and that the claims of those in the past must be assessed in their own terms-ought to be clear.
REVIEW ESSAYS
Patrick H. Hutton on Historical Representation by F. R. Ankersmit, History and Theory 44, no. 3 (2005), 391-403.
Anthony D. Smith on Faith in Nation: Exclusionary Origins of Nationalism by Anthony W. Marx, History and Theory 44, no. 3 (2005), 404-415.
Joseph Rouse on Knowledge and Civilization by Barry Allen, History and Theory 44, no. 3 (2005), 416-430.
Elías J. Palti on Politiques de l'histoire: L'historicisme comme promesse et comme mythe by Jeffrey Andrew Barash, History and Theory 44, no. 3 (2005), 431-440.
C. Behan McCullagh on The Linguistics of History by Roy Harris, History and Theory 44, no. 3 (2005), 441-455.
Mary Louise Roberts on Women's History in Global Perspective, Volume 1 by Bonnie G. Smith and Bodies in Contact: Rethinking Colonial Encounters in World History by Antoinette Burton and Tony Ballantyne, History and Theory 44, no. 3 (2005), 456-468.
Georg G. Iggers on Geschichtswissenschaft im Zeitalter der Extreme: Theorien; Methoden; Tendenzen von 1900 bis zur Gegenwart by Lutz Raphael, History and Theory 44, no. 3 (2005), 469-476.
Theorizing Empire
Philip Pomper, “The History and Theory of Empires," History and Theory, Theme Issue 44 (2005), 1-27.
Contemporary histories and theories of empire generally remain within boundaries inspired by varieties of liberalism, and by Marxian theory and its hybrids, in which changing modes of production determine the forms of power, including empire. Liberal theorists and historians of empire generally trace a complex process in which expanding imperial power systems led ultimately to nation-states, democracy, and market economies. For Marxists and postmodern theorists, the formal aspects of empire remain unimportant compared to the broader workings of modes of production and particularly, the global power of capitalism. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri use the word “empire” to describe the workings of contemporary capitalism and its myriad forms of power. Whether they rely upon the formal definitions of empire or the Marxian-postmodern one, theories of empire often descend from modern utopian visions: perhaps the Kantian variety emphasizing a peaceful union of states and collective learning, or the Marxian one, although now taking into account changes in the mode of production and victims unattended to by Marx and Engels. New technologies and communications networks impress all contemporary theorists. Some proclaim the end of modern power systems and empire; others find empire in a new, postmodern form. Nonetheless, there are stubborn continuities with the modern in the very persistence of modern utopias, the dominance of nation-states, the pursuit of democracy, and the durability of capitalism. Theorists of power and empire have to explain these and other continuities, alongside the disappearance of the more than 400-year-old balance-of-power system in which imperial powers in the European core finally delivered vast power to the United States and the Soviet Union, and created new technologies that strengthen human connection as well as threaten vast destruction. The question of the power of the United States and its imperial status commands the center of attention.
Anthony Pagden, “Fellow Citizens and Imperial Subjects: Conquest and Sovereignty in Europe's Overseas Empires," History and Theory, Theme Issue 44 (2005), 28-46.
This article traces the association between the European overseas empires and the concept of sovereignty, arguing that, ever since the days of Cicero—if not earlier—Europeans had clung to the idea that there was a close association between a people and the territory it happened to occupy. This made it necessary to think of an “empire” as a unity—an “immense body,” to use Tacitus’s phrase—that would embrace all its subjects under a single sovereign. By the end of the eighteenth century it had become possible, in this way, to speak of “empires of liberty” that would operate for the ultimate benefit of all their “citizens,” freeing them from previous tyrannical rulers and bringing them under the protection of more benign regimes. In such empires sovereignty could only ever be, as it had become in Europe, undivided. The collapse of Europe's “first” empires in the Americas, however, was followed rapidly by Napoleon’s attempt to create a new kind of Empire in Europe. The ultimate, and costly, failure of this project led many, Benjamin Constant among them, to believe that the age of empires was now over and had been replaced by the age of commerce. But what in fact succeeded Napoleon was the modern European state system, which attempted not to replace empire by trade, as Constant had hoped, but to create a new kind of empire, one that sought to minimize domination and settlement, and to make a sharp distinction between imperial ruler and imperial subject. In this kind of empire, sovereignty could only be “divided.” Various kinds of divided rule were thus devised in the nineteenth century. Far, however, from being an improvement on the past, this ultimately resulted in—or at least contributed greatly to—the emergence of the largely fictional and inevitably unstable societies that after the final collapse of the European empires became the new states of the “developing world.”
Réal Fillion, “Moving beyond Biopower: Hardt and Negri's Post-Foucauldian Speculative Philosophy of History," History and Theory, Theme Issue 44 (2005), 47-72.
I argue in this paper that the attempt by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri in Empire and Multitude to “theorize empire” should be read both against the backdrop of speculative philosophy of history and as a development of the conception of a “principle of intelligibility” as this is discussed in Michel Foucault’s recently published courses at the Collège de France. I also argue that Foucault’s work in these courses (and elsewhere) can be read as implicitly providing what I call “prolegomena to any future speculative philosophy of history.” I define the latter as concerned with the intelligibility of the historical process considered as a whole. I further suggest, through a brief discussion of the classical figures of Kant, Hegel, and Marx, that the basic features of speculative philosophy of history concern the articulation of both the telos and dynamics of history. My claim is that Hardt and Negri provide an account of the telos and dynamics of history that respects the strictures imposed on speculative philosophy of history by Foucault’s work, and thus can be considered as providing a post-Foucauldian speculative philosophy of history. In doing so, they provide a challenge to other “theoretical” attempts to account for our changing world.
James N. Rosenau, “Illusions of Power and Empire," History and Theory, Theme Issue 44 (2005), 73-87.
Subsequent to the end of the Cold War, analysts groped for an understanding of the overall structures of world politics that marked the emergence of a new epoch. As a result, the concept of empire became a major preoccupation, with the economic and military power of the United States considered sufficient for regarding it as an empire. Due to the proliferation of new microelectronic technologies and for a variety of other specified reasons, however, the constraints inherent in the new epoch make it seem highly unlikely that the U.S. or any other country can ever achieve the status of an empire. In effect, the substantial shrinkage of time and distance in the current period has led to the replacement of the age of the nation-state that originated with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 with the age of the networked individual. It is an age that has developed on a global scale and that has brought an end to the history of empires.
Richard Hellie, “The Structure of Russian Imperial History," History and Theory, Theme Issue 44 (2005), 88-112.
Path dependency is a most valuable tool for understanding Russian history since 1480, which coincides with the ending of the “Mongol yoke,” Moscow’s annexation of northwest Russia, formerly controlled by Novgorod, and the introduction of a new method for financing the cavalry—the core of a new service class. The cavalry had to hold off formidable adversaries (first Lithuania, then the Crimean Tatars, then the Livonians, the Poles, the Swedes, and the Ottomans) for Muscovy to retain its independence. Russia in 1480 was a poor country lacking subsurface mineral resources and with a very poor climate and soil for the support of agriculture. These basic problems inspired autocratic power and by 1515 an ideology was in place justifying it. Religion, literature, and law were employed to support the autocracy. A variant of a caste society was created to support the army. This made up the substance of the first service-class revolution in which all resources (human and intellectual) were mobilized to support a garrison state. After 1667 the external threats to Muscovy diminished, but the service class kept its privileges, especially the land fund and the peasant-serfs. Russia faced major foreign threats again in 1700 and in the 1920s and 1930s. Those threats precipitated the second and third service-class revolutions. The second and third service-class revolutions broadly paralleled the first. Reinvigorated service classes were created with state institutions to support them. As society became more complex, so did the service classes and their privileges. Ideologies (Russian Orthodoxy and then Marxism-Leninism) were converted into devices to support the infallible autocratic ruler and his elites. Almost the entire population was bound to state service, either directly, working to support the service state, or paying taxes. The church and clergy were harnessed first by Peter’s Holy Synod and then Stalin’s Department 5 of the Secret Police after he revived the church during World War II. Writers and artists were also put into uniform, until they finally rebelled—but the arts retained their civic functions, first supporting the regime, and then criticizing it. Finally, law retained its traditional programmatic functions in regimes themselves beholden to no law. As the foreign threats diminished, the service classes lost their function, but the elite servicemen kept their privileges as the service states disintegrated and the service classes lost their collective élan. Both the Russian Empire (in 1917) and then the Soviet Empire (in 1991) collapsed almost without a whimper.
Thomas David Dubois, “Hegemony, Imperialism, and the Construction of Religion in East and Southeast Asia," History and Theory, Theme Issue 44 (2005), 113-131.
Edward Said’s concept of Orientalism portrays the high tide of nineteenth-century imperialism as the defining moment in the establishment of a global discursive hegemony, in which European attitudes and concepts gained a universal validity. The idea of “religion” was central to the civilizing mission of imperialism, and was shaped by the interests of a number of colonial actors in a way that remains visibly relevant today. In East and Southeast Asia, however, many of the concerns that statecraft, law, scholarship, and conversion had for religion transcended the European impact. Both before and after the period of European imperialism, states used religion to engineer social ethics and legitimate rule, scholars elaborated and enforced state theologies, and the missionary faithful voiced the need for and nature of religious conversion. The real impact of this period was to integrate pre-existing concerns into larger discourses, transforming them in the process. The ideals of national citizenship and of legal and scholarly impartiality recast the state and its institutions with a modernist sacrality, which had the effect of banishing the religious from the public space. At the same time, the missionary discourse of transformative conversion located it in the very personal realm of sincerity and belief. The evolution of colonial-era discourses of religion and society in Asia since the departure of European imperial power demonstrates both their lasting power and the degree of agency that remains implicit in the idea of hegemony.
Cover image: “LubeKhrome-2,” by Jr Korpa (8 March 2020)
