Empire of Knowledge

Vinay Lal

Description

During the media frenzy over the Millennium celebrations, there was hardly any mention of the fact that, for the majority of the world, there was no Millennium at all. This linear understanding of time is a specifically Western - and Christian - concept.



This is just one of many examples that Vinay Lal uses to demonstrate that nearly every idea which we take for granted in the west is part of a politics of ideas. Oppression is usually associated with class struggle and other forms of economic monopoly. Lal looks beyond this, deconstructing the cultural assumptions that have emerged alongside capitalism to offer a devastating critique of the politics of knowledge at the heart of all powerbroking.



Other topics examined are the concept of 'development', which has provided a mandate for surreptitious colonisation; and the idea of the 'nation state', something we have lived with for no more than two centuries, yet is accepted without question. Linking this to the emergence of 'international governance' through the United Nations, the US, and imperial economic bodies (such as the IMF and WTO), Lal explains how such universalism came to dominate the trajectory of Western thought.
Acknowledgments

Introduction

1. Reckoning with the Millennium

2. Politics in Our Times

3. Governance in the Twenty-First Century

4. Modern Knowledge and Its Categories

5. Ecology, Economy, Equality

6. Dissenting Futures

Postscript: 911, or the Terrorism That Has No Name

Notes

Suggestions for Further Reading

Index

Sujets

• Economic Policy
• Public Policy
• Social Science
• POLITICAL SCIENCE
• Sociologie, société et politique
• Cultural studies
• Political economy
• Anthropology
• Social
• Culture

Informations

• Publié par: Pluto Press
• Date de parution: 20 octobre 2002
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781849641111
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Empire of Knowledge

Culture and Plurality in the Global Economy

Vinay Lal

P Pluto Press LONDON • STERLING, VIRGINIA

First published 2002 by Pluto Press 345 Archway Road, London N6 5AA and 22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166–2012, USA

www.plutobooks.com

Copyright © Vinay Lal 2002

The right of Vinay Lal to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 0 7453 1737 5 hardback ISBN 0 7453 1736 7 paperback

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Lal, Vinay. Empire of knowledge : culture and plurality in the global economy / Vinay Lal. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0–7453–1737–5 –– ISBN 0–7453–1736–7 (pbk.) 1. Social history––20th century. 2. Economic history––20th century. 3. World politics––20th century. 4. Developed countries––Relations–– Developing countries. 5. Developing countries––Relations––Developed countries. 6. Equality. 7. Knowledge, Sociology of. 8. History––Philosophy. I. Title. HN16 .L35 2002 306'.09'04––dc21 2002002247

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Designed and produced for Pluto Press by Chase Publishing Services, Fortescue, Sidmouth EX10 9QG Typeset from disk by Stanford DTP Services, Towcester Printed in the European Union by Antony Rowe, Chippenham, England

For Avni Sunaina to whom the future belongs and Teshome Gabriel who has enabled the futures of many young ones

and to the memory of Elisabeth (“Lilo”) Difloe who had her future snatched from her

Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

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Reckoning with the Millennium Monolithic Temporality Democratizing/Pluralizing Temporality Keeping Watch on Time

Politics in Our Times Total Violence Decolonization Human Rights

Governance in the Twenty-First Century Democratic Totalitarianism: Requiem for the US Nations, But Far from United: Neanderthal Politics The Economic Imperium: The Era of the WTO

Modern Knowledge and its Categories The Violence of Development The Forgetfulness of History The Disciplinary Structure of Modern Knowledge

Ecology, Economy, Equality The Ecology of Equality: The Ecosystem of a Life The Economics of Inequality: Poverty and Wealth

Dissenting Futures Finite Games: Hostage to “The Clash of Civilizations” Infinite Games: Dissent in the Gandhian Mode The Civilizational Ethos and the Future of Dissent

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1

16 18 31 39

42 45 51 59

69 73 82 96

103 109 116 122

131 138 144

152 158 171 175

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Postscript: 9–11, or The Terrorism That Has No Name So What’s In a Date? Islamic Fundamentalism: So What’s In a Name? Fundamentalisms: Family Resemblances A Tale of Countries: The United States (Revisited) and Afghanistan (Discovered)

Notes Suggestions for Further Reading Index

183 183 185 190

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202 237 247

Acknowledgments

There are many friends, fellow travelers in politics and ideas, and other well-wishers to whom I have owed a book – indeed, this book – for a very long period of time. There is, to begin with, my brother Anil, with whom I have been conversing on matters touched upon in this book for over two decades. Roby Rajan was present when these conversations first transpired, and I am not certain that over time he has become less cynical and more temperate. But he remains an intellectual soul-mate, delightfully scornful of communalists, troglodytes, and – most significantly – academics who have come to think too much of themselves. Among my friends in Chicago, I am grateful, in particular, to Bernard Cohn and Dipesh Chakrabarty. It is with immense pleasure that I recall being Barney’s student, but it is not only colonial India with which I became intimately acquainted through his writings, anecdotal meanderings, and rambling reminiscences. Barney, among other friends, has been a true example of a radical democrat. I am deeply appreciative of Dipesh’s interest in my work. At the University of California, Los Angeles, where I have been ensconced for nearly a decade, I am grateful to Esha De, Russell Leong, Don Nakanishi, Peter Nabokov, and Michael Salmon for their keen support of my work. Daniel and Arundhati Neuman have been wonderful friends, and scarcely any words are adequate to describe the friendship and intellectual camaraderie I have shared with Teshome Gabriel. With his learning, wisdom, and patience, not to mention his capacity for unstinting friendship, his near indifference to the tyranny of clock time, his emphatic repudiation of that menacing excuse of being “busy,” his intellectual playfulness, and his ability to elicit thought with a mere gesture or a carefully chosen mot, he has endeared himself to me and doubtless to many who have come to see him as an inspirational figure. For their intellectual friendship and help in numerous other ways, I am truly beholden to Ravindra Jain (Delhi), Frederique Apffel- Marglin (Northampton, Massachusetts), Makarand Paranjape (Delhi), Henry Ranjeet (Chennai), Manu Kothari (Mumbai), Douglas Lummis (Tokyo/Okinawa), Anne Beech (London), and Akira Usuki

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(Osaka). Chieko Otsuro made possible the four-month-long trip to Osaka during which the outlines of this book first took concrete shape. I am thankful to her for her laborious efforts in making my trip comfortable and productive. Likewise, I am immensely grateful to Anne Beech not only for her encouragement, but for her willing- ness to take a risk with an author unknown to her. While much of this book was being written, Avni – and more recently Ishaan – were comfortably settled in at night with Anju, and I am extremely thankful to her, as well as to my in-laws, Ram Dhan and Krishna Relan, and to my parents, Kishori Lal and Shanno Devi, for material and moral support of various kinds. Over the years, Ziauddin Sardar and his family have invariably opened up their house to me in London. Zia’s hospitality is exceeded only by his acerbity and his penchant for conversation as well as a relentless drive to probe the limits of interpretation. This book, I am hopeful, will appeal to him. It has gained immeasurably, as well, from the sustained conversations over the last 15 years with Ashis Nandy, whose intellectual insights have been critical to my thinking. His friendship, too, has been exemplary. Bits and pieces of this book have been published elsewhere, generally in a different form. Chapter 1 is a greatly expanded and highly revised version of a short article that was first published in Humanscape(Bombay) as “Relocating Time: The Politics of Time at the Cusp of the ‘Millennium,’” Vol. 6, no. 12 (December 1999): 6–13. From a career as successful stockbroker, Jayesh Shah, the journal’s founder and publisher, has traveled a long distance to become an activist and imaginative player on the NGO scene in India. His friendship, and his interest in repeatedly publishing my work, are gratefully acknowledged. Portions of the section entitled “Total Violence” in Chapter 2 were previously published in the article “The Globalism of Modern Knowledge Systems: Governance, Ecology, and Future Epistemolo- gies,”Emergences9, no. 1 (May 1999): 79–103, and similarly the section on “Human Rights” partly draws upon “The Imperialism of Human Rights,”Focus on Law Studies8, no. 1 (Fall 1992): 5 ff. Some of the paragraphs in Chapter 3 on sanctions draw upon an earlier version published as “Sanctions and the Politics of Dominance, Multilateralism, and Legalism in the International Arena,”Social Scientist 25, nos. 5–6 (May–June 1997): 54–67. Portions of Chapter 4 on development draw upon the aforemen- tioned article inEmergenceson “The Globalism of Modern

Acknowledgements

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Knowledge Systems.” The concluding section on the disciplinary structures of knowledge has appeared in a different version as part of a larger paper inFutures(February 2002). The pages on Gandhi and ecology in Chapter 5 are adapted from “Gandhi and the Ecological Vision of Life: Thinking Beyond Deep Ecology,”Environmental Ethics22, no. 2 (Summer 2000): 149–68, and several paragraphs in Chapter 6 are adapted from various articles published inHumanscape.

Introduction

1 They make war and call it peace. So wrote Tacitus in the first Christian millennium. When I first entertained some concrete thoughts about this book, in the early summer of 1999, these words appeared to resonate chillingly: the will of a Western empire – call it the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the European Union – was once again asserting itself as the universal history of mankind. Bombs were being rained down on Yugoslavia, or what remained of it after secessionist and liberation movements had shrunk it down to much less than half its former size. As this book was being completed, in the infancy of the third Christian millennium, one might have been forgiven for thinking that the hullabaloo over the millennium was much ado about nothing: now superbombs, some weighing as much as 15,000 lb apiece, were creating firestorms around the strongholds of the Taliban. A little more than two years had elapsed, and the war machine was still at work, the Tomahawks and Stealth Fighters now supplemented by “special ground forces” and a new generation of bombs which apparently can puncture the walls of caves dug deep into the hills. Amidst the promise of commitment of troops from Germany, Italy, Australia, and Canada, NATO remarkably had invoked, for the first time in its history, provisions of its charter to the effect that any assault upon the United States would be considered an attack upon the member nations of NATO. No reasonable person could have failed to applaud the “peace” of Yugoslavia, when we think of the immense suffering inflicted upon its people, but the manner in which this peace was negotiated made it appear to be another name for coercion and, even, state-sponsored terrorism. Now one awaits with similar foreboding the “peace” of Afghanistan, and again one suspects that the acquiescence of even the harshest critics of the American conduct of the war would have been purchased with the thought that the people of Afghanistan would no longer have to suffer another night of air raids. A peace that imposes a new form of hegemony, and that brings into power an alliance of soldiers, among whom are many whose thuggish behavior previously threw Afghanistan into chaos, may look like an

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attractive option after months of bombing have made impossible any other kind of solution. Exactly 100 years ago, the United States was acquiring an overseas empire, and in southern Africa the Boer War was to introduce new forms of orchestrating death. The British Empire then covered nearly one-fourth of the globe, and scarcely anyone could have imagined that by the middle of the twentieth century all the European powers would have been divested of their empires, retaining possession only of scattered colonies and entrusted with trusteeship responsibilities over small islands. Decolonization, to intellectuals and political activists in the Third World, appeared as the most promising devel- opment to overtake colonized people, and for a moment it must have seemed that the true meaning of freedom, namely an awareness of the conditions of oppression under which people labor, was on the verge of being realized. Nationalist resistance movements everywhere contributed to the demise of colonial rule, though geopolitical theorists were doubtless more inclined to view the two world wars as instrumental in the decline of the great European powers. Since many Western political commentators and other intel- lectuals considered the colonized to be incapable of producing a genuine or “good” nationalist movement, they proposed that the European powers were retreating from sheer exhaustion, the appre- hension that their benevolent work in the colonies would elicit no appreciation from ungrateful natives, and the necessity of repairing their own war-torn economies. The colonized could now be put to better use in the metropoles: in retrospect postcolonial theorists may like to describe this phenomenon as “the empire striking back,” but Indians, Pakistanis, and Indonesians, among others, were viewed as furnishing the necessary labor force. As the era of decolonization receded, and the communist nations fell into disrepair, leading eventually to the dismemberment of the Soviet Union and the transformation of the countries behind what was once the Iron Curtain, the Americans proclaimed the arrival of a “new world order.” But the disparities between the First World and the Third World continue to grow apace, and successive United Nations Human Development Reports have highlighted the seemingly intractable problems – poverty, dwindling resources, unemployment, illiteracy, “brain drain,” environmental devastation, gender inequities, pollution, exponential growth of the urban population, and lack of medical care and facilities, among numerous others – that continue to afflict much of the formerly colonized