The Multiple Images of Modernity

Abstract

The multiple images of modernity are used here to put forward and corroborate the possibility of the genesis of multiple modern civilizations and their very modernity while confirming the prior existence of modern Western civilization. In examining the complexity, inner tensions and contemporary predicaments appearing in the formation and evolution of earlier Western modernity, this paper reveals the basic mechanisms of modernity and the various possible approaches to it, that is, the fact that there are more possibilities for modernity other than the Western one. Economic globalization is the first step and the only pathway towards the modernity goals of human society, and any deglobalization or antiglobalization will hinder or check the progress of human society towards the ideal goal of modernity. History and the real-world economy demonstrate that “building a community with a shared future for mankind” is so far a more suitable and more explanatory guiding concept for seeking and approaching the human ideal of modernity; it surpasses existing concepts such as “ecumenicalism,” “cosmopolitanism,” and “globalism,” and is the latest understanding of the modernity of human society in contemporary China.

Keywords:

• modernity
• multiple images
• a community with a shared future for mankind

Notes

1 See Karl Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of History; Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West, vols. 1 and 2; Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System, 4 volumes; Eric Voegelin, Order and History; Dennis Sherman et al., World Civilizations, 4th ed., vol. 2.

2 I explain the concept of “contextuality” and its basic implications more precisely in the article “Chinese Philosophical Studies in Modern Contextualization,” published in the Journal of Literature, History and Philosophy, 2022, no. 3.

3 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, in Collected Writings of Marx and Engels, vol. 2, p. 36.

4 As Marx and Engels pointed out in the Manifesto of the Communist Party, “Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land.” (quoted from Collected Writings of Marx and Engels, vol. 2, p. 32).

5 Engels once remarked in particular: “And yet since the middle of the last century England has experienced a greater upheaval than any other country—an upheaval which is all the more momentous the more quietly it is brought about, and it will therefore in all probability attain its goal more readily in practice than the political revolution in France or the philosophical revolution in Germany. The revolution in England is a social one and therefore more comprehensive and far-reaching than any other.” Frederick Engels, “The Condition of England: The 18th Century,” quoted from Collected Writings of Marx and Engels, vol. 1, p. 87.

6 The works of Adam Smith (1723-1790), the most famous ethical thinker and economist in 18^th century Britain, are represented by The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The former is regarded as the classic work on moral sentiment of the Scottish Enlightenment, while the latter earned him the honor of being “a pioneer of modern economics.” Smith was recommended by his friend and mentor David Hume to the position of Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow, where he served as Rector in his later years.

7 For details, see John Rawls, A Theory of Justice; Political Liberalism.

8 I would like to specifically mention the 2000 US presidential election: Al Gore, the Democratic candidate, actually gained more popular votes than the Republican candidate George W. Bush, but lost the presidential race simply because he received fewer electoral votes. The problem is that this kind of thing is not accidental and exceptional, but has occurred several times.

9 See Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, in the 12th volume of the Collected Writings of Max Weber.

10 See Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, especially Part III and Part IV.

11 This can readily be seen in such events as the repeated competition for maritime hegemony between the Netherlands and Spain in the 14th and 15th centuries, the naval battle between Spain and England in the 16th century, the two world wars in the first half of the 20th century, and even the East-West “Cold War,” as well as repeated wars in the Middle East and the present Russia-Ukraine war.

12 See Henry Steele Commager, The American Mind.

13 See Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vols. I and II, especially the second volume. The author lays particular emphasis on the critical significance of the American people’s “equality of conditions” for the construction of American political democracy. In fact, Americans’ “equality of conditions,” in their original conditions as joint “newcomers,” by chance and necessity laid a “natural” foundation for the political conditions of a negative social contract in American democratic politics. It was precisely these conditions that were lacking in European countries such as France. This meant that it has been difficult for the American experience or style of democratic politics be simplistically imitated, let alone directly transferred.

14 Quoted from Li Bozhong, Early Industrialization in the Yangtze Delta, 1550-1850.

15 Quoted from Mao Haijian, The Collapse of the Celestial Dynasty: A Restudy of the Opium War.

16 This is one of the best known of Li Zehou’s famous theories. It originally appeared in his article “Double Variation on Enlightenment and National Salvation,” first published in the journal Walking Towards the Future, vol. I (first issue), and later included in his Essays on Modern Chinese Intellectual History.

17 According to Xinhua News Agency, at the China-US high-level strategic dialogue held in Anchorage, Alaska, on March 18-19, 2021, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken proposed that the United States speak “from a position of strength.” The Chinese Chief Delegate, Director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Communist Party of China Central Commission, Yang Jiechi, immediately responded forcefully by saying that “This is not the way to deal with the Chinese people.”

18 As early as February 24, 2014, when Xi Jinping presided over the 13th Collective Study of the Politburo of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, he emphasized that to carry forward the fine traditional Chinese culture, “we should properly handle the relationship between inheritance and creative development, with the focus on transforming and developing fine traditional Chinese culture in a creative way.” This speech was included in the book The Governance of China. Soon afterwards, in his speeches such as the “Speech at the Opening Meeting of the International Academic Symposium in Commemoration of the 2565th Anniversary of the Birth of Confucius and the Fifth General Assembly of the International Confucian Federation” on September 24 of the same year, he repeatedly emphasized this assertion. See Institute of Party History and Literature of the CPC Central Committee, ed., Excerpts from Xi Jinping’s Discussion on Socialist Cultural Construction, p. 5, etc.

19 A learned saying runs, “Yes to a market economy, no to a market society.” It can be found in Saad Nagi, “Toward a Global Community of Solution,” in Jacques Baudot, ed., Building A World Community: Globalisation and the Common Good. Here I simply draw on its meaning.

20 Xi Jinping, Speech at a Ceremony Marking the Centenary of the Communist Party of China.

21 See Michael Allen Gillespie, The Theological Origins of Modernity, especially “Introduction: The Concept of Modernity.”

22 Peter L. Berger and Samuel P. Huntington, eds., Many Globalizations: Cultural Diversity in the Contemporary World, especially Peter L. Berger, “Introduction: The Cultural Dynamics of Globalization.”