Storia della Storiografia, 35 (1999): 129-139
UNIVERSAL HISTORY AND POSTMODERNISM
Ewa Domanska
The title of this essay already raises many controversial issues. Its formulation stands as a paradox. It contains a danger and a trap. The danger lies in the very term «postmodernism», on the meaning of which there is very little agreement. The trap is connected with the term «universal history», which might be identified with such suspect notions as «metanarrative», system, and totality-notions associated with power, oppression, and totalitarian ways of exercising control. I will specify what I mean by postmodernism shortly, but first I want to distinguish among the terms «universal history», «world history», and «global history». Each of these terms has its own «referent» and posits a different object of study-universum (the whole of things, implying, however, the notion of universal order (ccosmos» in opposition to chaos); the «world» (the domain of human culture as against the «earth» - considered as the «mother and origin» of «nature»); and the «globe» (primarily a material and spatial concept earth situated in cosmic space). Thus, to write a universal history today would mean to attempt an all-embracing vision of the cosmos, in which the history of the Earth would constitute only one chapter. A world history would be a story about the past of human culture in the perspective of a longue duree; and global history would concern contemporary history and the XX century as the beginning of the new era - a global age, written from the perspective of the future. Which of the above mentioned approaches would be the most useful? What would be the desired point of reference for such a synthesis and what might be the «central subject» of such a history? Would it refer to the entire cosmos? Would it include the entire solar system, or only the Earth? Who or what human groups (and if only human groups) belong to this history? The most difficult question, however, is if (and how) it is possible to construct any kind of history at all from a «postmodernist perspective» or rather perspectives'? Postmodernism is generally thought to be anti-historical in principle. History or historical consciousness is one of the «prejudices» that postmodernism claims to dissolve. Writing on universal/world/global history from the perspective of postmodernism would therefore be paradoxical. How could one possibly construct a metanarrative in a postmodern climate that favours microstories, the fragment, non-linearity, decentralization and multiperspectives? On the other hand, after the
See: Bruce Mazlish, «Global History in a Postmodernist Era?", in Conceptualizing Global History. Edited by Bruce Mazlish and Ralph Buultjens (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993), 113-127.
129 EwA DOMANSKA UNIVERSAL HISTORY AND POSTMODERNISM
critique of the categories and concepts of Western historical Many scholars say that the modem epoch already belongs to the past and that heightens the sense that we lack any grid or frame that could bring the 1990s are marked by a belief that we are entering an entirely new epoch which our mosaic-like and kaleidoscopic life and endow it with meaning and needs a theory of the new beginning. For historians interested in writing a , C;J "".u~.then, as Fredric Jameson has argued, postmodemism teaches us the synthesis adequate to the new era, it seems desirable to ~e~sewriting ab.out the necessity som~kind of master narrative. The unification of humanity in a past as a story concerning only human beings, recognizmg that the Idea of enterprise of self-realization is impossible without it2. scientific history was only an episode in the modernist ideology, and also sure: all. «universal/world/global histories», are «philosophies of rethinking the idea of culture itself, since the notion of culture is considere? as one implies that they may be considered as prophecies or predictions of the most powerful abstractions of the modernist project. At the same time, the rather than perspectives on the past. But, as Collingwood noted, they era of globalization is characterized by a shift of the social center of gravity ~rom rorecasts, less of the future of history than of «the lines which historical abstracts to «materia», from intellectual knowledge to sensual knowledge, from follow in the next generationss'. In my essay I am going to follow track. cognition to experience, from historical thinking to mythical thinkin~6. Thus, to talk about the problem of universal/world/global history from a perspective of a postmodernist critique would be to march in ~lacewi~~out moving ahead. Considered as a radical form of modernism, and not Its OpposltI?n, postmodernisrn undermines the categories which are basic for our un~erstandlllg of history: the idea that history can be a scientific discipline, the Ideology of we see more and more symptoms of a profound change in the progress, and the traditional notions of realistic representation, linear development, concmon and in our world-view, We are witnessing what Fredric Jameson and cause-and-effect linking of events. Moreover, we cannot catapult ourselves emergence of a global, mnltinational culture which is decentered and out of a way of thinking that is basically modernist in its essence. We are all visualized. a culture in which one cannot position oneselfss; We do not modernists. So, is it possible to write an all-embracing synthesis for the New ~ra? we are not familiar with it. What happens is that most of the Any historian who would accept this challenge should be a prophet. Besides, we have been using till now to describe the world and our perhaps the New Era does not need history as a specific approach to the past. it simply do not work any more. In addition, not only do we have no Would, then, myth be better? proper categories, but also no proper language to describe it. It does not seem That is why I think that it would be more productive for my purpose here to however, to use the language and categories of any given give up an attempt to summarize «what Postmodernism did to history», and to take postrno,del'ni:sm to conceptualize this emergent global, multinational world, a speculative approach rather than a critical one. Thus, I propose to analyze the is itself a product of the confusion and disorientation problem of writing the synthetical stories of t?e hi~toryof the. world an~ the recognition of the limits of representation of the world by postmodernism from the point of view of speculative philosophy of history. (Is It abstract categories and their incapacity to grasp the «new». What true that history without speculation is dead?) I think that it is not enough to that during the last centuries, the experience of the world has been endorse the multiplication of perspectives, even though this is a necessary Ersatz abstract knowledge, which is in itself nothing more than a condition for living in a multicultural society, and to try to construct a kind of BeaudriIlard grasped the essence of this process when he called cross-cultural narrative of world history. It is not enough to say that since we have of simulacra and simulation» in which a human being lives in an finally let the «Other» speak, we should write a history from the standpoint of any. created by the media. This is the world where signs of the real given «Others". It is also not enough to say that we are witnesses to a proc~ssof substituted for the real itself, where all referentials have been the textualization of history, that history itself is a text and that we can conceive of where an imaginary Disneyland has more real presence than a it in all the ways that we construe a text.
6 See Martin Albrow, The Global Age. State and Society Beyond Modernity (Stanford: Stanford Stephanson, «Regarding Postmodernism. A Conversation with Fredric Jarneson» in University Press, 1997), Global Culture: Nationalism, Globalization and Modernity. Edit~dby Mike umversallw,maoof The Politics of Posrmodernism, Edited by Andrew Ross (Minnea.polis: Universny 1988),22-23. Featherstone (London: Sage, 1990); Modernity and its Futures. Edited by Stuart Hall, David Held and Tony McGrew (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), Malcolm Waters, Globalization (London: Routledge, CollliJlllIW(lOd,The Idea of History (Oxford-New York: Oxford University Press, 1994),454. Stephanson, «Regarding Postmodernism», 7. 1995). 7 On the difficulties of writing and periodizing world history see Jerry H. Bentley, «Cross-Cultural Balldrillard, Simulations. Transl. by Paul Foss, Paul Patton and Philip Beitchrnan (New Serniotexuc). 1983), Interaction and Periodization in World History» and Patrick Manning, «The Problem of Interactions 10 World History», American Historical Review 101, no 3 (1996), 749-770 and 771-782.
130 l3l a
The
the
.
is a
I, no 2
of
See also
It
Martin
since the decisions
period as a
problems by
supported by
considered
1'23-175.
Humanism,
simultaneously
together with a
in Paul Tillich,
and
Following
.
a Scientific Ideology to a of the reality
kairos
events
and «simulacrization»
in a wider sense, as a
Postmodern
discussing
culture
predominated humanity and the earth
From
the process of beginning
Sons, 1936),
#1 could be Dialogue
the
transformations
ideal, but a material reference
the obligatory methods of its
sociale: experience
important
between
understood a new way of being human.
Scribners
«globalization».
consider
social
of
to globality in the foreign affairs;
#1 and also contains the seeds of a new
POSTMODERNISM
55, no 3 (1994).
(internet and satellite TV); TV gives us
universal
and
palingenesis
world view that
by an attempt to construct on the ruins of 133
Palingenesie
of social and economic reality, Thus,
AND Postmodernism
III
space»-cyber-space
undermined
Ideas
movements, migrations; changes in gender
world history on a grand scale. Thanks to this
relationship of
experiencing
when if we
588 and 368-370. More about
community;
HISTORY
«globalityx
Postmodernism
internationality
the world
in this way, ground-clearing,
characterized the History
philosophique to
organization History,
communication
events that count in our time are global. Thus a key
of
is
especially
of
experiencing
(New York-London: Charles
It
transportation;
UNIVERSAL
rationalistic-scientific
Journal
and instruments produce a global popular
perceiving A Study
History
of daily «Palingenesie Understood that we can see appearing on the horizon. Perhaps it would be
determine
of a desire for a new
of
right time», a special moment in world history for making
«the
For example Toynbee who wrote on «palingenesia» in the sense of a birth of a new species of
See David Ray Griffin, «Postmodern Spirituality and Society»,
3. emerging of the global
2. the problems of the «third
1. a system of global
possibility
For my purpose it seems enough to note that for the first time in history the
I would like to focus on
Arthur McCalla, Historical Ideology»,
12 society. See his Interpretation II (1991),22.
communication relations; turn from the
global market, global warfare, and global «reality»; (Vattimo), virtual reality;
(opening ofcommunication the Olympic games in Nagano, the Persian Gulf War). Global internet but also a possibility of invention we have also a global forum, a possibility of «globality» is not a theory, but it is our everydaythe end of the seeond millennium. Let me mention only a few of its aspects:
Albrow, I assumepoint, that the a globe is new not a level of concept here is the words forces which
that will be crucial for the future'", kairos, worthwhile to mentionagain, here of a a new concept genesis, of
consciousness positive phenomenon. Renaissance!'. different from the modern thought, a newmanifestation worldview supportive transitional period which is
in thinking and comprehension.
#1
Late
«time
usage,
of
History,
Journal
change Cultural
studies,
14, no 2
Its Critics of
or face the
of
1989),1-29.
Postmodern
and Cultural «chapteo--he
Past»,
and
(Baltimore: The
Toynbee's
Postmodernism?»,
A Study
in
postmodemist
Postmodernism
and the
the Origin
successfully
between these two
(New York and London:
Anthropology
fundamental
post-colonial
Anthropology
Modernity
of
into
or, the Cultural Logic
names a modernist equivalent
of
Postmodernism
It
#2 is more of an academic
Somervell
«illumination»,
when we seek to assess the
set of questions and problems
Critique Enquiry
C.
has been in decline since about 1985.
distinction
Postmodernism
The End
period of Western history which world-view and the fading of belief in
D.
An
#2 signaled a
Posmodernisms:
Postmodernism
3 I, no I (1996), 30. Compare also: Bruce M.
#1 is less a program than a cultural
(Loudon and New York: Routledge,
signaled the end of middle class dominance and
distinctive
II
Postmodernism
rationalistic
132
DOMANSKA
Critical Notes on Cultural «Modem» Existentialism»,
Postmodernism
History
Consequently,
volumes 1-VI by
every society must pass through
Postmodernism.
and
1975 and has been manifested in such fields as
EWA of
Posts:
of
is a figure for a period of
Postmodemism
which
we must keep the
are at least two
Postmodernism
3, no 2 (1996), 127,158.
so-called
postmodemism mass culture, mass education, and mass movements. See Arnold J.
passing from the scene. Cr. Walter Laqueur, «Fin-de-siecle: Once
of
around Postmodernism
Past and
Contemporary
is
(London: Macmillan, 1991); N. CarroI, «Periodizing
there
Abridgement of
Theory
which generates a
remarks on the confusion in the usage of the terms postmodernism and
masses,
that phase
Posunodernism
The Condition
is an ample reason for supposing that we have recently passed into a new 1958),39. to some scholars, this
ami
«Enlightenment.
understood in a wide sense as the epoch which began around
Duke University Press, 1991); John McGowan,
The Politics whose beginnings may be placed round about 1875». This new
#2 that specific form of cultural critique that appeared in the
Thus, it is possible to say that [when reflecting changes in the late
Journal History. of the
and post-Marxism".
to Western history only, not to world history. Thus. the «post-Modern age» was a say that
In social terms,
of
the Renaissance". Contrary to this notion, we may posit as term of a period of transition. century culture],
Anthropology her
a figure for a time of breakdown and disintegration. «There
among anthropologists for example, it is already pass., There is evidence that in other
it in mind. Harvey, collapse and disintegration. Among the dominant attributes of our
Method
troubles»,
Interrogations
condition
Hutcheons
Bernard Knapp, «Archeology Without Gravity:
Postmodernism
University Press, 1988); Fredric Jarneson, program, which can be seen as one specific response to the travails of
textual studies, radical feminism, gender studies, Toynbee was one of the first to use the term «post-modern». In his
according
follows upon the
«Postmodernism», (1997), 143-165.
society
history]
academic world London: Comell University Press, 1991); Steven Best and Douglas Kellner,
Influenced by
phenomenon, Just as thc term «Renaissance» is intended to serve as a figure for a period of
(Cambridge: Blackwell, 1993), 39; Gianni Vattirno,
Universitv Press,
transition'",
uoucnce», Toynbce listed a collapse of the
Archeoloeical
Wi' Postmodernism semiolozv, characteristic srressed-belonued . to l 6 be for and of a Dover is no to myth, to it history Christian (physis) ways of universal challenge philosophers, historicize their point Hellenistic alternative by history, superman», possible themselves. «there challenge to nature/culture. to Early event world», conscious that 44-54, constructing in the indistinguishable German different an approaches: alternatives tend to speaking, as the real «new and genius»!". historians [19501 (New York: abandoned supplement (1995), have caveman Philosophy consideration granted So, 34 of reality: history by different originated Press, 1996), «the historians «Pasteur opposite The history of the world or wisdom Generally and the natural world with the «idea» of history that cultures globalized 17. Philosophies multiply cross-cultural Mellen that «history» is universal that Hellenistic from nor that of about a world history seems division and Theory history combine POSTMODERNISM C. the Greeks were From Edwin (kaos) become. itself writing history anyway. Thus, the real to history. I doubt that it is obsessed History AND B. 135 nonhumans; came to take for thought of remarks The progress (oikoumene) and Social has it; they have other ways of dualistic universal triumphant History chaos «our» are so from «stupidity to 103,115,433, problem HISTORY Doubles», to be a history of human world only - a history of century alternative before. In fact, most of those historians Historical modernist other visions of the past as serious it seems that for the Universal against stories: one, a natural history of the earth and the other, on the as myth, legend, and the epic. is now so an understand to History, The idea of of of humans and as Forgotten of to the past that would historians history which would allow us to take into account all those supposed UNIVERSAL Modern such Idea to natural history rather than an silenced the human world consider civilization», remarks Idea we have a clear different to Therefore, The at present would be not only to The construct challenge relation «History's world-view (kosmos) Sorokin, a (Lewiston/QueenstonlLampeter: the past, continues, Community but never the idea of history in the history of yeast»; history of mankind as a following Hegel, controversial. 1963),7, between the past. To try to write their and to take into A. past». history of the human world. 2. Mortley, but to Nandy, Collingwood's world/universal «barbarism «the «order» Collingwood, envision historical Pitirim See Raoul Ashis Consequently, The second An Indian historian, Ashis Nandy G, cultural IS 19 17 16 R. Historiography Publications, way we have two a history has always been the history of age, but already in the fifth universal history was how man had come tofrom be what he history except the history of human life» and that «nature has no history»!". In this and Moreover, even more difference may not give the best insight into the past. they do not want to from Indeed, she «Others» who were everything, world-historians of view, means tois to insert them into legend, the epic, and history. The write a do not have historyconstruing as we of dealing withconstructing the past. As we allhistories know, other a to as <<1 of to of air by like and with «The Alvin to the similar Library - way wrote: by way through analogous attempts Eliade, achieving that modem Clark thought McNeill, warming, understood H. morphing something the presentation Western solutions Mircea belief that share history from the my idea of read at a McNeill-whc 1978),7-13, in finding a way of to be (global breaking William representation'". H. But what does it mean modernist one should take into of transformation, cloning, consider to consciousness propose Papers of our present as the past people fields like ought Angeles, change continue distinctively 25, William interested interesting sex, age, religion, race, culture, a way gathering», with (Los History, industry':', far-reaching as different seriously, of (1995), historical conscious their alternative otherwise there are only «stylistic technology: global market, global trade, global rather historian- 34 Manuel from P: 18, debates that E. atmosphere by a universal/world/global Theories 134 DOMANSKA I am not able to broad-spectrum list eould indeed support a A argue», writes Jarneson, «that Frank thinkers identification only one and a of which are becoming distinctive ] to history visions of the past global current Ew be looked at is a on the verge of a production, out of and medical consideration (an announced in History», Hence, I would like to in the future. Thus, I would consciousness, Postmodcrnism», about, but I am History and Theory White and and into Certainly, thinking would [... emerged global recently trembling a crisis as acute as the transition from the culture of hunting talk (AIDS); alternative achieving genetics «I comprehensive degradation; to Hayden are has recently came up with an globalism An some time ago by History», taking future--". occasionally tendencies in dominant «Rhetoric «Regarding of the writing 1, problems. superficial tricks, changes in the rhetoric of growth; than the past; and agriculture disease affairs World economy: ethnicity); pressed the fact that history White, new ways of versus the way we think about the past. Visible changes in the way of writing Paz, bas been by changes in of undergoing 6, 1976 by these without of the future. ex when Jameson or become (cyborg); of the past. of a new way; rather out some if one takes the above remarks etc); I am going human Stephanson, etc. brief though unexpected fiction can Shape written? First of all, in order to change the way we write about the past, we experiments environmental pandemic population approaches gathering to that of agriculture and machine scholars who are interested in writing world history or in debating the ways it W()fl(P,'lC'W nationality pollution computers business societies are transformations», sketching symptoms perspective problems approaching consideration wnatnappencu EwA DOMANSKA UNIVERSAL HISTORY AND POSTMODERNISM distinction between earth and world has been profitably developed by everyone. Thus, for Kant «the history of mankind can be seen [oo.] as the Heidegger, In The Origin of/he Work of Art Heidegger claims that «World realization of Nature's secret plan»22 which implies that a process of «becoming» are essentially different from one another and yet are never separated. is a result of mutual relations, interactions, and encounters which take place grounds itself on the earth and earth juts through world. [...] Earth between earth and world, humans and nonhumans. Each aspect of this process dispense with the openness of the world. [...] The world [....] cannot soar out interferes with every other. Each is a supplement to another. They might be in earth's sight»2o. Following Heidegger's approach, it would be perhaps conflict, but cannot be separated. The task of global history would be to interesting to consider «universal history» as a story of the relations between earth demonstrate this process of «becoming». Seeing the relations between them in terms of encounter, conflict, and Interaction rather than in terms of opposition, would generate new categories of 3. The problematization of what historians take for granted; 1111I1I essay «Idea for a Universal History From a Cosmopolitan Point of 22 Immanuel Kant, «Idea for a Universal History From a Cosmopolitan Point of View», in Kant, On Kant asks us to consider the history of mankind as a supplement to natural llistory. Edited, with an introduction of Lewis White Beck (New York: The Liberal Arts Press, 1967), rather than as its opposite. Individuals follow their own purposes, 21. See also: Peter D. Fenves, A Peculiar Fate. Metaphysics and World-History in Kant (Ithaca and unconsciously fulfilling a natural goal which, however, remains unknown to London: Comell University Press, 1991) and Yinniahu Yovel, Kant and the Philosophy of History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980). 23 See Michel Foucault, The Archeology of Knowledge. Transl. by A. M. Sheridan Smith (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972); Elizabeth Deeds Ermath, Sequel to History: Postmodernism and the Crisis of Heidcgger, «The Origin of the Work of Art» (1936), in Heidegger, Poetry, Language, Representational Time (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992); Jnlia Kristeva, «Women's Translated by Albert Hofstadter (New York: Harper and Row, 1971),49. Time». Transl. by Alice Jardine and Harry Blake, in: The Kristeva Reader. Edited by Toril Moi (New "Do Scientific Objects Have a History'? Pasteur and Whitehead in a Bath of Lactic York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 188- 213. by Lydia Davis, Common Knowledge 5. no 1 (1996),82. 24 Cf. Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space. Transl. by Donald Nicholson-Smith (Oxford, UK; 136 137 EwA DOMANSKA UNIVERSAL HISTORY AND POSTMODERNISM «spatialization of history» and a «new logic of difference» have also preoccupied problem of generational change. Thus, the important question would be to whom Jameson and informed his thoughts about Postmodernism as «the Cultural would we want to address a global history? Generally, universal histories appeal Late Capitalism». For Jameson, history becomes spatialized with less to professional historians than to students and to the general reading public. «globalization- and the disparity between global causation and local effects re This was certainly true with respeet to Toynbee, Spengler, etc. But «reality isn't nature of cause-effect relations in global space. what it used to be». Our world and the world of our children is different. most difficult concept to deal with, however, seems to be that of cause Young people growing up in the climate of globality and the next generation of anc-ertect thinking. There have been some attempts to introduce an alternative to citizens of a planetary culture will have a different kind of consciousness from us, of historical relationship, such as metaphorical thinking. A growing a different world-view, different concepts of time and space, different notions of metaphorical thinking is connected with a rediscovery of the cognitive determination. Hence, considering the way global history should be written, we metaphor. Since metaphors involve seeing one thing in terms of another, should look to the needs and expectations of future generations. For us modems knowledge that is constructed by way of metaphorical thinking permits between the most important are the attempts to change our ways of thinking about the unrelated phenomena and illuminates different aspects of «reality». past and eventually our own attempts of stimulating such changes. in metaphor in turn, is connected with a new interest in the value of Natalie Zemon Davis in her essay «Beyond Evolution: Comparative History the representation of history as a supplement (or as an alternative) to and its Goals» pointed out, that in the last years, historians considering various It is no accident that so many philosophers are now speaking about ways of analysing other cultures have been speaking about «encounters» rather post-hterate world that will be perceived not through written texts but through than «comparisonsv", Referring the category of encounter to the present idea would not be so shocking if we remembered that a similar experience of the «Other», it might be said that in the kairotic moment and in the transformation has already happened in the past when we passed from an oral to kairotic place of encounter between people of different ages, sex, religion, culture form of communication. Thus, we might think that just as myth was and ethnicity, a new world is born. It might mean that relations become more tribes, historical tales for ancient communities, and written history for important than scientific strategies of research. This conference shows that there is perhaps film (not to speak of «virtual history») that will be the best the need for people not only to become more multi-cultural, but also to become with the past in the future-". multi-epistemological; that there is the need for encounters encounters between tendencies to reconceptualize the basic stereotypes of historical different cultures, and between different individuals. But how can we recognize manifested in practice in the special issue of Life magazine (Fall this kairos'l History does not help us here, since what we learn from history is that the categories of modern historical thinking are broken. Here the in fact we do not learn from history. And this is why, probably the most difficult the world is presented in the form of fragments, as a kind of mosaic, and challenge to the modernist historical thinking would be to give up an idea that the epoch-making events chosen at random that are presented in the form knowledge about the past can help us to understand the world and solve the stories accompanied by images that relate to the texts by analogies built problems of the present. Events are not presented in a chronological order. There is no All the stories and images suggest far reaching effects of the events Adam Mickiewicz University presented. This attempt however, remains still within the framework of the post Poznan and modernist thinking. IV Certainly I am not able to write «a third-millennium global history». No one is so at present, since we are all modems living in a post-modern world. approach requires a fundamental change of consciousness. This is a Blackwell, 1991). See also: Hayden White's review in Design Book Review, 29130 (Sumrner/Fall 1993),90-93. Rosenstones interesting ideas about «visionary history» in his book: Visions of the Challenge of Film to Our Idea of History (Cambridge Mass: Harvard University Press, 26 Natalie Zemon Davis, «Beyond Evolution: Comparative History and its Goals», in Swiat historii [The World of History], edited by Wojciech Wrzosek (Poznan: IH UAM, 1998), 154. 138 139