MYKOLAS ROMERIS UNIVERSITY Algis Mickunas LITHUANIA AND GLOBALIZATION Monograph Vilnius 2016 UDK 316.77(474.5) Mi53 Reviewers: Prof. David S. Worth, School of Humanities Rice University, USA Prof. dr. Mindaugas Briedis, Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania Author: Prof. Algis Mickunas, Mykolas Romeris University Publishing was approved by: Institute of Humanities of Mykolas Romeris University (8th of December 2015, No. 1FHI-7) Faculty of Politics and Management of Mykolas Romeris University (8th of January 2016, No. 1PV-17) Values Laboratory of Mykolas Romeris University (15th of December 2015, No. VTL-1) Publication Review and Approval Commission of Mykolas Romeris University (11th of January 2016, No. 2L-6) ISBN 978-9955-19-784-3 (print) Copyright © 2016 Mykolas Romeris University ISBN 978-9955-19-783-6 (online) All rights reserved C O N T E N T CHAPTER I Background ................................................................................................................4 CHAPTER II Basis of “World History” ........................................................................................36 CHAPTER III Life World .................................................................................................................76 CHAPTER IV Past and Future ......................................................................................................116 CHAPTER V The Global Subject ...............................................................................................156 CHAPTER VI Clash of Civilizations ............................................................................................201 3 CHAPTER I Background Introduction While Lithuania, a former empire, is a small Baltic nation, wedged between major players on the global stage, Russia, Germany, Poland, which always made claims to being the “rightful” masters of Lithuania and its Baltic neighbours – Latvia and Estonia. The inconvenience of being at this geographic location was – and still is – based on the constant tension between such powers. Anytime they wanted to tear each other apart, they had to go through the Baltic States, which ware to become vassals of one or another major power. Of course, toward the last mid-century, the powers had a vast propaganda machinery, each claiming that they are “liberating“ Lithuania, and the other Baltic states, from some contrived oppression. Thus the indigenous Baltic States had to be grateful for such favours. Having occupied Lithuania, the Russian empire, under the new name of Soviet Union and a new Tsar – Lenin, made sure that it will be a docile and subservient “republic” under the guidance of the all-knowing and all powerful Moscow “leadership”. To achieve such aims vast segments of the population, above all the educated, productive and independent, had to be tortured, killed or sent to concentration camps for “re-education” and mainly death. After fifty years under the military rule Lithuanians decided that they do not belong to the Byzantine Russian Empire; they are Westerners and began to speak of independence. It was an opportune time, since Gorbachev was speaking of all sorts of reforms and told Lithuanians not to make trouble; after all, Soviet Union has done more for Lithuania than any other Republic. Despite such requests, Lithuania declared independence from the empire and faced a future that would be the West. This text is a philosophical investigation into the nature of this West that Lithuania turned to, initially by joining European Union, and through it entered globalization. Issues of national identity, i.e. retaining Lithuanian culture, tradition, history, language in the context of globalization have become of paramount importance. Other aspects, such as an opening to the West and the West becoming open, became a crucial issue concerning emigration. Will the expatriates return, or will all those talents and others are destined to disappear from Lithuania 4 Chapter I. Background and as Lithuanians. The globalising context, provided in this text, will offer some insights into these issues. Since this is a philosophical text, in the sense of presenting arguments that aim at disclosing the principles which are inevitably presumed by any theme or system, the method used will be “Platonic” insofar as the latter is the preeminent way of helping to separate distinct types of globalization and then showing, in specific cases, their relationships and partial overlappings. Many would proclaim that such a method is based on “essentialism” or even “logocentrism” and thus no longer valid, since both concepts have been “relativised” and even “deconstructed”, and above all shown to belong to one civilization – the West, and thus cannot be imposed on others. This is the charge levelled from numerous sides, such as postmodernism, deconstruction, feminism, Freudian Marxism, all the way to various hermeneutics – and all of them western, even if not written by westerners. Yet there is a methodological issue to such claims: to challenge the so-called essentialism, one cannot assume an essential position without a contradiction. In this sense to speak of Eurocentrism, or logocentrism is to make a claim that there is a recognition of what Europe is essentially; in other words, the notion that there is nothing essential and by extension there is no essence to Europe, and at the same time to claim that one recognises Europe as logocentric, is to grant essentialism. Moreover, the claims against Europe come from Europeans, suggesting that Europe is not only logocentric, but also contains within itself deconstruction, showing that there is not only an identity but also difference. But this is nothing new; the mentioned Plato discussed the topics of identity, difference, permanence, flux and so on. In this sense, our methodology of articulating different forms of globalization in order to show clearly what type of globalization has entered or is entering Lithuania is essential to anyone discussing current encounters in all areas of Lithuanian life. This type of methodology is “Platonic” insofar as Plato was able to show differences, for example, among social systems, ranging from monarchy, aristocracy, theocracy, oligarchy, plutocracy, in order to raise a question what sort of justice one could find in each. While our task is only tangentially relevant to justice, the methodological delimitation is essential. In addition, the method proposed avoids the current claims in Europe, that at base everything is power, whether it is military, technological, 5 LITHUANIA AND GLOBALIZATION ideological, discursive, feminine, social, psychological or cultural. Thus, while attempting to abolish essentialism, proposed in our study, such European thinkers posit absolute essentialism: everything is power. Of course the credit for this overdetermined claim goes to Nietzsche, but even Nietzsche was not blinded by his occasional playing with the notion of “Will to Power”. All one needs to do is to be convinced of this is read Thus Spoke Zarathustra – and read it philosophically and not in the “Human all too Human” form. As a matter of argument, the “Platonic” method allows for a precise and careful delimitation of the great variety of globalizations, without the essentialist claim that they all are power laden. If post-modern Europeans presume that every claim falls apart into differences, and then add that all is power, then they assume an essentialism which is, in fact, abolished by Platonic method of differences and thus multiple typologies one distinct from others. There is also the constant appeal to relativism in light of different civilizations and their own symbolic designs, abolishing the Western claim to be the bearer of universal truth. The problem with such relativism is this: it is the result of the modern Western thinking and hence belongs to the West. This means that the post-modern and deconstructivist writers cannot grant it universal validity without a contradiction. This is to say, if relativism is invented by the modern/postmodern West, then it cannot claim that all civilizations are relative. As is evident from contemporary global confrontations, some civilizations would claim that everything is absolute, and any position of relativism is absolutely wrong. Why the argument against the so-called post-modern and deconstructivist theses must be emphasised depends mainly on the phenomenon of the leap toward the West; after the declaration of Lithuanian independence, there was a leap into the arms of the “latest thinking” in Europe: deconstruction and post modernism, with all sorts of proclamations concerning the death of philosophy, the death of the subject, truth, ethics and even the death of death. The only trend in philosophy holding its philosophical ground in Lithuania, is phenomenology. We shall address positivism and neo- positivism in the context of modern globalization. Empires Various mixed concepts appear with the question “what is globaliza- tion”: one, that is very familiar in the west, could be called traditional “uni- 6 Chapter I. Background versalism”. It purports to present an all-encompassing system of symbols, designed to give the structure of the world, with human place within it, and required rules of relationships for humans and in many cases – a di- vinity for humans and some designated supreme authority. This suggests a particular understanding that belongs to a given civilization, such that each civilization and its vocal representatives, make a claim that its sym- bolic designs,