By Abdel-Wahab Elmessiri * In the West, post-modernism has gained a popularity unprecedented for a philosophical world-view. It starts from a number of interrelated philosophical premises and high-flown terminology (which changes on average once a week), and is characterised most prominently by the absence of any principles that could serve as an ultimate point of reference, the erosion of both subject and object and their boundaries, and the hegemony of moral and epistemological relativism. Hence the impossibility of reaching the idea of the whole, whether this is the idea of God, absolute ethics or human nature (the basis of Western ontology). Post-modernism is the ultimate revolt against Hegelianism and the crystallisation of what are termed "anti-philosophical trends" in Western philosophy. This, in fact, means the disappearance of reason, the faculty which allows humanity to accumulate meaning and achievements. Post-modernism represents what someone has called "crossword puzzle memory" -- that is, scattered information without any links. We are in an eternal present, a state of constant change without past or future, in the throes of repeated experiments without depth or meaning. History is transformed into rigid moments, flat time without depth, coiled around itself without features or significance. In this perspective, the present is identical to, and simultaneous with, past and future, just as the self is identical with the object and humans with things. This, however, is a simultaneity without continuity. Hence the post-modernist penchant for substituting small (partial or subjective) narratives for the grand (comprehensive or total) narrative. Post-modernists believe it is impossible to reach a comprehensive historical vision shared by all mankind. Human beings can only go through partial experiences, which they can narrate with varying degrees of success and failure; but in no way do these narratives reach the level of a general history of humanity, because they have no legitimacy outside the limits of individual experience. Post-modernism may not produce evolutionary, linear paradigms or final solutions (in the manner of Hegelianism and the Enlightenment). It may not proclaim the arrival of the earthly paradise or technological technocratic utopia, but, in its own way, it is the proclamation of the end of history and the end of man -- that is, man as a complex social entity, capable of free moral choice. This possibility is replaced by one-dimensional man, either revolving around a point of reference immanent in the phenomena surrounding him, or surviving with no point of reference whatsoever. He is centred either around his self-referential, natural self, a self that has nothing to do with any externalities, or around abstract, unrelated non-human entities. Human beings thus have no memory and live in the moment only, within their own small narratives. Post-modernism, as someone once put it memorably, may be summed up as an active forgetfulness of historical memory. So where does the new world order fit into the picture? This order, which some choose to describe as new, is merely an extension of the old order, a reproduction of the secular-imperialist-epistemological outlook in the age of post-modernism. This outlook maintains that the world is mere matter, and that this matter can be utilised. Man, being an organic part of this world, is also mere matter that can be utilised. He is therefore a one-dimensional entity motivated by material incentive, especially the economic and sexual incentives. Therefore, economic interest and the quest for pleasure (which have nothing to do with aspirations, mystery, longings and complex history) are the only stimuli for action, the final point of reference in man's existence. The Western value system is one that encompasses both man and nature, expanding to apply to all mankind. Even though this system operates in terms of a monistic materialism that operates as the great leveler, the dualism of "the I" and "the other" emerges, manifesting itself in the form of the utiliser and the utilised. Western man utilises, whereas the peoples of Asia and Africa are to be utilised. In the old world order, this dualistic outlook expressed itself through the explicit discourse of racism and racial inequality. The old imperialist system tried to enslave the peoples of Asia and Africa, thwarting all their attempts at modernisation, suppressing revolutionary movements to secure cheap labour and raw materials and to safeguard a lebensraum for strategic and economic expansion. In this way, the Western world could be both a producer and consumer, whereas the Third World remained backward and primitive, a powerless consumer of certain European goods and ideas. Within this frame of reference, ideas of racial inequality, the organic volk, and the white man's burden were developed. These ideas bestow sanctity on Western man and his history and culture, while desanctifying non-white man and his history. Non-white man should simply disappear as a concrete and specific human being. His history must come to an end, for it is merely a deviation from the point toward which all world history is supposed to be heading. These final solutions were part of an explicit Western canon that obliterated anything in its way; witness Palestine, Algeria and Vietnam, to name but a few. This status quo could have persisted, had it not been for profound historical developments which led not to any ethical, historical reawakening, but rather to the emergence of the West's incipient understanding of a new balance of power. These developments can be summed up as follows. The West realised the depth of its military, cultural and economic crisis, experiencing a sense of its own disintegration and inability to impose its policy by force. It also took stock of the gradual eclipse of Western centrality and the emergence of new (non-Western) centres of varying degrees of strength. In most Third World countries, the masses have become more alert and elites have become more dynamic, sophisticated and familiar with the rules of international politics. This made military confrontation most costly if not impossible. The West also came to realise that the backwardness of the peoples of Asia and Africa made it impossible for them to fulfil their role as consumers; they could not be absorbed in the cycle of materialistic rationalisation and global consumerism. It became clear that development is a prerequisite to roles as consumers and producers. Despite this renaissance among Third World peoples, elements of disintegration within their political and intellectual elites began to emerge. Large segments of these elites fully assimilated Western ethical and epistemological systems and consumption patterns. The West realised that it could cooperate with and even recruit them. They could achieve for the West, through pacification and surrender, that which it failed to achieve by confrontation and military conquest. It was inevitable, therefore, that a new outlook would emerge. Despite its alleged novelty, however, this outlook is merely an extension of the old order, a consecration of the old situation. It is simply a new discourse which has integrated the West's awareness of the high cost -- if not impossibility -- of confrontation. The new outlook, just like the old, views the world (man and nature) as matter to be utilised, and deems it necessary that the whole world be transformed into a large space governed only by the laws of supply, demand, and the maximisation of profit and sexual pleasure. It thus tries to "rationalise" the entire world so as to turn it into a factory, a market, a night club or a travel agency. In the old order, this was to the interest of Western peoples only. What was needed was the perpetuation of the same situation, without confrontation but with the expansion of the cycle of total materialistic rationalisation and global consumerism to include ever greater numbers of people. To achieve this, the West resorted to seduction rather than coercion, exploiting the disintegration of Third World elites to strike at the cohesiveness of third world societies. Deconstruction and subtle manoeuvring, the West discovered, are more effective and far cheaper than destruction and confrontation. The West can thus abandon its aggressive centrality and open hegemony, utilising a more subtle latent structural hegemony instead. The means of seduction include deluding the other (namely, members of ruling Westernised local elites) into believing that they are partners in Western imperialism and investment processes -- junior partners, indeed, in the plunder and exploitation of their own peoples. The people themselves are seduced through the "global" media and the sale of rosy dreams of consumption, or through the inflated promises and impossible images peddled by the local elites. At the same time, the opening up of borders and the dismantling of the nation-state (a framework for the consolidation of popular forces against imperialism or Western hegemony) have escalated. This takes place through international bodies and NGOs heavily subsidised by Western institutions that foment discontent among minority groups and incite disputes over borders or resources. The family, the basic and final human refuge, the space within which society can realise the continuity of its identity and value system, is deconstructed. Feminist groups, and groups that defend pornography as a form of creativity, lend a helping hand in this respect. Finally, this new world order releases a thick smoke-screen of clichés and lies, woven of assertions that exploitation is a thing of the past, and that, today, sincere and deep commitment to democracy and justice is what counts. Speeches on racial inequality and the white man's burden are replaced by discussions of equality (a form of leveling). This new order asserts that political alliances are no longer based on ideology or general economic interests. Economic interests converge; disputes between countries can be contained, defined and dealt with rationally. Interests (as opposed to principles) can be computed and subjected to a rigorous mathematical calculation. The same can be said of disputes within a single society. These can be resolved through the democratic process or what is called "the ethics of process", that is, the acceptance of the rules and procedures of the game without any concern for goals or principles. All these mechanisms are meant to achieve one objective, namely, to strike at national specificities and ultimate points of ethical reference. The goal is the creation of machines that produce and consume, no questions asked. Within this framework, man becomes a one-dimensional being without depth, memory or values, always beginning and ending at square one, living in a world without sin, guilt or life, a world awash in material and procedural value-free rationalism, where everything moves in a geometrical harmonious manner, cleansed of gentle conflict and interaction, devoid of dialectic. What is eliminated here is not a particular national specificity but the very concept of specificity, not a particular history but the very idea of history, not any particular identity but all identities, not a given value system but the very idea of value itself, and not a particular human race but the very idea of complex, absolute man, irreducible to anything below him. Referentiality disappears. A world without specificities or centre emerges where people have no centre or goals. They cannot communicate, nor do they belong to a particular country or family. Each person is an isolated island, a small narrative. Man defines and redefines his goal each day, basing his values on advertisements and the media. Global consumers efficiently produce and consumer, and maximise pleasure according to the signals and stereotypes registered. This is the final solution in the age of leveling, just as genocide and enslavement were the final solutions in the age of racial inequality. Instead of annihilation from without, there is deconstruction and destruction from within. Post-modernism is in fact the epistemological framework underlying the new world order. It is an outlook that denies the centre and does away with referentiality. It refuses to give history or humanity any meaning or centrality. It discards ideology, history and humanity. The world is in a state of perpetual flux (a state of intertextuality: each text refers the reader to another text, so that meaning, boundaries, identity and responsibility vanish). As Frederick Jameson, the Marxist American critic, maintains, the post-modernist spirit is an expression of the capitalist spirit in the age of the multinationals. Here, capital (this abstract, mobile thing which disregards boundaries, time or place) has eliminated all specificities as well as a coherent self within which history and personal depth are unified. General exchange value has replaced original value. In Jameson's analysis of post-modernism, I would replace the term "capitalism" by "comprehensive secularism": anti-humanist, materialist, relativistic secularism, as opposed to "partial secularism" which is humanistic and can coexist with absolute religious, moral, and human values. The reference to a general exchange value which cancels specificities is not a reference to capital as an economic concept, but rather to capital as an epistemological mechanism that deconstructs and demolishes anything that is unique, specific, profound, sacred or charged with mystery. It is a mechanism hostile to humanity because it is hostile to history and civilisation. Capital here is the mechanism which drives man out of the complex world of civilisation and history into the simple world of nature. It is the mechanism leading to the dominance of the monist natural law. It is the principal way of desacralising man, though is not the only one: in the age of post-modernism there are many other mechanisms. * The writer is professor emeritus at Ain Shams University
