When Culture Becomes Politics. Thomas Pedersen
that local diversity creates particular logics which call for context-sensitive, scientific reasoning. For instance, as we shall see, some scholars argue that due to their particular history contemporary Central and Eastern European societies display a disproportionate amount of post-modernist discourse. In a similar vein, it can be argued that sociological institutionalism is particularly useful for understanding, for example, contemporary Chinese society. However, we cannot content ourselves with a complete fragmentation of political science. We need to add a general philosophical investigation focusing upon the universal aspects of political life to the empirical analysis of particular geographical areas.
Otherwise, our thinking degenerates into relativism and there is no longer any meeting of minds. Moreover, specific regional area-studies have to be aggregated to present a global picture of political life and importantly there is an ongoing conflict between different ideas regarding the organization of human society. I hold the view, leaning on Kant and Stuart Mill that human history is the history of human emancipation and that the most advanced societies are the societies where human beings are most autonomous. Obviously, individualism can be conceived in different terms, and this is one of the areas where this book seeks to offer new insights.
The view that the world is essentially rational, and that structures are the most important phenomena is found i.a. in Marxism, Neo-Darwinism and various forms of system theory. The German sociologist Niklas Luhmann’s thinking is a rather extreme example, but even parts of mainstream globalization theory falls within this broad category. Within this line of thinking, one thus finds a range of historicist theories as well as various attempts to subsume social science under theories from the natural sciences. Thus, in my view, Neo-Darwinist endeavours to explain large aspects of human action from the perspective of biological evolution, partly derive from an over-ambitious and potentially dangerous concern for methodological unity within science. The goal of the unity of science is beautiful but also Prometheus-like in its reach for simplicity. Sociological institutionalism similarly stresses holistic and structural causes but tends to conceive of Man as less rational. Here human choice disappears in a flurry of contextual adaptation. Social constructivists, while purportedly attentive to the interplay between structure and agency, and normatively optimistic regarding the human potential, have no theory of political behaviour outside the group. Meanings are assumed to be constructed in a social setting.
An interesting example of the social constructivist approach to identity issues is found in the writings of the Estonian scholar, Merje Kuus. What is particularly interesting is that Kuus is an Eastern European, and he appears to regard his challenge to what he calls “subjectivist identity theory” as more than a personal or academic challenge.17 Since his argument is uncompromising but also clear and intelligent, it deserves an extensive comment: Kuus is critical of not only traditional accounts but also many social constructivist theories. In his view they made the same error of … “implicitly addressing identity as an essential attribute of states, nations and individuals, thereby casting these entities as subjects that exist prior to their identities”. Leaning i.a. on Jens Bartelson, Kuus argues that the fundamental problem is the assumption that identity is a feature of a subject. The story by which identity is told is circular, presupposing the very subject for which it seeks to give an account. Kuus’s view is that identity is ontologically empty. Instead he proposes to study identities from the position of performativity – regarding subjects as subjects-in-process instead of autonomous subjects.18 What he criticizes is in other words the tendency to conflate identity and subjectivity.
This line of thinking constitutes a direct, radical and, in my view, highly problematic attack upon the notion that agency is derived from autonomous actors. Kuus and others may be right in arguing that identity tends to receive too much attention. Or in Kuus’s words … “the fact that people talk about identity does not mean that it should be conceptualized as something that all people have, seek or construct”. But it is a far cry from this critical stance to the stance that “there is no doer behind the deed”.19 This view amounts to arguing that motives are irrelevant, and it absolves individuals of responsibility for their actions. The interest in and search for self-identity, which is central to my own position, is simply called “ethical violence”. It comes as no surprise that the author quotes Nietzsche with applause.20 While this ontology may have certain methodological benefits, it opens the door to a deep, ethical relativism. If no one will take an interest in one’s motives, why should one try to live a decent life? Perhaps we are dealing here with a mental relic of the Soviet era.
One could go on to argue that subjectivism is not necessarily agency-oriented: It may also conceive of individuals as being in the grip of powerful psychological forces that leave the will with little freedom. Thus some radical psychological theories are reminiscent of discourse analysis in that they leave the subject with scant autonomous choice.
Another example of holistic arguments in the research on European identity is Gerard Delanty’s and Chris Rumford’s “Rethinking Europe”.21 While Delanty and Rumford recognize that globalization does not simply produce convergence and homogeneity, they nevertheless argue in terms of structural causes. There is a curious tension in their argument, and it is a typical argument, between on the one hand, the open-ended nature of their vision, and on the other the rather closed, uniform and structural nature of the causal explanations they make use of. However, it is but a small step from their recognition of the weaknesses and fallacies of social constructivism to a new position which could, as a first step, be simply called human constructivism.
Social constructivism often argues in almost circular fashion. For instance Delanty and Rumford argue that … “one of the chief features of social constructivism is the argument that agency and structure are mediated in cultural contexts”.22 Very well, but how are these cultural contexts constructed and by whom? Delanty and Rumford essentially answer the question by rephrasing (or post-poning) the ontological question. A promising way out is suggested by the French philosopher, Castoriadis, quoted by Delanty and Rumford, when he argues that … “the main struggle in modernity is between the radical imaginary – which Castoriadis seems to conceive in individualist terms, but this is not entirely clear – based on the project of autonomy and the institutional imaginary based on rational control”.23 Unfortunately, Castoriadis appears to remain stuck in holistic thinking, as when he accords society as such a “social imaginary” and says that a society’s identity is … “nothing but a system of interpretation” (please note the use of the word system, TP). We see how even the most voluntarist of the French cultural theorists shy away from the individualist ontology that logically corresponds to their almost anarchist position.
Now, on a more generous note, such holistic argument may well be a helpful way of explaining routine behaviour and cumulative developments, but it is likely to be less helpful in accounting for turning points in human history. And, after all, what we are really interested in is non-routine behaviour. Moreover, it can be argued that cumulative change is becoming less and less relevant in social science, as individual choice becomes more consequential and important, in part as a by-product of globalization.
Rational individualism has of course a long pedigree, in part, one suspects, because Rational Choice theory has obvious methodological advantages. Social scientists that make simple assumptions about human behaviour can come up with impressive formalistic models. But what they often do is conduct a banal discussion at a high level of abstraction. Philosophically, Rational Choice thinking stands on the shoulders of liberal theory and not least utilitarian and pragmatic ideas, dating back to the 19th century.
The view that human beings make deliberate choices about fundamental issues, and that therefore prediction is extremely difficult in the social sciences,