Posted March 3, 2017

      In the previous nine posts, I have discussed Trump’s ultra-nationalist interpretations of terrorism and immigration, his anti-internationalist economic nationalism, his alliance with corporations with respect to the environment, his populist rhetoric, and his emphasis on military strength.  In these posts, I frequently have commented that the Left does not have an adequate response to the neofascist project of Trump.  The central problem is that the Left does not have an alternative grand narrative.  

     Many in the Left reject grand narratives, because the grand narratives of the past justified exploitation and discrimination, and even the narratives of the Left have failed to create human emancipation. But the Left childishly overreacts, validating Lenin’s concern that Left-wing infantilism is one of the greatest threats to revolutions (see “The infantile disorder of the Left” 12/19/2016).  The problem is not grand narratives per se.  Grand narratives are necessary for the creation of any human society; and in the modern era, they are necessary for forging any national project.  Rather, the problem has been that the grand narratives of the past were written from above, from the vantage point of the upper classes and the dominating nations; and the narratives of the Left failed to escape this ideological web, reflecting a subtle Eurocentrism.

       In the present historic moment, a grand narrative from below is being written by the leaders and intellectuals of the Third World, which constitutes the great mass of humanity that is colonized, excluded, superexploited, underdeveloped and impoverished, and without voice in international political affairs.  Indeed, the leaders and intellectuals of the Third World anti-colonial movements have been formulating a narrative from below since the Haitian Revolution at the end eighteenth century.  Seen only superficially by the politicians, activists and intellectuals of the North, this Third World project is a heroic creation, and it reveals the essential goodness of humanity.  And it establishes a duty for intellectuals and activists of the North: to encounter the various contemporary and historic manifestations of the Third World project, taking seriously its insights.  Such personal encounter with the Third World project of national and social liberation would enable intellectuals and activists of the North to formulate a narrative for the peoples of the North that would be tied to the universal grand narrative being forged by humanity, and that would be capable of delegitimating the liberal, neoliberal, and neo-fascist ideologies of the political establishment and the political culture.  

       In the following nine posts in this series of nineteen posts on Trump, I offer suggestions for a possible narrative of the Left, an alternative to the corporate neoliberalism of Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, and Obama as well as to the incipient neofascism of Trump.

       For posts on the Third World project of national and social liberation, see the category Third World.

Posted March 6, 2017
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​     All societies have grand narratives. They are constructed through the selection and organization of historic and present facts, philosophical and theological assumptions, and ethical beliefs.  They are necessary for the functional unity of the society.  Grand narratives have various degrees of consistency to actual historic facts, but regardless of their veracity, they must have credibility among society’s members.

      With the emergence of the modern nation-state, each nation developed a national grand narrative.  And since the nation-state was a central actor in the development of the modern world-system, each national grand narrative had some component that explained the place of the nation in world history and in the world-system.

     Since the 1970s, the modern world-system has entered a sustained structural crisis.  The grand narratives of the nations of the North do not recognize the global systemic crisis as such, but they are aware of its symptoms: stagnating corporate profits; financial volatility; unemployment; global poverty; global political instability; a new form of terrorism; uncontrolled international migration; and international criminal networks that traffic in drugs, arms, and persons.

     The crisis of the world-system makes indispensable national grand narratives with a scientific basis, if humanity is to respond intelligently to the global crisis, and rescue itself from chaos and possible extinction.  Mere credibility among the people in the nation is not enough.  Two additional qualities are essential: the grand narrative of each nation must see the nation in global terms, as part of the modern-world system; and it must have validity and truth value, well connected to actual historic and present reality.

      But how do we arrive to an understanding with a scientific basis?  What is the process through which opinion makers of a nation arrive to formulate insights that transcend the vantage point of a particular class, race or ethnic group, or national culture?

     Many years ago, I read that the slave understood more about the characteristics and essence of slavery than did the master.  This insight was expressed by songwriter Paul Simon in 1964: “The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls, and tenement halls.” This is the key to an epistemological moral imperative.  For all who live in positions of privilege or relative privilege, there is a moral obligation to understand the true and the right, and the key to understanding is listening to the voices from below.

      Karl Marx practiced the epistemological moral imperative in a systematic way.  Having been formed in the tradition of German philosophy and German radicalism, Marx, after moving to Paris in October 1842, encountered the movement formed by Parisian workers, artisans and intellectuals, many of which had studied idealist socialism.  At the same time, Marx obsessively studied the British science of political economy.  By 1844, Marx was beginning to write an analysis of human history and of modern capitalism that was based on a synthesis of German philosophy and British political economy, formulated from below, from the point of view of the worker (see McKelvey 1991).

        Marx’s achievement established the possibility for significant advances in understanding human societies and political-economic systems.  But these possibilities were contained by the subsequent bureaucratic organization of universities:  the fragmentation of knowledge into the disciplines of philosophy, history, economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology functioned to marginalize the work of Marx.

       In the second half of the twentieth century, when the Third World project of national and social liberation was approaching its zenith, Immanuel Wallerstein did something similar on a scale that transcended Europe.  He encountered the African nationalist movement during the 1950s and 1960s, which enabled him to understand that African nationalists looked at the world from the vantage point of the colonized, trapped in the colonial situation.  Wallerstein’s encounter with African nationalism enabled him to arrive at the insight that the Western social scientific assumption of the “society” as the unit of analysis was dysfunctional for understanding, and that historians and social scientists ought to take the “world-system” as the object of their investigation.  He proceeded describe the historical development of the modern world-system, beginning in the sixteenth century.  His work established the foundation for understanding the colonial foundations of the world-system, consistent with the vantage point of the colonized (see “Immanuel Wallerstein” 7/30/2013).

     Wallerstein, however, did not continue his encounter with Third World movements of national and social liberation.  His development came to be more influenced by French thought than by the leaders and intellectuals that were central to the development of the Third World project.  He never arrived to understand the possibilities for human emancipation that the project was seeking to formulate, in theory and in practice.  Thus, Wallerstein’s work would reflect a subtle form of Eurocentrism (see “Wallerstein: A Critique” 7/31/2013; “Wallerstein and world-systems analysis” 3/25/2014; “Wallerstein: Europe-centered or universal?” 3/27/2014).

      I arrived to appreciate the epistemological problem of Eurocentrism in the early 1970s.  At the time, I was one of a handful of students of European descent at the Center for Inner City Studies in Chicago.  Its African-American and African professors were formulating a black nationalist perspective and a colonial analysis of the modern world from the vantage point of the colonized.  I of course could not overlook the fundamental difference in assumptions and analysis between black thought and mainstream social science.  I wondered if an objective analysis of society were possible, and if we ought to recognize that there is a black historical social science that exists alongside a white social science, fragmented into distinct disciplines.

      Seeking to distance myself from the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant world that was principally responsible for the development of colonial structures in the United States, I sought to find a place in Catholic higher education.  I continued to investigate the epistemological question in a doctoral program in sociology at Fordham University, where Father Joseph Fitzpatrick and his philosopher colleague Father Gerald McCool introduced me to the work of the Catholic philosopher Bernard Lonergan.  Lonergan maintained that an objective understanding is possible, insofar as we truly desire to understand, and insofar as we move beyond the limitations of the horizons of particular cultures through a process of encounter with persons of other horizons.  In cross-horizon encounter, we take seriously the insights of others, which enables us to discover relevant questions that previously were beyond our consciousness (see “What is personal encounter?” 7/25/2013; “What is cross-horizon encounter?” 7/26/2013).

      Cross-horizon encounter is the key.  Marx was engaging in cross-horizon encounter when he encountered the Parisian working-class movement and British political economy in the 1840s, and Wallerstein was practicing cross-horizon encounter when he took seriously the African nationalist voices of the 1950s and 1960s.  Cross-horizon encounter moves the insight of Paul Simon to a more advanced level, for it establishes the epistemological moral imperative for persons who occupy positions of privilege and relative privilege in the societies of the North.  Our duty it to encounter the social movements constituted by the movements of the colonized peoples of the earth, and taking seriously their insights.

      So if the grand narratives of the North are to form part of a constructive response to the sustained structural crisis of the world-system, they must be formulated on a foundation of personal encounter with the Third World project of national and social liberation.  It is the Third World that constitutes the great majority of humanity and that has been formulating from below an integral understanding, expressing itself in theory and practice.

     The neocolonial, neoliberal and neofascist grand narratives of the nations of the North are not rooted in scientific knowledge.  They all ignore the processes of colonial and neocolonial domination, thus failing to take into account the essential condition of the great majority of people on the planet.  In ignoring empirical evidence on a significant scale, the grand narratives are limited in understanding, and they are incapable of responding to the sustained crisis of the world-system in an intelligent form.  Under their direction, the various symptoms of the global crisis will continue.

      An alternative, scientifically-based grand narrative must be formulated by the Left.  Indeed, it can only be formulated by the Left, which has historically assumed the task of defending the excluded on the basis of the moral principles formulated by the democratic revolutions of the late eighteenth century.  The European Left emerged during the course of the nineteenth century as radical thought, contrasting itself to liberalism and conservativism, and reacting to the evolution of the democratic republics toward political-economic systems controlled by and serving the interests of the bourgeoisie. The European Left emerged as a synthesis of, on the one hand, the defense of the working class and the poor, and on the other hand, a moral commitment to rights proclaimed and promised by the democratic revolution.

      The Left today must play its historic role, but with a global perspective.  The poor, the excluded, and the superexploited today are of the Third World, and they can be defended only on the basis of listening, as did Marx and Wallerstein.  Only by listening to the historic and contemporary voices of those who have been colonized can it be possible to develop a peaceful, harmonious, stable and sustainable world-system.

     The Left in the United States must reject post-modern tendencies and recognize that the difference between true and false and right and wrong can be known.  It must affirm what the Honduran activist Sara Rosales said to me a number of years ago: “Our children do not have enough beans to eat.  This is wrong, and everybody knows that it is wrong.”  It must seek to understand the true and the right through sustained encounter with the voices of below, demonstrating a persistence in seeking to understand that is equal to the determination of the peoples of the Third World in their quest for social justice.

Reference
 
McKelvey, Charles.  1991.  Beyond Ethnocentrism:  A Reconstruction of Marx’s Concept of Science.  New York:  Greenwood Press.
 
 

Posted March 7, 2017
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     Public discourse in the Third World constantly refers to colonialism, neocolonialism and imperialism.  This is consistent with the widespread commitment in the Third World to the construction of an alternative more just and democratic world-system that is post-neoliberal and post-neocolonial.  

     The Third World emerged as a unifying project of national and social liberation in the 1950s and 1960s, forged by the charismatic leaders of Asia, Africa and Latin America, who possessed moral authority and great prestige, as a result of their having had led their peoples in independence struggles.  By the 1970s, the Third World was able to present to the global powers a scientifically informed proposal for a new sustainable, post-colonial international economic order.  The proposal was cast aside by the global powers in the early 1980s, as they turned to the implementation of neoliberal policies; and the Third World project appeared dead.  But on the foundation of popular movements, the Third World project was born again in the late 1990s.  Today, the Third World project has reached its most advanced stage, precisely in an historic moment in which the global elite is demonstrating its moral and intellectual incapacity to respond to the sustained structural global crisis, and the neocolonial world-system makes evident its unsustainability (see various post on the Third World project in the category Third World).

     Thus, we are today in a critical historic moment.  In the North, there are critical and reformist proposals, but they either do not involve structural transformations of the neocolonial world-system, or they are lacking in political viability.  In the Third World, an alternative theory and practice has emerged, and political reality is being transformed. Thus, humanity faces a practical choice between the neocolonial project of the global elite and the emancipatory project of the Third World.  

      We intellectuals and activists of the North pay insufficient attention to the Third World project.  If we were to encounter it, we would be able to arrive to the insights necessary for scientific critique of the world-system and of neocolonialism, neoliberalism, and neo-fascism. And we would be able to forge effective political movements among our peoples, which would seek to establish a just, democratic and sustainable world-system, in alliance with the Third World governments and movements.  

     If we were to encounter the Third World project, we would find that the Third World movements do not disdain grand narratives; to the contrary, they have formulated grand narratives that have been effective in mobilizing their peoples.  We need to learn from their example, and to formulate grand narratives for our own nations of the North, projecting that the peoples of the North will cast their lot with the neocolonized peoples of the Third World, forging an international popular movement that will create a sustainable world-system and save humanity.     

     The Third World narrative sees the European colonial/neocolonial project as an impressive military, political and economic achievement. However, it sees the European colonial project as completely lacking in moral justification, violating the fundamental tenets of all religious traditions that humanity has created, and violating as well the democratic values that were formulated and are proclaimed by the dominating colonial/neocolonial nations.  Moreover, the Third World narrative discerns that the European project was characterized from the outset by a fundamental contradiction: it established a world-system that requires unlimited economic growth through the conquest of new lands, but the earth has finite geographical and ecological limits.  In accordance with this contradiction, the global powers ran out of lands and peoples to conquer during the course of the twentieth century.  Having overextended its natural geographical and ecological limits, the world system has been in a sustained structural crisis since the 1970s, revealing its unsustainability.  From the vantage point of the Third World, economic stagnation, spiraling financial speculation, wars of aggression led by a declining hegemonic neocolonial power, the rise of religious fundamentalism, the emergence of secessionist and ultra-nationalist movements, and uncontrolled international migrations are the signs of the profound structural crisis of the world-system.

      The Third World narrative thus discerns the ecological and economic unsustainability of the world-system and its capitalist world-economy.  And it also sees its political unsustainability, inasmuch as the neocolonized peoples of the world are in movement, calling for a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system as the only hope for saving humanity.  Here the Third World narrative tells its own story: the Haitian Revolution; the formation of the Latin American republics; the anti-colonial movements of Asia and Africa; the creation of the unified Third World project and the Non-Aligned Movement; the reverses as a result of the imposition of the neoliberal project of the global powers; and the renewal of the Third World project, especially evident in the formation of regional associations in Latin America and the proclamation of “socialism for the twenty-first century.”  

     In formulating a vision for a post-colonial future, the Third World project has not sought to return to a pre-colonial past, however much it remembered and appreciated a more dignified earlier era, for it recognized the practical impossibility of doing so.  In “returning to the source,” its goal was to appropriate from its past and to rediscover and re-experience its essential dignity, robbed by colonialism.  But it did not seek to resurrect earlier forms of thinking in a pure form.  It has had a practical orientation to the present: transforming economic structures imposed by colonialism, which promote deepening underdevelopment and poverty in the neocolonial situation; forging a political and social movement that could unify the peoples, taking control of state structures established by colonialism, and using such political control to transform national economies; and reforming international associations created by the neocolonial powers, so that Third World governments would have democratic voice in global affairs.

       In forging an alternative political and social project, the Third World appropriated from its own precolonial past as well from the political and philosophical cultures of the colonial powers. From the outset, it was a project of national and social liberation, seeking independent and truly sovereign nations as well as a social transformation that would protect the social and economic rights of all and would permit all to live in human dignity.  It forging the project, it drew from the bourgeois and proletarian revolutions of Europe and the United States, appropriating their insights, but expanding and deepening their meanings as it placed them in the intellectual and moral context of a project of national and social liberation that sought to overcome colonial and neocolonial domination.  Later, the Third World project appropriated the insights of the women’s movement, again transforming them in order to fit them into an ongoing popular movement for national and social liberation.  And still later, the Third World project appropriated the insights of the ecological movement, once again transforming them in order to fit them into its own project. Ultimately what emerged was a movement that integrated issues of colonial domination, class exploitation, patriarchy and gender exclusion, and ecological degradation into a comprehensive intellectual movement, tied to political practice, and articulated in eloquent voices by charismatic leaders as well as by intellectuals.

     Third World leaders have formulated an interpretation that explains the historic roots of their current political powerlessness and economic weakness, and that projects hope for a more just and democratic world.  Through this narrative, the Third World leaders have politically mobilized their peoples.  In their most advanced manifestations, they have taken control of states, redirected policies, and forged alternative international associations.

      Intellectuals and activists of the North could learn much from the achievements of the Third World project, for it is taking the initial steps toward the construction of a more just, democratic and sustainable world-system.  If we were to do so, we would be in a much better position to counter the neofascist narrative of Trump and his team.