Re: Genetic Fallacy. To Ali

Ali,
Can I get permision of You to translate and publish
the post bellow in our network of Bulettins? Its
excelent at first, and it has much to say to a network
of debates in Bulgaria! I will be verry glad to
recieve permision of You! Thanks in advance!

Jivko
--- Ali Rizvi <ali_m_rizvi@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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 (sorry guys i have to send it again for
obvious reasons)
Larry<?xml:namespace prefix = o
ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
/><o:p></o:p>
 <o:p></o:p>
Thanks for your very balanced and
indeed very thoughtful reply. I see the following
comments as signs of your
magnanimity:<o:p></o:p>
I still do not see a great gulf
between your thoughts and mine. A few additional
comments may offer some clarification and, perhaps,
serve to sharpen some minor
differences.<o:p></o:p>
 <o:p></o:p>
I think without the attitude
shown in these lines no fruitful debate would be
possible. Few comments that were stimulated by reading
your mail are presented below.<o:p></o:p>
 <o:p></o:p>
 <o:p></o:p>
1)     
What you have said
about generalisation and related matters is all well
taken. I agree with it totally. In fact your allusion
to the constitutive role of generalisation with
reference to Foucault is worthy of further
consideration. In fact few people seem to bother about
this aspect of Foucault since it does not lend itself
easily to free play scenarios being fabricated in the
wake of the so called liberation from the iron cage of
subject etc. As a good Kantian Foucault never
discounts the role of necessity in human life and
human societies and systems. The only difference is
that for Foucault as against Kant this necessity is
historical and not transcendental and hence (in
principle) tanscendable. Foucault never downplayed the
terrifying power of necessity over human life despite
his insistence on transformation etc. This is the fact
of life, which cannot be wished away thorough
imaginaries of free plays of symbols. Hence when
Foucault was rejecting repressive hypothesis people
were wrong to think that he was rejecting the
existence of misery, far from it.   He was
only rejecting the mode in which this misery is
normally explained. He was offering and alternative
and better way to explain our miserable present.
<o:p></o:p>
2)     
I think in this
context your reference to Connolly is very relevant.
It is because of not realising the fact that there is
such a thing as historical necessity that many people
do not take identities and their power over human
societies seriously. Consequently they can commit
easily to Hayekian sort of semi naturalism whereby
they can imagine different sorts of new ideologies
evolving through different societies on their own
accord like grass grows in a land after rain. They do
not seem to realise that the process of
transition  
from one society to the other is an active
process; it does not happen by itself, it needs
agency. And when we raise the question of agency in
modern times how can we shy away from imperialism and
its role?<o:p></o:p>
3)     
To come to the
question of imperialism. For me there is no non-modern
imperialism. But this is not due to any essentialism
but due to how I define imperialism. My definition of
imperialism is fairly close to Lenin, although I think
the exploitative nature of imperialism is exaggerated
in the Marxist analysis at the expense of  the value side
of imperialism. To sustain itself for long imperialism
does not need only exploitation but value change in
colonies so that its rule should transit from the
phase of the imposition of discipline to that of
self-discipline. 
Hence I see imperialism and capitalism as
necessarily related to each other. This is because of
the definition of imperialism, which is defined in
terms of capitalism and its requirements. But I do not
see such a necessary relationship between nationalism
and imperialism. We all know that capitalism is global
today; it has transcended its national phase
(economically but not politically yet). However, in
its initial phase capitalism has been dependent upon
nation states and nationalism and its power. If
Mercantilism was an important phase of Capitalism how
can one ignore the importance of national state in the
emergence and development of early capitalism.
Similarly the phase of colonial conquest and after the
colonial period the emergence and development of
Fordist capitalist regime was dependent, at least,
very significantly upon nation state and
nationalism. 
But the question of the relation between
nationalism and capita!
lism is still a contingent and historical question as
against the question of relation between capitalism
and imperialism. The question whether nationalism
could have developed without capitalism, or whether
capitalism could have developed without nationalism
are all conjectures, since we can not understand the
categories of capitalism and nationalism without
reference to history. There is no trans historical
understanding of nationalism or capitalism available
simply because we are historical beings. <o:p></o:p>
4)     
Now to turn to the
more difficult questions of how one can measure
westernisation of any society etc. and whether
modernisation in both of its senses (i.e.
technological sense and value sense) can be pursued
without westernisation etc are difficult questions.
They are difficult questions because they involve much
more complex questions than we normally seem to think.
I think they at least depend upon and involve three
further questions. a) the question of what one means
by westernisation, modernisation and also whether one
deem them as beneficial or not. b) If the process of
empirical research inevitably involves selection, and
if we have learnt from Foucault that to include is
necessarily to exclude as well then the question of
selection itself involves the question of standards of
selections which is obviously a value question c) and
most important the strategic interest. The question
whether Japan should be dubbed as a western society or
a society, which is essentially a Japanese society,
which has nevertheless, some surface resemblance with
(say) American society, is above all a strategic
question, the answer to which will depend on the
strategic interests of the researcher. Whether I want
to see Kurdish society as an Islamic society tied
mainly to its Islamic roots or whether I want to see
Kurdish society as a developed society advanced and
civilised in the manner of the developed countries of
todays world or whether I want it to return to its pre
Islamic past etc, these sort of strategic choices
normally determine the selection process in empirical
research and manoeuvring process that is afterwards
is!
dubbed as interpretation. Thus these questions (how
the level of westernisation of a society can be
measured) can be answered, they are empirical
questions but ultimately based on value
presuppositions and strategic intents. That is why
they are so difficult questions and so contentious
too. <o:p></o:p>
5)     
Finally your
following comments that One can be a partisan of a
nation without dreaming of paradise, seems to be
perfectly right as far as they just point to a
possibility since there is no contradiction in terms
involved here. But if we relate to the reality of
modern nationalism it is hard to sustain. Can you
think that nations can be mobilised in modern times,
or built without the projects of the might and welfare
of the nation? This for me is another way of saying
that no nation state or nationalism can survive in
modern times without being capitalist. A
non-capitalistic nation state is for me contradiction
in terms in todays world. Not logical contradiction
but historical contradiction. <o:p></o:p>
 <o:p></o:p>
 <o:p></o:p>
I hope at least some of it makes
sense.<o:p></o:p>
 <o:p></o:p>
regards<o:p></o:p>
ali<o:p></o:p>
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