The Reconstruction of Religious Arenas in the Framework of `Multiple Modernities'
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| DOI | 10.1177/03058298000290031201 |
| Author | S.N. Eisenstadt |
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
© Millennium: Journal of Int ernational Studies, 2000. ISSN 0305-8298 . Vol. 29, No. 3, pp. 591-611
591
The Reconstruction of Religious
Arenas in the Framework of
‘Multiple Modernities’
S.N. Eisen stadt
I
There has lately taken place a far-reaching resurgence or reconstruct ion of the
religious dimension i n the contemporary wo rld. It is manife sted among others in
the rise of new religious, especial ly fundame ntalist and commu nal-national
movements, and in the crystallisation of new diasporas with a prominent religio us
identity. This recon struction transcends the vision of the classical cultura l and
political program of mo dernity and of the ‘classical ’ model of the mod ern nation-
state.
This resurgence of t he religious dimension is very impo rtant for the evaluation of
the many in terpretations of the contempo rary world, especially those that pro claim,
from ofte n opposing vantag e points, the possib ility that the classi cal modern
project, as it has de veloped for the last two cent uries, is exhausted . In one versio n
the po ssibility of such exhaustion takes the form of the ‘end of history’ as
proclaimed by Francis Fukuyama; the ideolo gical premises of modernit y with al l
the tensions and contradic tions inherent in them are understoo d as almost
irrelevant, enabling paradoxically the rise of multiple postmodern visions, and the
new religious movements are on the whole seen as temp orary ‘aberrat ions’.1 In
another v iew of the e xhaustion of th e modern program or withdrawal from it, that
of, to use Samuel Hunti ngton’s terminology, the ‘clash of civil isations’, these new
religious movements p lay indeed a very central ro le. Hunting ton understands the
Western civil isational vi sion—the seeming epitome of mod ernity—as often
confronted in hostil e terms wi th other, especially the Muslim a nd to some extent
the so-called Confucian. Within this civilisational conflict, traditional,
fundamenta list, anti -modern, and anti-Western movement s are predo minant and
1. See Francis Fukuyama, The End o f History and the La st Man (New York: Free P ress, 1992). There
is a certain i rony in the fact that the v iew which promulgated the o verall homogenising of the
contemporary world—seeming ly very close to th e earlier theories of moderni sation and of convergence
of industrial societies—does also p roclaim the end of modernity, of the classical programme th ereof.
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religious components and identities become central, evidently relegating the
classical model of the modern nati on-state to a secondary position.2
As con trary to both these visions, this essay argues that the best way to
understand the contemporary world, including the upsurge and reconstruction of
the religious dimensi on on the contemp orary scene —indeed th e histo ry of
modernity—is to see it as a st ory of con tinual developme nt and formatio n,
constituti on and reconstit ution of a mu ltiplicity of cu ltural programs o f modernity
and of distinc tively modern institutional patterns, of multiple moderni ties.3
II
The ter m ‘mult iple modernities’ de notes a certain view of the contempo rary
world—inde ed of the histo ry and characteristics of the modern era—which go es
first again st the account of the ‘cla ssical’ theories of modern isation of the 1950s. It
runs against the classical soci ological analyses of Karl Ma rx, Emile Durkheim, and
to a large extent even of Ma x Weber—or at least of on e reading of him—which
have a ssumed, even i f onl y implicitly, th at the cultura l program of modernity and
the basic insti tutional constellations which came t ogether in modern Europe will be
ultimately taken over in all modernising and modern societies; that they will, with
the expansio n of modernity, preva il througho ut the world.4
The reality that emerged, already from the begin ning of modernity , but
especially after World War II, has not borne o ut the assumptions of any of these
approache s. Actual de velopments in modern, or as they were then desig nated,
modernisin g soci eties have gone far beyond the homogen ising and he gemonic
assumption s of the original E uropean or Western p rogram of modernity. Gen eral
trends to structural differenti ation of various insti tutional, political, econo mic,
family, and the ‘cultural’ are nas; to urbanisation, exten sion of mo dern educati on,
and means of communication; and tendencies to individualistic orientations
develope d in most of th ese socie ties. Yet the ways in which t hese arena s were
defined and organised varied, in differen t modern societies and periods of th eir
develop ment, giving rise to multip le inst itutional and ideological patterns. But
these patte rns did not constitute simple contin uations of the respective trad itions of
these societi es. They were dist inctively modern even if their dy namics were greatly
influenced by the c ultural premises, traditions, and historical exp eriences of th ese
societies.
All ‘mode rnising’ societies dev eloped distinct modern d ynamics, distincti ve
ways o f interp reting modernity, for which the o riginal Western p roject constituted
the cruc ial starting and continual—usually a mbivalent—reference poin t but which
2. Samuel P. Hun tington, The Cla sh of Civi lizations and the Remaking o f World Order (New Yo rk:
Simon and Schuster, 199 6).
3. See in greater d etail S.N. Eisenstadt, ‘Multip le Modernities’, Daedalus 129, no. 1 (2000): 1-29. The
entire issue of Daedalu s is devoted to this topic.
4. On the develo pments of these themes, see S. N. Eisenstadt, Tradition, Change, and Modernity (New
York: Wiley, 1973 ).
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