odern Social

Imaginaries

b D D k s Charles Taylor
l a n e t
p u b l i C P

DUKE UNNERSITY PRESS Durham and London 2004

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Contents

Acknowledgments xi

Introduction 1

1 The Modern Moral Order 3

2 W hat Is a "Social Imaginary"? 23

3 The Specter of Idealism 31

4 The Great Disembedding 49

5 The Economy as Objectified Reality 69

6 The P ublic Sphere 83

7 Public and P rivate 10l

8 The Sovereign People 109

9 An All-Pervasive Order 143

10 The Direct-Access Society 155

11 Agency and Objectification 163

12 Modes of Narration 175

Acknowledgments

13 The Meaning of Secularity 185

14 Provincializing Europe 195

Notes 197

F
irst, I want to express my gratitude to the Canada Coun
cil for the award of an Isaac Killam Memorial Fellowship
for 1996-98, without which I would not have been able
to get started on this book as soon as I did.
This work is an expansion of a central section of the book I
am preparing on Living in a Secular Age, which was the subject
of my Gifford Lectures in Edinburgh in 1999.
I want also to mention a debt of another kind. This work
emerges out of discussions during the past years at the Cen
ter for Transcultural Studies. These discussions have been so
central to this book, that one might argue that the Center is
a kind of joint collective author of these pages. I especially
want to thank Arjun Appadurai, Rajeev Bhargava, Craig Cal
houn, Dilip Gaonkar, Niliifer Gole, Benjamin Lee, Thomas
McCarthy, and Michael Warner.
Modern Social Imaginaries
Introduction

F
rom the beginning, the number one problem of modern
social science has been modernity itself: that historically
unprecedented amalgam of new practices and institu
tional forms (science, technology, industrial production,
urbanization), of new ways of living (individualism, secular
ization, instrumental rationality); and of new forms of mal
aise (alienation, meaninglessness, a sense of impending social
dissolution) .
In our day, the problem needs to be posed from a new angle:
Is there a single phenomenon here, or do we need to speak
of "multiple modernities," the plural reflecting the fact that
other nonW
- estern cultures have modernized in their own way
and cannot properly be understood if we try to grasp them in a
general theory that was designed originally with theWestern
case in mind?
This book explores the hypothesis that we can throw some
light on both the original and the contemporary issues about
modernity if we can come to a clearer definition of the self
understandings that have been constitutive of it.Western mo
dernity on this view is inseparable from a certain kind of so
cial imaginary, and the differences among today's multiple
 modernities need to be understood in terms of the divergent
social imaginaries involved.
This approach is not the same as one that might focus on
the "ideas," as against the "institutions," of modernity. The
social imaginary is not a set of ideas; rather, it is what enables,
1 The Madern Moral Order
through making sense of, the practices of a society. This cru
cial point is expanded in chapter 3.
My aim here is a modest one. I would like to sketch an ac
count of the forms of social imaginary that have underpinned
the rise ofWestern modernity. My focus is onWestern history,
which leaves the variety of today's alternative modernities un
touched. But I hope that some closer definition of theWest
2

I
ern specificity may help us see more clearly what is common start with the new vision of mor
al order. This was most
among the different paths of contemporary modernization. In clearly stated in the new theo
ries of Natural Law which
writing this, I have obviously drawn heavily on the pioneer emerged in the seventeenth cent
ury, largely as a response
ing work of Benedict Anderson in his Imagined Communities, 1 to the domestic and international
disorder wrought by the
as well as on work by Jiirgen Habermas and Michael Warner wars of religion. Grotius and Lock
e are the most important
and on that of P ierre R,osanvallon and others, which I shall theorists of reference for our purp
oses here.
acknowledge as the argument unfolds. Grotius derives the normative
order underlying political
My basic hypothesis is that central to Western modernity society from the nature of its cons
titutive members. Human
is a new conception of the moral order of society. This was at beings are rational, sociable agen
ts who are meant to collabo
first just an idea in the minds of some influential thinkers, but rate in peace to their mutual
benefit.
it later came to shape the social imaginary of large strata, and Starting in the seventeenth cent
ury, this idea has come
then eventually whole societies. It has now become so self more and more to dominate our
political thinking and the way
evident to us that we have trouble seeing it as one possible we imagine our society. It start
s off in Grotius's version as a
conception among others. The mutation of this view of moral theory of what political society
is, that is, what it is in aid of,
order into our social imaginary is the coming to be of certain and how it comes to be. But any
theory of this kind also offers
social forms, which are those essentially characterizingWest inescapably an idea of moral orde
r: it tells us something about
ern modernity: the market economy, the public sphere, and how we ought to live together
in society.
the self-governing people, among others. The picture of society is that of
individuals who come to
gether to form a political entity
against a certain preexisting
moral background and with certa
in ends in view. The moral
background is one of natural righ
ts; these people already have
certain moral obligations toward
each other. The ends sought
 are certain common benefits, of which security is the most is, it both comes to be the dominant view, pushing older theo
important. ries of society and newer rivals to the margins of political
The underlying idea of moral order stresses the rights and life and discourse, and it also generates more and more far

obligations we have as individuals in regard to each other, even reaching claims on political life. The requirement of origi

prior to or outside of the political bond. Political obligations nal consent, via the halfway house of Locke's consent to taxa

are seen as an extension or application of these more funda tion, becomes the full-fledged doctrine of popular sovereignty

mental moral ties. Political authority itself is legitimate only under which we now live. The theory of natural rights ends

because it was consented to by individuals (the original con up spawning a dense web of limits to legislative and executive

tract), and this contract creates binding obligations in virtue action via the entrenched charters that have become an im

of the preexisting principle that promises ought to be kept. portant feature of contemporary government. The presump

In light of what has later been made of this contract theory, tion of equality, implicit in the starting point of the state of

even later in the same century by Locke, it is astonishing how Nature, where people stand outside all relations of superiority

4 tame are the moral-political conclusions that Grotius draws and inferiority,l has been applied in more and more contexts, 5
from it. The grounding of political legitimacy in consent is ending with the multiple equal treatment or nondiscrimina

not put forward in order to question the credentials of exist tion provisions, which are an integral part of most entrenched

ing governments. Rather, the aim of the exercise is to under charters.

cut the reasons for rebellion being all too irresponsibly urged In other words, during these past four centuries, the idea

by confessional zealots, the assumption being that existing of moral order implicit in this view of society has undergone a

legitimate regimes were ultimately founded on some consent double expansion: in extension (more people live by it; it has

of this kind. Grotius also seeks to give a firm foundation, be become dominant) and in intensity (the demands it makes

yond confessional cavil, to the basic rules of war and peace. In are heavier and more ramified). The idea has gone, as it were,

the context of the early seventeenth century, with its continu through a series of "redactions," each richer and more de

ing bitterly fought wars of religion, this emphasis was entirely manding than the previous one, up to the present day.

understandable. This double expansion can be traced in a number of ways.

It is Locke who first uses this theory as a justification of The modern discourse of natural law started off in a rather

revolution and as a ground for limited government. Rights specialized niche. It provided philosophers and legal theorists

can now be seriously pleaded against power. Consent is not a language in which to talk about the legitimacy of govern

just an original agreement to set up government, but a con ments and the rules of war and peace, the nascent doctrines

tinuing right to agree to taxation. of modern international law. But then it began to infiltrate
In the next three centuries, from Locke to our day, al and transform the discourse in other niches. One such case,

though the contract language may fall away and be used by which plays a crucial role in the story I'm telling, is the way

only a minority of theorists, the underlying idea of society as the new idea of moral order begins to inflect and reformu

existing for the (mutual) benefit of individuals and the de late the descriptions of God's providence and the order he has

fense of their rights takes on more and more importance. That established among humans and in the cosmos.
 Even more important to our lives today is the manner in
which this idea of order has become more and more central
to our notions of society and polity, remaking them in the
process. In the course of this expansion, it has moved from
being a theory, animating the discourse of a few experts, to
becoming integral to our social imaginary, that is, the way our
contemporaries imagine the societies they inhabit and sus-
tain.
Migrating from one niche to many, and from theory to so-
cial imaginary, the expansion is also visible along a third axis,
as defined by the kind of demands this moral order makes
on us.
6 Sometimes a conception of moral order does not carry with
it a real expectation of its integral fulfillment. This does not
mean no expectation at all, for otherwise it wouldn't be an idea
of moral order in the sense that I'm using the term. It will be
seen as something to strive for, and it will be realized by some,
but the general sense may be that only a minority will really
succeed in following it, at least under present conditions.
Thus the Christian Gospel generates the idea of a commu
nity of saints, inspired by love for God, for each other, and
for humankind, whose members are devoid of rivalry, mutual
resentment, love of gain, ambition to rule, and the like. The
general expectation in the Middle Ages was that only a mi
nority of saints really aspired to this and that they had to live
in a world that greatly deviated from this ideal. But in the full
ness of time, this would be the order of those gathered around
God in the final dispensation.We can speak of a moral order
here, and not just a gratuitous ideal, because it is thought to
be in the process of full realization. But the time for this is
not yet.
A distant analogy in another context would be some mod-
ern definitions of utopia, which refer us to a way of things that
may be realized in some eventually possible conditions, but
that meanwhile serve as a standard to steer by.
Rather different from this are the orders that demand a
more or less full realization here and now. This can be under
stood in two ways. In one, the order is held to be realized; it
underlies the normal way of things. Medieval conceptions of
political order were often of this kind. In the understanding
of the "king's two bodies," his individual biological existence
realizes and instantiates an undying royal "body." In the ab
sence of highly exceptional and scandalously disordered cir
cumstances, on the occasion of some terrible usurpation, for
instance, the order is fully realized. It offers us not so much
a prescription as a key to understanding reality, rather as 7
the Chain of Being does in relation to the cosmos that sur
rounds us. It provides the hermeneutic clue to understanding
the real.
But a moral order can stand in another relation to reality,
as one not yet realized but demanding to be integrally carried
out. It provides an imperative prescription.
Summing up these distinctions, we can say that an idea of
moral or political order can either be ultimate, like the com
munity of saints, or for the here and now, and if the latter, it
can either be hermeneutic or prescriptive.
The modern idea of order, in contradistinction to the medi
eval Christian ideal, was seen from the beginning as for the
here and now. But it definitely migrates along a path, run
ning from the more hermeneutic to the more prescriptive.
As used in its original niche by thinkers like Grotius and
Pufendorf, it offered an interpretation of what must underlie
established governments; grounded on a supposed founding
contract, these enjoyed unquestioned legitimacy. Natural law
theory at its origin was a hermeneutic of legitimation.
But already with Locke, the political theory can justify
 revolution, indeed, make revolution morally imperative in point indicated) realizable. In othe
r words, the image of order
certain circumstances; at the same time, other general fea carries a definition not only of what
is right, but of the con
tures of the human moral predicament provide a hermeneutic text in which it makes sense to striv
e for and hope to realize
of legitimacy in relation to, for instance, property. Later on the right (at least partially).
down the line, this notion of order will be woven into redac It is clear that the images of mor
al order that descend
tions demanding even more revolutionary changes, including through a series of transformation
s from that inscribed in the
in relations of property, as reflected in influential theories natural law theories of Grotius and
Locke are rather different
such as those of Rousseau and Marx, for instance. from those embedded in the socia
l imaginary of the premod
Thus, while moving from one niche to many and migrating ern age. Two important types of
premodern moral order are
from theory into social imaginary, the modern idea of order worth singl ing out here, because
we can see them being gradu
also travels on a third axis and the discourses it generates are ally taken over, displaced, or mar
ginalized by the Grotian
strung out along the path from the hermeneutic to the pre
Loc ean strand during the transitio
8
n to political modernity.

9
scriptive. In the process, it comes to be intricated with a wide One IS based on the idea of the Law
of a people, which has gov
range of ethical concepts, but the resulting amalgams have erned this people since time out of
mind and which, in a sense,
in common that they make essential use of this understand defines it as a people. This idea
seems to have been wide
ing of political and moral order that descends from modern spread among the Indo-European
tribes who at various stages
natural law theory. erupted into Europe. It was very
powerful in seventeenth
century England under the guise
of the Ancient Constitution
This three-axis expansion is certainly remarkable. It cries out and became one of the key justi
fying ideas of the rebellion
for explanation; unfortunately, it is not part of my rather nar against the king.2
rowly focused intentions to offer a causal explanation of the This case should be enough to show
that these notions are
rise of the modern social imaginary. I will be happy if I can not alway s conservative in import.
But we should also include
clarify somewhat the forms it has taken. But this by its very in this category the sense of norm
ative order that seems to
nature will help to focus more sharply the issues of causal ex have been carried on through gene
rations in peasant commu
planation, on which I offer some random thoughts later. For ,rnties and out of which they deve
loped a picture of the "moral
the moment, I want to explore further the peculiar features economy," from which they coul
d criticize the burdens laid
of this modern order. on them by landlords or the exac
tions levied on them by state
A crucial point that ought to be evident from the fore and church.3 Here again, the recu
rring idea seems to have
going is that the notion of moral order I am using goes beyond heen that an original acceptable
distribution of burdens had
some proposed schedule of norms that ought to govern our been displaced by usurpation and
ough t to be rolled back .
mutual relations and/or political life. What an understanding The other type of mor al order is orga
nized around a notion
of moral order adds to an awareness and acceptance of norms of a hierarchy in society that expr
esses and corresponds to a
is an identification of features of the world or divine action or hierarchy in the cosmos. These were
often theorized in lan
human life that make certain norms both right and (up to the guage drawn from the Platonic-Ari
stotelian concept of Form,
 but the underlying notion also emerges strongly in theories
of correspondence: for example, the king is in his kingdom
as the lion among animals, the eagle among birds, and so on.
It is out of this view that the idea emerges that disorders in
the human realm will resonate in nature, because the very
order of things is threatened. The night on which Duncan
was murdered was disturbed by "lamenting heard i ' the air;
strange screams of death," and it remained dark even though
day should have started. On the previous Tuesday, a falcon
had been killed by a mousing owl and Duncan's horses turned
wild in the night, "Contending 'gainst obedience, as they
would / Make war with mankind."4
10 In both these cases, particularly in the second, we have an
order that tends to impose itself by the course of things; vio
lations are met with a backlash that transcends the merely
human realm. This seems to be a very common feature in
premodern ideas of moral order. Anaximander likens any
deviation from the course of nature to injustice, and says
that whatever resists nature must eventually "pay penalty and
retribution to each other for their injustice according to the
assessment of time."s Heraclitus speaks of the order of things
in similar terms, when he says that if ever the sun should de
viate from its appointed course, the Furies would seize it and
drag it back.6 And of course, the Platonic Forms are active in
shaping the things and events in the world of change.
In these cases, it is very clear that a moral order is more
than just a set of norms; it also contains what we might call
an "ontic" component, identifying features of the world that
make the norms realizable. The modern order that descends
from Grotius and Locke is not self-realizing in the sense in
voked by Hesiod or Plato or the cosmic reactions to Duncan's
murder. It is therefore tempting to think that our modern
notions of moral order lack altogether an ontic component.
But this would be a mistake. There is an important difference,
but it lies in the fact that this component is now a feature
about us humans, rather than one touching God or the cos
mos, and not in the supposed absence altogether of an ontic
dimension.
What is peculiar to our modern understanding of order
stands out most clearly if we focus on how the idealizations
of natural law theory differ from those that were dominant
before. Premodern social imaginaries, especially those of the
hierarchical type, were structured by various modes ofhierar
chical complementarity. Society was seen as made up of differ
ent orders. These needed and complemented each other, but
this didn't mean that their relations were truly mutual, be
cause they didn't exist on the same level. Rather, they formed 11
a hierarchy in which some had greater dignity and value than
others. An example is the often repeated medieval idealiza
tion of the society of three orders: oratores, bellatores, labora
tores tho s e who pray, those who fight, and those who work.
-
It was clear that each needed the others, but there is no doubt
that we have here a descending scale of dignity; some func
tions were in their essence higher than others.
It is crucial to this kind of ideal that the distribution of
functions is itself a key part of the normative order. It is not
just that each order ought to perform its characteristic func
tion for the others, granted they have entered these relations
of exchange, while we keep the possibility open that things
might be arranged rather differently (e.g., in a world where
everyone does some praying, some fighting, and some work
,ing). No, the hierarchical differentiation itself is seen as the
proper order of things. It was part of the nature or form of
society. In the Platonic and N eoplatonic traditions, this form
was already at work in the world, and any attempt to de
viate from it turned reality against itself. Society would be
denatured in the attempt. Hence the tremendous power of
the organic metaphor in these earlier theories. The organism
 seems the paradigm locus of forms at work, striving to heal its individuals and their debt of mutal servic
e, and the divisions
wounds and cure its maladies. At the same time, the arrange fall out as they can discharge this debt most
effectively.
ment of functions that it exhibits is not simply contingent; it Thus Plato, in book 21 of the Republic, starts
out by reason
.mg
from the non-self-sufficiency of the indiv
tor an order of mutual service.
is "normal" and right. That the feet are below the head is how idual to the need
it should be. But quite rapid ly it becomes
The modern idealization of order departs radically from dear that the structure of this order is the
basic point. The
this. It is not just that there is no place for a Platonic-type last doubt is removed when we see that
this order is meant to
Form at work: connected to this, whatever distribution of stand in analogy and interaction with the
normative order in
functions a society might develop is deemed contingent; it thp soul. By contrast, in the mode rn ideal,
the whole point is
will be justified or not instrumentally; it cannot itself define the mutual respect and service, however
achieved.
the good. The basic normative principle is, indeed, that the . . 1 have mentioned two differences that
distinguish this
members of society serve each other's needs, help each other, Ideal from the earlier, Platonic-modeled order
s of hierarchi
12 in short, behave like the rational and sociable creatures they j;aJ complementarity: the Form is no longer at
work in reality, 13
are. In this way, they complement each other. But the par and the distribution of functions is not itself
normative. A
ticular functional differentiation they need to take on to do third difference goes along with this. For the Plato
nic-derived
this most effectively is endowed with no essential worth. It theories, the mutual service that classes rende
r to each other
is adventitious and potentially changeable. In some cases, it when they stand in the right relation inclu
t the condition of their highest virtue
des bringing them
may be merely temporary, as with the principle of the an ; indeed, this is the ser
cient polis, that we may be rulers and ruled in turn. In other vicE' that the whole order, as it were, renders
to all its mem
cases, it requires lifetime specialization, but there is no inher bpfS. But in the mode rn ideal, mutual respect
and servic e is
ent value in this and all callings are equal in the sight of God. directed toward serving our ordinary goals:
life, liberty, suste-
In one way or the other, the modern order gives no ontological ancE' of self and family. The organization of
society, as I said
status to hierarchy or any particular structure of differentia ab ve. is judged not on its inherent form, but instru
mentally.
tion. we can add that what this organization is instru
l t;oncems the basic conditions of existe
w
mental
In other words, the basic point of the new normative order nce as free agents,
is the mutual respect and mutual service of the individuals rather than the excellence of virtue-although
L at we need a high degree of virtue to play our
we may judge
who make up society. The actual structures were meant to proper part
serve these ends and were judged instrumentally in this light. in this.
The difference might be obscured by the fact that the older Our primary service to each other was thus (to
"uage of a later age) the provision of collec
use the lan
orders also ensured a kind of mutual service: the clergy prays tive security, to
for the laity, and the laity defend/work for the clergy. But the J'ender our lives and property safe under law. But
we also serve
crucial point is just this division into types in their hierarchi "h other in practicing economic exchange. These two
main
cal ordering, whereas in the new understanding, we start with t:nds, security and prosperity, are now the princi
pal goals of

organized society, which itself can come to be seen a some the means of hs
i Preservatio n....For the desire, strong
thing in the nature of a profitable exch ge aong l tS con desire of Preserving his Life
and Being having been
.
stituent members.The ideal social order IS one In whICh our planted in him, as a Principl
e of Action by God himself,
purposes mesh, and each in furthering himself helps othe s. : Reason, which was the voic
e of God in him, could not
This ideal order was not thought to be a mere human In but teach him and assure him
, that pursuing that natu
vention. Rather, it was designed by God, an order in which ral Inclination he had to pre
serve his Being, he followed
everything coheres according to God's purposes.Later in the the Will of his Maker.7
eighteenth century, the same model is projected o the cos
Being endowed with reason,
mos, in a vision of the universe as a set of perfectly Interlock we see that not only our live
s
but that of all humans are to
ing parts, in which the purposes of each kind of creature mesh be preserved.In addition,
God
made us sociable beings, so
with those of all the others. that "every one as he is bou
nd
to preserve himself, and not
This order sets the goal for our constructive activity, insofar quit his Station wilfully; so
by
14
the like reason when his Pre
as it lies within our power to upset it or realize it.Of course, servation comes not in com
15
pe
tition, ought he, as much as
when we look at the whole, we see how much the order is al- he can, to preserve the rest
of
Mankind."B
ready realized. But when we cast our eye on human affairs,
. . Similarly, Locke reasons that
we see how much we have deviated from it and upset It; It God gave us our powers of
reason and discipline so that
becomes the norm to which we should strive to return. we could most effectively
. go
about the business of preservi
This order was thought to be evident in the nature of things. ng ourselves.It follows that
we
ought to be "Industrious and
Of course, if we consult revelation, we also find the demand Rational."g The ethic of disc
i
pline and improvement is itse
formulated there that we abide by it.But reason alone can tell lf a requirement of the natu

. ral order that God had designe
us God's purposes. Living things, including ourselves, stnve d.The imposition of order
by
human will is itself called for
to preserve themselves.This is God's doing: by his scheme.
We can see in Locke's form
ulation how much he sees mu
God having made Man, and planted in him, as in all tual service in terms of profitabl
e exchange."Economic" (i.e.
other Animals, a strong desire of Self-preservation, and ,
ordered, peaceful, productive
) activity has become the mod
el
furnished the World with things fit for Food and Ray for .human behavior and the key
to harmonious coexistence
ment and other Necessaries of Life, Subservient to his .
1n contrast to the theories of
hierarchical complementarity
design, that Man should live and abide for so e time we meet in a zone of concord and
,
mutual service, not to the ex
upon the Face of the Earth, and not that so cunous an (ent that we transcend our ord
inary goals and purposes, but
wonderful a piece of Workmanship by its own Negh ,
n the contrary, in
the process of carrying them
gence, or want of Necessities, should perish
gain . . .
. to God's design.
out according

God ...spoke to him, (that is) directed hIm by his

Senses and Reason ...to the use of those things which 'This idealization was at the
outset profoundly out of sy
nch
were serviceable for his Subsistence, and given him as with the way things in fact
ran, and thus with the effe
ctive
 Hierar to _rebel not to the unorganized masses, but to the "subor
social imaginary on just about every level of society.
people's dinate magistrates." This was also the basis of Parliament's
chical complementarity was the principle on which
from the kingd om to the rehellion against Charles I.
lives effectively operated, all the way
famil y. This long march is perhaps ending only today. Or perhaps
city to the diocese to the parish to the clan and the
the case we too are victims of a mental restriction, for which our pos
We still have some lively sense of this disparity in
in our time that the terity will accuse us of inconsistency or hypocrisy. In any
of the family, because it is really only
en men ase. some very important tracts of this journey happened
older images of hierarchical complementarity betwe
this very recently. I mentioned contemporary gender relations in
and women are being comprehensively challenged. But
the mode rn this regard, but we should also remember that it wasn't very
is a late stage on a long march, a process in which
above, long ago when whole segments of our supposedly modern
idealization, advancing along the three axes discussed
nary society remained outside of this modern social imaginary. Eu
has connected up with and transformed our social imagi
quenc es. i!'en Weber has shown how many communities of French peas
on virtually every level, with revolutionary conse
17
16
ed ants were transformed only late in the nineteenth century and
The very revolutionary nature of the consequences ensur
would fail to see its inducted into France as a nation of 40 million individual citi
that those who first took up this theory
us today. zens.lO He makes plain how much their previous mode of life
application in a host of areas that seem obvious to
of lepended on complementary modes of action that were far
The powerful hold of hierarchically complementary forms
servan t in the house from equal, especially but not only between the sexes; there
life-in the family, between master and
en edu was also the fate of younger siblings who renounced their
hold, between lord and peasant on the domain, betwe
the new hare of the inheritance to keep the family property together
cated elite and the masses -made it seem evident that
certai n bound s. -and viable. In a world of indigence and insecurity, of perpetu
principle of order ought to be applied within
seems ally threatening dearth, the rules of family and community
This often was not even perceived as a restriction. What
Whigs - emed the only guarantee of survival. Modern modes of indi
to us flagrant inconsistency, when eighteenth-century
of the peopl e, vidualism seemed a luxury, a dangerous indulgence.
defended their oligarchic power in the name
com This is easy to forget, because once we are well installed in
for instance, was for the W hig leaders themselves just
the modern social imaginary, it seems the only possible one,
mon sense.
of he only one that makes sense. After all, are we not all indi
In fact, they were drawing on an older understanding
order, of \iduals? Do we not associate in society for our mutual benefit?
"people," one stemming from a premodern notion of
a peopl e is consti tuted How else to measure social life?
the first type mentioned above, where
out of Our embedding in modern categories makes it very easy for
as such by a Law that alway s already exists, since time
who s to entertain a quite distorted view of the process, and this in
mind. This Law can confer leadership on some elements,
Even revolu tions (or two respects. First, we tend to read the march of this new prin
thus quite naturally speak for the people.
carrie d ciple of order, and its displacing of traditional modes of com
what we consider such) in early modern Europe were
rcho pJ mentarity, as the rise of "individualism" at the expense of
out under this understanding, as, for instance, the mona
accord ed the right -,;u:mmunity." Yet, the new understanding of the individual
macbs in the French wars of religion, who
 has as its inevitable flip side a new understanding of soci al r or lesser degree
of hie
rarchy. There have been isla
ality, the society of mutual benefit, whose functional differ
of qua1ity, lik that of nds
lID
the citizens of the polis, bu
entiations are ultimately contingent and whose members are bea of hierarchy once you place them t they are
III r . .
fundamentally equaL This generally gets lost from view. The in the bigger pic
ot to speak of how alien the
se societies are to modern
individual seems primary because we read the displacemenl 'n!li idualism. What is rat
her surprising is that it wa
of older forms of complementarity as the erosion of commu II, \1.n through to moder s possible
n individualism, not just
, tbory. but
nity as such. We seem to be left with a standing problem ot' on the level
also transforming and pen
etrating the social
how to induce or force the individual into some kind of social 'm mary. Now that this im
aginar has become linked
order, make him conform and obey the rules. :ociptif' of unprecedented power iny hu with
man history, it seems
This recurrent experience of breakdown is real enough. Imp(}',;sible and mad to try
to resist. But we mustn't
But it shouldn't mask from us the fact that modernity is also th achronism of thinking tha fall into
t this was always the case.
the rise of new principles of sociality. Breakdown occurs, as Thf! best antidote to thi
18 - In of the phases
s error is to bring to mind
we can see with the case of the French Revolution, becausl' again
19
of the long and often con
people are expelled from their old forms -through war, rev. bv which this theory has
flic tua l ma rch
ended up achieving such
lution, or rapid economic change-before they can find theIr o r imagination. I will a hold on
be doing some of this as my
feet in the new structures, that is, connect some transformed !'ror . ds. t this stage, I want to pu
arg ument
ll together the preced
practices to the new principles to form a viable social imagi. II' J 'USSIOn and
outline the main features
nary. But this doesn't show that modern individualism is by undt.>rs tanding of moral ord of this modern
POI b, to which I then
er. This can be sketched in
its very essence a solvent of community. Nor that the modern three
political predicament is that defined by Hobbes: How do we
add a fourth:

rescue atomic individuals from the prisoners' dilemma? The Th original idealization
of this order of mutual ben
real, recurring problem has been better defined by Tocque. comes in a theory of rights efit
and of legitimate rule. It
ville, or in our day, Fram;ois Furet. \ ith individual
sta rts
s and conceives society as
established for
The second distortion is the familiar one. The modern prin. th ir sake. Political soc
iety is seen as an instru
ciple seems to us so self-evident-Are we not by nature and omething prepoliticaL ment for
essence individuals?-that we are tempted by a "subtractIOD . " s indiviualism signifies a
rejection of the previously
account of the rise of modernity. We just needed to liberat!' 1 nunant notion of hierarchy
, according to which a huma
ourselves from the old horizons, and then the mutual service h .ng can be a proper moral n
jll a larger social wh
agent only when embedded
conception of order was the obvious alternative left. It needed ole, whose very nature is
no inventive insight or constructive effort. Individualism and a hierarchical
to exhibit
complementarity. In its ori
mutual benefit are the evident residual ideas that remain after rrutian-Lockean theory gin al form the
you have sloughed off the older religions and metaphysics. 'Ihich Aristotle's is the mo
stands against all those vie

s of
But the reverse is the case. Humans have lived for mos\. n can be a fully com
st prominent, that deny
petent human subject out
t ath
of their history in modes of complementarity, mixed with a " cietv; sid e of
 As this idea of order advances and generates new re
ltrms of the defense of individuals' rights. Freedom is cen
I ral
dactions, it becomes connected again with a philosophi
to these rights. The importance of freedom is attested
cal anthropology that once again defines humans as so
m the requirement that political society be founded on the
cial beings, incapable of functioning morally on their own.
(. nsent of those bound by it.
If we reflect on the context in which this theory was
Rousseau, Hegel, and Marx provide earlier examples, and
I I rrative. we can see that the crucial emphasis on free
they are followed by a host of thinkers in our day. But I
see these still as redactions of the modern idea, because
clom was overdetermined. The order of mutual benefit is an
what they posit as a well-ordered society incorporates re
I a1 to be constructed. It serves as a guide for those who
lations of mutual service between equal individuals as a
want to establish a stable peace and then remake society to
crucial element. This is the goal, even for those who think
ring it closer to its norms. The proponents of the theory
that the bourgeois individual is a fiction and that the goal
already see themselves as agents who, through disengaged,
ip1ine d action, can reform their own lives as well as the
can be achieved only in a communist society. Even con
20
.
I

21
nected to ethical concepts antithetical to those of the natu
larger '!Dcial order. They are buffered, disciplined selves.
ral law theorists, and indeed, closer to the Aristotle they re
Fr-- agency is central to their self-understanding. The em
jected, the kernel of the modern idea remains an ideeforce
phasis on rights and the primacy of freedom among them
in our world.
d psn'l just stem from the principle that society should
2. As an instrument, political society enables these individu e '"t for the sake of its members; it also reflects the holders'
als to serve each other for mutual benefit, both in providing
TIS;;' of their own agency and of the situation that agency
security and in fostering exchange and prosperity. Any dif
normatively demands in the world, namely, freedom.
ferentiations within society are to be justified by this telos;
Thus. the ethic at work here should be defined just as
no hierarchical or other form is intrinsically good.
mueh in terms of this condition of agency as in terms of
Ill .. demands of the ideal order. We should think of it as an
The significance of this, as we saw above, is that thr
mutual service centers on the needs of ordinary life, rather
ethic of freedom and mutual benefit. Both terms in this
than aiming to secure for individuals the highest virtue. It
-pression are essential. That is why consent plays such
aims to secure their conditions of existence as free agents.
an important role in the political theories that derive from

I ",. ethic.
Here, too, later redactions involve a revision. With Rous
seau, for instance, freedom itself becomes the basis for a
new definition of virtue, and an order of true mutual bene
-mming up, we can say that (1) the order of mutual bene
fit becomes inseparable from one that secures the virtue
ht II lds between individuals (or at least moral agents who
of self-dependence. But Rousseau and those who followed
If mdependent of larger hierarchical orders); (2) the benefits
him still put the central emphasis on securing freedom.
rucially include life and the means to life, although secur-
equality, and the needs of ordinary life.
ing t.h se relates to the practice of virtue; and (3) the order is
3. The theory starts with individuals, whom political society
fII t to secure freedom and easily finds expression in terms
must serve. More important, this service is defined in
of rights. To these we can add a fourth point:
 4. These rights, this freedom, this mutual benefit is to be
secured to all participants equally. Exactly what is meant
by equality will vary, but that it must be affirmed in some
form follows from the rejection of hierarchical order.

2 What Is a KSucial Imaginary"?

These are the crucial features, the constants that recur in the
modern idea of moral order, through its varying redactions.

I
22
have used the term "social imaginary" several times in
the preceding pages. Perhaps the time has come to make
clearer what is involved.
By social imaginary, I mean something much broader and
deeper than the intellectual schemes people may entertain
when they think about social reality in a disengaged mode. I
am thinking, rather, of the ways people imagine their social
existence, how they fit together with others, how things go on
.between them and their fellows, the expectations that are nor
mally met, and the deeper normative notions and images that
underlie these expectations.
There are important differences between social imaginary
and social theory. I adopt the term imaginary (i) because my
focus is on the way ordinary people "imagine" their social
surroundings, and this is often not expressed in theoretical
terms, but is carried in images, stories, and legends. It is also (
the case that (ii) theory is often the possession of a small mi
nority, whereas what is interesting in the social imaginary is
'thaI it is shared by large groups of people, if not the whole
society. Which leads to a third difference: (iii) the social imagi
nary is that common understanding that makes possible com
mon practices and a widely shared sense of legitimacy.
 It often happens that what start offas theories held by a few
people come to infiltrate the social imaginary, first of elites,
perhaps, and then of the whole society. This is what has hap
pened, gross o modo, to the theories of Grotius and Locke, al
though the transformations have been many along the way
and the ultimate forms are rather varied.
Our social imaginary at any given time is complex. It in
corporates a sense of the normal expectations we have of each
other, the kind of common understanding that enables us
to carry out the collective practices that make up our social
life. This incorporates some sense of how we all fit together
in carrying out the common practice. Such understanding is
24 both factual and normative; that is, we have a sense of how
things usually go, but this is interwoven with an idea of how
they ought to go, of what missteps would invalidate the prac
tice. Take our practice of choosing governments through gen
eral elections. Part of the background understanding that
makes sense of our act of voting for each one of us is our aware
ness of the whole action, involving all citizens, each choosing
individually but from among the same alternatives, and the
compounding of these micro choices into one binding, collec
tive decision. Essential to our understanding of what is in
volved in this kind of macro decision is our ability to identify
what would constitute a foul: certain kinds of influence, buy
ing votes, threats, and the like. This kind of macrodecision,
in other words, has to meet certain norms if it is to be what
it is meant to be. For instance, if a minority could force all
others to conform to their orders, the result would cease to
be a democratic decision.
Implicit in this understanding of the norms is the ability
to recognize ideal cases (e.g., an election in which each citi
zen exercised to the maximum his or her judgment autono
mously, in which everyone was heard). And beyond the ideal
stands some notion of a moral or metaphysical order, in the
context of which the norms and ideals make sense.
What I'm calling the social imaginary extends beyond the
immediate background understanding that makes sense of
our particular practices. This is not an arbitrary extension of
the concept, because just as the practice without the under
"tanding wouldn't make sense for us and thus wouldn't be
possible, so this understanding supposes, if it is to make
"ense, a wider grasp of our whole predicament: how we stand
to each other, how we got to where we are, how we relate to
other groups, and so on.
This wider grasp has no clear limits. That's the very na
ture ofwhat contemporary philosophers have described as the 25
'background."l It is in fact that largely unstructured and in
articulate understanding of our whole situation, within which
particular features of our world show up for us in the sense
they have. It can never be adequately expressed in the form of
explicit doctrines because of its unlimited and indefinite na
ture. That is another reason for speaking here of an imaginary
and not a theory.
The relation between practices and the background under
standing behind them is therefore not one-sided. If the under
standing makes the practice possible, it is also true that it
is the practice that largely carries the understanding. At any
given time, we can speak of the "repertory" of collective ac \
tions at the disposal of a given group of society. These are
the common actions that they know how to undertake, all the
'Way from the general election, involving the whole society, to
knowing how to strike up a polite but uninvolved conversation
with a casual group in the reception hall. The discriminations
'WI" have to make to carry these off, knowing whom to speak
to and when and how, carry an implicit map of social space,
of what kinds of people we can associate with in what ways
 con
and in what circumstances. Perhaps I don't initiate the The mode of address says something about the footing we
super ior to me or stand on with our addressees. The action is forceful; it is
versation at all if the group are all socially
n.
outrank me in the bureaucracy or consist entirely of wome meant to impress, perhaps even to threaten certain conse
This implicit grasp of social space is unlike a theoretical quences if our message is not heard. But it is also meant to
of
description of this space, distinguishing different kinds persuade; it remains this side of violence. It figures the ad
people and the norms connected to them. The understand dressee as one who can be, must be, reasoned with.
same
ing implicit in practice stands to social theory in the The immediate sense of what we're doing, getting the mes
nmen t
relation that my ability to get around a familiar enviro aage to the government and our fellow citizens that the cuts
to
stands to a (literal) map of this area. I am very well able must stop, say, makes sense in a wider context, in which we
ed the stand point of l:!ee ourselves as standing in a continuing relation with others,
orient myself without ever having adopt
his
overview the map offers me. Similarly, for most of human in which it is appropriate to address them in this manner and
grasp
tory and for most of social life, we function through the not. say, by humble supplication or threats of armed insurrec
27
26
t benefi t of theo tion. We can gesture quickly at all this by saying that this kind
we have on the common repertory, withou
retical overview. Humans operated with a social imagi
nary of demonstration has its normal place in a stable, ordered,
busin ess of theor izing about democratic society.
well before they ever got into the
themselves.2 This does not mean that there are not cases-Manila 1985,
the
Another example might help to make more palpable Tianenmen 1989-where armed insurrection would be per
it under stand ing. Let's say we fectly justified. But precisely the point of this act in those cir
breadth and depth of this implic
act is alread y
organize a demonstration. This means that this cumstances is to invite ty ranny to open up to a democratic
rs,
in our repertory. We know how to assemble, pick up banne transition.
t to remai n within cer We can see how the understanding of what we're doing
and march. We know that this is mean
tain bounds, both spatially (don't invade certain spaces
) and right now (without which we couldn't be doing this action)
old of
in the way it impinges on others (this side of a thresh makes the sense it does because of our grasp on the wider
aggressivity, no violence). We understand the ritual . predicament: how we continuously stand or have stood in re
The background understanding that makes this act pos lation to others and to power. This, in turn, opens out wider
of it is
sible for us is complex, but part of what makes sense perspectives on where we stand in space and time: our rela
some picture of ourselves as speaking to others to whom we tion to other nations and peoples (e.g., to external models of
human
are related in a certain way -say, compatriots, or the democratic life we are trying to imitate, or of tyranny we are
addre sser and addre ssees, trying to distance ourselves from) and also where we stand in
race. There is a speech act here,
this relatio n
and some understanding of how they can stand in ur history, in the narrative of our becoming, whereby we rec
some
to each other. There are public spaces; we are already in tr'gnize this capacity to demonstrate peacefully as an achieve
kind of conversation with each other. Like all speec h acts, it ment of democracy, hard-won by our ancestors or something
ect of a
is addressed to a previously spoken word in the prosp \\I aspire to become capable of through this common action.

to-be-spoken word.s This sense of standing internationally and in history can be

 invoked in the iconography of the demonstration itself, as in
is originally just an idealization grows into a complex imagi
Tianenmen in 1989, with its references to the French Revolu
nary through being taken up and associated with social prac
tion and its citation of the American case through the Statue
tices, in part traditional ones but ones often transformed by
of Liberty.
the contact. This is crucial to what I called above the exten
The background that makes sense of any given act is thus
sion of the understanding of moral order It couldn't have be
.
wide and deep. It doesn't include everything in our world, but
wme the dominant view in our culture without this penetra
the relevant sense-giving features can't be circumscribed; be
tion/transformation of our imaginary.
cause of this, we can say that sense giving draws on our whole
We see transitions of this kind happening, for instance, in
world, that is, our sense of our whole predicament in time and
the great founding revolutions of our contemporary Western
space, among others and in history.
"World, the American and the French. The transition was much
An important part of this wider background is what I called
smoother and less catastrophic in one case, because the ideal
above a sense of moral order. I mean by this more than just a
28
ization of popular sovereignty connected relatively unprob

29
grasp on the norms underlying our social practice, which are
It'matically with an existing practice of popular election of as-
part of the immediate understanding that makes this prac
emblies, whereas in the other case, the inability to translate
tice possible There also must be a sense, as I stated above, of
. thp same principle into a stable and agreed set of practices
what makes these norms realizable. This too, is an essential
was an immense source of conflict and uncertainty for more
-
part of the context of action. People don't demonstrate for the
than a century. But in both these great events, there was sO
Ill
impossible, for the utopic4-or if they do, then this becomes
wareness of the historical primacy of theory, which is cen
ipso facto a rather different action. Part of what we're saying tral to the modern idea of a revolution, whereby we set out to
as we march on Tianenmen is that a (somewhat more) demo
emake our political life according to agreed principles. This
cratic society is possible for us, that we could bring it off, in
c nstructivism has become a central feature of modern po
spite of the skepticism of our gerontocratic rulers.
litical culture.
Just what this confidence is based on-for instance, that
What exactly is involved when a theory penetrates and
human beings can sustain a democratic order together, that
transforms the social imaginary? For the most part, people
this is within our human possibilities-will include the
lake up, improvise, or are inducted into new practices. These
images of moral order through which we understand human
ar made sense of by the new outlook, the one first articu
life and history. It ought to be clear from the above that our lal<>d in the theory; this outlook is the context that gives sense
I
images of moral order, although they make sense of some of
the practices. Hence the new understanding comes to be
al'e ssible to the participants in a way it wasn't before. It be
our actions, are by no means necessarily tilted toward the
status quo. They may also underlie revolutionary practice, as ,!! in to define the contours of their world and can eventually
at Manila and Beijing, just as they may underwrite the estab om to count as the taken-for-granted shape of things, too
lished order.
./ vious to mention.
The modern theory of moral order gradually infiltrates But this process isn't just one-sided, a theory making over
and transforms our social imaginary. In this process, what a cial imaginary. In coming to make sense of the action the
 /1

. glossed as it were, given a particular shape as the

/1
theory IS
' .
context of these practIces. Rather like Kant's notion of an ab /1

stract at gory becoming " schemat'1Zed" when it is applied
to reality m space and t'Ime, the theory is schematized in the
/1
,!
dense sphere of common practIce.5

Nor need the process end here. The new praCtl. e, Wl. th the
3 The Specter of
Idealism "
. .
implicit understandmg It generates, can be the baSIS or mod
'
1-
. .
ficatIOns of theory, which in turn can inflect practlce, and
so II
at I'm calling the long march is a process whereby
.
new practIces, or modifications of old ones, either developed
through improvisation among certam . groups and strata of the

30

T
.
populatIOn (e . g., the public sphere among educated elites in he fact that
.

the eighteenth century, trade uruons mo g workers in the
I have started this disc
mo dernity with an
underlYing idea of
ussion of Wes tern
___
...; I t

'neteenth); or else were launched by e tes m uch a way as to Was a theory and
order, which first

: ? .
cruit a larger and larger base (e.g., the acobm orgaruzatIOn
.
may smack to s om
later helped shaped
social imaginaries,

: ;
.
of the sections in Paris). Alternatively, ill the cou se of th rr ing to ideas of an inde
e readers of "idealis
pendent force in
m," the attribut
history. But surely,
slow development and ramification, a set of practIces gra u the causal arrow runs
in the reverse dire
ally changed their meaning for peoPle,
nd henc hel ed to the importance of
ction. For instance,

. I Imagma
constitute a new SOCIa '
,
. ry (the , economy ) . he re- l the economic model
tanding of order must
in the modern und
er
0f the
reflect what was
suIt in all these cases was a profound transormatIOn. happ ening on the
ground, for instanc
' ary in Western societies, and thus 0f the world
e, the rise of merc
. hants, of capitalist
SOCIal Imag
' m f
. agriculture, the forms
reel . " materia
extension of mar
kets. This g ives the
in which we live. cor
list" explanation.
I think this kind of
objection is based on
a false dichotomy,
that between ideas
and material fact
ors as rival causal
cies In fact, agen
. what We see in hu
man history is ran
human practices that ges of
are both at once,
. that is, material prac
es carried
out by human bein
gs in space and
" :rv often time , and
coercively maintain
ed, and at the same
l'-ncep tions, modes time, self
of understanding.
These are often inse
rable, in the way pa
described in the dis
cus sion of social im
naries. just because agi
the self-understan
dings are the ess enti
r ndition of
the practice making al
the s ense that it
does to the
 participants. Because human practices are the kind of thing
that makes sense, certain ideas are internal to them; one
can
not distinguish the two in order to ask the question Which
causes which?
Materialism, if it is to make any sense, has to be formulated
differently, somewhat in the way G. A. Cohen does in his mas
terful account of historical materialism. 1 It would be a thesis
to the effect that certain motivations are dominant in history
those for material things, say, economic ones, for the means
to
life or perhaps power. This might explain a progressive tram
formation of the modes of production toward "higher" forms.
In any given case, a certain mode would require certain ideas.
32
. it is
legal forms, generally accepted norms, and the rest Thus,
recognized in Marxist theory that fully developed capitalis
m But just because ideas come in such packages, it might be
is incompatible with feudal conditions oflabor; it requires
for
and sell their labor
mally (legally) free laborers who can move
as they see fit.
The materialist thesis here says that in any such package
of
mode of production and legal forms and ideas, it is the former
that is the crucial explanatory factor. The underlying moti
vation pushing agents to adopt the new mode also led them
l to
to adopt the new legal forms, because these were essentia
that mode. The form of the explanation here is teleological.
not a matter of efficient causation. An efficient causal relation
is supposed and incorporated in the historical account:
be
cause the legal forms facilitate the capitalist mode (efficient
causation), agents whose fundamental draw was to this
mode
st un
were induced to favor the new legal forms (even if at fir
conscious of what they were doing) . This is an in-order-to ex
planation, or in other words, a teleological account . Ii
be
It must be said that materialism, as so formulated,
cost of being implausible as a uni
comes coherent, but at the
can
versal principle. There are lots of contexts in which we
discern that the economic motive is primary and explain
s thr
( ptl n of certain moral ideas, as when advertisers in the
J9b adopt the new language of expressive individualism
.10<1 b me eventually inducted into the new ideals. But an
I <J u n in economic terms of the spread of the Reformation
d ' I rin of salvation by faith is not very plausible. The only
n 'wl rule in history is that there is no general rule identify
II . 011der of motivation as always the driving force. Ideas
or
hay co me in history wrapped up in certain practices, even
I tl/( f ,lre only discursive practices. But the motivations that
drh toward the adoption and spread of these packages may
l] varied: indeed, it is not even clear that we have a ty-
I . gv d' such motivations (economic vs. political vs. ideal,
\
t , rhai iF valid throughout human history.
33
hdpful and also might dissipate any unease over idealism to
little about how the new idea of moral order came to
qUi r the strength that eventually allowed it to shape the
a 11
- Ial imaginaries of modernity.
I havt> already mentioned one context, in a sense the origi
nal hu lO of this modern idea of order, in the discursive prac
Ii theorists reacting to the destruction wrought by the
religion. Their aim was to find a stable basis of legiti
Jndn bt:yond confessional differences. But this whole attempt
r u
III tl. t be placed in a still broader context: what one might
II thf' taming or domestication of the feudal nobility, which
\\ nt on from the end of the fourteenth and into the sixteenth
IU ry. I mean the transformation of the noble class from
!lu-independent warrior chieftains, often with extensive foI
I iog,.. who in theory owed allegiance to the king but in prac
quite capable of using their coercive power for all
of ends unsanctioned by royal power, to a nobility of ser
w r..
Jr
the Crown/nation, who might often serve in a mili
tapacity but were no longer capable of acting indepen-
111 ".
\
in this capacity.
 In England, the change came about essentially under the
Tudors, who raised a new service nobility over the remnants
of the old warrior caste that had laid waste the kingdom in
the Wars of the Roses. In France, the process was longer and
more conflictual, involving the creation of a new noblesse de
robe alongside the older noblesse d'epee.
This transformation altered the self-understanding of
noble and gentry elites, their social imaginary not of the whole
society, but of themselves as a class or order within it. It
brought with it new models of sociability, new ideals, and
new notions of the training required to fulfill their role. The
ideal was no longer that of the semi-independent warrior, the
34 preux chevalier, with the associated honor code, but rather
that of the courtier, acting alongside others in advising and
serving royal power. The new gentleman required not prin
cipally a training in arms, but a humanistic education that
would enable him to become a civil governor. The function
was now advising and persuading, first colleagues and ulti
mately the ruling power. It was necessary to cultivate the
capacities of self-presentation, rhetoric, persuasion, winning
friendships, looking formidable, accommodating, and pleas
ing. Where the old nobles lived on their estates surrounded
by retainers, who were their subordinates, the new top people
had to operate in courts or cities, where the hierarchical rela
tions were more complex, frequently ambiguous, and some
times as yet indeterminate because adept maneuvering could
bring you to the top in a trice (and mistakes could precipitate
an abrupt fall).2
Hence the new importance of humanist training for elites.
Instead of teaching your boy to joust, get him reading Eras
mus or Castiglione, so that he knows how to speak properly,
make a good impression, converse persuasively with others
in a wide variety of situations. This training made sense in
the new kind of social space, the new modes of sociability,
in which noble or gentry children would have to make their
way. The paradigm defining the new sociability is not ritual
ized combat, but conversation, talking, pleasing, being per
suasive, in a context of quasi-equality. I mean by this term
not an absence of hierarchy, because court society was full of
this, but rather a context in which hierarchy has to be partly
bracketed because of the complexity, ambiguity, and indeter
minacy noted above. One learns to talk to people at a great
range of levels within certain common constraints of polite
ness, because this is what being pleasing and persuasive re
quire. You can't get anywhere either if you're always pulling
rank and ignoring those beneath you or so tongue-tied you
can't talk to those above. 35
These qualities were often packed into the term "cour
tesy," whose etymology points to the space where they had
to be displayed. The term was an old one, going back to
the time of the troubadours and passing through the flour
ishing Burgundian court of the fifteenth century. But its
meaning changed. The older courts were places where semi
independent warriors congregated from time to time for
jousts and hierarchical displays around the royal household.
But when Castiglione writes his best-selling Courtier, the con
text is the city-court of the Duchess of Urbino, where the cour
tier has his permanent abode and where his occupation is ad
vising his ruler. Life is a continuous conversation.
'[n its later meaning, courtesy comes to be associated
with another term, "civility." This too invokes a dense back
ground.
A crucial strand in this story starts from the Renaissance
notion of civility, the ancestor of our "civilization," and with
much the same force. It is what we have and those others
don't, those who lack the excellences, the refinements, the im
purtant achievements that we value in our way of life. The
thers were the "savages." As we can see from the terms, the
 underlying epitomizing contrast is between life in the forest IittJ mharrassed to say so out loud. A race riot
at home may
and life in the city. ditur l equanimity, but we rapidly revert.
or

The city, following the ancients, is seen as the site of human In Henaissance times, the elites among whom
this ideal cir
life at its best and highest. Aristotle had made clear thai Lll d were all too aware that it was not only
absent abroad,
humans reach the fullness of their nature only in the polis. hu t aU \ ., imperfectly realized at home. The
common people,
Civility connects to the Latin word that translates polis (civi lhl,uull nol on the level of savages in America
and even being
tas); in fact, derivations of the Greek word were also used with r al)C)W' tht' European savag
e peoples of the margins (e.g.,
closely related sense: in the seventeenth century, the French h Irh,h. the Russians), 4 still had a long
way to go. Even
spoke of an etat police as something they had and the sau lhr- tnl'mhers of ruling elites needed to be
subjected to firm
vages didn't. (Later, I discuss the importance of the ideal of ii Ipline in each new generation, as a Vene
tian law of public
"polished" society.) d 11 a ' n in 1551 proposed.5 Civility was not
something you
So part of what this term designated was the mode of gov 1I d -at a certain stage in history and then
.
relaxed into,
36
n

37
ernment. One must be governed in orderly fashion, under a I II:h i thf' way we tend to think about civili
zation .
code of law, according to which rulers and magistrates exer Lh" lity .reflected the transition that Euro
pean societies
cized their functions . Because of the projection onto them of r g ing through from about 1400, which I
described above
the image of "natural man," savages were held to lack these Ih dmestication of the nobility. The new (or
newly recov
things. But what they really did lack in most cases were th r . J) fd..,a! reflected a new
way of life. If we compare the life
makings of what we think of as a modern state, a continuing , the English nobility and gentry before the
Wars of the
instrument of government in whose hands was concentrated Ro, . \ith the way they lived under the Tudo
rs, the differ-
a great deal of power over the society, so that it was capabl i ,triking: fighting is no longer part of the
normal way
1< '

of remolding this society in important ways.3 As this state de lift f this class, unless it be for wars in the
servi
ce of the
veloped, so it came to be seen as a defining feature of an etal Something like this process continues
over four cen.
row n.

police. ri.. nntil by 1800 a normal civilized country

is one that can
The mode of government required by civility also assured -ure ontinuing domestic peace and in which
commerce
some degree of domestic peace. It didn't consort with row ha I rg Iy replaced war as the paramount activ
ity with which
diness, random and unauthorized violence, or public brawls. ,hllcai society concerns itself- or at least
shares preemi
either in young aristocratic bloods or among the people. Of n , r with war.
course, in early modern times, there was lots of all this. And But 'this change didn't come about witho
ut resistance.
this alerts us to an important difference between the plac nobles were capable of outbursts of mayh
em, carni-
UII r

civility had in Renaissance discourse and that which civiliza teetered on the thin line between mock and
real violence
I !!

tion holds in ours. As we read in our morning papers about un 3.10 QIl were rife, vagabonds could be dange
the massacres in Bosnia or Rwanda or the breakdown of gov al d p 'asant uprisings, provo
rous, city riot
ked by unbearable conditions of
ernment in Liberia, we tend to feel ourselves in tranquil pos Iif, W Tl' recurrent. Civility had to be to some
.
degree a fight-
session of what we call civilization, even though we may feel a 'rclt'd.
 Ordered government was one facet of civility, but
ther it the same age's understanding of civility.u This
'rge'O '- reflects the taming of the aristocracy and the
o ;:;

of the arts and science s.

were others: a certain development
I mt<>rnal pacification of society under the nascent mod
II

like our
what today we would call technology (here again,
ntrol; nIl tate i-xternal war was a different matter}. Both virtues
civilization); the development of rational moral self-co
ent-i n shori. the qualities one needs to bring about cohesion in
and also, crucially, taste, manners, refinem
sound education and polite manners.6 lite social space: "By courtesie and humanitie, all

But these developments, no less than ordered govern

ment I II . mong men are maintained and preserved" and "the

and domestic peace, were seen as the fruits of discipline and hi !, "igm of civilitie [are] quietness, concord, agreiment,
training. A fundamental image was of civility as
the result t n hip and friendship." The virtues promoting social har
lly wild, raw nature .7 Thi ' , and overall peace include, as well as civility, "Courtesie,
of nurture or taming of an origina m

is what underlies the, to us, striking ethnocentrici

ty of our ( nl l!"n
. Sc, Affabilitie, Clemencie, Humanitie."12

ancestors. They didn't see their difference from, say,

Amel" Til discussion of civility points us to a third facet of the
39
38 indians as that between two cultures, as we would say today, III n to a pacified elite. Civility was not a natural condi

but as that between culture and nature.We are traine

d, disci II of human beings, nor was it easily attained. It required
plined, formed, and they are not. The raw meet the
cooked. Ie rts of discipline, the taming of raw nature. The child

It is important not to forget that there was an ambiva lencl" mhodie" the 'natural" condition of lawlessness and has to
in this contrast. Many were tempted to hold that civility
ener I mad ver.13
iF l'
vates us, renders us effete. Perhaps the height of virtue need to understand the notion of civility not just in
I Itl of the taming of the nobility, but in relation to
t'

And of course , ther

be found precisely in unspoilt nature .8
were honorable exceptions to this whole ethnocentric
take, th much more widespread and ambitious attempt to make
such as Montaigne.9 But the genera l unders tandin g of tho" r :ill I'lasses of society through new forms of discipline
who did think within the contrast wild/tamed, whatev
er sid no "t. military, religious, moral-which are a striking

they came down on, cast the process that brough

t us from II rt' European society from at least the seventeenth

the first to the second as one involving severe discipline. Lip nluf')'. This transformation was powered both by the as
man Plr3tlOll to a more complete religious reform, both Protes
sius defined it as "the rod of Circe which tameth both
one is tal
and beast that are touched therewith, whereby each an ' Catholic, and by the ambitions of states to achieve
before they wer military power and hence, as a necessary condition, a
brought in awe and due obedience where m r

all fierce and unruly."lo The "rod of Circe" is a great

literary Ir ptoductive economy. Indeed, these two programs were
I II mterwoven; reforming governments saw religion as a
m

sound easy, but the second par

image and makes discipline
of the phrase indicates that this transformatio n is a hard slog. \ n good source of discipline and churches as handy instru
Civility requires working on yourself, not just leaving
thing m nl and many religious reformers saw ordered social life
over. It involves a strugg le j th ' "'ential expression of conversion.
as they are but making them
reshap e ourselves. Th Puritan notion of the good life, for instance, saw the
bring$ lOl a pillar of a new social order. As against the indo-
So the high Renaissance understanding of courtesy
 lence and disorder of monks, beggars, vagabonds, and idle coming to demand church
reform, members of the same elit
gentlemen, he "betakes himself to some honest and seemly es
-sometimes others, som
etimes the same people -w
ere de
trade, and [does] not suffer his senses to be mortified with veloping/recovering the idea
l of civility, with its demand
idleness."14 This means not just any activity, but one to which s for
a more ordered, less violent
social existence. There was
some
he has given himself as a lifetime's vocation . "He that hath no tension between the two but
also symbiosis. They cam
e to in
honest business about which ordinarily to be employed, no flect each other and, ind
eed, to have an overlappin
g agenda.
settled course to which he may betake himself, cannot please Thus, in this context, the
. re is a com ple x causal story be
God." So said the Puritan preacher Samuel Hieron. 15 hind the fact that the idea
l of civility develop s an acti
ve, trans
These men are industrious, disciplined, do useful work, Jormatory agenda. As tim
e goes on, it is undoubted
ly powered
and above all can be relied on. They have "settled courses" by the escalating demand
for military, and hence fisc
al, power,
and are thus mutually predictable. You can build a solid, de and hence economic perform
ance by industrious, edu
cated
pendable social order on the covenants they make with each disciplined populations.
40
But it is also partly the resu
lt of th
other. They are not tempted to mischief because idleness symbiosis and mutual infl
41
ection with the agenda of
is the principal breeding ground of all sorts of evils: ''An : eform, whereby improveme
nt came to be seen as a dut
religious

idle man's brain becometh quickly the shop of the devil . . . y for
Itself, as we see with the
ethic of neo-Stoicism.
Whereof rise mutinies and mutterings in cities against magis-
Ne atively, it is partly an
attempt to fend off real dan
trates? You can give no greater cause thereof, than 1dleness."16 gers
to SOCIal order and partly
a reaction to practices suc
h as Car
With such men a safe, well-ordered society can be built. nival and feasts of misrule
that had been accepted in
the past
But of course, not everyone will be like them. However, the but had become profoundl
y disturbing to those stri
ving for
Puritan project can cope with this difficulty: the godly were the new ideals. Here's whe
re the symbiosis with reli
to rule; the unregenerate were to be kept in check. The magis
f r plays an obvious role
again, because this kind
gious re
of suscep
trate, as Baxter thought, must force all men "to learn the tibIlity to be upset by the
a feature of the stringe
display of vice has been
very much
word of God and to walk orderly and quietly . . . till they are
nt religious conscience.
brought to a voluntary, personal profession of Christianity."l7 We see clear examples from
the field of sexual moralit
This was, of course, basically the same as the order Calvin y.
The Middle Ages in man
y parts of Europe tolerate
d pros
erected in Geneva. titution, which seemed a
sensible prophylactic aga
inst adul
Thus, while the Calvinist Reformation was defining the tery and rape, with all the
ir disruptive consequences.
IS Even
path to true Christian obedience, it also seemed to be offering t> Council of Konstanz org
.
anized temporary brothe
ls for
the solution to the grave, even frightening social crises of the the large number of partici
pants who flooded into the
town.
age. Spiritual recovery and the rescue of civil order seemed But the new trends in dev
otion tended to emphasize
sexual
to go together. purity and to turn the mai
n focus away from sins
of vio
To put this another way, we can say that while late medieval I :nct' and social division, and
so the attitude to prostit
ution
elites clerical of course, but with a growing lay component, changes. It becomes inconce
' ivable to countenance it,
but it is
were developing ideals of more intense devotion and were also deeply disturbing. A
sort of fascination-repulsi
on arises
 is sharply to distinguish those who are capable of work
continued efforts to
in widespread and
that expresses itself from those who genuinely have no recourse but charity.
is go on; one has
redeem fallen women.
One cannot just let th
The form r are expelled or put to work for very low pay

to act. elites, under

.
and oft n In stIngent conditions. The incapable poor are
e early modern period, t
The upshot is that in th and more
be glven relief, but again in highly controlled condi
nm ore
of these two ideals, tur .
the combined force tIOns, which often ends up involving confinement in insti
e. Their tolerance
tices along a wide rang
against popular prac tutions that in some ways resemble prisons. Efforts are also
and uncontrolled
disorder, rowdiness,
for what they see as made to rehabilitate the children of beggars, to teach them
accepted as normal
What previously was
violence diminishes. a trade, to make them useful and industrious members of
ous. Already dur
cceptable, even scandal
is noW seen as una society.20
continuing after
ing the sixteenth cen
tury, and sometimes
cribing lead to the .

All thes op rations-providing work, relief, training,
otives I have been des
ward, the complex m and rehabilitatIOn-could entail confinement, both as a
launching of four t
ypes of programs: easure of economy and as a measure of control. This be 43

42
ms the period of what has been called, following Michel
involve an im
1. New kinds of poor law
s are enacted. These
before. In the

Fo cault, le grand renfermement (the great confinement),
rsal, from what went
portant shift, even reve und poverty.
which came to involve other classes of helpless people'
an aura of sanctity aro
Middle Ages, there was most famously the insane.21
ous society did
extremely rank-consci 2.
It was not that this , ational government, city governments, church authori
and powerless
empt for the destitute
not have a healthy cont But precisely
ties, or some combination of them, often came down hard
of the social ladder. CI certain elements of popular culture:
at the absolute bottom asion of sanc
charivaris, Car
r person offered an occ
because of this, the poo mval, feasts of misrule, dancing in church. Here also we
hew 25, to help
the discourse of Matt
tification. Following ee a reversal. What had previously been seen as normal
of the things the
a person in need was
to help Christ. One
e and their
hich everybody had been prepared to participate in, no
did to offset their prid eemed utterly condemnable and also, in one sense, pro
powerful of that world
poor. Kings did
r distributions to the
trespasses was to offe eois. Well
toundly disturbing.
and later also rich b ourg
this, as did monasteries, Erasmus condemned the Carnival he saw in Siena in
that alms should
off people left a pro
vision in their wills
at their funeral,
509 as "unchristian" on two grounds: first, it contained
be given to a certain
number of paupers
soul. Contrary

traces of a ciet pa sm," and second, "the people
pray for the deceased's .
. ver-mdulge
who should in turn In hcence. 22 The Elizabethan Puritan Phili

to the Gospel story,

the prayer of Lazarus
, h eard in heaven,
tubes attacked "the horrible vice of pestiferous dan:'
Abraham's b osom.19 .
mg, whICh
might hasten Dives to of a rise
led to "filthy groping and unclean handling"
entury, partly as a result d so became "an introduction to whoredom, a prepara
But in the fifteenth c
sequent flow of
p failures and a con lVf' t wantonnesse, a provocative of uncleanness, and an
in population and cro
cal change in atti
towns, there is a radi
the destitute to the mtrmt to all kinds of lewdness."23
who se principle
poor laws is adopted,
tude. A new series of
 drawn and the resources to pay and arm them. But man

As Burke p oints
out, churchmen had
been criticizing
centun. es.24 What
IS

of thes o dinances posit improvement (as they see it) a :
these aspects of
popular culture for
caus e of
an end III
Itse f_ A we move into the eighteenth century,
intensified, be
religious attack is the ends ofleglslatIOn more and more incorporate the ideas
new is (a) that the at
sacred, and (b) th
ut the place of the of the Enlightenment, putting increasing emphasis on the
the new worries abo ess, p olish,
of orderlin
ity, and its norms productive, material aspects of human activity in the name
the ideal of civil
leading classes from
and refinem ent, have alien ated th e

of he benefits that would accrue to individuals and to

these practices. SOCIety as a whole.28

first two kinds of
enth century, these 4. e see this whole development from another angle if we
3. During the sevente the attempts by
bec om e sub sum ed under a third: look at the proliferation of modes of discipline, of "meth
action giste
absolutist or diri
te structures of ods," of procedures. Some of these arise in the individual
the developing sta rdi
to shape throug o h
and Central Europe, sphere, as methods of self-control, of intellectual or spiri
b ent in France
45
itual, and material
: es the eco nom ic, educational, spir tual development; others are inculcated and imposed in a
nan t
erests of power bu
subj ects, in the int
44 well-being of their context of hierarchical control. Foucault notes how pro
well- ordered Poliz ei
. The ideal of the
also of improvement e grams of training based on the close analysis of physical
the fifteenth to th
staat was uppe rm ost in Germany from
ity

movem nt, breaking it down into parts and then drilling
this dirigiste acti .
y.25 The impetus to
eighteenth centur the Reform atlo , 'people III a standardIzed form of it, multiply in the six
ation in the wake of
was given by the situ see the reorgaIll
teenth century. Their primary locus is, of course ' armies

in whi ch th e rule r of ea ch territory had to

territories) and enfo
rce which inaugurate new modes of military training, but the
zation of the Chu
rch (in Protestant
con t
ol
s me of the principles come to be applied to schools, hos
e attempts at
territories). But th
conformity (in all PItalS, and, later, factories.29
ncompass econOmIC,
next century and e
are extended in the Among methodical programs aimed at the transforma
These covered some .
social, educational,
and moral goals.
tIO of the self, one of the best known was the spiritual ex
explored: the regu
of the same territo
ry we have already erCIses of Loyola, editation directed to spiritual change.
e traditional fes
the supression of som
lation of relief and ut these two key Ideas, meditation directed by method,
eenth century, they
s.26 But in the sixt
tivals and practice Iso crop up a century later in the program proposed by
ng, increase produc
nch out and try to establish schooli ,Descartes (who was, after all, educated by the Jesuits at
bra
rd-working, indus
a more rational, ha
tivity, and inculcate Lafleche).
in their subjects.
ion- oriented outlook
trious, and pro duct aim of inducing
iety was to b e dis ciplined, but with the If take these last two facets together, we see, on the
Soc Wf:'

self- discipline.27 ideal

.
on hand, the develo ment of a new model of elite sociability
m eant imp osing some features of the
In short, this nne('te to the notIOn of civility, in which the paradigm is
the population. Un
civility on wide r and wider strata of nv rsatIon under conditions of quasi-equality; on the other
of to create a popu
nt motive here was hand_ we see the project of extending this civility beyond the
doubtedly, an importa
soldiers could b
edient and effective
lation from which ob
 of the society. There
ruling strata to much broader sections
n of moral order.
are affinities here with the modern notio
st a model of society
Sociability as conversation could sugge
al order, whereas
as mutual exchange rather than hierarchic
the project of transforming nonelites throu
gh iscipline can
remam forever the
mean that the features of civility will not
property of a single class, but are meant
to be spread wider. At
the same time, the very goal of making
people over suggests
, in the semi-Platonic
a break with the older notions of order
and working for
mode of an ideal Form underlying the real
its own realization -or at least again st whate ver infringes it,
at Macbeth's crime. It
as the elements expressed their horror
46
a formula to be real
fits rather with the notion of order as
what the modern
ized in constructive artifice, which is just
n agency through
order offers; societies emerge from huma
l we should follow.
contract, but God has given us the mode
time, there are
These are possible affinities, but at the same
n can give a new
others. For instance, society as conversatio
ule, as it did in Re
relevance to the ideal of republican self-r
ern Europe, particu
naissance Italy and then later in north
War.30 Or it can
larly in England during and after the Civil
agent of socia l transforma
remain captured within that other
tion the "absolute" monarchical state.
at seems to have pushed the elite social consc
iousness
na were
social imagi
decisively into the ambit of the modern
that occurred m the
the developments of the new sociability
eighteenth century, particularly in Engla
n , where the start
a little earlier. This period saw a broad
enmg of the ehte so
cial stratum, those involved in ruling
or administering t e
society, to include those occupied essen
tially with econ IDIc
functions, either because members of the
already dommant
becoming improv
class turned themselves to these functions,
place was opened fOT
ing landlords, for instance, or because a
generally.
merchants, bankers, and the propertied
The conditions of quasi-equality have to
bridge a wider
gap. Without engendering the full-scale conte
mporary notion
of equality, the understanding of membersh
ip in society was
broadened and detached from specific
gentry or noble fea
tures, even while keeping the language
of gentility. The ex
tended understanding of civility, now called
"politeness," re
ma ed dir cted to the goal of producing
harmony and easing
s cIaI relatIOns, but now it had to hold toget
her people from
different classes and operate in a numb
er of new venues, in
cluding coffeehouses, theaters, and garde
ns. 31 As in the earlier
ide of civility entering polite society
involv ed broadening
one s perspectIve and entering into a highe
r mode of being
47
than the merely private, but the emphasis
now is on the virtue
of benevolence and a mode of life less
overtly competitive
han those fostered by earlier warrior
or courtier codes.
Eighteenth-century polite society even gave
rise to an ethic of
sensibility. "
This relative distancing from hierarchy
and the new cen
trality of benevolence brought the age
closer to the modern
model of order described above. At the same
time, the inclu
i n of economic functions in society intensified
the affinity
L tween civility and this notion of order.
This Eighteenth-century transition is in
a sense a crucial
o ne
hart
in the development of Western modernity.
a new kind of self-consci
Polite society
ousness, which one could call
" hi!'torical" in a new sense. It was
not only unprecedentedly
,l\\ 1lrf' f the importance
of its economic underpinnings; it
a1s. had a new understanding of its place in histor
y, as a way
Ilr life that belonged to commercial society, a
stage of history
n"t'entlv , arrived at.
The Eighteenth century generated new:
,I jal theories of history, which saw human
society develop
hrough a series of stages, defined by the
III
form of their
t onomy (e.g., hunter-gath
th ('nntemporary Commercial
erer, agricultural ), culminating in
society.32 This made people see
 e called the taming of t
e obi tY.
the whole transition I hav l
eS,
ification of modern SOCIeti
d WItll
as well as the internal pac
end owe
new 1Ight . Commerce le
doux commerce, was . . -f

'
way u
gate martia l values and the mllita
4 The Great Disembedding
rele
this pow er to
, ending their age-old dom
mance f :
life to a subordinate role
be under
societies could no longer
human culture.33 Political
unt -
terms; one had to take acco
stood simply in perennial
an epoch
happened. Modernity was
the epoch in which things
without precedent .34

I
h '" Ii red above one complex context that might help ex
48 plain the growing force of the modern idea of order, its af
Imit I i' with the developing understanding of civility, even
lIall "ulminating in polite society. But we can also see it in
I'pt>lr and longer-term context, that of the "disembedding"
IIltt. ..- iduals.
Om f the central features of Western modernity, on just
hl.ul an - view, is the progress of disenchantment, the eclipse
Ihp w rId of magic forces and spirits. This was one of
th pn lu ts of the reform movement in Latin Christendom,
hll h I sued in the Protestant Reformation but also trans-

tll! mrces of the attempt to discipline and reorder society,

-rill I in chapter 3, which aimed not only at the reform of
,(mduct but at reforming and remaking societies so
I r nder them more peaceful, more ordered, more indus
lri.
1h ,I wIy remade society was to embody unequivocally
drmands of the Gospel in a stable and, as it was increas
" \ IIndforstood, a rational order. This society had no place
r I It> ambivalent complementarities of the older enchanted
 world: between worldly life and monastic renunciation, be
tween proper order and its periodic suspension in Carnival,
between the acknowledged power of spirits and forces and
their relegation by divine power. The new order was coherent,
uncompromising, all of a piece. Disenchantment brought a
new uniformity of purpose and principle.
The progressive imposition of this order meant t e end
of the unstable postaxial equilibrium. The compromIse be
tween the individuated religion of devotion, obedience, or
rationally understood virtue, on the one hand, and the col
lective, often cosmos-related rituals of whole societies, on the
other, was broken, and in favor of the former. Disenchant
50
ment, reform, and personal religion went together. Just as the
church is at its most perfect when each of its members adhere
to it on their own individual responsibility-and in certain
places, like Congregational Connecticut, this became an ex
plicit requirement of membership -so society itself comes
.
to be reconceived as made up of individuals. The Great DIs
embedding, as I propose to call it, implicit in the axial revo
lution, reaches its logical conclusion.
This involved the growth and entrenchment of a new self
understanding of our social existence, one that gave an un
precedented primacy to the individual. In talking of our self
understanding, I am particularly concerned with what I have
been calling the social imaginary, that is, the way we collec
tively imagine, even pretheoretically, our social life in the con
temporary Western world.
But first, I want to place the revolution in our imaginary
of the past few centuries in the broader sweep of cultural
religious development, as this has generally come to be under
stood. The full scale of this millennial change becomes clearer
if we focus first on some features of the religious life of earlier.
smaller-scale societies, insofar as we can trace them. There
must have been a phase in which all humans lived in such
small-scale societies, even though much of the life of this
epoch can only be guessed at.
A focus on what I call early religion (which partly covers
what Robert ellah, for instance, calls "archaic religion")
demonstrates III three crucial ways how profoundly these
forms of life embed the agent.1
First, socially: in paleolithic and even certain neolithic
tribal societies, religious life is inseparably linked with social
life. Of course, there is a sense in which this is true that is
not particular to early religion. This consists in the obvious
fact that the basic language, categories of the sacred forms of
religious experience, and modes of ritual action av lable to
51
agents in these societies are found in their socially established
religious life. It is as though each such small-scale society has
shape d articlated some common human capacity in its
own ongmal fashIon. There have been dilfusions and borrow
is
:
ut the differences of vocabulary and the gamut of pos
sibilitIes remain extraordinarily various.
What this common human religious capacity is, whether
untically it is to be placed exclusively within the psyches of
,
um beings or whether the psyche must be seen as respond
lng differently to some human-transcending spiritual reality,
e can leave unresolved. Whether something like this is an
mescapable dimension of human life or humans can eventu
allv put it behind them we can also leave open (although obvi-
usiy, the present writer has strong hunches on both these
issues). What stands out, however, is, first, the Ubiquity of
omething like a relation to spirits or forces or powers, which
e recognized as being in some sense higher, not the ordinary
I- tees and animals of everyday life; and second, how differ
<'ntl,' these forces and powers are conceived of and related to.
'hi is ore than just a difference of theory or belief; it is re
cted m a striking difference of capacities and experience,
1n the repertory of ways of living religion.
 Thus, among some peoples, agents fall into trance-like con
more specialized
agency recognize d
ditions that are understood as possession; among others as acting for the gro
In early religion, up.
we primarily relate
(sometimes the same ones), powerful portentous dreams oc to God as a s ociety.
We see both aspects

cur to certain people, among others, shamans feel themsel es
fices among the Din
of this in, for exa
mple, ritual sacri
ka, as they were
to have been transported to a higher world, with others agam, describ ed a half cen
tury ago by Godfr

surprising cures are effected in certain condition , and so on.

ey Lienhardt. On
gents of the sacrifice
the one hand, the
major
, the "masters of
AIl of these are beyond the range of most people m our md the fishing spear,"
are
In a sense "functio
naries," acting for
ern civilization, as each is beyond the range of other earlier the whole society;
other hand, the who on the
le community be
peoples in whose lives this capacity doesn't gure. Thus, for comes involved, rep
the invocations of eats

some people, portentous dreams may be pos ibl but not pos
cused and concent
the masters, until
rated on the single
everyone's attention
is fo
session; for others, possession but not certam kinds of cure, ritual action. It is at
climax "that those the
attending the cerem
and so on. ony are most palp
52
emb ers of a single ably
undifferentiated bod
N ow this fact, that the religious language, capacities, and y." This participa
tIon often takes the
53
form of p ossession
modes of experience available to each of us comes from the by the divinity bein
invoked . 2 g
society in which we are born remains true in a sense of all
Nor is this just the
human beings. Even great innovative religious founders ave ommunity. This
way things happen
to be in a certain
. SOCIety. collective action is
to draw on a preexisting vocabulary available in theIr essential for the effic
uf the ritual. You acy
can't mount a pow
In the end, this shades into the obvious point about human erful invocation of
divinities like this the
language in general: that we all acquire it from the lan age portance of corpora
on your own in the
te action by a com
Dinka world. This "im

groups we grow up in and can transcend what we are gIven munity of which
. individual is really the
an d traditionally a
only by leaning on it. But it is clear that we have moved mto a member is the rea
fOl" the fear which son
individual Dinka
world where spiritual vocabularies have more and more trav feel when they suffer
fortune away from mis
home and kin."3
eled, in which more than one is available to each person, where
This kind of collecti
each vocabulary has already been influenced by many others ve ritual action,
where the principal
agents are acting on
-where, in short, the rather abrupt differences between ht' i own way become
behalf of a commu
nity, whi ch also in
s involved in the
religious lives of people living far from each other are bemg action, seems to figur
VIrtually everywher e
ways up to Our
e in early religion
eroded. and continu es in som
day. Certainly it goes e
More relevant to the Great Disembedding is a second v:ay l ant place as long
on occupying an im
p or
as people live in an
in which early religion was social. The primary agecy of Im "enchanted " world-
I :dd of sp a
irits and forces, prior
mg Weber, call dis
. to what we modern
portant religious action -invoking, praying to, sacrificmg to. s, follow-
.

or propitiating gods or spirits; commg close to t e e powers. .. h;;ating the boun
enchantment . The m
ds" of the agricult
edieval ceremony of
. ural village, for insta
getting healing and protection from them, dIvmmg under m\.o lved the whole nce,
parish and could only
their guidance-was the social group as a whole, or some I ' t.ive act of this be effective as a coI
whole.
 it an that job? married that woman? and the like, then
This embedding in social ritual usually carries with my head be
religio us action gins to swim. I am getting too deep into the very
other feature. Because the most important formative
ed that horizon of my identity to be able to make sense
was that of the collective, and because it often requir of the ques
sts, shama ns, medici ne men, di tion. For most people, something like this is also
certain functionaries -prie true of their
the social order gender.
viners, chiefs- fill crucial roles in the action,
sacrosanct. The point I am trying to make here is that in earlier
in which these roles were defined tended to be soci
religiou s life that was most eties, this inability to imagine the self outside of
This is, of course, the aspect of a particular
ten context extended to membership of that societ
centrally identified and pilloried by the radical Enligh y in its essen
t of tial order. That this is no longer so with us, that many
ment. The crime laid bare here was the entrenchmen of these
exploit ation throug h What would it be like if I were . . . ? questions
forms of inequality, domination, and are not only
re of conceivable but arise as burning practical issues
their identification with the untouchable, sacred structu (Should I
to see the day "when the last king migrate? Should I convert to another religion/no
things. Hence the longing . religion?),
54 55
last priest. " But IS the measure of our disembeddin
had been strangled with the entrails of the g. Another fruit of this is
a time when ur ability to entertain the abstract question
this identification is in fact very old, going back to even where we
I

ous and vicious forms of in cannot make it imaginatively real.

many of the later, more egregi
there were kings What I'm calling social embeddedness is thus partly
equality had not yet been developed, before an
identity thing. From the standpoint of the indivi
and hierarchies of priests. dual's sense
ing of self, it means the inability to imagine oneself
Behind the issue of inequality and justice lies someth outside a cer
the "iden tain matrix. But it also can be understood as a social
deeper, which touches what today we would call reality;
Because here it refers to the way we together imagine our
tity" of the human beings in those earlier societies. social exis
doings of whole groups It'Dce, for instance, that our most important action
their most important actions were the s are those
way . thl:' whole society, which must be structured in a
(tribe, clan, subtribe, lineage), articulated in a certain certain
the fish 'Nay to carry them out. GrOwing up in a world where
(the actions were led by chiefs, shamans, masters of this kind
elves as potent ially social imaginary reigns sets the limits on our sense
ing spear) , they couldn't conceive thems of self.
ly never Embedding thus in society. But this also brings with
disconnected from this social matrix. It would probab it an
" mbedding in the cosmos. For in early religion,
even occur to them to try. the spirits
of con and forces with whom we are dealing are in numerous
To get a sense of what this means, we can think ways
texts that even for us can't easily be thought away. What
would ntricated in the world. We can see examples of this aplenty
erent parents? As an ab if w refer back to the enchanted world of our mediev
I be like if I had been born to diff al an
r: lors: for all that the God they worshipped transcended
stract exercise, this question can be addressed (answe
likl:' t
the
s). Bul. . rId. they nevertheless also had to deal with intraco
the people who were in fact born to those other parent smic
own sense of identit y. pirits and with causal powers that were embedded
if I try to get a grip on this, probing my in things:
taken rdi sacred places, and the like. In early religion,
on the analogy with: what would I be like if I hadn't even the
.
 high gods are often identified with certain features of the Again, there may
be capacities so
world, and where the phenomenon that has come to be called me people can atta
go way beyond the in that
ord'mary human
"totemism" exists, we can even say that some feature of the ones, those of prop
or shamans. But hets
in the end these su
world, an animal or plant species, for instance, is central to b serve well-being
narily understood as ordi-
.
the identity of a group.4 It may even be that a particular geo By contrast, with
Christianity or
graphic terrain is essential to our religious life. Certain places there is a notion Buddh'Ism, fior Inst ' ance,
. of Our good that goes b eyo .
are sacred. Or the layout of the land speaks to us of the origi .mg, that we may gain nd hu man flounsh-
even while failing
nal disposition of things in sacred time. We relate to the an of human flouns . utterly on the scal
h'mg, even through es
such a failing (Iike
cestors and to this higher time through this landscape.5
Besides this relation to society and the cosmos, there is a .:
hi
' .
voung on a cross
) 0r that mvoIves leaving
the field f fl
dymg
.

third form of embedding in existing reality that we can see in

early religion. This is what makes the most striking contrast
:; :!:t: ::: : :
C i i
cl
; ::
ebir h) . T e ara
Y e glOn, IS tha
t It seems to
assert the uncon
5&
ditionaI b enevoIenc
with what we tend to think of as the "higher" religions. What e of God tOWard h
(there is none of umans
the amb'IvaIence .
of early diVmI
57
the people ask for when they invoke or placate divinities and spect), and yet it . ty . this re -
m
redefines our en ds
powers is prosperity, health, long life, fertility; what they ask so as to take us
tlourishing. beyon d
to be preserved from is disease, dearth, sterility, premature this resp ect' early
death. There is a certain understanding of human flourishing
wit mo dern excIUSIv .
religion has some
e hum
fi allIs
' m th'IS has bee
thing in common
here that we can immediately understand and that, however pressed in the sym : n felt and ex-
p athy or paganIs
much we might want to add to it, seems to us quite natura1. m of many mode
Enlightenment peo rn post-
What is absent, and what seems central to the later, "higher" tuart Mill, was as
ple. "agan seIf.-ass
'
valid if not more
'
ertion " thought J
ohn
religions, is the idea that we have to question radically this so, as "Christian
I nial."6 (ThiS IS self-
ordinary understanding, that we are called in some way to go :>ytnpathy felt for
' reIated to but not
rr:
polytheis . ) Wha
qu 'te the same as,
the
i ;;m 1unpreced
beyond it.
This is not to say that human flourishing is the end sought
.' ented, of course, is
iDvl) ves no relation
t ma es modern
the idea that this
t o anything h igh
hum
flouns
an
. hmg
'
Early reIiglOn
by all things. The divine may also have other purposes, some er.
' stands in contrast
of which impact harmfully on us. There is a sense in which, to what many peo
called "postaxial" ple have
religlon
' s. 7 The refere
for early religions, the divine is always more than just well Jas pers called nce IS. to what Karl
the "axiaI age, "8
disposed toward us; it may also be indifferent in some ways, the extraordina
m B . C .E. when
t he last millenniu ry period in
or there may also be hostility or jealousy or anger, which wp Ci' hgl
.
. On app eared s
various "higher " fi
orms of
eemi g1y m . ependently in
have to deflect . Although benevolence, in principle, may have
the upper hand, this process may have to be helped along
ZIl tiuns. marked
l ama. Socrates an

by sueh lOundmg

figures as Confuc
differ ent civiIi-
ius, Gau-
' d the Hebrew pro
by propitiation or even by the action of trickster figures. Bul ,fhe sur phets .
through all this, what remains true is that divinity's benign
prising featur f th
vhat went before what' ; ou
.
aXIaI reli. gions, com
0 ld m other
pared with
purposes are defined in terms of ordinary human flourishing.. h d to predict wor ds have made them
beforehand , is that
they mItl ' " ate a break
in
 all three dimensions of embeddedness: social order, cosm
: nna d unity is inseparable from division. This may seem
human good. Not in all cases nor all at once. Perhaps in
Home IUJIllo tmt of other stories of a Fall, including that related in
ways, Buddhism is the most far-reching, becaus e it radi
a11 /I j 1.. But in contrast with what Christianity has made of
It" If lh Fall, for the Aboriginals the imperative to "follow up" the
undercuts the second dimension: the order of the world
is called into question because the wheel of rebirth mean: aim to recover through ritual and insight their contact
suffering. In Christianity, there is something analogous:
ur Ih tl!l> rder of the original time, relates to this riven and
-1-
world is disordered and must be made anew. But somp p Iml3.Jl'1 d : Jispensation in which good and evil are interwoven.
axial outlooks keep the sense of relation to an ordered cosmu,
, Th fl I no question of reparation of the original rift, or of
as we see in very different ways with Confuc ius and Plato; mp' sation, or of making good the original loss. Ritual
however, they mark a distinction between this and the actual. hr wisdom that goes with it can even bring them to ac
highly imperfect social order, so that the close link to th
' .. /1 I h ' inexorable and "celebrate joyously what could not
. ,-
mos through collective religious life is made problem at) ha eJ."lO The original Catastrophe doesn't separate or
58
: I ,Ile 1iS from the sacred or higher, as in the Genesis story;
Perhaps most fundamental of all is the revisionary stane 59

toward the human good in axial religions. More or less

raol. thef. It ... ntributes to shaping the sacred order we are trying
,. .. ollow up."u
cally, they all call into question the received, seemin
unquestionable understandings of human flourishing.
amI lal digion didn't do away with early religious life. In
hence inevitably also the structures of society and the featuT 'n,!' , features of the earlier practices continued in mod
to define majority religious life for centuries. Modi-
IJW\\'

I fllr
of the cosmos through which this flourishing was suppos
achieved. lIOn. arose, of course, not just from the axial formulations,
We might put the contrast this way: unlike postaxial
reb I.0 Ir m the growth of large-scale, more differentiated,
of I n urhan-t.;entered societies, with more hierarchical orga
gion, early religion involved an acceptance of the order
things in the three dimens ions I have been discu s ng.
In .
lion and embryonic state structures. Indeed, it has been
r b 1 that these, too, played a part in the process of dis
remarkable series of articles on Australian abongmal

" th.11 mbplld ing. .because the very existence of state power entails
gion, W. E . H. Stanner speaks of "the mood of assent
is central to this spirituality. Aboriginals had not set ul ht lll" aU ' mpt to control and shape religious life and the social
PC) I I r it requires, and hence undercuts the sense of intan
"kind of quarrel with life" that springs from the various
axial religious initiatives.9 The contrast is in some waye bllily urrounding this life and these structures.12 I think
\\a'i
a

to miss, because aboriginal mythology, in relating the
the order of things came to be in the Dream Time (thp
ori '.
nal time out of time, which is also "everywhen"), con ' ' 11 '
a number of stories of catastrophe, brought on by tricken
ed ana
deceit, and violence, from which human life recoup
, s thill
reemerged, but in an impaired and divided fashion
. 111
there remains the intrinsic connection between life and
f i.. a 101 to this thesis, and indeed, I invoke something
II lat r on, but for the moment I want to focus on the
II flranee of the axial period.
fh, oesn'1. at once totally change the religious life of
ieties. But it does open new possibilities of disem
deJ re ligion: seeking a relation to the divine or the higher,
hI h . rely revises the going notions of flourishing, or even
 goes beyond them, and can be carried through by individu itself with the same combin
ation of strain on one han
d and
als on their own and/or in new kinds of sociality unlinked hierarchical complementarit
y on the other.
to the established sacred order. So monks, bhikhus, sanyassi, From our modern perspe
ctive, with 20/20 hindsig
ht, it ap
devotees of some avatar or god strike out on their own, and pears as though the Clxial
spiritualities were preven
ted from
from this springs unprecedented modes of sociality: initia producing their full disemb
edding effect because the
y were
tion groups, sects of devotees, the sangha, monastic orders, so to speak hemmed in
by the force of the majorit
. y religious
and so on.
e that rem ined firmly
in the old mold. They did
bring
In all these cases, there is some kind of hiatus, difference, or about a certaIn form of reli
gious individualism, but
this was
even break in relation to the religious life of the whole larger what Louis Dumont called
the charter for "l'individu
hors du
society. This itself may be differentiated to some extent, with mo?de" (oherworldly ind
ividual) .13 That is, it was
the way
different strata or castes or classes, and a new religious out of life of elite minorities,
and it was in some ways mar
ginal
look may lodge in one of them. But very often a new devo to or in some terision with
60
the "world," meaning not
just the
tion may cut across all of these, particularly where there is cosmos that is ordered in rela
61
tion to the higher or the sacr
ed,
a break in the third dimension, with a "higher" idea of the but also the society that is
ordered in relation to both
cosmos
human good. and sacred. This world was
still a matrix of embeddedn
ess
There is inevitably a tension here, but often there is also and it still provided the ines '
capable framework for soci
al life
an attempt to secure the unity of the whole, to recover including that of the individ
some sense of complementarity among the different religious on it, insofar as
uals who tried to turn their
they remained in some sen
back
se within its reach.
forms. Thus, those who are fully dedicated to the higher What had yet to happen was
for this matrix to be itse
forms, though they can be seen as a standing reproach to those
t ansformed, to be mad
e over according to some
lf
of the prin
who remain in the earlier forms, supplicating the Powers for CIples of axial spirituality
, so that the world itselfwou
ld come
human flourishing, nevertheless can also be seen in a relation to he seen as constituted
by individuals. This wou
ship of mutual help with them. The laity feed the monks and
,,- arter for "l'individu dan
s Ie monde" (intrawordly
ld be the

vtdual) In Dumont's term

. indi
by this they earn merit, which can be understood as taking
s, the agent who, in his ord
inary
them a little farther along the higher road, but also serves to worldly life, sees himself
as primordially an individ
ual that
protect them against the dangers of life and increases their 'is, the human agent of Western '
modernity.
health, prosperity, and fertility. This project of transformat
ion is the one I described
in
So strong is the pull toward complementarity that even in the previous chapter s: the
attempt to make over soci
ety in a
those cases where a higher religion took over the whole society thoroughgoing way accord
ing to the demands of a Chr
istian
- as with Buddhism, Christianity, and Islam- and there is o\"der. while purging it of its
connection to an enchanted
cos-
supposedly nothing left with which to contrast, the differencr . . and removing all vestiges
of the old complementaritie
s_
between dedicated minorities of religious "virtuosi" (to use L tween spiritual and tem
poral, between life devoted
to God
Max Weber's term) and the mass religion of the social sacred, il life in the world, between
order and the chaos on whi
ch
still largely oriented to flourishing, survived or reconstituted il draws.
 limits to the imagination of the self-and of the social imagi
ding just by virtue
This project was th
oroughly disembed
ng
nar:: the ways we are able to think or imagine the whole of
disciplined remaki
e of operation: the SOClety. But the new buffered identity, with its insistence on
of its form or mod ctific ation and an
l forms through obje
of behavior and socia personal devotion and discipline, increased the distan th

instrumental stance.
But its ends were also
intrinsically con

with the drive to dis

disidentification, even the hostility to the older forms :
co

cerned with disembe

dding. This is clear
dimension of em

lect ve ritual and belonging, and the drive to reform came to
destroys the second
enchantment, which enVIsage their abolition. Both in their sense of selfand in their
istian context. In
also see it in the Chr
beddedness. We can project for society, the disciplined elites moved toward a con
axial spirituality;
here operates like any
one way, Christianity ception of the social world as constituted by individuals.
her such, namely,
conjunction with anot
indeed, it operates in There is a problem with this kind of broad-gauge historical
Christian modes.
cism . But there also were specifically .
mterpretation, which has already been recognized in the dis
Stoi
or relativize soli
is full of calls to leave
The New Testament cussion of Weber's thesis about the development of the Prot
63
part of the King
and society and be
darities of family, clan, estant ethic and its relation to capitalism. Indeed, this is close
way certain Protes
&2
usly reflected in the to what I am saying here; it is a kind of specification of the
dom . We see this serio er
not simply a memb
erated, where one was broader connection I am asserting. Weber is obviously one of
tant churches op call.
swering a per sonal
but had to join by an my sources.
by virtue of birth eption of so ciety as
give force to a conc . An objection to Weber's thesis is that it can't be verified
This in turn help ed to
ately constituted by
founded on covena
nt, and hence as ultim
m t rms of cl arly traceable correlations between, say, con
individuals.
the decision of free feSSIOnal allegiances and capitalist development. But it is in
my thesis is that
obvious filiation. But
This is a relatively the nature of this kind of relation between spiritual outlook
toic, attempt to re
istian , or Christian-S
the effect of the Chr the and economic and political performance that the influence
ern "individual in
ging about the mod
make society in brin y also be much more diffuse and indirect. If we really be
ltitracked. lt h elped
ore p ervasive and mu
world" was much m lieved, following the most vulgar forms of Marxism, that all
imaginary in the di
oral, then the social
to nudge first the m change can be explained by nonspiritual factors, say in terms
what we see emer g
ion of mo dern ind ividualism. This is of economic motives, so that spiritual changes were always
rect
er of seventeenth
ing in the new con
ception of moral ord
depe dent variables, this wouldn't matter. But in fact, as I ar
heavily indebted to
theory. This was
century natural law ds gued m chapter 3, the relationship is much more intimate and
ably the Netherlan
Stoicism , and its orig
inators were argu
this was a eciproal. Certain moral self-understandings are embedded
Grotius. But
Lipsius and Hugo
neo -Stoics, Justus that m certam practices, which can mean both that they are pro
one, in the sense
cism, and a modern
Christianized Stoi
ng of human soci ty. ote by the spread of these practices and that they shape the
ce to a willed remaki
it gave a crucial pla practices and help them get established. It is equally absurd
ntity and the project
We could say that b
oth the buffered ide
,
.

to believe hat the practices always come first, or to adopt the
ng. Emb eddedness .
ed to the disemb eddi
of reform contribut OpposIte VIew, that ideas somehow drive history.
ntity - the contextual
both a matter of ide
as I said above, is
 judgments selves as free individuals first. This was not just a revolution in
from making sensible
But this doesn' t stop us
certain spiri ur neutral view of ourselves, but involved a profound change
tain social forms and
about the relation of cer m our moral world, as is always the case with identity shifts.
ital ist entrepre
-Saxon forms of cap
tual traditions. If Anglo This means that here too we have to distinguish between a
relations than,
s connected to family
neurship are much les formal and a material mode of social embedding, correspond
4 has this really
ich seems undeniable,1
say, Chinese forms, wh ing to the first two facets described above. On the first level,
Protestant con
difference between the
nothing to do with the we are always socially embedded; we learn our identities in
sus the onfu
church membership ver
ceptions of individual dialogue, by being inducted into a certain language. But on
credIt, even
ily? This seems hard to
cian centrality of the fam the level of content, what we may learn is to be an individual,
all be traced.
if the microlinks can't have our own opinions, attain our own relation to God, our
primacy
s to link the undoubted
Similarly, my thesis trie own conversion experience.
which is a cen
dern Western culture,
of the individual in mo So the Great Disembedding occurs as a revolution in our
order, to the
&5
n conception of moral
tral feature of the moder understanding of moral-social order. And it goes on being ac
along the prin
&4
ts to transform society
earlier radical attemp companied by ideas of moral order. To be an individual is not
ds, how our
y, tracing, in other wor
ciples of axial spiritualit to be a Robinson Crusoe, but to be placed in a certain way
dings grew.
present self-understan . .
d among other humans. This is the reflection of the transcen
see m tha t we don 't need to trace this km
It might eas ily
dental necessity of holism just mentioned.
stories. These
the hold of subtraction
of genealogy because of This disembeds us from the cosmic sacred- altogether,
to seem to s
ividualism has come
are strong, because ind
e mistake of moderns
is to take s and not just partially and for certain people, as in earlier post
just common sense. Th axial moves. It disembeds us from the social sacred and posits
nted that It IS
ividual so much for gra
understanding of the ind " urally." Just a new relation to God as designer. This new relation is eclips
self-understandmg nat
taken to be our first-off able, because the design underlying the moral order can be
l description
gical thinking, a neutra
as, in modern epistemolo seen as directed to ordinary human flourishing. This tran
then values are
impinge first on us, and
of things is thought to scendent aspect of the axial revolution is partly rolled back,
uals, then be
ourselves first as individ
added so here we seize or can be, given a neat separation of this-worldly from other
is makes it
of forms of sociality. Th
come ware of others and worldly good. But only partly, because notions of flourishing
individualism
emergence of modern
easy to understand the remain under surveillance in our modern moral view: they
s were eroded,
n story: the old horizon
by a kind of subtractio have to fit with the demands of the moral order itself, of jus
erlying sense of
at emerges is the und
burned away, and wh tice, equality, nondomination, if they are to escape condem
s.
ourselves as individual nation. Our notions of flourishing can thus always be revised.
idea that our
On the contrar y, wh at I propose here is the
in society. Our This belongs to our postaxial condition.
was deeply embedded
first self-understanding This final phase of the Great Disembedding was largely
and as a mem
father, son, and so on,
essential identity was as flowered by Christianity. But it was also in a sense a "corrup-
ceive of our-
later did we come to con
ber of this tribe. Only
 tion" of it, in Ivan Ilich's memorable phrase.ls Powered by it,
idea of disciplined imp
osition of the Kingdom of
because the Gospel also is a disembedding. I mentioned above
tem tatIOn of power was,
after all, too strong, as Do
God. The

the calls to break away from the established solidarities. But

saw n the legend of the
Grand Inquisitor. Here lay
stoyevsky

this demand is present even more strongly in a parable like the cor
ruptIOn.
that of the Good Samaritan, as Ilich explains. It is not said, Let us turn now to the way
that the Great Disembed
but inescapably implied. If the Samaritan had followed the ding
has worked out in our mo
dern social imaginary.
demands of sacred social boundaries, he would never have
stopped to help the wounded Jew. It is plain that the King
dom involves another kind of solidarity altogether, one that
would bring us into a network of agape.
Here's where the corruption comes in: what we got was not
a network of agape, but rather a disciplined society in which
&& categorial relations have primacy and therefore norms. N ever
theless, it all started with the laudable attempt to fight back &7

the demands of the world and then make it over. "World" (cos
mos) in the New Testament has on the one hand a positive
meaning, as in "God so loved the world" (John 3.16) and on
the other a negative one: judge not as the world judges. This
latter sense of world can be understood as the present sac
ralized order of things and its embedding in the cosmos.l6 In
this sense, the church is rightly at odds with the world. This is
what Hildebrand clearly saw when he fought to keep episco
pal appointments out of the invasive power field of dynastic
drive and ambition in the Investiture Controversy.
It might have seemed obvious that one should build on this
defensive victory with an attempt to change and purify the
power field of the world, make it more and more consonant
with the demands of Christian spirituality. But this naturally
didn't happen all at once. The changes were incremental, but
the project was somehow continually reignited in more radi
cal forms, through the various Reformations and down to the
present age. The irony is that it somehow turned into some
thing quite different; in another, rather different sense, the
world won after all. Perhaps the contradiction lay in the very
5 The Economy as Objectified Reality

T
here are in fact three important forms of social self
understanding which are crucial to modernity, and each
of them represents a penetration or transformation of the
social imaginary by the Grotian-Lockean theory of moral
order. They are respectively the economy, the public sphere,
and the practices and outlooks of democratic self-rule.
The economy was obviously linked with the self
understanding of polite civilization as grounded in a commer
cial society. But we can find the roots of this understanding
further back, in the Grotian-Lockean idea of order itself.
I mentioned above that this new notion of order brought
about a change in the understanding of the cosmos as the work
of God's providence. We have here in fact one of the earliest
examples of the new model of order moving beyond its origi
nal niche and reshaping the image of God's providential rule.
The notion that God governs the world according to a be
nign plan is ancient, even pre-Christian, with roots in Juda
ism as well as Stoicism. What is new is the way of conceiving
of his benevolent scheme. We can see this in the arguments
from the design of the world to the existence of a good Creator
God. These too were very old. But formerly, they insisted on
 the magnificent design of the whole framework in which our
world was set (the stars, the planets, etc.), and then on the ad
mirable microdesign of creatures, including ourselves, with
our organs fitted for their functions, as well as on the general
way life was sustained by the processes of nature.
These conceptions certainly persist, but what is added in
the eighteenth century is an appreciation of the way human
life is designed to produce mutual benefit. Emphasis is some
times laid on mutual benevolence, but very often the happy
design is identified in the existence of what one might call "in
visible hand" factors. I mean by this actions and attitudes that
we are "programmed" for, that have systematically benefi
7D cent results for the general happiness, even though these are
not part of what is intended in the action or affirmed in the at
titude. Adam Smith in his Wealth ofNations provided us with
the most famous of these mechanisms, whereby our search for
our own individual prosperity redounds to the general wel
fare. But there are other examples, for instance, one drawn
from his Theory ofMoral Sentiments, where Smith argues that
Nature has made us admire greatly rank and fortune because
social order is much more secure if it rests on the respect for
visible distinctions rather than on the less striking qualities
of virtue and wisdom.l
The order here is that of a good engineering design, in
which efficient causation plays the crucial role. In this it dif
fers from earlier notions of order, where the harmony comes
from the consonance among the Ideas or Forms manifested
in the different levels of being or ranks in society. The cru
cial thing in the new conception is that our purposes mesh,
however divergent they may be in the conscious awareness of
each of us. They involve us in an exchange of advantages. We
admire and support the rich and well-born, and in return we
enjoy the kind of stable order without which prosperity would
be impossible. God's design is one of interlocking causes, not
of harmonized meanings.
In other words, humans are engaged in an exchange of ser
vices. The fundamental model seems to be what we have come
to call an economy.
This new understanding of providence is already evident
in Locke's formulation of natural law theory in the Second
Treatise. We can see here how much importance the economic
dimension is taking on in the new notion of order. There are
two facets to this. The two main goals of organized society
were security and economic prosperity, but because the whole
theory emphasized a kind of profitable exchange, one could
begin to see political society itself through a quasi-economic 71
metaphor.
Thus, no less a personage than Louis XIV, in the advice
he offers to his dauphin, subscribes to something like an ex
change view: 'n these different conditions that compose the
world are united to each other only by an exchange of recip
:rocal obligations. The deference and respect that we receive
from our subjects are not a free gift from them but payment
for the justice and protection they expect to receive from US."2
This, incidentally, offers some insight into (what turned
out to be) an important transitional stage on the long march
(If the order of mutual benefit into our social imaginary. This
was a rival model of order based on command and hierarchy.
What Louis and others of his time were offering can be seen as
a kind of compromise between the new and the old. The basic
justifying reasoning of the different functions, here ruler and
subject, is new: the necessary and fruitful exchange of ser
vices. But what is justified is still a hierarchical society and,
above all, the most radical hierarchical relation, that of abso
lutt" monarch to subject. The justification is more and more
in terms of functional necessity, but the master images still
 gical hier on governing elites that increased production
reflect something of inherent superiority, an ontolo and favorable
ne else, can hold soci exchange were key conditions of political and
archy. The king, by being above everyo military power.
the sun, to use The experiences of Holland and England demon
ety together and sustain everything. He is like strated that.
And, of course, once !,ome nations began to develo
Louis's favorite image.3 p economi
that its cally, their rivals were forced to follow suit or
We might call this the Baroque solution,4 except be relegated to
most spectacular example, at Versailles, saw itself
in Classi ependent status. This, as much as if not more
than the grow
omise that reigns for a while over mg numbers and wealth, was responsible for
cal terms. It is this compr the enhanced
of the pomp, position of commercial classes.
most of Europe, sustaining regimes with much
arity, but on These factors were important, but they canno
ritual, and imagery of hierarchical complement t provide the
more and more from the whole explanation of the change in self-understa
the basis of a justification drawn nding. What
modern order. Bossuet's defense of Louis's absolu
te rule falls
started s on this path were changes on severa
l levels, not only
conomlC, but political and spiritual. In this I
in the same register. think Weber is

72 73
metaphor: right, even if not all the details of his theory
But the economy could become more than a can be salvaged.
ant end of The original importance of people working
it came to be seen more and more as the domin steadily in a
advice, Mont profession came from the fact that they thereb
society. Contemporary with Louis's memoir of y placed them
sees it as primarily the t;elves in "settled courses," to use the Puritan
chretien offers a theory of the state that expression. If
flourish. (It is ordered life became a demand, not just for a
orchestrating power that can make an economy military or spiri
term "political tal/intellectual elite but for the mass of ordina
he, incidentally, who seems to have coined the ry people,
but good policy by then everyone had to become ordered and seriou
economy.") Merchants act for love of gain, s about what
this love to the they were doing, and of necessity had to be
the ruler (here, a very visible hand) can draw doing, in life,
common good.s
namely, working in some productive occup
ation. A truly
n order rdered society requires that one take these
This second shift reflects feature (2) of the moder economic occu
are meant pations seriously and prescribe a discipline for
in my sketch in chapter 1: the mutual benefit we them. This was
place to the securing the political ground.
to confer on each other gives a crucial
d change But in Reformed Christianity, and to a growi
of life and the means to life. This is not an isolate ng extent
major trend , mong Catholics as well, there was a pressing spiritu
within theories of providence; it goes along with a
t 'lJlake this demand, which was the one W
al reason
'
of the age. eber picked up on.
d l put it in the Reformed variant: if we are going to
This trend is often understood in terms of the standar reject the
3, for in Qtholic idea that there are some higher vocations,
materialist explanations, which I evoked in chapter
b if' or monastic life, following "counsels of perfection,"
to the celi
busine ss classes, mer
stance, the old Marxist account that and
If n claims that all Christians must be 100 percent
chants, and later manufacturers were becoming more numer Christian
this and that one can be so in any vocation, then one
ous and gaining greater power. Even on its own level, must claim
account needs to be supplemented with a reference to thf Ihal ordinary life, the life that the vast majority canno
t help
1t'<1I1ing, the life of production and the family
changing demands of state power. It more and more dawned , work and sex,
 is as hallowed as any other. Indeed, more so than mona Ii Ih r Jill guge, moneyma
t.
kin g serves our interest,
celibacy, because that is based on the vain and prideful d irn and inter
check and control pas
sion
.7 Kant even believed
to have found a higher way. II n bi!' me
republics, and hence
more under the cont
that as

This is the basis for that sanctification of ordinary .

tll" lr rdmary taxpay rol

which I claim has had a tremendous formative effect on Wi t un to war will beco
f.
ers actuated by eco
nomic interests
'
ern civilization, spilling beyond the original religious \'Iltl
r

Tit n w economically
me rarer and rarer.
centered notion of
natural order
ant into myriad secular forms. It has two facets: it promo'" uml.'rh. thf' doctrines
of harmony of inte
. rest. It even came
ordinary life as a site for the highest forms of Christian " }-" pro,t"cted onto the
In lh. 'Ig hteenth-
univers e, for it is this
that is reflected
and it also has an anti-elitist thrust: it takes down tho" aI, century vision of cosm
ic order, no t as a hier
legedly higher modes of existence, whether in the Chun' , J\ of or
s-at-work, but as a
chain of beings who
(monastic vocations) or in the world (ancient-derived ethic, , mI.'.h th
e ch other. Things coh
se pur

1 JIb r In theIr sur

ere because they ser
that place contemplation higher than productive existell ,. ve

74 a -my. an
vival and flourishing
. They form
The mighty are cast down from their seats and the huroN
75
'f

and meek are exalted. , "

Both these facets have been formative in the devetopm n dying vegetables life
of modern civilization. The affirmation of ordinary life ill 11311
I"f
sustain,
life dissolving vegetate
of the background to the central place given to the econ lInt

again:
\11 thnns that perish
other forms supply
,
in our lives, as also for the tremendous importance we pUl n (B, turns we catch the
vital breath, and die)
family life, or relationships. The anti-elitist position untl r Llkl-' bubbles on the sea
of Matter born,
lies the fundamental importance of equality in our social an The: :rise. they break,
and to that sea retur
n.
political lives.6 othing is foreign: Pa
rts relate to whole '
All these factors, material and spiritual, help explain Ihl all-extending, all pres '
erving Soul
gradual promotion of the economic to its central place. a r '
motion already clearly visible in the eighteenth century. I OI mects each b eing,
greatest with the least .
that time, another factor enters, or perhaps it is simply an . l.jJ Beast in aid of
tension of the political factor. The notion becomes morl" an
'
Man, and Man of Bea
\ 1 ":rved , all serving :
st' :
nothing stands alone'
more accredited that commerce and economic activity ar th, Til hain holds on, and
path to peace and orderly existence. "Le doux comme
where it ends, un ow h
n.

is contrasted to the wild destructiveness of the aristof;uti, d in nature

of each being found
s
search for military glory. The more a society turns to i' Dr It pmper bliss, and
sets its prop er bou
nds;
merce, the more polished and civilized it becomes, the mor But as he framed a Wh
ole, the Whole to bles
s'
it excels in the arts of peace. The impetus to moneymakJl 011 mutual Wants bu
ilt mutual Happine
o r m the
ss:
is seen as a "calm passion." When it takes hold in a soder first, eternal ORD ER
ran
it can help to control and inhibit the violent passions. Pul lr. \nd 'reature linked to crea
ture, m n to man.

From all this, Pope triumphantly concludes "that tru SEt.
I 101 h ppens behind their backs. It has a certain predict

LOVE and SOCIAL are the same."8

It h.rlll. because there are certain laws governing the way
I,ll II th",ir myriad individual actions concatenate.
And so perhaps the first big shift wrought by this neW ida
n

fhi objectifying account, one that treats social events

of order, both in theory and in social imaginary, consi"t
11 I an

olh r processes in nature, as following laws of a similar

our coming to see our society as an economy, an inteilorkll
, rl. But this objectifying take on social life is just as much
set of activities of production, exchange, and consump tlOl
J , f rh modern understanding, derived from the mod
which form a system with its own laws and its own dvnanur
rn mor der, as the new modes of imagining social agency.
Instead of being merely the management, by thosf" 'in I1U
or h,u
' or

thority, of the resources we collectively need in househo lu

long together as parts of the same package. Once
r.. no i ngeT dealing with an idea of social order as Forms
state, the economic now defines a way we are linked tog ."tb.'r
a sphere of coexistence that in principle could suffice to if- IJ
ill reality, of the kind invoked by Plato, but as forms
I r
r

f tho 'l'U inert reality by human agency, we need pictures

if only disorder and conflict didn't threaten. Conceiving
I. 'uul of this inert reality and the causal connections
n

76 77
tJ
economy as a system is an achievement of eighteenth-cent r.
I \ tm ture it. just as much as we need models of our collec
theory, with the physiocrats and Adam Smith, but c il1l1I6
II lC l i nn
to see the most important purpose and agenda of soci 'Iv '
on it. The engineer needs to know the laws of the
i which he is going to work, just as much as he needs
economic collaboration and exchange is a drift in our . cIa
maUl

lan Hf \ hat he is trying to achieve; indeed, the second can't

imaginary that begins in that period and continues to thi II
leul a\\ (I up unless the first is known.
From that point on, organized society is no longer equiv
II -0 thif'l age also sees the beginnings of a new kind of
to the polity; other dimensions of social existence are "eo'l\ I
It I ing social science, starting with William Petty's
having their own forms and integrity. The very shift 'in thl sur
-, f reland in the mid-seventeenth century, the collection
period of the meaning of the term civil society reflects
u

This is the first of the three forms of social imaginat"\ I (; ( t nd statistics about wealth, production, and demog
It
want to discuss. But before passing to the second, J wan t
h th basis for policy. Objectifying pictures of social
_ Ii , just as prominent a feature of Western moder
bring out a general feature of our modern self-understantlin
or

the economy with \1 Ih ' onstitution oflarge-scale collective agencies.9 The

which comes to light when we contrast
-

other two forms. Both of these-the public sphere and

II! ; rn 'Tasp of society is ineradicably bifocal.
-\01 t, lIdl understand this change in the nature of science,
self-ruling "people" - imagine us as collective agenciel:!.
r

Ih hnuld. "et" it from the other side of the divide. As long as

it is these new modes of collective agency that are am n
..

I n.l understood in terms of something resembling a

most striking features of Western modernity and beYOl/li:
understand ourselves after all to be living in a democratk ;1Q,
Aristotelian-type teleology, this kind of bifocal
nul' possible. In speaking of teleology, I don't
UlC- '- Ir

But the account of economic life in terms of an invisib

<I.
'
want
, ke an) heavy metaphysical doctrines; I am talking of
hand is quite different. There is no collective agent h .Ie
. If. I

i It -pri'ad understanding of society as having a "normal"

deed, the account amounts to a denial of such. Th e
.u

but tb.!' gi l, which tended to maintain itself over time but could
agents, individuals acting on their own behalf,
r.
 ond yoked by various neoliberal boosters of the market in our
s, which, taken bey
certain development
be threatened by , day. But it is not an order of collective action, for the mar
e toward destruction
a certain point, cou
ld precipitate a slid
form . We can see this et is te negation of collective action. To operate properly,
r loss of the proper Ires a certain pattern of interventions (keeping order,
civil strife, or the utte er It re
analogous to our und
as an unde rsta ndin g of society very
rms of the key conc
epts eorcrng contracts, setting weights and measures, etc.) and
as organisms in te
standing ourselves (tIrelessly stressed) noninterventions (get the government off
ness.
of health and sick our backs). But what is striking about the Smithian invisible
ing of this kind
l has an understand
Even Machiavelli stil hand, from the standpoint of the old science, is that it is a
is a certain equi
ublican forms. There
when it comes to rep
aintained between
the sponteous order arising among corrupt, that is, purely self
that needs to be m garding actors. It is not a finding that, like Machiavelli's
librium-in-tension
ve. In h althy
se forms are to survi
grandi and the people if the a
the play or r v lry link between wealth and corruption, pertains to the norma
um is maintained by
polities, this equilibri tive conditions of proper collective action.
rs. But certam de
79
ance between the orde n a science concerned with these conditions, there is room
and mutual surveill
essive interest o
7B
this, such as an exc
velopments threaten ThIs l'nt?er for action unenframed by a normatively constituted
th and property.
e, and
in their private weal or for a study of a normatively neutral, inert social
the part of citizens tIm
fPality,
h m
constitutes corruzio
ne, and unless dealt WIt 6r1: NeIther component of the modern bifocal take can find
re
ublican liberty. The
about the end of rep
severely, will bring rty. But ruche.
undermines libe
ution here: wealth
is a causal attrib This shift in the nature of science is also connected to the
normative resonances
the term "corruption
," with its strong
is being organized

' ange [ not d a few paragraphs back. For moderns, orga
erstanding of society .
shows that the und I UZ d SOCIety IS no longer equivalent to the polity. Once we dis-

of normal form.
around a concept
tho ught is organized in this way, t e .
bI- 1'0'. T the impersonal processes happening behind the backs
As long as social . 1p:ents. there may well be other aspects of society that show
understood as meri
hold . Reality is not
focal take can't get a within law-like systematicity. The invisible-hand-guided econ-
maintains itself
m

normal form, which .

but as shap ed by a 11m)' :18 one such aspect; other facets of social life or culture or
shape, and beyond
nce from its prop er
certain limits of dista dt'm graphy will later be singled out for scientific treatment.
the health human
destruction, just as
them spirals off to
is seen as taking
la " 1II r< be n:ore than one way in which the same body of
eed, this form IS Its
sful collective action
body does. Succes - tematlCally mteracting human beings can be considered
by this form; ind
within a field shaped rming an entity, a society. We can speak of them as an
on disintegrates int
unomy or a state or a civil society (now identified in its non
.'

I'
lose it, collective acti
condition . Once we
individuals. There
gs of self-regarding
the corrupt strivin lili al aspects) or just as a society or a culture. "Society"
imposing some shap
nor action ab extra
neither inert reality, - been unhooked from "polity" and now floats free through
'

on this reality.
that the Smithian
notio n of an
. . .
mVl s l numb"",!" of different applications.
One might think [ll h in this scientific revolution turns on the rejection of
of mutual enrIcb
iii-
"normal" order, one
hand defines a new mod f normative thinking in terms of tele. This rejection
as such, and is so
I
it can be treated
ment ; in some way s,
 underline the importance they have had in our civilization.
was also a central part of much of the moral thinking that
The ambition to transform what is lived just an sich into some
emerges from the modern idea of order, which found expres
thing assumedfor sich, to use the Hegel-Marx terminology, is
sion in the anti-Aristotelian animus of Locke and those he in
ever-recurring. We see this in the constant attempt to trans
fluenced. Of course, the rejection of teleology was famously
form what are at first merely objective sociological categories
motivated by a stance supporting the new, mechanistic sci
ence. But it was also animated by the emerging moral theory.

( .g., handicapped, welfare recipients) into collective agen
CIes through mobilizing movements.
What distinguished the new, atomist, natural law theory from
But before these philosophers wrote, and influencing their
its predecessor as formulated by Aquinas, for instance, was
ork, was the civic humanist tradition, the ethic of repub
its thoroughgoing detachment from the Aristotelian matrix
lican self-rule. Here we come to a tension that has been in
which had been central for Thomas. The correct political
separable from the modern moral order itself. Even while
forms were not deducible from a telos at work in human
it has advanced and colonized our modern social imaginar
society. What justified the law was either its being com
80 81
ies, it has awakened unease and suspicion. We saw that its
manded by God (Locke), or its making logical sense, given I , ,
entrenchment was connected to the self-understanding of
the rational and social nature of humans (Grotius ), or (later)
modern society as commercial, and that the transition to the
its providing a way of securing the harmony of interests.1o
commercial stage was understood as having effected the great
The modern bifocal take is not without its tensions. I men
internal pacification of modern states. This society dethroned
tioned earlier that freedom as a central good is overdeter
mined in the modern moral order: it is both one of the central
ar as the highest human activity and put in its place produc
tIOn. It was hostile to the older codes of warrior honor, and it
properties of the humans who consent to and thus constitute
tended toward a certain leveling.
society, and it is inscribed in their condition as the artificers
All this could not but provoke resistance. This came not
who build their own social world, as against being born into
just from the orders that had a stake in the old way of things,
one that already has its own normal form. Indeed, one of the
he noblesse de l' epee; many people from all stations were am
reasons for the vigorou s rejection of Aristotelian teleology
bivalent about it. With the coming of a commercial society, it
was that it was seen, then as now, as potentially circumscrib
seemed that greatness, heroism, and full-hearted dedication
ing our freedom to determine our own lives and build our own
to a nonutilitarian cause were in danger of atrophy, even of
societies.
disappearing from the world.
But just for this reason, a battle could break out between
One form this worry took was the concern about men, fol
the two takes. What for one school falls into the domain of
:lowing the ethos of polite society, becoming "effeminate,"
an objective take on unavoidable reality may seem to another
.losing their manly virtues, which was an important recurring
to be a surrender of the human capacity to design our world
theme in the eighteenth century. At the most primitive level
before a false positivity. The very importance given to free
dom is bound to give rise to this kind of challenge. This sort
this could emerge in a rebellion of upper-class rowdies agains
tht> polite conventions of the age; at a slightly higher level
of critique has been central to the work of Rousseau, and
perhaps, in the return of duelling in eighteenth-century En-
beyond him to Fichte, Hegel, and Marx. We don't need to
 gland.ll But at the highest level, it promoted the ethic of civic
humanism as a rival to the ethos of commercial society, or per
haps as a compensation for the dangers -of enervation, c r
ruption, loss of liberty-that this modern form brought WIth
it. This was not a marginal concern; it occupied some of the
most influential thinkers of the age, such as Adam Smith.12 6 The Public Sphere
These worries and tensions have remained a central part
of modern culture. In one form, they could lead to a trans
formed redaction of the modern idea of order-to save civic
virtue or freedom or nonalienated self-rule, as we find in the
philosophies of Rousseau and Marx. In another, they were in
deed seen as a potential threat of degeneracy inherent in the
B2

T
order, but by people who in no way wanted to reject this order he economic was perhap
s the first dimension of
merely to find some prophylactic for its dangerous potentiali civil
society to achieve an
identity independent fro
ties. Smith, and later Tocqueville, belong to this category. m the
polity. But it was followe
d shortly afterward by the
The concern about leveling, the end of heroism, of great public
sphere.
ness, has also been turned into a fierce denunciation of the The public sphere is a com
mon space in which the
modern moral order and everything it stands for, as we see mem
bers ofsociety are deeme
d to meet through a var
iety of media:
with Nietzsche. Attempts to build a polity around a rival print, electronic, and also
face-to -face encounters
notion of order in the very heart of modern civilization, most ; to discuss
matters of common inte
rest; and thus to be abl
notably the various forms of fascism and related authoritari e to form a
common mind about the
se. I say "a common spa
anism, have failed. But the continued popularity of Nietzsche ce" because
although the media are
multiple, as are the exc
shows that his devastating critique still speaks to many people hanges that
take place in them, they
are deemed to be in pri
today. The modern order, though entrenched, perhaps even nciple inter
communicating. The disc
now takes account of
ussion we 're having on
because entrenched, still awakens much resistance. television
what was said in the new
spaper this
mrning, which in turn rep
orts on the radio debate
yesterday,
and so on. That's why we usu
ally speak of the public
sphere
in the singular.
The public sphere is a cen
o much so that even
tral feature of modern
society,
where it is in fact suppre
ssed or ma
nipulated it has to be fak
ed. Modern despotic soc
ieties have
enerally felt compelled to
in the party newspaper
go through the motions.
Editorials
s, purporting to expres
s the opinions
- the writers, are offered
for the consideration of
their fellow
 citizens; mass demonstrations are organized, purporting to This space is a
public sphere in .
give vent to the felt indignation of large numbers of people. the sense I 'm USIn
here. That a con g It
.
clu SI'on "counts as "
All this takes place as though a genuine process were in train, "
public OpInIOn refl
the fact that a pu ects
blic sph ere can .
forming a common mind through exchange, even though the .
med as such. Unle
eXIst onl if It
. ! ' IS . Ima.
g-
ss all the dispersed
result is carefully controlled from the beginning. dISCussIOns are seen
their participants by
as linke d In ' one great exc
In this discussion, I draw in particular on two very interest be no sense of th . hange, there can
elr upshot as pub .
ing books. One was published almost thirty years ago but re . lic OpI"nIOn. This
mean that imagIna . . doesn't
tIOn IS aU-powerful There .
cently translated into English, Jlirgen Habermas's The Struc conditions: intern

are obje ctive
al tOr Ins tan ce,
tural Transformation ofthe Puhlic Sphere, which deals with the .
that the fragmen
dIscussions interre ' tary local
fer,- an d external
development of public opinion in eighteenth-century West . that IS, ' there must
prmted materials, be
circulating from a ' . .
pluralIty of Ind
to be bases 0f wh
ern Europe; the other is a recent publication by Michael Sources, for there epe n dent
Warner, The Letters ofthe Repuhlic, which describes the analo at can be seen as
mon discussion. As a corn-
84
is often sal'd, the m
odern public sphere
italism" t0 get OIng
gous phenomenon in the British American colonies.1 Ued on "print cap re-
.
85
A central theme of Habermas's book is the emergence in . But as Warner
printing itself, an . shows,
d even prInt capItal
Western Europe in the eighteenth century of a new concept ism d'd I n't prOVIde a ,
.ficient condition. ' suf-
They had to be ta
of public opinion. Dispersed publications and small group ken up In ' the rIg' ht cultural
Context, where the
essentI'al common
or local exchanges come to be construed as one big debate, understandIng ' s could
arise,2 The public
sph ere was a mut
from which the public opinion of a whole society emerges. ation of the so " I
Cml magi_
nary, one crucial to the development
In other words, it is understood that widely separated people of modern society.
an importan
t step on the long It was
sharing the same view have been linked in a kind of space march.
We are now in a slig
ht!y better positio
of discussion, wherein they have been able to exchange ideas n to understand
kind of th'Ing a publi
Y it was new In
what
. c sphere is, and wh
'
d 0f common spa
with others and reach this common end point. :lghteenth cent the
urv J' It's a k'In
What is this common space? It's a rather strange thing. aying, in which peopl ce, I have been
e wh0 never meet
when one comes to think of it. The people involved here have. ,vl es to be understan d them-
and cap ahle 0f reac
engaged In ' d"ISCUSSIOn
by hypothesis, never met but they are seen as linked in a com mmon mind, Let me hing a
l'ntro duce some n
mon space of discussion through media-in the eighteenth ran speak
ew termm ' oIogy. We
of common space
century, print media. Books, pamphlets, and newspapers cir when p eopIe come
(I Xllmon act together in a
of focus lOr whatever purpos e,
culated among the educated public, conveying theses, ana jO,Yment of a pIay '
b e "
It rItu al, the en-
the celebra t'IOn 0f
, conversatIOn, or
lyses, arguments, and counterarguments, referring to and re rl' nt. Th a majo ' r
futing each other. These were widely read and often discussed
eir focus is com on, as against mer
ely convergent,
b -cause it is part
Ittf' attending to
of what IS comm
in face-to-face gatherings, in drawing rooms, coffeehouses. only un derstoo d
object 0r p rpose,
that they
, the common ,
salons, and in more (authoritatively) public places, like Par 'ainst each person '
together, as

ust ha pem'ng, on
J me thIng, In th'
liament. The general view that resulted from all this, if any. rned WIt
hIS or her own, to
be
I' n
' h the sa
counted as public opinion in this new sense. IS sen se, the "opi
m,mkind " oIners a nion of
merely converge
nt unity, whereas
public
 opinion is supposedly generated out of a series of common First, in the Grotius-Locke
idealization political society
is
actions. seen as an instrument for som
ething prepolitical; there is
a
An intuitively understandable kind of common space is set place to stand, mentally, outs
ide of the polity, as it were,
from
up when people are assembled for some purpose, be it on which to judge its performanc
e. This is what is reflected in
the
an intimate level for conversation or on a larger, more public _new ways of imagining soci
al life independent of the poli
tical,
scale for a deliberative assembly, a ritual, a celebration, or the namely, the economy and the
public sphere.
enjoyment of a football match or an opera. Common space Second, freedom is central
to the rights society exists
to
arising from assembly in some locale is what I want to call defend. Responding both to
this and to the underlying
notion
"topical common space." of agency, the theory puts
great importance on the req
uire
But the public sphere is something different. It transcends ment that political society be
founded on the consent of thos
e
such topical spaces. We might say that it knits together a plu bound by it.
rality of such spaces into one larger space of nonassembly. Now contract theories of legi
86
timate government had ex

87
The same public discussion is deemed to pass through our isted before. What is new in
the theories of the seventee
nth
debate today, and someone else's earnest conversation tomor century is that they put the
requirement of consent at a
more
row, and the newspaper interview Thursday, and so on. I call fundamental level. It was not
just that a people, conceived
as
this larger kind of nonlocal common space "metatopical." already existing, had to give
consent to those who would
claim
The public sphere that emerges in the eighteenth century is to rule it. Now the original cont
ract brings us out of the stat
e
a metatopical common space. of nature and even founds the
existence of a collectivity that
Such spaces are partly constituted by common understand has some claim on its mem
ber individuals.
ings; that is, they are not reducible to but cannot exist without This original demand for onc
e-for-all historical consent as
a
such understandings. New, unprecedented kinds of spaces ondition of legitimacy can easi
ly develop into a requirem
ent
require new and unprecedented understandings. Such is the of current consent. Government
must win the consent of the
case for the public sphere. governed -not just original
ly, but as an ongoing conditi
on of
What is new is not metatopicality. The Church and the state 1f'gitimacy. This is what beg
ins to surface in the legitim
ation
were already existing metatopical spaces. But getting clear .function of public opinion.
about the novelty brings us to the essential features of thl' These features of the public
sphere can be clarified by
ar
public sphere as a step in the long march. ticulating what is new about
it on two levels: what the pub
lic
I see it as a step in this march because this mutation in the 'phere does; and what it is.
social imaginary was inspired by the modern idea of order. First, what it does, or rather,
what is done in it. The pub
lic
Two features stand out in this regard. One has just been im phere is the locus of a disc
ussion potentially engaging
, every
plied: its independent identity from the political. The other , or (although, in
the eighteenth century, the
t involve the educated or
claim was only
is its force as a benchmark of legitimacy. Why these are im
"enlightened" minority), in
which
portant will be clear if we recur to the original idealization. th society can come to a common
mind about important mat

say, with Grotius or Locke. ters. This common mind is
a reflective view, emerging
from
 this arises what Warner, following Habermas, calls the "prin
.o f whatever views
critical debate, and ; : :
not j ust s m
the p opu at o
c nsequence, it h
as ciple of supervision," which insists that the proceedings of
happen to be held in
mati ve status: go ernme
: ght to listen to it.
There governing bodies be public, open to the scrutiny of discern
a nor : n ground ing citizens.5 By going public, legislative deliberation informs
were tw:o reas0ns f thIs,
:
ch one tended to gai
her. The first is that
this opin public opinion and allows it to be maximally rational, at the
ow up t
and ultImate1Y swa rnment would same time exposing itself to its pressure and thus acknowl
ce g
enlighteed, d hen
ion is likely to be
be well- advised to

follow It. ThIS state
men y Louis Seba
.
Ion
s-
t0
edging that legislation should ultimately bow to the clear
mandates of this opinion.6
es clear express
by Habermas,4 giv
tien Mercier, quoted The public sphere is, then, a locus in which rational views
this idea: are elaborated that should guide government. This comes to
s dans toutes le be seen as an essential feature of a free society. As Burke put
endent des lumiere
Les bons liVIes dep
Ce sont euX qUI it. "In a free country, every man thinks he has a concern in
ils ornent la verite.
classes du peuple;
rent Ie gouverneme
nt all public matters" .7 There is, of course, something very new 89
" I

,.,
d a u t l'Europe' ils eclai
88
ret
son veritable inte
s : :: :::::
s
. '

, sur sa fa te, sur
uter et
lique qu'il doit eco .
.
SUl VIe: ces
about this in the eighteenth century compared to the immedi-
te past of Europe. But one might ask, is this new in history?
attendent re
sur l' opimon pub Ie I o't this a feature of all free societies?
maltres patients qUI
'

bons liVIes sont des de Ieur'

' tats et Ie calme
eurs des E
No, there is a subtle but important difference. Let's com
veil des administrat
pare the modern society with a public sphere with an ancient
passions.

(Go od books depe

nd on enlightenmen
; ;
t in all cla ses
r public or polis. In the latter, we can imagine that debate on
Imhlic affairs may be carried on in a host of settings: among
they wh0 a rea
n the truth. It is
'0

.
the p eopIe; they ador friends at a symposium, between those who meet in the agora,
. nlighten the gov ernment about Its
govern Europe, th ey e nd then of course in the ekklesia, where the thing is finally
. public 0Pinion
its real mterest, the
dutles, its errors, II c.ided. The debate swirls around and ultimately reaches its
good books ar b.
to and follow: thes
that it should listen th os'
'Illldusion in the competent decision-making body. The dif
awakemn of
asters who await the
W
. r nce is that the discussions outside this body prepare for
P atient m assIons.)
' states an d the calm ng of theIr p
i
admlllls
. ter III artion ultimately taken by the same people within it. The
unofficial" discussions are not separated off, given a status of
a similar vie,:'
Kant famously had p II. iT own, and seen to constitute a kind of metatopical space.
view that the peo
emerges wIth the
t on1Y Wise t0 rLO
The second reason .

are soverin. Go
vernmen s h :
. II Hut that is what happens with the modern public sphere. It
I d -pace of discussion that is self-consciously seen as being
opinion ; It IS morally.
bou t : : ::
. Governmen ts ou,
reasoning public.
nl
I II " ubidt- power. It is supposed to he listened to hy power, hut it
e m the midst of a
court ought 'I ho /lilt itself an exercise of power. Its in this sense extrapoliti
to legislate and rul
. ,
, Parliament or the

. .
makmg ItS deClSlOns . I t.ltuS is crucial. As we shall see below, it links the public
has alreadY lwen
her and enactmg what
concentrating toget plwfe with other facets of modern society that are also seen
ong the people. From
-

nlightened debate am
emergmg out of e
.
 as essentially extrapolitical. The extrapolitical status i - n1
just defined negatively, as a lack of power. It is also seen po-.
I'liv legitimate. The old
unity will be gone for
ever, but
.r. I
. tlnity is to be substit
ute d. For the ever-c
I II
tively: because public opinion is not an exerCIse of p tI kr i., not meant to
ontinuing con
be an exercis e in po
r .lrJi d on by dia
can be ideally disengaged from partisan spirit and ratIl'nal wer, a quasi -civil
lecticiu means. Its po
Jt I ntctive consequen
In other words, with the modern public sphere com It tentially divisive
ces are offset by the
idea that political power must b e supervised and checked I, fac t that it is
I at utside of power,
a rational debate, str
I prj- to define the co
something outside. What was new, of course, was ,' . lh.11 iving without
there was an outside check, but rather the nature of tl- , Ill
n

mmon goo d. "The lang

r l .:ontroversy art
uage of re-
stance. It is not defined as the will of God or the law of ulur
o
iculates a norm for
! h t ransforms the ide
controversy. It
al ofa social order fre
dl,h le :into an ideal of
(although it could be thought to articulate these), 'bu at" e from conflic-
debate free from soc
kind of discourse, emanating from reason and not from " ial conflict."lo
what the public sphere
or traditional authority. As Habermas puts it, power . mmon :mind, withou
does is enable the soc
iety to come
90
t the mediation of
be tamed by reason: "veritas non auctoritas facit legem. . the political
, n, In- it discou
rse of reason outside
91
In this way, the public sphere was different from everylru power, which never-
1 - i nurmative for po
wer. Now let's try to
preceding it. An unofficial discussion, hich neverthel l' n r i r "I this, it has to be.
see what, in
. th,
come to a verdict of great importance, IS defined outsld",
sphere of power. It borrows some of t e images from anr tPII
.m
.
. p . ...haps best do this by
assemblies (this was especially promment ill the n
nd IIIpr 'edented in it.
trying to define what
is new
And I want to ge t
,
case) to project the whole public as one sp ce of dt, U ;; 1011
p.t, a It were. First, the
to this in two
re
But, as Warner shows, it innovates in relatIOn to this moo, .
is the aspect of its nov
elt
y which
o air lld been touched o
Those who intervene are like speakers before an as mh, n. When we compar
e the public
ith one of the importa
...,.
nt sources of its con
z . . the ancient rep
But unlike their models in real ancient assemblies. the, lrl stitutive
I
, I xlrapolitical
ublic, what springs
for a certain impersonality, a certain impartiality, an - h, - to Our notice
ing of party spirit. They strive to negate their o P ,II
m t Ion t 'rm tha
locus. The "Repub
lic of Letters" was
a
t members of the int
Ilh Iii 'interchange
larity and thus to rise above "any private or partIal \'1 ernational society of
. . ,. " gave themselves tow
This is what Warner calls "the principle of negatlVlt). ard the end of the
1I11'(' nth century. This
was a precursor pheno
can see it not only as suiting with the print, as against 5 1. menon to the
LIII "pht<re; indeed, it
tI r
0
contributed to shapin
medium but also as giving expression to this crucial g it. Here was
puL ,,,. constituted ou
;
of the n w public sphere as extrapolitical, as a discollf<"
B ,rh t ,n analogy and the
tside of the political
.
difference gave its for
1111. I age: it was a repub
reason on and to power rather than by power.9 ce and point
lic as a unified associ
As Warner points out, the rise of the public sphere iny I ' ation, group
'ghtened participants
fJ t I \\;U. also a republic
a breach in the old ideal of a social order undivided by &-onn. across political bou
ndaries.
in being fre e from sub
and difference. On the contrary, it means that debate 'TI"
'til 'n .. owed no allegi jection; its
ance but to it as lon
I t Iw business of Le
out, and continues, involving in principle everybody . and 11 t g as they went
tters.
 by the eighteenth-century mutually irreducible principles. So the second facet of the
Something of this is inherited
newness of the public sphere has to be defined as its radical
bers of society come together
public sphere. Within it, mem
form and understand the secularity.
and pursue a common end; they
h is nevertheless not constI Here I am recurring to a very particular use of this term,
selves to form an association, whic
in which it stands close to its original meaning as an expres
This was not true of the ancient
tuted by its political structure.
society, a koinonia, only as on sion for a certain kind of time. It is obviously intimately re
polis or republic. Athens was a
true of Rome. The anCIent lated to one common meaning of secularity, which focuses on
stituted politically. The same was
its laws. On the banners of the removal of God or religion or the spiritual from public
society was given its identity by "
SPQR enatus popuIusque romanus, space. What I am talking about is not exactly that, but some
the legio ns, stoo d for "S
ensemble of Roman citizens, thing that has contributed to it, namely, a shift in our under
but the "populus" here was the
standing of what society is grounded on. In spite of all the
by the laws. The people didn't
that is, those defined as such
e a unity prior to and out risks of confusion, there is a reason to use the term secular
have an identity, didn't constitut
93
92
, as we saw above, a common here because it marks in its very etymology what is at stake in I I,

side of these laws. This reflected

r this context, which has something to do with the way human
the moral/metaphysical orde
premodern understanding of
society inhabits time. But this way of describing the differ
underlying social practice.

public spher , our eight e th ence requires some preliminary exploration.
By contrast, in projecting a
ing themselves III an assoCIat
IOn, This notion of secularity is radical because it stands in
century forebears were plac
d noth ing to po contrast not only with a divine foundation for society, but
on, which owe
this common space of discussi
dently of with any idea of society as constituted in something that tran
as existing indepen
litical structures but was seen
scends contemporary common action. If we recur to the pre
them.
of modern ideas of order described in chapter
one aspect of the newness 1, we find, for in
This extrapolitical status is
(or at stance, hierarchical societies that conceive of themselves as
bers of a political society
the public sphere: that all mem
least, all the competent and
enlightened members) shou
ld e bodying forth some part of the Chain of Being. Behind the
Ind eed , this empirical fillers of the slots of kingship, aristocracy, and so
ety outside the state.
seen as also forming a soci
one state; it extended for
n:
so e pur on lie the Ideas or the persisting metaphysical Realities that
society was wider than any
poses to all of civilized

Europe. This i an extrem
ely Impor these people are momentarily embodying. The king has two

ponds to a crucIal f at
re of our c n bodies, only one being the particular, perishable one, which is
tant aspect, and corres
, which emerges at thIS
t me and ,,:hich now being fed and clothed and will later be buried.ll Within
temporary civilization this outlook, what constitutes a society as such is the meta
WIl l take this up
the public sphere. I
is visible in more than
momentarily, but first
we have to take the sec

on step.
.
physical order it embodies.12 People act within a framework
al socIe that exists prior to and independent of their action.
extrapolitical, internatIOn
For it is obvious that an But secularity contrasts not only with divinely established
ic cosmopohs,
is preceded by the Sto
is by itself not new. It churches or Great Chains. It is also different from an under
. Europeans
by the Christian Church .
and, more immediately, standing of our society as constituted by a law that has been
anIzed by two
a dual society, one org
were used to living in
 ours since time out of mind. Because this, too, places our for ongoing action,
action within a framework, one that binds us together, makes the public sphere
but not for he [.o .
undmg acts that
set up
us a society, and transcends our common action. sible to identify .
th
' e answer nugh be that these are impos-
m the stream of
In contradistinction to all this, the public sphere is an asso tIme any more
are for the tribe. .' than they
And if we want to .
ciation that is constituted by nothing outside of the common mSlst that there
such a moment must be
action we carry out in it: coming to a common mind, where
possible, through the exchange of ideas. Its existence as an
well hand down
' th
leg
e
o
:: ;: ;:;;n
o
o
ark that many tri
sng act, when a
bes as
Lycurgus,
for instance, laid .
down thelr 1aws.
association is just our acting together in this way. This com urely he acted out .
existing structur SIde of
es.
mon action is not made possible by a framework that needs to Talking of actions
. within structures b r .
.
be established in some action-transcendent dimension, either
by an act of God or in a Great Chain or by a law that comes
tIes. But there is
respective com
an
.
::::: :
an iff .
mgs

eren e that res
out the sI. mIla
ides
ri-
in the
flOllIng .
mon u an mgs. lt IS true
down to us since time out of mind. This is what makes it radi that in a func-
publIc sphere, acti
94
on at any tIme . .
cally secular. And this gets us to the heart of what is new and . IS carned out with
structures laid dow in
a de act0 arrang
n earIier. There IS .
unprecedented in it. of things. But thi
s arrangement
ement 95
y any pn.vIleg
This is baldly stated. Obviously, this notion of secularity
needs to be made still clearer. Perhaps the contrast is obvi
over the action
set up during pre .
carried out within
doesn' t nJo

it. T e structures
.

were
e

vIOUS acts of com

ous enough with Mystical Bodies and Great Chains. But I am mUnI. catI.On m com
space, on all fours .
mon
with those we are
claiming a difference from traditional tribal society as well, carrying out now.
present action may Our
modIofy these struct .
the kind of thing the German peoples had who founded our fectly legitimate, ures, and that IS
per-
becaus e these are
modern North Atlantic polities, or in another form, what con seen as nothing mor
precipitates and e than
facilitators of suc .
h communICa tIve
stituted the ancient republics and poleis. And this might be But the traditio . actI On.
nal law Of a tnbe
challenged. usually enjoys a
status. We may, of . diff e rent
course , alter It over time, [.0IIow.
These societies were defined by a law. But is that all that scription it itselfpr mg the pre-
ovides. But It IS not .
different from the public sphere? After all, whenever we want
to act in this sphere, we meet a number of structures already
tate and facilita
tor of action. The
0 .

abo}"ItIOn 0 the law

. ;
seen J st as a pre
cipi-

ct 0f common acf
mean the abolitio . Would
n of the suble
in place: there are certain newspapers, television networks, the law defines lOn, b ecause
the tribe as an ent
. Whereas a p
Ity
publishing houses, and the rest. We act within the channels could start up aga ublic sphere
IOn, even where
all me dIa had bee
that these provide. Is this not rather analogous to any mem ished, simply by
foundin ne one : s, a tnb . e
n abol-
ber of a tribe, who also has to act within established structures
of chieftainships, councils, annual meetings, and the rest? Of
life only on the un
interrupted in its
derstan mg . : t at the law, alth
efficacy by foreIgn.
can
oug
resume its
h perhap s
course, the institutions of the public sphere change; news conquest, is still in
That's what I mea force.
n wh en I say that .
papers go broke, television networks merge. But no tribe re society, what mak what constItut es the
es the common ag
ency POSSIble, tra
mains absolutely fixed in its forms; these too evolve over time. nscends
out,WI thm
the common act .
IOns carned . It. I t IS
need or t0 day s
If one wanted to claim that this preexisting structure is valid the structures we . not jus t that
common action ar
ose as a
 consequence of yesterday's, which, however, was no different giving Sparta
its laws? Surel
in nature from today's. Rather, the traditional law is a precon Y these show
constituting us examples of
factor (here I the
dition of any common action, at whatever time, because this aw) ISS ' UIn. g fro
Lycurgus prop m common ac
oses, the Spart tion:
common agency couldn't exist without it . It is in this sense ans accep t. But '
of such foundin I11" s In the natu
g moments tha re
transcendent . By contrast, in a purely secular association (in t they are not
plane as con put on the same
temporary co .
my sense), common agency arises simply in and as a precipi . mmon actIOn . The IioundatI'
are dIsplaced On acts
temr nus whiCh IS
onto a higher .

tate of common action . p1ane, Into a

. heroic time, an
n ot seen as qu illud
The crucial distinction underlying this concept of secu alitao.ve1y on a
We do today.. C un ' lev el with what
The lO
larity can thus be related to this issue: What constitutes the just an earlier
dIng actIo ,
n IS
'
o t l"k
I e our action
, not
similar act wh .
association? Or otherwise put, What makes this group of ose preclpltat
rt IS not just
' e s tructures
ou rs .
earlier b ut In' another kin
people as they continue over time a common agent? Where plary time.13 ' d of time, an
exem-
this is something that transcends the realm of those common
9&
This is why I am
. tempted to use
actions this agency engages in, the association is nonsecu all the misu the term secula '
r In spite of
nderstandi s that may afIs .
97
lar. Where the constituting factor is nothing other than such that I don't me e, Bec aus e it's clear
an onlY ' not tIe .
common action -whether the founding acts have already oc , d to religlon ' . "14 The e
IS much broad " xclu sion
er' For the ongI
.
curred in the past or are now coming about is immaterial . nal sense of sec
age, " tbat IS, . ular was "of th
we have secularity. tlense of "temp
pertaInIng to
profan tI.me.
. It was close to
e
oral" in the OP the
This kind of secularity is modern; it came about very re POSItIOn tempo
'We saw earlier raljspiritual, as
.
cently in the history of mankind. Of course, there have been In earlier ages,

the understan '
all sorts of momentary and topical common agents that have ding Was that
time existed in thIS profane
relation to (s
arisen just from common action. A crowd gathers, people urrounded by.
1, hard to penetrated by'
find the fIg . ht
rn un derstan
words here) ' it
shout protests, and then the governor's house is stoned or h '
Ig h er tIm '
' es. Premo
dings of t'Ime d-
the chateau is burned down. But prior to the modern day, seem to have b
IrmensionaI. een always mu
Time was trans lti-
enduring, metatopical common agency was inconceivable on cended and h
roty, whether th eld In' pIace by ete
at of Gre ek p h ' r-
a purely secular basis. People could see themselves only as IlOSOphY or of
In either case, the biblical God.
eterru'ty Was not .
constituted into such by something action-transcendent, be an ascent int
Jus t en dless pro
o the unchang ane time, but
' " or a kin
Ing ,
it a foundation by God or a Chain of Being that society into a unitY " d of gathering
hence the exp of time
bodied forth or some traditional law that defined our people. '. . ' reSSIOn "hoi aio A A
A
aecu la saecu nes ton aIOnon "
lorum" (thlOu or
The eighteenth-century public sphere thus represents an in gh the ages of
The PIatoru' c ages) .
or Christian
stance of a new kind: a metatopical common space and com relating 0f tI'me
were not
the only gam . and eternity
es In town even
mon agency without an action-transcendent constitution, an
\fa also the ' Chn'sten do
m
much more . ' m. There
agency grounded purely in its own common actions. Wldespread sen
time, a "time se of a foun
L xlv
of origins, " as dation
But how about the founding moments traditional soci IW Eliade calls 1't, 15
Whl'Ch was co
ent m
orelated to the m-
presen t mom
eties often "remembered"? What about Lycurgus's action in , f,-flUently co ' ordm ' ary time,
uld be citUa11 in that
y approache
d an d its force
partly
 reappropriated at certain privileged moments. That's why it Now the move to
what I am calling
could not simply be unambiguously placed in the past (in related to this rad secularIty
. IS . obviously
ically purged tIm.
ordinary time). The Christian liturgical year draws on this e consclOusness.
when associations It comes
are pIace d firmIy
kind of time consciousness, widely shared by other religions, and wholly in ho
neous, profane ti moge_
me, whether or not
in reenacting the "founding" events of Christ's life. altogether or othe . .
the higher fIme IS . negated
r aSSocIatlOns are
It seems to have been the universal norm to see the impor .
It. Such is the case . d to eXI. st III
still admltte .
with the Public sph
tant metatopical spaces and agencies as constituted in some new and (close to) ere, and therein lies
unpreceden.ted its
mode of higher time. States and churches were seen to exist al nature.
I can now perh .
aps draw this d
most necessarily in more than one time dimension, as though ISCUSSlOn together
to state what the and try
public sphere was
it were inconceivable that they have their being purely in . It was a new m
space, in which . etatopical
members 0f SOCIety
the profane or ordinary time. A state that bodied forth the could exchange 1d
come to a com eas and
mon mIl . l d . As such . .
Great Chain was connected to the eternal realm of Ideas; a ' It constItuted a
topical agency meta-
98
' but one that was understood t .
people defined by its law communicated with the founding d
ent of t e politic eXI. st lndePe -

time where this was laid down; and so on. . f:ane tIm
pro e.
al constitution of

society an compI
eteIy III 99 I' l l
Modern secularization can be seen from one angle as the
rejection of higher times and the positing of time as purely
An extrapolitical
a:
se 1 r, .
et toplCal space: this is
the public sphere
what

t
w s e I portance of
profane. Events now exist only in this one dimension, in which .iug this lies part understand_
ly in the act th
they stand at greater and lesser temporal distance and in at It was not the
on1y such
space, that it was part of a
deveIopment that
relations of causality with other events of the same kind. our whole underst . transformed
anding of tIm e and society, so
The modern notion of simultaneity comes to be, in which trouble even reca that we have
lling what It
. was like befo
events utterly unrelated in cause or meaning are held together re.
simply by their co-occurrence at the same point in this single
profane time line. Modern literature, as well as news media.
seconded by social science, have accustomed us to think
of society in terms of vertical time slices, holding together
myriad happenings, related and unrelated. I think Benedicl
Anderson is right that this is a typically modern mode of so
cial imagination, which our medieval forebears would hav"
found difficult to understand, for where events in profane
time are very differently related to higher time, it seems un.
natural just to group them side by side in the modern relation
of simultaneity. This carries a presumption of homogeneity
that was essentially negated by the dominant time conscious
ness.16 I return to this later.
7 Public and Private

T
here are, of course, two other such extrapolitical, secular __
'__ n

spaces that have played a crucial role in the development

of society in the modern West: first, society considered as
extrapolitically organized in a (market) economy, which
I mentioned above; and second, society as a "people," that is,
as a metatopical agency that is thought to preexist and found
the politically organized society. We have to see these three as
linked in their development, and also as interwoven with other
kinds of social spaces that were also emerging at this time.
Habermas notes that the new public sphere brought to
gether people who had already carved out a "private" space as
economic agents and owners of property, as well as an "inti
mate" sphere that was the locus of their family life. The agents
constituting this new public sphere were thus both "bour
geois" and "homme."l
I think there is a very important link here. The importance
of these new kinds of private space, that is, the heightened
Sflnse oftheir significance in human life, and the growing con
sensus in favor of entrenching their independence in the face
of state and church, bestowed in fact exceptional importance
on an extrapolitical and secular domain oflife. It is hard not to
 rise of the public on supposedly higher or more heroic modes of life. It under
e way facilitated the
believe that this in som lies the bourgeois ethic of peaceful rational productivity in its
sphere. polemic against the aristocratic ethic of honor and heroism.
y in a further
these forms of privac
I would like to place It can even appropriate its own forms of heroism, as in the
above (chapter 5),
ich I already invoked
historical context, wh Promethean picture of humans as producers, transforming
my. Th is is what I
the ris e of the econo
in connection with the face of the earth, which we find with Marx. Or it can issue
."2 By this I mean
ation of ordinary life
have called the "affirm in the more recent ethic of self-fulfillment in relationships,
which seems to
in European culture,
the broad movement which is very much part of our contemporary world.
Reformation, that
t by the Protestant
have been carried firs This is the background against which we can understand
ction and family
significance of produ
steadily enhances the
inant ethics that des
cend from the an
t e two develo ments Habermas picks out. First, the saliency
life . Whereas the dom
rastructural to h gIven to the private economic agent reflects the significance of
to treat these as inf
cient world tended the life of production in the ethic of ordinary life. This agent
y higher actIvI
103
in terms of supposedl
"good life," defined is private, as against the public realm of state and other au
tion, and wh reas
102
n or citizen participa
ties like contemplatio thority. The private world of production now has a new dig
t made the life of
leaned to a view tha
medieval Catholicism nity and importance. The enhancing of the private in effect
ian practice, the
highest form of Christ
dedicated celibacy the
that we follow Go d fi

rst of all in our c
gives the charter to a certain kind of individualism. The agent
Reformers stressed of production acts on his own, operates in a sphere of ex
sanctified : or put In
ily. The ordinary is .
ing and in our fam change with others that doesn't need to be constituted by au
certaIn types of
s to special sanctIty of
other terms the claim thority. As these acts of production and exchange come to be
hes) or s ecial ats

life (the mo astic) or
special places (churc
.
I PIOUS belief seen as forming an ideally self-regulating system, the notion
ss) were reject ed as part of false and
(the Ma emerges of a new kind of extrapolitical and secular sphere,
action of grace.
some way control the
that humans could in an economy in the modern sense. Where the word originally
ty were rejected
ims to special sancti
But to say that all cla
ne tim especiall ! applied to the management of a household, and therefore to
dal points where p ofa
is to say that the no a domain that could never be seen as self-regulating, in the
We live our ordI
time were repudIated.
connected with divine eighteenth century the notion arises of an economic system,
r families in pro
r callings, sustain ou
nary lives, work in ou with the physiocrats and Adam Smith, and that is the way we
what God demands
w perspective, this is
fane time. In the ne understand it today.
connect with eter
empt on our part to
of us and not an att The (market) economy comes to constitute a sphere, that
' ir. Thus, th issue
T
nity. hat connectio
n is purely Go d s affa
ceforth sItuated is, a way people are linked together to form an interconnecting
d or bad lives was hen
of whether we live goo society, not only objectively but in their self-understanding.
e.
and within profane tim .
firmly in ordinary life This sphere is extrapolitical and secularly constituted. But
ological and int o a purely human dI
Transposed out of a the .
n behefs it is in an important sense not public. The time has come,
to the constellation of moder
mension, thi s gav e ris e
makes the central qu

estions of t e good perhaps, to distinguish some of the senses of this overworked
and sensibility that term.3
and turns Its back
e our ordinary lives,
life turn on how we liv
 mate sphere, shielded from the outside world and even from
along which the
main semantic axes
There seem to be two other members of a large household. Houses are more and
public to what affects
publi c is u sed. The first connects ore cnstructed to allow for the privacy of family members
term ment
s") or the manage
nity ("public affair relatIOn to servants as well as outsiders.
the whole commu akes pub
second m
m

blic authority" ) . The

of these affairs ("pu The enhanced value placed on family life, in the context
open to the public")
ccess ("This park is
licity a matter of a new
of another long-term development toward greater concentra
ade public") . The .
e news has been m
or appearance ("Th with public the
in
on on subjectivity and inwardness, has as one of its fruits the
omic agents contrasts
private sphere of econ eIghteenth-century cherishing of sentiment. Another shift
constitute a public
agents also came to
first sense. But these o cs, as it were, in the center of gravity of the good life,
sphere is precisely
sense, because this
sphere in the second me Within the broad development that affirms ordinary life, and
in which people co .
met atopi cal com mon space, a space a new Importance comes to repose on our experiencing fine,
a say,
a space, we might
tact each other. It is noble, or exalted sentiments. This new ethic both defines and
together and con spa ce.
a public
of mutual app ear
ance, and in that sense
p opagates itself through literature. Perhaps its central ve 105
proper is not public even in that
economic sphere
104 But the e hicle was the epistolary novel. Rousseau's Julie is a paradigm
ic transactions ar
whole set of econom
second sense. The ced and case.
which can be tra
causal relations,
linked in a series of ther. This literature helped define a new understanding f an
ey influence each o
. 0

we can understand how th mtImate sphere of close relations: the home at its finest of
.
by whi ch au
decision (by public
matter of common
But this is not a e publ ic noble se timents and exalted experience. This understanding
ns lie in som
se linked transactio f expenence was further enriched by a new conception of art
thority), nor do the be
yet it is a "sphere "
appearance. And
domain of common a the category of the aesthetic. This is another fruit of subjec
n as being linked in

.
an economy are see :
cause the agents in ct each ' ific tlOn, of cou se, because art understood in this category
reciprocally affe
which their actions
single so ciety, in 1S bemg defined III terms of our reaction to it. It is in this cen
ematic way.
other in some syst try tha music becomes more and more detached from pub
of the neW sort de-
first mode of society
The economy is the lic and liturgical function and comes to join the other arts as
extrapolitically and
constituted purely .
fined ab ove, a society
ris of
objects of aesthetic enjoyment, enriching the intimate sphere
background to the
forms part of the d
in profane time. It exp lana tIOn his intimate realm was also part of the backgroun
le that the .
the public sphere .
It seems very plausib
agams which the public sphere emerged. And not only be
other. .
ked with that of the
of each is interlin nti- cause It constItuted part of the domain of the (extrapolitical
picks out is the i
ground H abermas
The second back on d m and secular) private, but also because the intimate domain
ent of the se
we see a developm
mate sphere. Here Its had to be defined through public interchange, both of liter
of the family and
titu ent of ordina ry life: the world ary works and of criticism. This is only superficially a para
cons omes
develops, this bec
eighteenth century
affections. As the this tim e defin ed dvx, as we shall see below. A new definition ofhuman identt
I
demand for privacy, .
the locus of another ned, evr pnvate, can become generally accepted only through
ess, that concer
nd kind of publicn
in relation to the seco bamg defined and affirmed in public space. And this critical
more into an inti-
life retreats more and
with access. Family
 exchange itself came to constitute a public sphere. We might resp ect . They
usually dem
say it came to constitute an axis of the public sphere, along anded a strong
their members, commitment
draWIn g them to a from
with, even slightly ahead of, the principal axis of exchange the boun ds of sso CIa. te WI. th others
C . hborho0
family IIne beyond
around matters of public (in the first sense) policy. People teaIty. They ' " age, neIg
d, and tradit
created SOCIet . Ies ional
who never met came to a mutually recognized common mind . s . . whIC
In h these m
tIe
Cr
mattered less ore
tO
than beIong . pa rtial
about the moving power of Rousseau's Julie, just as they came Ing to a reIIgl .
which member " Ous com m
ship was In . d.IVldu un ity
to do in the early revolutionary period about the insights of same tOr . al and fun
c
all. Something damentally the
his Contrat Social. l1ke th.IS, of co
of the theory urse, Was aIw
of the ChfIst ays part
. Ian. Chu r
There is also a third way in which the Reformation helped Iived this more ch ' but the moder
intensely an d n sect
to create the conditions for metatopical common agency in . accustomed it
Ing themselv s members to
es as belongin . . see-
secular time. I am thinking here particularly of the more g IndIVl. dual
Who1e. The gro ly and dIre ctIy to
und was thus the
radical, Calvinist wing. From the very beginning, Calvinism prepared for m
tal " or dIre odern "hon.zo
106
ct-access n-
so cieties, in w
usually demanded a much more thoroughgoing reorganiza unmediated hIC. h Our memb
by any partaI
roup, as also
ership is

107
tion of church life than the more moderate Lutheran variant. bility in whic for a mo de of
h new assOCIatI sOCla-
.
Later, particularly in the English-speaking countries, it also . Ons are consta
It IS against th ntly bel.ng creat
is who1e econo . ed 4
spilled over into political restructuring and the founding of sentimental mIc, eccIeSIa 1, an d intim .
backgro und ate_
that we have
new political units designed on new principles, as in New En of the p ublic to un derstand the
sphere In . Europe rise
gland. At this point, this strand of the Reformation also began understand it This means tha
as part of affi t we should
to fissure and to generate new "free" churches, based more constitutions

I.1y of xtrapo
litical and sec
ular
of "soCle. ty. ' On one
and more on voluntary associations, a process that intensi omy, even fart SI de, .
It re1ates to the
rom the p 0Ii
"
her remo Y'ed econ-

fies in the eighteenth century with Methodism and the Great IS not a dom tICa1 realm in
ain of pu bI"ICIty that it
. In . any sense.
Awakening. . helped
It to nourish th 0n the other
e new Im side
. ages of pop '
ise to n ew an d
In this recurrent activity of founding and refounding, we whICh gave r u1ar sovereig
. nty
'
SometI.mes ffIg
are witnessing more and more the creation of common agen . al actio
po1ItIc htem.ng forms
n in the eIg. hteenth of
cies in secular time. We still have a crucial reference to God, century.
as the one who calls us to this refounding, but the reference
to higher time is less and less prominent. It remained, if at
all, only in an eschatological perspective, to the extent that
the new reforms were thought to be ushering in the end of
profane time and the gathering of all times in God. As this
perspective dims, the founding activity is confined more and
more exclusively in profane time.
The life of these new churches or sects also helped to set
the scene for modern forms of common agency in another
8 The Sovereign People

P
opular sovereignty is the third in the great connected
chain of mutations in the social imaginary that have
helped constitute modern society. It too starts off as a
theory, and then gradually infiltrates and transmutes so
cial imaginaries. But how does this come about? We can in fact
distinguish two rather different paths. I define them here as
ideal types, recognizing that in real historical developments
they often are combined and sometimes are difficult to disen
tangle.
On the one hand, a theory may inspire a new kind of ac
tivity with new practices, and in this way form the imaginary
f whatever groups adopt these practices. The first Puritan
"hurches formed around the idea of a covenant provide ex
amples of this. A new ecclesial structure flowed from a theo
I gical innovation; this becomes part of the story of political
hange, because the civil structures themselves were influ
enced in certain American colonies by the ways churches were
" verned, as with Connecticut Congregationalism, where
only the converted enjoyed full citizenship.
Or else the change in the social imaginary comes with a re
m rpretation of a practice that already existed in the old dis-
 pensation. Older forms oflegitimacy are colonized, as it
w rt'. ill aJ departure, as it may seem to us
r

t d as an act of continuity, of retur

in retrospect, was
d, pr
with the new understandings of order, and then transform -
n to a preexistent
. I iii -. ( We are fooled by a change
in certain cases, without a clear break in sem antics. The "Glori-
The United States is a case in point. The reigning notion:.
f Rt'
'ution" had the original sense of a return to the
legitimacy in Britain and America, the ones tha ed th . . not the
pOllIon
origi
I
n
modern sense of an innovative turnover.
as the beg s of h. 01 -l>e. it helped by its
glish Civil War, for instance, as well Wirkungsgeschichte [effect on sub-
Tht\ qu n , .history] to alter the sense.)
colonies' rebellion, were basically backward-looking.
turned around the idea of an "ancient constitution," an
r r Tlu .iit between new theory and tra
ronal to the outcome. Popular sovereignty
ditional p ractices was
based on law holding since time out of mind , in which Parii.J
could be invoked
I If Ih . \merican case
ment had its rightful place beside the king. This was typi because it could find a generally agreed
If Upon 1 .;titutional meaning. All colonist
of one of the most widespread premodern understanding-
I lou nd a new constitution was
s agreed that the way
order, which referred back to a "time of origin s" (Eliad "
through some kind of assem
110 111
I . perhaps slightly larger than the
phrase), which was not in ordinary time. , . normal one, such as in
This older idea emerges from the American Revolull
II I , . husetts in 1779. The force of the old
representative in
a:r 1S lil llio118 helped to "interpret" in prac
transformed into a full-fledged foundation in popul
\'Pr

p .
tical terms the new
eignty, whereby the U.S. Constitution is put in the mo
th "I lit

"We, the people." This was preceded by an appea l to the .d .
s h 11
ized order of natural law, in the invocation of "truth
tmr
self-evident" in the Declaration of Independence.! Th
was under stood as
sition was made easier because what
traditional law gave an important place to elected assem
say that the American Revolution started on
the
I 'I nf' legitimacy idea and finished by
engendering
I llh'r. 'Very different one, while somehow
avoiding a radi-
th. 1 1m' k. Thf' colonists started by asserting
the traditional
Ij ri h i of Englishmen" against an arrog

and their consent to taxation. All that was needed was to

ant and insensitive
. 111 I IInr . nul government. Once the break w
III 1 \\lJ- cosu mmated
ith King in Parlia.
the only sour 'C "j
the balance in these so as to make elections and the governors were no longer to
oLI'\, d, the leadership of the resistan
But what has to take place for this change to come 011 1-
legitimate power. . ce passed naturally
I lh e " , ting elected legislatures, associa
ted in a Continen-
transformed social imaginary, in which the idea offound
atio/1 J ..n teo s. The analogy with the Civil
" Ill.
War of the 1640s was
hin,..
is taken out of the mythical early time and seen as somet
words , t beco
es It has always been a Source of radicalization. The
that people can do today. In other FIn! . war

thing that can be brought about by collectIve actIOn

.
!l' r h itself was made through a Declaration
that affirmed
temporary, purely secular time. This happene sometIru " r. J human rights, no longe

I
I
r simply those of English
the eighteenth century, but really more towar d Its end than ertain states adopted new constitutions based on
a hOI
the
beginning. Elites had propounded theories of fo nding PI I' 'Jar w :ill. Ultimately, the whole movement
In,Lttution that places the new
culminates in
beforehand, but these hadn't adequately sunk mto th
11\
republic squarely within
on. So thaI 16 " Ii nil t1f" m moral order: as the will of a
eral social imaginary for them to be acted people that had no
 need of some preexisting law to act as a people but could see universal acceptance among the colon
ists of elected assem
itself as the source of law. blies as legitimate forms of power.
This was the more heart
The new social imaginary comes essentially through a felt in that their elected legislatur
es had long been the main
retrospective reinterpretation. The revolutionary force were bulwark of their local liberties again
st the encroachments of
mobilized largely on the basis of the old, backward-looking an executive under royal or imperial
control. At most, come
legitimacy idea. This will later be seen as the exercise of a a crucial turning point like the adop
tion of a new state con
power inherent in a sovereign people. The proof of its exis stitution, they had recourse to spec
ial enlarged assemblies.
tence and legitimacy lies in the new polity it has erected. But Popular sovereignty could be emb
raced because it had a clear
popular sovereignty would have been incapable of doing this and uncontested institutional mean
ing. This was the basis of
job if it had entered the scene too soon. The predecessor idea, the new order.2
invoking the traditional rights of a people defined by their
ancient constitution, had to do the original heavy lifting, mo- Quite different was the case in the
112
french Revolution, with

113
bilizing the colonists for the struggle, before being relegated fateful effects. The impossibility rema
rked by all historians of
to oblivion with the pitiless ingratitude toward the past that "bringing the Revolution to an end"
3 came partly from this,
defines modern revolutions . that any particular expression of popu
lar sovereignty could
Of course, this didn't mean that nothing changed in the be challenged by some other, with
substantial support . Part
practices, only the legitimating discourse. On the contrary, of the terrifying instability of the
first years of the Revolu-
certain important new steps were taken, which only the new tion stemmed from this negative fact,
that the shift from the
discourse could justify. I've already mentioned the new state legitimacy of dynastic rule to that of
the nation had no agreed
constitutions, such as that of Massachusetts in 1779. But the meaning in a broadly based social
imaginary.
federal Constitution itself is the most striking example. In This is not to be understood as the
global explanation of
the Federalist view, it was imperative to create a new central this instability, but as telling us some
thing about the way the
power that wasn't simply a creature of the states; this had different factors we cite to explain
it worked together to pro
been the principal fault of the confederal regime they were duce the result we know. Of course,
the fact that substantial
trying to replace. There had to be something more than the parts of the king's entourage, the
army and the nobility, did
"peoples " of the different states creating a common instru not accept the new principles creat
ed a tremendous obstacle
ment. The new union government had to have its own base of to stabilization. Even those who
were for the new legitimacy
legitimacy in a "people of the United States." This was inte were divided among themselves. But
what made these latter
gral to the whole Federalist project . divisions so deadly was the absence
of any agreed understand
At the same time, this projection backward of the action of ing on the institutional meaning of
the sovereignty of the na
a sovereign people wouldn't have been possible without the tion.
continuity in institutions and practices that allowed for the Burke's advice to the revolutionaries
was to stick to their
reinterpretation of past actions as the fruit of the new prin traditional Constitution and amend
it piecemeal. But this was
ciples. The essence of this continuity resided in the virtually already beyond their powers It was
. not just that the repre-
 sentative institutions of this Constitution, the Estate- II
eral had been in abeyance for 175 years. They were al ,.ro
. r. ,'a. was a stage ahead on this
same evolution; their rep.
l nlativf' assemblies were

fou dly out of synch with the aspiration to equal citizdJ IUf' 1I1.111 hl)ud suffrage.
generally elected on the
basis of
that had developed among the educated classes, the bourg , T"t' forms of self-
sie and a good part of the aristocracy, which found expr -
rule through elected asse
p.:ul of th generally

mbly were
/I'li ' , lot only
available repertory in the
sion in a number of ways: negatively through the atta"k on Anglo-Saxon
were they absent in that
aristocratic privilege, and positively in the enthusiasm for r" .
- r. In France, but the of the popular
publican Rome and its ideals.4 That is why virtually th ' lr1
se had developed their
fml81' protest that were ow n forms of
. th pa structured by a quite diff
demand of the Third Estate in 1789 was to abolish But hefar turning to erent logic.
examine these, there is a
rate chambers and bring all the delegates together in a :;ingl I }, ad.. about modern
gene ral point
National Assembly. revolutionary transitions
I lin the basis of novel carried
Even more gravely, outside of these educated elit . Ih
theories.
Th ransition can onl
114 r I . I'JlSe, if the
y come off, in anything
was very little sense of what a representative constitutltm
like the de
1 15
"people, " or at least imp
might mean. True, masses of people responded to th (. l ',(hi ts, understan
orta nt minorities 1 1 11 - +
d and internalize the the
ing of the Estates General, with their cahiers de dolearwe. hUI hll ill actors, underst ory . But for
II Inlo l)actice in
anding a theory is being
this whole procedure supposed the continuance of ro, '0 - able to put
ereignty; it wasn't at all suited to serve as a channel ' r Lh
their world. They understa
Ill' proc tlCes that put nd it through
m k. DS to the
it into effect. These pra
popular will. ctices have to
BUI , h,1 , makes snse
. al ll" II, ' m, the kind of sense the
What the moderates hoped for was something theory prescribes.
n r \ ..d 30 wha
of our practices is our
lines of Burke's prescription: an evolution of the traditlun.. social imagi
constitution to fashion the kind of representative instit linn
t IS crucial to this kind
Ih IIl'u ;:;1- (or its acti
of transition is that
Ih ali fill this req
ve segments) share a
that would precisely be understood by all as the expre 1011 ' soci al imaginary
uirement, that is, that
the nation's will through the votes of the citizens. Thi i wI! t IlUJF the new theory.
inclu des ways of
the House of Commons had become in the eighteentb l ' n \ I "i t t of the
social imaginary of a peop
tury, even though the "people" here was a small elit. d f m' 11m ' d kind of repertory, as
le at a given
I suggested in cha
to speak for the whole through various modes of vrrtual rt t I ,lln - th-. ensemble of pter 2, in
practices they can make
resentation. I -for m society acc sens e of. To
ording to a new principle
The evolution that had brought this about in Britain h ,j JI ' t have repert ofle gitimacy,
III J n lple. This requirem
ory that includes ways
created a sense of the forms of self-rule that was part of th. - of meeting
! : ( l) thf' actors
ent can be broken down
cial imaginary of the broader society. That's why t e d nlWI int o two
have to know what to do,
for broader popular participation took the form m Eru!!I I r c Il-e- in the
ir repertory that put the
have to have
of proposals to extend the franchise. The peple wanttd I d - <)) l b, ensemble of
new or der into effect ,.
to the established representative structure, as IS most n ,.1U ' have to agree on what
actors
r I.r s are. these
in the Chartist agitation of the 1830s and 1840s. Th1: Alii r" 1'\'0 an analogy draw
n fro m Kantian philosophy: the
o-
 ries are like abstract categories; they need to be "schema
tized," to receive some concrete interpretation in the domain
of practice, if they are to be operative in history.
There have been certain modern revolutionary situations
where the first facet has been virtually completely missing.
Take the Russian case, for instance: the collapse of tsarist
rule in 1917 was supposed to open the way to a new republi
can legitimacy, which the provisional government supposed
would be defined in the Constituent Assembly they called for
the following year. But if we follow the analysis of Orlando
Figes, the mass of the peasan population couldn't conceive of
the Russian people as a whole as a sovereign agent.5 What they
116 did perfectly well understand, and what they sought, was the
freedom for the miT to act on its own, to divide the land that
the nobles (in their view) had usurped, and to no longer suffer
repression at the hands of the central government. Their so
cial imaginary included a local collective agency, the people of
the village or mir. They knew that this agency had to deal with
a national government that could do them a lot of harm, and
even occasionally some good. But they had no conception of a
national people that could take over sovereign power from the
despotic government. Their repertory didn't include collec
tive actions of this type at this national level; what they could
understand was large-scale insurrections, like the Pugachov
"
schina, whose goat was not to take over and replace central
power, but to force it to be less malignant and invasive.
By contrast, what was missing in the period of the French
Revolution was the second facet. More than one formula was
offered to realize popular sovereignty. On one side, the tra
ditional institutions of the Estates General were unsuited for
this purpose; the (common) people elected only one chamber
out of three; and the whole system was meant to represent
subjects making supplication to a sovereign monarch
.
But on the other side, the gamut of theories offered was
much wider than in the American case. This was partly due
to the fact that in the Anglo-Saxon world, the powerful hold
of representative institutions on the imaginary inhibited the
theoretical imagination, but it also arose out of the peculiar
trajectories of French culture and thought.
Of particular importance in the French case was a range of
theories influenced by Rousseau. These had two features that
were fateful for the course of the Revolution. The first was
what underlay Rousseau's conception of la volonte generale .
This reflected Rousseau's new and more radical redaction of
the modern idea of order.
The principle of this idea of order, as we have seen, is that
we are each meant to pursue freely the means to life, but in 117
such a way that each in seeking his own aids-or at least re-
frains from hindering-the parallel search of others. In other
words, our pursuit of our life plans must harmonize. But this
harmony was variously conceived. It can come about through
invisible hand processes, as with the celebrated theory of
Adam Smith.6 But as this was never thought to suffice, har
monization was also to be brought about consciously, through
our following natural law. Locke saw this as given by God,
and the motivation for obeying it was whatever makes us obey
God: a sense of obligation to our Creator and the fear of eter-
nal punishment.
Later, the fear of God is replaced by the idea of imper
sonal benevolence, or else by a notion of natural sympathy.
But what all these earlier conceptions have in common is that
they suppose a duality of motivations in us: we can be tempted
to serve our interest at the expense of others, and then we
can also be moved -through fear of God, impersonal benevo
lence or whatever-to act for the general good. It is this dual
ism that Rousseau wanted to set aside. True harmony can
come only when we overcome this duality, when my love of
.myself coincides with my desire to fulfill the legitimate goals
 of my co-agents (those participating with me in this harmo Cause it aim s t the
good of all, is not a
nization) . In Rousseau's language, the primitive instincts of brake on free dom. 0
the contrary, It co n
mes from what is most
self-love (amour de soi) and sympathy (pitie) fuse together in authent"IC I us, from
a self-love that is
enlarged and transp
the rational and virtuous human being into a love of the com osed Int
' o the hIger reg-
ister of morality. It's
. the fruit of the pas
mon good, which in the political context is known as the gen . sage from solitude t0
SOCIety, whI' ch IS also that from the
eral will.
. n to
animal Con d'ItIO
of humanity: that
In other words, in the perfectly virtuous man, self-love is
Ce passage de I'etat
no longer distinct from love of others. But the overcoming of de nature a I'e'tat .
CIVil prodUlt '
this distinction brings with it a new dualism which arises at ds I 'homme un
changement tres rem
arquable en sub
stItUt dans sa cond
another point. If self-love is also love of humanity, how to ex
plain the egoistic tendencies that fight in us against virtue? nant a ses actI. Ons Ia
uite Ia justice a l'in
mor aIite .
:
stinct et don
" , qui Ieur manqualt
vant. , ' " aupara-
These must come from another motive, which Rousseau calls QUOlqU 11 se pnve dans cet etat de
118
avantages qu"1I tIen pluSl' eurs
pride (amour propre) . So my concern for myself can take two ' t de Ia nature,
il en regagne de SI
119
grands, ses Eoacu]tes , '
different forms, which are opposed to each other as good is ' s exercent et se
deve
' Ioppent ses
to evil. ide' es s "etendent, ses '
sentiments s'ennobIisse
toute enfIere nt, son arne
"
This distinction is new in the context of the Enlighten ' s "eIeve
' a tel point que si Ies
abus de cette
nouveIIe cn d'ItIO, n ne Ie degradait
ment. But in another sense, it involves a return to a way of souvent au-dess ous
celIe dont II est sorti , de
thinking deeply anchored in tradition. We distinguish two
' "
il devrait berur
' Sans cesse 1 "Instant
heureux qUl I en ar
qualities in the will. We're back in the moral world of Augus racha pourJ'amais et q
uI', d'un anI'maI
stUpI'de et borne en '
tine: humans are capable of two loves, one good, the other evil. fit un etre intellige
nt et un homme,9
But it's a revised Augustine, a Pelagian Augustine, if the para (The passage from
the state of nature
to the CIVI
dox is not too shocking, because the good will is now innate,
,
,

prod uces rea
rkable change in
man by substituting
" I state
natural, entirely anthropocentric, as Monseigneur de Beau JustIce for InstInct in
his conduct and gIVI " ng h'IS acts the
mont saw very clearly. moraI,Ity they previo
usly lacked ' , , , In '
this state he IS
And the theory itself is very modern, placed within the depn'ed of some adV
antages given to him
modern moral order. The goal is to harmonize individual by nature but
he gams others so gre
wills, even if this can't be done without creating a new identity,
at - h'IS lac ' are exercis ed'and
uItIes
developed, his ideas
are broadene d, his
a moi commun.7 What has to be rescued is liberty, the indi Iie eIings are en-
nobIed, hIS ' whole soul is upli
fted - that if the ab
vidual liberty of each and every one . Freedom is the supreme this new state d'Id Uses 0f
, not often degrade him
good, to the point that Rousseau reinterprets the opposition below his pre
VIOUS level, he wouId
constantly have reason
of virtue and vice to align it with that of liberty and slavery: to bless the
happy moment when
he was drawn out
"Car l'impulsion de l'appetit est esclavage, et l'obeissance a naure orever and cha
of the state of
nged from a stupid,
une loi qu'on s'est prescrite est liberte. "8 The law we love, be- short-sighted
ammaI Into an intell
igent being and a ma ,
n)
 .
reurs It l'a'd
I e d'un entendement sans regIe et d'une raI-
, is not the authentic
law, on the other hand
What oppo ses this son sans principe.lo
and turned from its
has been corrupted
self, but a will that
e. (Conscience! Conscience'' DiVIne
' InstInct,
, , immortal
ough other-dependenc
proper course thr psychology very
, .
ction gives us a moral VOIce from heaven; sure guide or a creature Ignorant
The Rousseau reda
different from the
standard conception
of the Enlightenm
ent
urns
and fi ' te m
' deed, et intelligent and free; infallible

down from Locke.

It not only ret J'udge 0 good and evIl, making man like to Go d', In thee
period, which came
entially two qualities
, good and evil; it
also ,
con Ists
he excellence of man's nature and the morality
1
to a will with pot will in a
the goo d
between reason and of his actIOns; apart from thee, I find noth"mg m myse fto
presents the relation
ion sees dis engaged ' me above the beasts-nothing but the sad pn'viIege
The mainstream vers raIse
quite different way. makes
standpoint and of wandering from one error to another, by the he1p 0f
us to a universal
reas on, which lifts evole nce
a general ben an unbridled understand'mg and a reason which knows
ators, as liber ating
us imp artial spect ned .
121
gnize our enlighte '
no prmCIple,)
teaching us to reco
in us, or at least as son
r This theory suggested a new kind of politics, wh'ICh we m
objectify ing rea
120
sseau, however, this
self-interest. For Rou o em '
and only serves t
strategic thinking,
is the servant of g _ lact see enacted in the dimactIc " penod of the Revolution,
ulations that, by tryin
broil us more fully
in the power calc
e dep end ent 1792-94 F'Irst, It
, . that makes virtue a central con-
" IS a p litICs
more and mor .'
in fact make us 0f se1-Iove and love
to control others, cept, a VIrtue that conSIsts in the fuSion '
put it in 1792', "T.LA'A
'
on them. of country, As Robespierre
' arne de 1a Repu-
the same time iso-
which is at one and . ,
This strategic self, the blique, c 'est Ia vertu, c'est l'amour de Ia patne, Ie devoue-
esses ever further
lated and eager for
others' approval, repr
t attempt to reco
ver a "l
ment rna nalllme
"
qm conf nd tous les interets dans l'interet
ggle for virtue is tha
true self. The stru n general . In one sense this was a return to an ancient notion
silenced deep withi '
buried and almost . .
voice that has been m ent; we of ' e, whICh Montesquieu had identified as the "mam-
of disengage
the exact opposite
us. What we need is and sprmg of repubJ'ICS, "une preference continuelle de l'interet
t is most intimate
gagement with wha
need, rather, a reen of '
public au Slen propre,"12 B ut It
' has been reedited in the new
udible by the clamor
lves, rendered ina Rousseaman
essential in ourse "co n- ' terms of fusion (" qm' confond tous les interets
traditional term
Rousseau uses the
the world, for which dans I"mteret general")
, A "

. ,
SCIence." Second, it tends to Manichaeanism, The gray areas be
,
tween virtue and vice tend to d's
I appear. There IS no legitimate
immortelle et
ce! instinct divin,
Conscience! Conscien
orant et borne,
place alongside for pnva
'

' te mt rest, even if subordinate to the
1
assure d'un etre ign
celeste voix; guide love of the genera good. Self-mterest is a sign of corruption
le du bien et du
libre; juge infaillib
mais intelligent et
u, c'est toi qui

thus f VICe,
' and at the limit can become inseparable fro
mme semblable a Die ,
mal , qui rends l'ho opposltIon. The egoist becomes identified as traltor
'
alite de ses actions;
sa nature et la mor
fais l'excellence de "
Third, the discourse of this politics has a quasl-reI'IgIOUS
,
eve au-dessus des
rien en moi qui m'el
sans toi je ne sens tenor, as has 0ften been remarked . IS The sacred IS
' often
r d' erreurs en er-
privilege de m' egare
betes, que Ie triste
 evoked (l'union sacree, the "sacriligeous hand " that killed
memes; faites que
Marat, etc.) . chacun se voie et '
s aime dans les
autres, afin que tous
But one of the most fateful features of this politics is, en soient mieux unis
.IS
fourth, its complex notion of representation. For Rousseau, of (Bu t wha t will be th
e obJect
s of
these entertainme
course- and this is the second important feature of his theory . be sho
Wh at WIll nts?
wn in them? Noth
ing if you p1ease
-political representation expressed in its normal sense With liberty, where ' .
ver abundance reigns
. , well-bein also
through elected assemblies, was anathema . This is connected reIgns. Plant a stake
with his insistence on transparency. 14 The general will is the of a square; gather
crowne d with lowe .
rs m the mIddle
the people together
. there and oU
site of maximum transparency, in the sense that we are maxi WIll have a festival ' Y
mally present and open to each other when our wills fuse into :: ru;
me
. Do better yet ,. let
entertainment to th
the spectators be-
ems elves; make the
m actors
one. Opacity is inherent to particular wills, which we often try emse ves; do it so
that each sees and lov .
es himself m
to realize by indirect strategies, using manipulation and false the others so that all
122
will be better unite
d.)
appearances (which touches on another form of representa
:i arency, that is nonre
123
tion, of a quasi-theatrical type, which is also bad and harm pres entation, require
for s a certain
Iscourse, Where the
ful). That is why this political outlook so easily assimilates
disaffection with hidden and nonavowable action, even with
: ven forms of liturgy
common will is defi
where this will is
ned ublicl .
a!:. :
made m ifest f :
y the people, and
plots, hence at the limit with treason . The general will, on the that not once and for
edly, one mIg. all but rep eat-
ht even think obs
eSSively.. This makes
crucial dimension 0f
other hand, is created openly, in the sight of everyone. Which sens e of a
. nary .
revolutIO
years m rIS, where legitim
is why, in this type of politics, the general will always has to . p . dIscourse in these
fateful
be defined, declared, one might even say produced before the acy was meant to be
a (finally rIght) form won thr ou h
people, in another kind of theater which Rousseau had clearly
described. This is not a theater where actors present them
ex ante, that of the
ulation of that gene
.
healthy and VIrt
ral will that is alrea
uous rep ublic This
; y,
some way to expl gO S
selves before spectators, but rather one modeled on the pub
lic festival, where everyone is both performer and spectator.
between the factions
.
ain the striking verb
in 1792-94. But It .
also shows the Imp
h
oseness of t e strugg
.
e
tance gIven to revolu or
tionary festivals whi
This is what distinguishes the true republican festival from ' ch M ona 0zouf has
.
8t died. 16 These were
the modern degraded forms of theater. In the former, one may
well ask:

to he people, or the
attempts to make the
people manifest to
republic manifest
itself foIlowmg .
.
seau, these fiestlva ' Rous-
Is often borrowed . .
H .
re gIous ceremom .
th elr fi
orm s fro m earh er
es, such as C orpu s .
Mais quels seront enfin les objets de ces spectacles? Rien, ChrIS . tI proceSSIOns
I say that the Ro
usseauian notion of
si l'on veut. Avec la liberte, partout OU regne l 'affiuence, representation as
complex because
Ie bien-etre y regne aussi. Plantez au milieu d'une place
publique un pique couronne de leurs, rassemblez-y Ie
; it involved more
the ntrdI ct on repr
than the negatI.ve pom
esentative assemblies
. W e can see
.

in th
t

revo utIOnary dIsco.
urse itself and in .
peuple, et vous aurez une fete. Faites mieux encore: don ' the fiestlVaIs, another
kind f representatIO .
si-theatrIcal. .I'
n, discursive or qua
nez les spectateurs en spectacle; rendez-Ies acteurs eux- DaIr

enough, one mI. gh
t say; this doesn't
infringe the Rousse
auian
 the nlv place where this IS' embodied . But th'IS rnakes the
there wa al. .
1,
-

his plan. But .

ict ; the fes tivals even follow y Jan r
IJill . hard to formulate, not 0nly becaus e the mmority want
interd more potentiall m 1
met hin g les s avowable and tll 'n 10 rI' tinguish the se ves from the forrnaI mo deI ,of elected
ready so sts only where
far as th e g eneral will exi r"prt",,:ntatives, but also because there IS
' somethmg inher-
ous here. Inso al and rn'

on of individu
virt ue, tha t is, the real fusi nIh provisional about this cIalm
' to speak 'or the whole. By
is real on in which many.
\' t
that is, have Dot
r

wh at can we say of a situati "p ,thesis, it could haye no pIace m . .

' a functlOmng republic.
I1
mon wills,
op le are still "corrupt," play a role only in the revoIutlOnary
' tranSI't'lOn. It IS
' part
be the minonl
pe
h aps even most
I i Ilr theory of revolutlOn;
locus now will . .
ved thi s fu sion? Its only uine ' III'
' It has no pIace m the theory of
achie cles of the gen .
ryone, that is,
ous . T hey will be the vehi III t'l'nment.17 This IS the root of that mco
' herence we always
of the virtu
O

is obj ecti vel y that of eve III the politics of the vanguard right up to the major'
ch
mon will, whi
t \1 nhF.1:b-century exampIe 0f B olshevIsm.
uous . ' .
scribe to if virt
ne would sub
.
als eve ryo int '
I Il any case, th'IS only semi-avowed theory of representation
go
common with this insight
min orit y supp osed to do
What is thi s y "will of a\l
ect n ess? Just let a
corrupt majorit I, mcarnation engendere d new polit'lCa1 orms. It is what lay 125
ow n cor r ly agrrU
its of certain formal
h the working , .hi d the new kind 0f actIve
1 24
oug ' vanguard cIubs, 0f which the
take its c our se thr e of thl.
uld be the valu
es of vot ing? What wo J Jeooim; are the most ce1ebrated example. Furet, ,ollowing
dur republic wh r
gu tin Cochin, has shown how Import
up on proce
the \11
esis b e no true
as yet by hyp oth ' ant were the societes
ef. pen'ee in the run-up to the calling of the Estates GeneraP8
re can
for the eral will? Surely
coi nci des with the gen
the will of all repuU i .
about the true
ed on to act so as to bring
nority is call tion and establ
ish virtue. .
s to combat corrup !" wi-'rb
see here the theoretical ba ' ,or a kind o politics
ean

can
m ,
whic h vanguard politic
1 oli,
see h e re the temptation to Ihal . he heady climax of 1792_94 s made famIliar to us
We can . This kind of . '
a fatefu l par t of our world 1Ir1 -hich created a modern tradition we see contmued in
has been such neW kind. "
II r Ulstance Len'miS
'
sentation of a
the st. I '
.
in vol ves a claim to repre ' a porItlCS
. t commumsm . It IS ' of virtue,
tics , in virtue of .
old pre mod ern kind, where hnl th.. fusion of individual and general Will, and it is Mani
.

Ita
not the kingdom, the bis
th e kin g r epresents his highly "ideologlCaI," even quaSI-re
' rIglOus
' in tone. It
ture of things, becaul' to
an.
sals, and so on,
rch , th e duk e his rear vas inat a
,ks transparency and hence fears its poIar opposite, hid-
his chu e their subord ,
pla ce they constitut (1''l1 endas and plots. And It
' practIces two ,orms 0f repre-
this. bu
.
the ir
occupying different from
coll ecti viti es. It is very . ntation: first, in b0th d"IscurSIve and quasI-t
' heatrical forms
representable use q ' \.
ary power will '
old er for ms, revolution . " k
manifest the general will, second , even if
' only im-
se ake the represt.Dt
5
like the '
esentation to m
sel f_pr l iu- l tlY, it lays claim to a kind 0f representation by incarna-
\
ms of
theatrical for
anifest, which R u-
tive function m
.,'n,

modern sense, '

it r epr es entation in the ent 0" VIOUSIy, this politics couldn't follow the mtegral Rous-

N or is osen by constitu
that this n \" .
n ed, wh ere deputies are ch prescriptions. It couldn't for mst
' ance, go aIong with
seau condem
.. lI
. nan
'
all. We might say
m ak e dec isi ons binding on resentation b
'
. absolute ban on representatIve assembl'les, That was evi-
,
to a kind of rep
wed form is rather and t nIl) unworkable in a Iarge sprawling country of almost 30
the general will
not full y avo
Th e mi nor ity emb odies
"
"incarnation.
 million. But the Rousseauian suspicion of assemblies was still the mUnicipal auth
orities and/or the offen
at work in Jacobin practice, in particular when they mobilized These oen ders were ding merchants.
often killed, in a part
the people of Paris in the sections to act against, and even
l n e which o r modern sensibility finds
ly ritualized vio
gruesome (e.g. , the
to purge, the Assembly, as in May-June 1793. Here, direct ctIms decapItated, .
theIr heads carried
around on pikes and
action by the people was meant to trump a (partially) corrupt displayed). Then the
royal government
representative institution
.

ome soldiers, res o e

would react send in

The potentially explosive consequences of this theory and Ishments (more kill
ord r, and make so
ing, WIth its own ritu

me exempI ry pun
al elements which
the practices it inspired can be understood if we place it back accompanied public
executions under the
in the context defined earlier. This is the context defined by
B t they would
also be sure to take

ancien re ime). 19
measures to lower
the negative facts: first, there was, unlike in the United States, prIce of grain, impo the
sing ceilings and imp
no preexisting consensus in the social imaginary about what orting stocks from
elsewhere.
rule by the people meant in institutional terms; and second, From one point of
126
view, one can see the
whole bloody pro
the stability that even an illogical, heteroclite compromise cess as an exchange
127
between the base and
with royal power might have provided, because of its conti p wer resides, the
enacting of a cahier
the summit where
. "

de doIeance in un
nuity with the past, was fatally jeopardized by the underhand lllIstakable terms. B
ut the ba ckground
opposition of Louis and his entourage. In this framework, the
enfra es the whole
exchange is that pow
understanding that
er remains at the
gamut of theories about popular sovereignty becomes very SUInmIt- the very o
pposite of the und
erstanding defining
important; in particular, the fact that this gamut includes the popular sovereignty.
The revolt as such laid
radical Rousseau-derived version had fateful consequences. no claim to popu
lar power.20 On the
contrary, the people
often fed on the age
Does this mean that we are blaming the "excesses" of 1792- old myth that the
go od king had bee
n betrayed by his
94, in particular the Terror, on the ideology espoused by revo
gen s a d officers,
and that one neede
local
d to redress the situa
lutionaries? That would be rather too simple. There is one tIon In hIS name.
Thus, in 1775 , riote
. rs seized stocks and
more important facet of the whole transition that we have to forcibly fixed prices,
supp ose dly "par l 'or
dre du roi."21 Pop u
take account of. We have not only new political forms and lar clas ses that fun
ction in this way have
to tran sform their
practices, spawned by theory; there are also older practices repertory before they
can act as a sovereig
n people.
that were taken up under a new interpretation. These wert' . A good part of what
was involved in "bri
the modes of popular protest and revolt that had developed nging the Revolu
tIon to an end " was
this transformation
of the popular rep
among nonelites in ancien regime France. These were struc tory, the developm er
ent of a new social
imaginary that wou
tured by their own logic. confer on regular o ld
' rdered elections the
..Ions of popular wIl mean ing of expr es-
French peasants and city dwellers had their own way of . l. In the mean
time, as always, there
making their needs known when things got intolerable: the struggle to reinterp was a
ret old practices in
peasant or urban uprising. In towns, when, say, the price of T e the storming
of the Bastille on
a new way.

wheat soared and local merchants were suspected of hoard

was I many ways a
n old-style popular
14 July 1789. This
insurrection. It had
ing grain to make a killing, riots could break out, targeting a partIcular,
limited goal: getting
hold of the arms supp
os-
 edly stored in the Bastille in order to defend Pris agaist the Thus, in both cases of ret
threat of the Swiss mercenaries. And it ended In a tradItIOnal. rospective reinterpretatio
American and the French n, the
, the new imaginary owes
ritual of violence: the execution of the governor, whose head a more archaic one, which a debt to
has assumed part of the
was displayed on a pike. But just as the revolt of the colonies in of bringing to existence the burden
new forms, be it the federa
the name of their traditional, established rights was later re stitution or the revolutio l con
nary tradition. In return
interpreted as the innovative act of a sovereign people, so here imaginary bears the marks , the new
the taking of the Bastille was seen as an assertion of poplar
of its origin: the primacy
resentative forms in the Am of rep
power. The building's importance was no longer the Pa:tIC
erican case, and a glorific
popular insurrection in the ation of
. dIdn , French context, even in a
lar, contingent fact that it contained arms (actually, It liturgy of revolt. In the lon sense a
g run, the challenge was som
but that was what was believed), but its essential, symbohc to unify this tradition of ehow
noble insurrection with a
nature as a prison in which people were arbitrarily confined ment to stable representati commit
ve institutions.
by royal fiat.
128
In the nature of things, thi
s kind oftransformation cou
In fact, as John Sewell has shown, the action provoked at be effected right away, in ldn't
129
the immediate aftermath
first a certain malaise in the Assembly and among the erltes. Reolution. he original,
! of the
Everyone was happy with the result (th retret of the royal
untransformed culture of
lar InSUrrectIOn continued popu
. to weigh heavily on the Cou
troops) but rather reticent, if not downright dIsapprovIng of events. It is worthwhile, rse of
therefore, to examine a
the methods used. This was the kind of outbreak of popular closely the culture of popula bit more
r revolts. This is a very wid
violence that the propertied classes always feared and that the ject. There is the whole iss e sub
ue of rural rebellions, wh
reform of the Constitution was meant to avoid. It was only their own very powerful im ich had
pact on the course of the Re
later that the action was given a new interpretation, as an ex tion, but it was the urban up vol u
pression of the popular will and of the people's sove:eign right
risings that impinged direct
the battle between the fac ly on
tions in the capital.
to defend itself. This was the basis of a new practIce, that of If we look at foo d riots, for
example, it is clear that the
the revolutionary insurrection. It was destined to have a long were based on a popular y
conception of the norma
and often bloody career, as we now know. But the new form, This was a key element of l pri ce.
what has been called "th
and the imaginary that animates it, could not have taken hold economy" of the popular str e moral
ata, that is, the normative,
that quickly without the continuity linking it to the long tra implicit, conception of eco often
nomic relations that the
dition of urban uprisings.23 shared and that underlay peo ple
their hostility to developin
This creative misremembering has played a big part in the talism.24 Of course, no one g cap i
expected these norms to be
transformation of the social imaginary. It was ritually referred grally realized. The people int e
were too conscious of the
to in the Fete de la Federation exactly a year later, through ofoppressive institutions and weight
powers : nobles, rich merch
which Lafayette hoped to stabilize the revolution in the more ax farmers, and so on. But when the situ ants
moderate form of a constitutional monarchy. And it has, of mtolerable, they felt they had
to intervene.
ation became rean ;
course, become the symbolic date of the turnover to popular The fact that a price was "ab
. normal" could always be ex
rule, the annual national feast of the French Repubhc. plained by a culpable and
identifiable human agency
. Often,
 the culprit was the "engrosser" (accapareur), the merchant is always an evil
doer -not the un
who held back stocks in order to raise prices and make a kill conscI.OUS and
cause of some unwilling
misfortune, but a .
ing; but sometimes the targets of popular wrath were govern malevolent, even
agent - action aga CrIm
. mal
inst h m me s
ment agents, in cahoots with merchants, or as prime culprits
by virtue of having neglected their duty to bring adequate
action, but also pu :.
nishi g him. n ele
not just neutraliz
ing his
mentary sense of jus-
tice demands this
. . But there was som
stocks of food in time. In the popular mentality, though, in tIOn often has the s ething more: ret .
nbu-
ense not on1y of pUl .
competence or lack of vigilance was less the problem than ill iShmg a wrong,
purging a noxious but of
element .
will. Public officers who failed in their duty were seen less as It's this last factor
that perhaPs expI .
inept than as enemies of the common people. This explains were often extrem ams why punishme
e and VIO nts
. Ient an engrOSs
how easy it was during the Revolution to explain shortages in to death, fior mst ' er couId b e put
. anc e. But it also m
terms of an aristocratic plot. Not foul-up but ill will is respon akes sense of the
bolic, quasi-ritual sym-
dimenSIO . n 0f p unishment
sible for misfortunes. tal PUnishment -as s, mc
. 1u dmg capi-
130
th ugh the goal
was to eliminate the
Two things seem crucial to this mentality. First, it leaves
very little place for impersonal mechanisms. It had no place
at a symbolicomag
ized it in the form
ical evel, at the sam
e time as one neu
evil
tral- 131
0f a con
for the new conception of the economy, where shortage and crete adversary one "

actIOn. We are in put out of

.

the (t0 us strange)

glut are explained by a certain state of the market, which world of ancien reg
penal law., with ItS ! Lr ime
dll1erent fiorms 0f
in turn can be affected by events in distant lands. If prices "honorable ame
which aimed m . some way to nds "
rise, it's because the engrosser is hiding stocks to exact a undo the CrI. me at '
lev;eI . 0ne gets a viv a symbolIC"
id sense of thiS if o
higher tribute from us. Of course, people knew that harvests ne reads Foucault
eting and disturbi 's riv-
ng account 0f the
who was guiltY of
could be good or bad, and that in this sense, shortages were punishment 0f Dam
. iens,
attempted regI.cIde
also natural phenomena. But they thought that within certain against Louis Xv..
In Short, one cou 25
ld say that in th
Y
limits, the powers in charge were able to bring the necessary IS mm . d -set, the guilt
party was 0fiten also
a scapegoat. S0b
supplies from elsewhere to avoid at least the most dramatic ouI tells the foll
example: Owing
hikes. This was another sign, if one likes, that theirs was a
mentality of subjects, who tend to attribute to their rulers Meurtre du bouc-e' .
.
vigny, mte
mlssal. re: ceux de
powers that they don't in fact have. This is also clearly a men Berthier de Sau-
nda nt de Paris' et de
tality at the antipodes of capitalism, because it has no place son b eau -pere F,ou
de Doue, conseill I1 n
for an economy ordered by impersonal laws, central to the new ,
:
Greve. e ernier
er d'Etat, Ie 22
juillet 178 9 I
'
political economy; besides, it tends to demand an interven ma qua t e pam

.
urait un jour decl
, d n'avait qu'it ma
: :
are que si I P pI
tionist remedy for every evil. a, Vltry, II fut am
ene it I'Hotel-de-Vil
nger du foin. rret e ,

This belief in the power of direct intervention reflects the le de Pan. s ayant
un bouquet d 'orties
sous Ie menton,
second important facet of this mind-set: if things go wrong, raconte Hardy, de
l'herbe dans 1a b ou
che et devant lui
comme cabn.olet
it's always someone's fault. One can identify the evildoer and
act against him. What's more, because the responsible agent
:
une botte d fiOI . " L

de-Ville, p r pose " ,
afayette ayant, du balcon de I'H
otel
a tous ceux qui con
sentiraient que Ie
 the fact that the ceremony of honorable amends takes place in

so I "
main,"
. t en prison de lever la .
Sleur F0ullon flit condui . an atmosphere of celebration, something to be enjoyed, and
, Pendu, pomt de pn
rec ria : "Pendu
ce
la fou le se as an affirmation of popular power, doesn't in any way contra
si, a de Greve "ou il est aussltot
erbere et eleve a la hauteu
Foullon est sai trin e pl
dict its symbolic power of purification. We know many other
r de

trente pieds, mais cette

'
pendu a' 1a corde d un rev

corde ayant c sse et apr
' 1" av
es : contexts where premodern ceremonies have this double as

rises, on 1m coupa enfin

la e pect, where popular festiveness in no way contradicts ritual
raccrochee it plusieurs rep
que l'on mit au bout d'u
ne pique." Berthi er
ut balser
efficacy. Carnivals stand as paradigm examples. In fact, even
speaking of a double aspect reflects our disenchanted mod
Comble
, puis il fut massacre.
la tete de son beau-pere ern "serious" mentality, where the religious and the spiritual
dans
avres furent traAmes nus
,

de 1'humiliation: les cad suit ill with laughter and spontaneity. Our outlook reflects
les rues.26 the long repression of the religion of our ancestors which has
In-
: of Berthier de Sauvigny, made us "modern." Soboul himself, speaking of a less ex-
(Murder of the scapegoat
of his father-in-law Fou
llon de treme punishment often meted out to engrossers, the sack of 133 I '
tendant 0f Pan s, and
132 9 at the lace
on the 22 July 178 their house or shop, says: "L'incendie accompagne souvent
Doue state counsellor, the
t if
: reported as saying tha Ie saccage, mais il revet une signification autrement symbol-
de G eve. The latter was
y had only to eat h y. Ar reste ique: son pouvoir de destruction it Ia fois spectaculaire et total
people lacked bread, the Pans
the Hotel-de -VIlle of lui confere une valeur quasi-magique, certainment purifica-
at V"tI ry, he was brought to .

under hIS ch'I ," as H ar . dy tells trice. C'est par Ie feu que Ie peuple en revolte detruit tous
"with a bouquet of nettles
carriage a
and in front of hIm as a les symboles d'oppression et de misere: les postes de guet
it "grass in his mouth,
fro m the bal

b ndle of hay." Lafayette
having proposed,

ed th t
en aout 1788; les barrieres de l'octroi parisien, des avant la
le, "to all those who agr
cony of the Hotel de Vil
Ie Sieur Foullon should
be taken to prison to rals
th :: prise de la Bastille; les terriers lors de la Grande Peur, et quel-
ques chateaux par la meme occasion . "27 (Fire often accompa-
g hIm ,
out: "hang him, han
hands," the mob cried
prison!" Foullon is seized
, dragged to the p1ace de
G 'rev rues the sack, but it has a more powerful symbolic meaning:
its power of destruction at once spectacular and total gives it
ost an
by a rope from a lamp-p almost magic force, certainly a purifying one. It is by fire
"where he was hanged
an

ro ke and
rty feet, but the rope that the people in revolt destroy all the symbols of oppression
lifted to the height of thi

eral times they ut his hea
d off and misery: the watch posts in August 1788; the customs bar-
after stringing him up sev d of
. rthier had to kiss the hea iers in Paris even before the taking of the Bastille; the feudal
and put It on a pI'ke ." Be hu
massacred. Utt er
' -law, and then he was
hIS father-m
records at the time of the Great Fear, and some chateaux on
gh the
re dragged naked throu l h!> same occasion.)
miliation: the corpses we
The fact that Foullon's words, simple words, seemed to
streets.)
gruesome merit such an extreme sentence certainly has something to do
\ jth the revolutionary context.
se-en-scene a cruel and
We can see in this mi But it also reflects the accent
y the part of
is forced himself to pla
sense of humor Foullon pIe. But P It on the ill will of the evildoer in the popular outlook. What
posedly wished on the peo
eater of hay, the lot he sup
 related to
he did was not all that serious, even though he was they couldn't suppress. This is what happened on 10 August
his (sup
the intendant, a royal officer and thus suspect. But 1792, and recurrently in more or less menacing forms until
ssion of hostility
posed) words were the purest possible expre Thermidor. Indeed, the specter of an uncontrollable popular
and contempt. uprising was laid to rest only at the 18th Brumaire. The situa
tion was particularly dramatic during the September massa
n shed on
What light does this culture of popular insurrectio cres of 1792. The bourgeois leaders of the republic were far
dera
the course of the Revolution, and particularly on the from approving; more, they were filled with horror. But they
r? Once one aband os
page of 1792-94, the slide into Terro felt powerless, short of an appeal to royalist armed forces,
nal CIr
the attempt to explain the Terror simply by the exter which was inconceivable and very likely would have been sui
and Furet
cumstances of war and regional armed resistance- cidal for them.
nts aren't really con
has shown convincingly that these accou So they were forced, not only to let things happen, but
ideolo lgic
vincing2B- one may be tempted to explain it in even to take the lead of the popular movement, to put into
134 135
more radI
terms, in relation to the theories that animated the practice their own version, better controlled, more moderate i L l'

spierr e. Thee
cal groups, principally the Jacobins and Robe (they hoped), of the popular program. This included some
account IS
were not without effect, but a straight ideological element of terror; hence there had to be Terror. As Danton
much too simple. put it the following year: "Profitons des fautes de nos prede
t of
What this leaves out of account is the immense weigh cesseurs; faisons ce que n'a pas fait l'Assemblee Legislative:
ulottes,
the popular elements in Paris, often called the sans-c soyons terribles pour dispenser Ie peuple de l'etre"29 (Let's
leverage,
on the course of events. They had, in fact, great profit from the mistakes of our predecessors; let's do what
point s to the
because their support was essential at various the Legislative Assembly failed to do: let us practice terror in
Thermi
Revolution, even to its survival, and because, until order to dispense the people from practicing it). But the mo
in the battle betwe en fac-
dor, they could decisively intervene tive was not really indulgence for the delicate feelings of the
tions. people; it was basically a question of survival.
ent
We can formulate the first of these relations in differ Then, by the dynamic of rivalries, survival comes to be de
"save d" the Revol u
ways. We could say that the sans-culottes fined more and more narrowly. At the beginning, it is the exis
errevo
tion because at certain crucial moments when count tence of the Revolution that is at stake; later, what is crucial is
tiped

luti nary forces threatened to crush it, popular action
the SItua
the survival of a party self-identified with the Revolution, then
ng of
the balance. This is certainly a plausible readi of factions of the party, right up to the ultimate collapse in a
S toward
tion of 1uly 1789, when the king was sending troop less menacing military context on 9 Thermidor. As the revo
ed him to retrea t.
Paris and the popular uprising induc . lutionaries turn on each other, the people become arbiters,
er angle . As It
Or we can see the relation of forces from anoth which is the second mode of dependency described above.
appeal to
was out of the question for the revolutionary elites to All this meant that, for a time, the aspirations and out
or outsid e of the coun
the royalist armed forces, either inside look of the popular milieux of Paris had an important influ
ments
try, they could find themselves faced by popular move ence on the measures and forms of government of the Revolu-
 tion. The social elites never lost control. There was no repeat that every misfortune
had some malevolent cau
se. And the
of Munster 1536. We could even say that the miracle of this tendency to see a plot beh
ind every misfortune was
common
whole period of radical politics was that the Convention, even to both popular culture
and elite ideology. Indeed
though purged and intimidated, nevertheless remains t eo that the convergence her
e was itself the result of
, it may be
mutual influ
retically in control of the situation, which is what allowed It to ence. The popular rhe
toric of plots and conspi

put an end to this whole period at Thermi or. One migh say early, put into circula
tion by demagogues like
racies started
Marat. This
that, paradoxically, it is perhaps the gemus of RobespIere may have helped to for
m the revolutionary ide
. ology itself.
as a political maneuverer that explains this SUrvIval of parha- But the most striking
convergence lies in the
Terror itself.
mentary forms. This was a violence dir
. ected against the agents
of misfortune,
But for a while, the revolutionary elites had to go along With seen as enemies, as trai
tors worthy of punishme
popular aspirations and goals, much farther than they would ent on, Robespierre gav
e a greater and greater
nt. But as time
place to the
have liked. Even the Robespierriste minority, when forced dIscourse of virtue and
136
of purification. The last
great bout of
to adopt certain anticapitalist measures of economic control, e Terror, in the wee
137
ks before Thermidor,
clearly were acting with great reluctance.
he n ed to purge the rep
was justified by

m all Its purity.

ublic of vice, so that it
could emerge
This means that the period of revolutionary extremism has
a double source. One source is certainly in the discourse and Put in other terms, bot
h popular culture and elit
e ideology
theory of the model drawn from Rousseau; but it also has its converged on a doctrin
e of the scapegoat . Th
e Terror was a
roots in the mentality of popular revolt. And there were many kind ofsynthesis of the
se two, a compromise for
mation , if this
points where the two outlooks ran parallel. psychoanalytic term can
. be allowed . To this syn
thesis each
The suspicion of representation was one such pomt. It was side brought something
. We might argue tha
. t the extreme
easy to convince the sans-culottes that popular sovereIgnty potentiality of a Roussea
uian politics of virtue
to turn to vio
finds a paradigm expression in direct action, although even lence and purgation, wh
ich might never have
then, the past weighed heavily. In the crucialjournees of po u context where the elites
remained in control, was
emerged in a

lar revolt, the leadership and program had to be sUPP Ied ! realization by the need
to lead through follOwi
brought to
ng the popular
by the elites. In the one great exception, the post-Therffildor strata.
journee of March 1795, the people, once they had surrounded At the same time, the pop
ular impulse to punish
ment and
the Convention, became strangely passive, as though they purgation was itself pur
ged of its magicosymb
: olic elements.
didn't know without guidance what to do next.30 The old II was "modernized" and
"rationaliz ed. " That me
ans that
model was still working, where insurrection was meant to in il was given, first, a rationa
l, moral basis: only tho
se who
duce power to take the necessary action rather than to takr really deserved to die wer
e targeted according to
control. a1 theory of virtue and pur
ification. Second, the pun
the ratio
ishment
Moreover the moralism, the Manichaeanism of the Rous itself was carried out in
a rational, "clean" for

seauian ide logy touched a popular chord. That mere disaf modern, "scientifi c" ins
trument, the guillotine
m, through a
, replacing the
fection could be turned into treason fit well with the belief gory symbolism of the anc
ien regime. Third, the
ritual was
 e and the murd r I.
purged of all that mixture of the festiv
killing, which "
ter and
the carnival promiscuity of laugh
One appliep ratiun I
integral to traditional popular culture.
after due delibda
criteria; one applies them in cold blood
t, almo st clinical fashiun.
tion; and one deals death in a direc
ine.
by means of a modem, efficient mach
ution of scape goating had " n
It's as though the instit
n, made fit f- II,..
through its own disenchanting Reformatio
spierre's dis '11""
Age of Reason. Small wonder that Robe
more an unpr
of reason comes to resemble more and
to be where thE' 1n r
dented form of madness. This seems
of 1794. P risoner '{ III
ruptible had arrived by the summer
that at thE' ou l -"
138
own discourse, really obsessed by a myth
ion, he flees fON I
was perhaps only a necessary rationalizat
cts, where tht> b
toward more and more extravagant proje
physi cal basis of thinl!:
of defining once and for all the meta
runs alongside tumbnl-
with the feast of the Supr eme Being,
loaded with more and more victims.3l
end with Thermi Uf.
This couldn't last, and came to an
y: the link bet 1' 1
But it has left us with a troubling legac
ng violence. Thi . n
democratic revolution and scapegoati
g two centuri 11
reappears in new contexts in the intervenin
s t o disappear for g d.
always self-destructs but never seem
f modernity.32
It is one o f the most disquieting features o
revolutions inau .
Thus, the two great eighteenth-century
terms of the interpl
rated the age of popular sovereignty in
l, which helped d ler
of social imaginaries, new and traditiona
play was particulilr
mine their respective courses. This inter
complex, conflictual, and fraught with
unforeseen coml,I
mises between the old and the new.
to produce a ,1
Moreover, the French Revolution failed
ce a stable ir ,
produ
tion to the problem it set itself: how to
macy idea it espOU I' I.
tutional expression for the new legiti
J-Inp lar sovereignty. This in turn woul d requi
re the devel
f1nwn1. of a widely shared social imaginary maki
I
ng sense of
f' institutions.
Th great battle between the different revolu
tionary fac
uon turned on this issue:W hat was the corre
ct instit utional
pt-p-"sion for the sovereignty of the natio
n? This question
:I.ftn d the terms of the struggle between them
. Each had
1\ f. rmula to offer as the proper way of realiz
ing this prin
Iple : whether through a republic or a const
itutional monar
h\, through indirect representation or some
t, ation f people and deputy, throu
more imrnedi
O!, ,\ J erent mterests or the undivided
gh the representation
expression of a general
139
,ttl rh undecidable issue between these
III
different institu
d procedures had in the end to be deter
" \1 clary of all of them, through coups
mined at the
de force. Thus, the
,mbers of the Convention elected by the peopl
e were even
.ally purged in 1793 under threat of the
activists from the
Pari, :ections, and that in the name of the
people.
Thderms of this struggle- its peculiarly
intense ideologi
I ntl ure, the immense importance placed on
t Ilcntn n and models of right gover
theoretical jus
nment, during those days
h 'U the urgent practical dangers of foreign invas
I mill ,ounterrevolutionary insur
ion and in
rection seemed to demand
.
I " if place at the top of the agenda -are to be under
,
stood
(I I hr [;ontext, The disco
urse wasn't simply a cover for the
t. d r ality of group interest and military
defense, a diag
u.. 1 that becomes truer
later, under the Directory. Rather,
Illl,, talk was for real, its goal being to estab
iiUp was carrying out the only
lish that one's
I" ! '\'reignty of t e people, This
1l
legitimate realization of
meant that however dotty
11, , {mient of the dIscourse, it was generally mean
11I1';;l. P-ven when we're dealing with the
t in deadly
r l :ria t)f genuine representation of the
Jacobins where the
I ' ly n the virtue of the leaders, stand
people t rned cru
ing foursquare for the

-
 whole against the self-interested, divisive factions. It is espe never be finally laid to rest, how
ever often the claim was made
cially in the case of the Jacobins that the expression "deadly to have "ended the Revolution
."
earnest" becomes appropriate. But as Guizot, the Doctrina
ires, Thiers, and later Gam
As Furet has argued, the murderous craziness of the revo betta saw, the only solution
would be the evolution of for
lutionary crisis cannot be considered a kind ofrhetorical froth that would come to be genera ms
lly recognized as the obviou
thrown up by the real battles for national survival, or between apropriate realization of sly
the new principle of legitim
groups. We have to allow for its centrality,33 even while rec GUlzot and the Doctrinaire acy.
s understood that this req
ognizing that this rhetorical battle was bent into strange and the growth of a new, widely uired
shared social imaginary, but
frightening shapes by the immense force field set up by popu own elite representative ins their
titutions, with their narrow
lar culture, its demands and expectations. chise, could never crystalliz fran
e this around themselves, as
The problem of "ending the Revolution" continued to ually became clear after 183 gra d
0.36
haunt French society into the Restoration and well into the Over time, republican France
140
found such forms, but only
nineteenth century.34 The return to some stability in the after it had gone Over to manho
141
od suffrage. Gambetta saw tha
aftermath of the Revolution could come only through some the only way the people cou t r l l"
ld deVelop a new social imagin
generally accepted forms of representative government. This rond odered representative institution ary
meant solving the double problem that the whole revolu s was by participat
Ing In theIr election. 37
tionary period had left unresolved: coming to an agreement But the forms that took hol
d in France turned out to
among political elites on representative institutions, which be interestingly different fro
m the Anglo-American mo
could at the same time become part of the popular social Pierre Rosanvallon has traced de.
the peculiar path by which un
imaginary. vers suffrage was achieved i
in France, and he brings to
Once again, during the Restoration, the opposition of the different shape of the soc ligh t
ial imaginary in this republ
the royalist ultras made things exceedingly difficult. And the tradition.38 ica n
growing social divisions that came with the growth of the
working class made it all the more difficult to bridge the gap
between elite constitutionalism and popular repertory. On the
contrary, the Revolution remained alive for a number of radi
cals not just as the gateway to a proper institutional order, but
as itself the paradigm moment of popular sovereignty. Some
thing like a revolutionary scenario, what Robert Tombs calls
"the Revolutionary passion play," haunted the radical imagi
nation and remained in the popular memory, waiting to be
reenacted in order finally to realize the promise of 1789.35 In
these circumstances, the specter of renewed revolution could
9 An AII-Pervasive Order

T
his third of the great mutations, after the economy and ----- "

the public sphere, involves "inventing the people" as a

new collective agency.l We can recognize in the forms
that have emerged from these mutations the lineaments
of our understanding of moral order in contemporary liberal
democracies. The way we imagine our social life is articulated
in these forms. The society in which we live is not just the po
litically structured order; we also belong to civil society. We
are linked in an economy, can seek access to a public sphere,
and move in a world of independent associations.
These forms were firmly established in the social imagi
nary of the leading Western societies before the end of the
eighteenth century. But a great distance still separates us
today from even the most advanced of those societies; the long
march still had a great distance to travel .
One way to indicate the distance is to note that these modes
ofsocial imaginary were still the property of minorities: social
elites and activist groups. The majority of the populations,
certainly in England and France but to some extent also in
the United States, were still at least partly immersed in older
forms. The stretch of the long march still to come involved
 feriors providing service, while superiors provided rule and
new for ms of
and outward, of these
a spreading, downward protection.

self-understanding. Seen in this light, there was a continuity, a homogeneity

other terms.
also be described in
But the distance can between the structure of the monarchic polity and the various
had reshaped
We could say that the
modern moral order
of social life -poli

skeins of depen nce that were woven together in the society,
in some dimensions
the social imaginary household, famIlies, clientage, and so on. That is why it was
er dimensions re
sphere -but that oth
tics, economy, public possible to offer paternal power as a standard trope for all
e obvious example,
mained untransform
ed. The family is on
at we now think

forms o dependence based on hierarchical complementarity.
simply on its own. Wh
but that can' t be taken AccordIng to one of the most widely accepted justifications
in what we could
of as the family was
then often embedded oyal pwr was itself to be seen as a species of paternal power ;
at least nonmem
in which nonkin, or
call the household, It as slmllarly natural and independent of subjects' consent.
d together with
, lived and also worke
ber s of the core group This was the basis of the theory of Robert Filmer one of the
145
a nephew sent to
the nuclear family :
servants, apprentices,
households were

most influential articulators of royal absolute p wer in the

144 be taught a trade, som

e employees. These .

Engli h s venteenth century, whose main work, Patriarchy,
ted authority of
al, under the uncontes
often highly patriarch was pilloned by Locke in his First Treatise ofCivil Government.
of hierarchy. Nor
the male head, and rul
ed by a strong sense
s lived in a sort of

B t the patriarchal metaphor for royal power was extremely
ons stop there; tenant Widespread up to the eighteenth century: "The Obedience
did dependency relati
rons; even house
rds and artisans on pat
dependence on landlo of Parents is the Basis of all Government " as Add'Ison put
endence on power . . '
hold heads could sta
nd in a relation of dep
had secured for
lill The Spectator.2 Indeed, the debate prior to the Declara-

ful sponsors higher up

in the hierarchy who
ir living, in the case
Ion of Indepenence in the colonies saw both sides using the
or their office or the
them their pension Image. For Tones, those pondering rebellion were potential
depend in turn
of clergymen. Indeed
, these sponsors might
among grandees or
aricides, but for many of the future rebels, their action was
on even more powerf
ul figures at court or
J stified beca se the Crown had betrayed its parental obliga
on.
in the governor's mansi tIOn through Its "long chain of abuses."
ieties were tra-
pre mo der n No rth Atlantic soc
In short, the This society of pervasive paternal power was not just differ
patronage, servi
versed by chains of dep
endence of vassalage,
ins linked to each

ent from o r own in being hierarchical; it also related very dif
tude, or (in the family
) patriarchy. These cha
endence running

ferently to Its m mbers. The crucial point about long chains
ld trace a line of dep
other, so that one cou of dependence IS that they were highly personalized. I, a
of his household,
rl, through the head
from the meanest chu churl, am not just a subject of the king like all others; I am the
d, up through the
whom the latter far me
to the landholder for "ervant of a particular master, who relates to a particular lord
certain favors, end
patron on which this
squire depended for
in the most defen
who relates to a patron, and so on. My subordination to th ;
the king. Pr esented king is mediated through these particular, personal relations.
ing at the summit in
ibit a principle of
sible way, all these cha
ins were meant to exh
erent levels made

The p wer of the patriarchal trope comes partly from this
ntarity ; people at diff
hierarchical compleme pervasIve personalization of power and dependence. Equality,
er's well-being, in-
tribution to each oth
their own essential con
 as Tocqueville saw, has gone along with a shattering of the e ciple in all niches, then the dif
ferences in the ordering of, say,
chains and an atomization in which citizens relate to power m polity and family stand out. But
an unmediated fashion.3 it is quite possible for people
to find this background idea
This premodern dispensation was unlike what was emerg extravagant and implausible,
even to fail to consider it as a pos
ing in the late eighteenth century, resembling mor what considering, for instance, patriar
sibility. In the epoch we are
we know today, in that the social imaginary was ammated chy was so deeply rooted in
families/households that the rep
through all its dimensions and levels by a similar principle, ublican challenge to monar
chical rule and aristocratic hier
that of hierarchical complementarity, just as today's is thor archy had to take the form of
a denial of the uniform applica
oughly penetrated at all levels and niches by the modern tion of the paternal principle,
rather than the offering of an
moral order. Moreover, this uniformity was not Just. a fact we opposing principle valid for all
niches. Locke's famous answer
can observe it was itself part of the social imaginary, that to Filmer was to distinguish
patriarchal from political power
is, the agens themselves were aware of the analogies, and and to demonstrate that they
14B
operated on quite different prin
:
that is why they could appeal to paternal power as a tro or ciples.4 And this was the line
147
generally adopted by revolution
kingly authority. Similarly today, we feel the need to CritICIze aries and reformers. A few
brave and innovative figures, like
and even transform many of our nonpolitical relations, those Mary Wollstonecraft, stand
out from the virtually unanimous
that are insufficiently "democratic" or egalitarian. We find consensus on this. Indeed,
it took us a long time to come
ourselves speaking of the democratic as against authoritarian to see the family, specifically
the husband-wife relation in the
family, for instance. We see ourselves as equally consistet as of the older household framewo
now nuclear family, outside
our premodern forebears were, only our lives are orgamzed rk, in a critical democratic
egalitarian light. This happen
around a contrary principle. ed, as it were, only yesterday.
Uniformity across niches is far
But the emerging forms of the modern social imaginary from an obvious, common
sense requirement.5
that I have been describing seem to us odd, even suspect, be Nevertheless, we have come
cause they were introducing a new principle at certain crucial to that uniformity; the long
march has finally taken us the
levels-polity, public sphere, economy-while leaving other re. But it came not so much be
cause of a natural drive to con
niches untouched. The people of the time can easily seem sistency. It was more the drive
to inclusion, on the part of cer
to us to be inconsistent, even hypocritical. Elite males spoke tain strata that initially were
marginalized in the new order.
of rights, equality, and the republic, but thought nothing of This is the last phase of the
long march : on the one hand,
keeping indentured servants, not to speak of slaves, and kept the extension of the new social
imaginary below and beyond the
their women, children, their households in general under tra social elites who originally
adopted it; and on the other, the
ditional patriarchal power. Didn't they see the glaring contra extension of the principles
of this new imaginary to other leve
diction? ls and niches of social life.
We can see right away that the
The answer is that this was not necessarily a contradiction. first is impossible without the
second; servants and subordina
Once one has accepted the background structuring idea tat imaginary that gives them a pla
tes can't be inducted into an
the social imaginary ought to be animated by a uniform prm- ce among those equal indi
viduals who make up society unl
ess the social forms of subor-
 dination tying them to their betters are transformed. There missive sons, and deference.
But it was not to be. The new
has to be a break with these old forms, in which equality re revolution was partly a politica
l affair. The political class was
places hierarchy, and in which at the same time the person inva ded by people of all soci
al origins, some conspicuou
sly
alized, particular relations of the old dependencies are dis lacking in gentility, as Jefferso
nian Republicans successfully
solved and replaced by a general and impersonal recognition challenged the Federalist elite
s. But the new personal inde

of equal status. pendence was partly a social tran
sformation, going along with
This transformation came about in most North Atlantic rapid economic growth, the exp
ansion of the internal market,
societies, but it happened by different routes and with sig the growth of manufactures,
and above all, the opening of
the
nificantly different inflections. The first and most spectacular frontier. Independence became
a reality for large numbers of
case was the United States. This was, in a sense, a revolution young men and often also wom
en, who could and did strike
within the Revolution, or perhaps better, in the aftermath of
o t on their own, leaving thei
r families, and often breaking
the Revolution.6 One can perhaps describe it as a process by With their communities and with
148
the traditional ties of depen

149
which independence evolves from being a value to be realized dence.
by a republican society in relation to external monarchical A certain penchant for materia
list explanations may tempt
authority, to being a status to be sought by individuals and us to explain the new culture
of personal independence and
enjoyed by all of them equally. equality by these economic and
demographic changes. But
The Revolution had been led by gentlemen, many of them the inadequacy of such accounts
is glaringly evident from
of recent promotion to this rank,7 but nevertheless gentle the fact that, for instance, the
opening of the frontier had
men. They operated in a world in which it was natural that rather different cultural consequ
ences just a few miles north
leaders and elected representatives be from the better sort; in Canada.9 '
indeed, the prestige of the offices in question (representa Another common error, the
attraction of a subtraction
tive, judge, etc.) was bound up with the social eminence of account, may tempt us to defi
ne the change merely nega
.
their holders. Moreover, this revolutionary leadership shared tIvely, as consisting in the diss
olution of old ties, submis
the republican outlook current in the eighteenth century that sions, and solidarities. But this
independence was not just the
these leaders should embody "virtue" in the Montesquieuian breaking of old moral ties; it carr
ied its own moral ideals, as
sense, be dedicated to the public good, and be "disinter Tocqueville noted in relation
to individualism in the mod
ested," and that in a way ordinary people, occupied with get ern world.lO Moreover, the new
ideal involved a new kind of
ting the means to life, couldn't manage. Even engaging in link to society. The new characte
r ideal, as Appleby describes
trade made one suspect on this score.8 it, exalts "the man who develope
d inner resources, acted in
That the United States would go on being governed by such dependently, lived virtuously, and
bent his behaviour to his
a republican elite was the dream of many in the generation PersonaI goaIs. "11 He was a person .
capable of mdu stry, perse-
that made the Revolution and designed the Constitution; this verance, and self-reliance.
dream, of course, supposed the continuance of various forms The nature of this moral ideal can
be gauged partly by its
of nonpolitical subordination, master-servant relations, sub- frequent combination with a new
piety. The early nineteenth
 century was the age of the second Great Awakening, the
spreading of revival through itinerant preachers all over the
republic, to the most remote frontier. The new religious fer
vor, most often outside the old establishments, in the rapidly
growing denominations of Methodists and Baptists, was itself
a reflection of the ideal of independence. Individuals broke
away from ancestral churches and sought their own forms
among the rapidly multiplying denominational options.12 At
the same time, they sought the strength to live this new in
dependence, to beat back the demons of fear and despair,
the temptations of idleness and drink (this last was especially
potent at a time when Americans drank per capita four times
150 what they do today)13 in a personal relation of devotion to
God. This is a pattern that has become familiar today, in the
rapid spread of evangelical Protestantism in many parts of
the globe: Latin America, Africa, Asia, the ex-communist
countries, not to speak of continuing revivals in the United
States.14 This is not to say that the new personal independence
was intrinsically bound up with religious faith. On the con
trary, it took all sorts of forms, including very secularized
ones, although revivalism was extremely widespread, touch
ing one quarter of the population in this period. IS But the fact
that it could exist in symbiosis with this ardent faith testifies
to the moral nature of the ideal.
But personal independence was not just a moral ideal for
individual lives; it also related the agent to society. This ref
erence back to society partly consisted in the fact that self
disciplined, honest, imaginative, entrepreneurial people were
seen as the cornerstone of the new society, which combined
order and progress. They were its chief benefactors, at once
setting its moral tone and conferring the immense benefits
of economic progress. This assumed, of course, that com
merce and entrepreneurship were not divisive, but rather re
dounded to the good of all and could be the basis of unity for
a people who were energetic, disciplined, and self-reliant.
It
was this kind of drive to progress that was making Amer
ica
great, free, and equal. Personal independence becom
es part
of a new model of American patriotism, which has remai
ned
alive and powerful today.
This represented a tremendous cultural revolution
away
from the ideals of the revolutionary generation. Far
from
trade being suspect precisely because it lacked disintereste
d
ness, the new kind of highly interested economic activi
ty is
seen as the cornerstone of a new ethic. It takes the tradit
ional
ideals of the republic, liberty and equality, and plays them
in
a quite new register. Liberty is no longer simply belonging
to the sovereign people, but personal independence. More-
151
over, this kind of liberty, generalized, is the necessary basis
of equality, for it alone negates the older forms of hierarchical
independence. What was seen in the old view as the source
of
self-centeredness, private interest, and corruption is now the
driving force of a free and equal society.
Thus, the entrepreneur is seen as a benefactor. Narratives
about such individuals, their rise from rags to riches, were re
counted again and again, offering example and inspiration. In
fact, the people who gained the greatest respect and admir
a
tion were those who both created new wealth and took leader
ship or contributed to public well-being; the paradigm
was
set for the successful entrepreneur-turned-benefactor, which
has been so dominant in the United States ever since.16
Independence is thus a social, and not just a personal, ideal.
It was valued as a contribution to national well-b
eing and
greatness and was correspondingly admired and lauded. By
the same token, successful, enterprising individuals felt very
much part of the larger society. They sought its admiration,
praise, and confirmation; they competed for eminence and
often took leadership roles.
Indeed, this revolution of personal independence height-
 ened the sense of belonging to the wider society. It broke
people out of narrower communities, but not to leave them in
a kind of self-absorbed isolation. Rather, it allowed for a more
a
intense sense of belonging to an imperson l society of equals.
a
This was reflected, among other places, in the phenomen l
growth of newspapers and periodicals and their circulation
throughout the republicY A society permeated by relations
of personalized hierarchy had gone over fully to one based on
impersonal equality.
Based on equality in theory, that is. Many people were still
left out, not only in the niches still left untouched by the
new principle, like the family in one way and the slave plan
152 tation in another. There was also in the self-congratulation
around the new society a blindness toward the failures, the
ones who didn't make it to riches, and even more toward the
new forms of oppressive dependency arising in the growing
factories, which employed largely marginal people, especially
the new Irish immigrants. The crucial thing about America's
development is that these people who couldn't make it to the
celebratory family portrait of the enterprising never could
find or erect the cultural space to unite around an alterna
tive vision of the republic. The United States never, except
perhaps briefly with Debs, had a serious socialist opposition.
I have been talking here of the American path that com
pletes its long march, fully conscious of the fact that there
are other national itineraries that pass through different sites
and thus end up in a rather different place. The concept of so
cial imaginaries perhaps allows us to come to grips with these
national distinctions among otherwise similar North Atlantic
liberal democracies. They arise in one sense from the different
ways the original pathbreaking forms of the modern imagi
nary- economy, public sphere, and self-governing polity
ended up transforming the understanding of other levels and
niches of social life. One of the crucial differences between
the United States and many European societies lies in the
fact that the spreading of the new political imaginary down
ward and outward took place on the Old Continent partly
through the crystallization of a class imaginary of subordi
nate groups, particularly workers. This meant more than the
sense of a common interest, among mechanics, for instance,
present from the first days of the republic. The class imagi
nary of the British Labour movement or the French or Ger
man trade unions went beyond the sense that certain kinds of
independent individuals shared an interest; it came closer to
the sense of a common identity, shared within a local commu
nity (e.g., in mining villages in the UK) or the volonte gene
rale of those who share a certain community of fate, as ex
153 1 1 1'
ploited workers, for instance. In some cases, it belonged to a
political culture shaped by the Rousseauian redaction of the
modern moral order, which was alien to the U.S. trajectory.
This suggests another way in which national cultures of
democracy differ from each other. The historical trajectory,
stretching way back, still colors the present understanding.
We can see this if we refer back to the differences in politi
cal culture between the United States and France. I spoke
there of how the new imaginary of popular sovereignty inher
its some of its forms from the traditional political culture
of
the ancient constitution, in particular its forms of represen
tation. But the new imaginary doesn't just displace the old
one. It reinterprets the key values of the older tradition but
retains the sense of its origin in this earlier tradition, and that
precisely because the new was seen not as a break, but as a
reinterpretation. So Americans go on seeing themselves as
continuing an old tradition of freedom, even when they de
clare independence and go through the cultural revolution
of the early nineteenth century. They go on referring to the
Magna Charta even in the twentieth-first century. Similarly,
Republican Frenchmen go on celebrating the taking of the
 n
ugh they have long settled dow
Bastille each July 14, even tho
tative government. In each
cas ,
h III
in liberal modes of represen
the present political culture

is inflected by he past, bot
has bee n
l history and III what
what is revered in the nationa
rejected. 10 The Direct-Access Society

e been differently r frac ed
Modern social imaginaries hav

respective natio al hlst nes ,
in the divergent media of the
. us against expectlllg a stmple
even In the West. This warns . .

repetition of Western forms

w e th se imaginanes are
. tIons.
Im-

CIVilIza
posed on or adopted in other

I
have been describing our modern social imaginary in terms
154 of the underlying idea of moral order, one that has cap
tured in our characteristic social practices and forms the
salient features of seventeenth-century natural law theory,
while transforming this in the process. But it is clear that the
change in the underlying notion of order has brought a num
ber of other changes with it.
I have already mentioned the absence of an action
transcendent grounding, the fact that modern social forms
exist exclusively in secular time . The modern social imagi
nary no longer sees the greater translocal entities as grounded
in something other, something higher, than common action
in secular time. This was not true of the premodern state, as
I argued above. The hierarchical order of the kingdom was
seen as based in the Great Chain of Being. The tribal unit was
seen as constituted as such by its law, which went back since
time out of mind, or perhaps to some founding moment that
had the status of a "time of origins" in Eliade's sense. The im
portance in premodern revolutions, up to and including the
English Civil War, of the backward look, of establishing an
original law, comes from this sense that the political entity is
 action-transcendent. It cannot simply create itself by its own
action; on the contrary, it can act as an entity because it is
already constituted as such. That is why such legitimacy at
taches to returning to the original constitution.
Seventeenth-century social contract theory, which sees a
people as coming together out of a state of nature, obviously
belongs to another order of thought. But, if my argument
above is right, it wasn't until the late eighteenth century that
this new way of conceiving things entered the social imagi
nary. The American Revolution is in a sense the watershed.
It was undertaken in a backward-looking spirit, in the sense
that the colonists were fighting for their established rights as
156 Englishmen. Moreover, they were fighting under their estab
lished colonial legislatures, associated in a Congress. But out
of the whole process emerges the crucial fiction of "We, the
people," into whose mouth the declaration of the new consti
tution is placed.
Here the idea is invoked that a people, or, as it was also
called at the time, a "nation" can exist prior to and indepen
dently of its political constitution. So that this people can give
itself its own constitution by its own free action in secular
time. Of course, the epoch-making action rapidly comes to
be invested with images drawn from older notions of higher
time. The Novus Ordo seclorum, just like the new French revo
lutionary calendar, draws heavily on Judeo-Christian apoca
lypticism. The constitution founding comes to be invested
with something of the force of a time of origins, a higher
time, filled with agents of a superior kind, which we should
ceaselessly try to reapproach. Nevertheless, a new way of con
ceiving things is abroad. Nations, people, can have a person
ality, can act together outside of any prior political ordering.
One of the key premises of modern nationalism is in place,
because without this, the demand for self-determination of
nations would make no sense. This is the right for people to
make their own constitution, unfettered by their historical po
litical organization.
In order to see how this new idea of collective agency, the
"nation" or "people," articulates into a new understanding of
time, I want to return to Benedict Anderson's very insightful
discussion. Anderson stresses how the new sense of belong
ing to a nation was prepared by a new way of grasping society
under the category of simultaneity: society as the whole con
sisting of the simultaneous happening of all the myriad events
that mark the lives of its members at that moment.l These
events are the fillers of this segment of a kind of homogeneous
time. This very clear, unambiguous concept of simultaneity
belongs to an understanding of time as exclusively secular. As 157
or'
long as secular time is interwoven with various kinds ofhigher
time, there is no guarantee that all events can be placed in
unambiguous relations of simultaneity and succession. The
high feast is in one way contemporaneous with my life and
that of my fellow pilgrims, but in another way, it is close to
eternity or the time of origins or the events it prefigures.
A purely secular time-understanding allows us to imagine
society horizontally, unrelated to any "high points," where
the ordinary sequence of events touches higher time, and
therefore without recognizing any privileged persons or agen
cies, such as kings or priests, who stand and mediate at such
alleged points. This radical horizontality is precisely what is
implied in the direct-access society, where each member is
"immediate to the whole." Anderson is undoubtedly right
to argue that this new understanding couldn't have arisen
without social developments like that of print capitalism, but
he doesn't want to imply by this that the transformations of
the social imaginary are sufficiently explained by these de
velopments. Modern society required transformations also in
the way we figure ourselves as societies. Crucial among these
has been this ability to grasp society from a decentered view
 which is no one's. That is, the search for a truer and more belonged to this society via belonging
to some component of
authoritative perspective than my own doesn't lead me to cen it. As a peasant, one was linked to a
lord who in turn held
ter society on a king or sacred assembly or whatever, but from the king. One was a member of a
municipal corporation
allows for this lateral, horizontal view, which an unsituated which had a standing in the kingdom or
exercised some nmc
observer might have: society as it might be laid out in a tab tion in a Parlement with its recognized
status, and so on. By
leau without privileged nodal points. There is a close inner contrast, the modern notion of citizensh
ip is direct. In what
link among modern societies, their self-understandings, and ever many ways I am related to the rest
of society through
modern synoptic modes of representation in "the Age of the intermediary organizations, I think of
my citizenship as sepa
World Picture":2 society as simultaneous happenings, social rate from all of these. My fundamental
way of belonging to the
interchange as impersonal system, the social terrain as what state is not dependent on or mediated
by any of these other
is mapped, historical culture as what shows up in museums, belongings. I stand, alongside all my fello
w citizens, in direct
and so on. relationship to the state, which is the
158
object of our common
159
There was thus a certain verticality of society, which de- allegiance.
pended on a grounding in higher time and which has dis Of course, this doesn't necessarily chan
ge the way things
appeared in modern society. Seen from another angle, this get done. I know someone whose brother-i
n-law is a judge or
was also a society of mediated access. In an ancien regime an MP, and so I phone her up when I'm in
a jam. We might say
kingdom, such as France, the subjects are only held together that what has changed is the normative
picture. But under
within an order that coheres through its apex, in the person lying this, without which the new norm
couldn't exist for
of the king, through whom this order connects to higher time us, is a change in the way people imag
ine belonging. There
and the order of things. We are members of this order through were certainly people in seventeenth-cent
ury France, and be
our relation to the king. As we saw in the previous chapter, fore, for whom the very idea of direct acce
ss would have been
earlier hierarchical societies tended to personalize relations foreign, impossible to clearly grasp. The
educated had the
of power and subordination. model of the ancient republic. But for
many others, the only
The principle of a modern horizontal society is radically way they could understand belonging to
a larger whole, like
different. Each of us is equidistant from the center; we are a kingdom or a universal church, was
through the imbrica
immediate to the whole. This describes what we could call tion of more immediate, understandable
units of belonging
a direct-access society. We have moved from a hierarchical parish, lord-into the greater entity. Mod
ernity has involved,
order of personalized links to an impersonal egalitarian one; among other things, a revolution in our
social imaginary, the
from a vertical world of mediated access to horizontal, direct- relegation of these forms of mediacy to
the margins and the
access societies. difsfu ion of images of direct access.
In the earlier form, hierarchy and mediacy of access went This has come through the rise of the socia
l forms I have
together. A society of ranks-"society of orders," to use been describing: the public sphere, in whic
h people conceive
Tocqueville's phrase-as in seventeenth-century France, was themselves as participating directly in
a nationwide (some
hierarchical in an obvious sense. But this also meant that one times even international) discussion; mark
et economies, in
 which all economic agents are seen as entering into contrac ern ones. But this doesn't
mean that there tends to
tual relations with others on an equal footing; and, of course, be less de
facto differentiation in cul
ture and lifestyle betwee
the modern citizenship state. But we can think of other ways n different
strata than there was a few
centuries ago, although this
as well in which immediacy of access takes hold of our imagi is un
doubtedly true. It is also
the case that the social ima
nation. We see ourselves in spaces of fashion, for instance, ginaries
of different classes have
come much closer togeth
taking up and handing on styles; we see ourselves as part er. It was
a feature of hierarchical,
mediated societies that
of the worldwide audience of media stars. And though these the people
in a local community, a
village or parish, for inst
spaces are in their own sense hierarchical-they center on ance, might
have only the most hazy
idea of the rest of their soc

quasi-legendary figures-they offer all participants an a cess would have some image
iety. They
of central authority, som
unmediated by any of their other allegiances or belongmgs. e mixture
of good king and evil min
isters, but very little not
Something of the same kind, along with a more substantial ion of how
to fill in the rest of the pic
ture. In particular, their
mode of participation, is available in the various movements, sense was
160
rather vague of what oth
er people and regions ma
social, political, religious, that are a crucial feature of mod de up the
kingdom. There was, in
161
fact, a wide gap between
ern life and that link people translocally and internationally the theory I I'
and social imaginary of ,
political elites and that
into a single collective agency. of the less
educated classes or those
in rural areas. This state
These modes of imagined direct access are linked to, in of affairs
lasted until comparatively
recently in many countr
deed are just different facets of, modern equality and indi ies. It has
been well documented for
France during most of the
vidualism. Directness of access abolishes the heterogeneity nine
teenth century, in spite of
the confident remarks of
of hierarchical belonging. It makes us uniform, and that is republican
leaders about the nation "on
e and indivisible."4 This spli
one way of becoming equal. (Whether it is the only way is the t con
sciousness is quite incom
. patible with the existence
fateful issue at stake in much of today's struggles over multI of a direct
access society. The necessa
ry transformation was ulti
culturalism.) At the same time, the relegation of various me mately
wrought by the Third Rep
ublic, and the modern Fra
diations reduces their importance in our lives; the individual nce theo
rized by the Revolution
became real and all-em
stands more and more free of them and hence has a growing bracing for
the first time. This (in mor
e than one sense) revolu
self-consciousness as an individual. Modern individualism, as tionary
change in the social imagin
ary is what Weber captur
a moral idea, doesn't mean ceasing to belong at all-that's es in his
titlePeasants into Frenchmen.
the individualism of anomie and breakdown - but imagining
oneself as belonging to ever wider and more impersonal enti
ties: the state, the movement, the community of humankind.
This is the change that has been described from another angle
as the shift from "network" or "relational" identities to "cate
gorical" ones.3
We can see right away that, in an important sense, modern
direct-access societies are more homogeneous than premod-
11 Agency and Objectification

I
magining ourselves in this horizontal, secular world in
volves our belonging to new kinds of collective agency,
those grounded in common action in secular time. But at
the other end of the spectrum, it also involves being able
to grasp society as objectified, as a set of processes, detached
from any agential perspective. I mentioned this double focus
of modern consciousness of society in chapter 5. I would like
to develop it somewhat here.
As long as society is seen as by its very nature cohering only
as subject to the king or as ruled by its ancient law, because
in each case this is what links our society to its grounding in
higher time, it is hard to imagine it in any other terms or from
any other angle. To see it just as a system, a set of connected
processes, operating in partial independence from its politi
cal or legal or ecclesial ordering, requires this shift into pure
secular time. It requires a perspective on society as a whole
independent from the normative ordering that defines its co
herence as a political entity. And this was well nigh impossible
as long as a normative ordering embedded in higher time was
seen as essentially defining the polity.
The first such independent take on society was that which
grasped it as an economy, that is, as no longer just a particu-
 lar domain of the management by the ruler of his kingdom, its modern sense points
us to this entity which
construed as an extended household, but as a connected sys can be grasped
and studied in various
ways, of which the politic
tem of transactions obeying its own laws. These laws apply to al is only one
and not necessarily the
most fundamental.
human actions as they concatenate, behind the backs of the Our modern imaginar
y thus includes not onl
agents; they constitute an invisible hand. We are at the anti y categories
that enable common
action, but also catego
podes of collective agency. ries of process
and classification that
happen or have their eff
So the new horizontal world in secular time allows for two ects behind the
backs of the agents. We
each can be placed in
opposite ways of imagining society. On one side, we beco e gories in relation to eth
nicity, language, incom
census cate
capable of imagining new free, horizontal modes of collectlve e level, or en
titlements in the welfar
e system, whether or not
agency, and hence of entering into and creating such agen we are aware
of where we fit or what
consequences flow fro
cies because they are now in our repertoire. On the other, we m this. And yet
categories of both kin
ds, the active and the
become capable of objectifying society as a system of norm
ssential to t e social im
objective, can be

164
aginary in the sense I'v
independent processes, in some ways analogous to those in e bee n using
It here, that IS, the ens
165
emble of imaginings tha
nature. On the one hand, society is a field of common agency, t enable our
practices by making sen
se of them.
on the other a terrain to be mapped, synoptically represented, It is clear how the active
do this: only if we unders
analyzed, perhaps preparatory to being acted on from the out tand our
selves as a collective age
ncy can we have this kin
side by enlightened administrators. d of action
in our repertory. But
the objective categories
We have become accustomed to experiencing these two enable in an
other way. Grasping my
society as an economy
perspectives as being in tension; we often fear that the first is precisely not
grasping it as a collec
tive action, but only bec
will be repressed or elided by the second, as our world comes ause I under
stand the system in thi
s way will I engage in
more and more under bureaucratic management, which itself market trans
actions the way I do.
The system provides
may turn out to be dominated by its own impersonal laws. But the environment
my action needs to hav
e the desired result, and
these two standpoints cannot be dissociated. They are coeval; I may want to
assure myself from tim
e to time that it is stil
they belong together to the same range of imaginings that de l working as in
tended (e.g., not headin
g into depression or hyp
rive from the modern moral order. erinflation).
Active and objective cat
egories play compleme
Central to this is the idea that the political is limited by the 1
.
our lives. It is close to inc
onceivable that we could
ntary roles

extrapolitical, by different domains of life that have their own dispense

WIth the second. As for
the symmetrical hyp oth

integrity and purpose. These include but aren't exh us ed b ! should have only object
ive imaginings of society
esis-that we

the economic. It is thus built in to the modern soclal lmagl , while our
sense of agency should be
entirely as individuals-
nary that it allows us to conceive of society in extrapolitical this corre
sponds to one of the uto
pias (or dystopias) of the
forms, not just through the science that came to be called po eighteenth
century, that of enlighten
ed despotism. The only
litical economy, but also through the various facets of what agency al
lowed to affect the whole
is the ruler, guided as he
we have come to call sociology. The very meaning of society in or she is by
the best scientific unders
tanding.
 Only for fleeting moments did the political development of
w c underlay the ver
y existence of such a
any society approximate to this, under the "enlightened" di opmlOn, A change in the thing as publI' c
SOCIaI Ima
'' gmary had brough
.
rection of Frederick II, Joseph II, Catherine the Great, and political force onto the t a new
scene,
Pombal. It seems more than a mere accident that our history
took a different direction. In a sense, it did so most strikingly
In a common contem
trayed as a tribunal a

porar image, public
"
' opmlOn was por
sortth o supreme court
through the development of the public sphere. had to listen to This ':
as e tribunal Maleshe
that authority
We can see here the complementarity at work. In a sense,

"independent f all p rbes praised as
the discussions in the public sphere depended on and con
sisted in the development of enlightened, objective under
that tribunal of the pub
wers and respected b
,
}'IC . . . the sovereIgn J
all powers . .
u dge 0f a11 the
.
, ges of the earth.
Jud "1 As Jacques Necker
standing of society, economically, politically, juridically. Pub the event in his history hi mse lf put it after
of the RevoIutl,On'. '
lic opinion was seen from one perspective as ideally rational, arisen that did not exist n aut hont' y has
two hundred years
the product of calm and reasoned discussion. But from an- must necessarily he tak ago, and wh'Ich
166
en mto' account, the authority
other angle the public sphere was also inevitably seen as a lic opinion."2 of pub-
common action. The discussion had an upshot: it crystallized 16 7
into public opinion, a common mind or collective judgment.
More fateful, this opinion became gradually but irresistibly a
;:: :o:e:: social imaginary is thus hoth active and c
i t ontem-
collectie action, and
that ofhjec:!:s
P o
principle of legitimation.
Nothing is more striking than the emergence of this new
;: :: i:;: eXIsts
mediate forms. In spea '
. 0 m
also
a range of inter-
force in the last twenty years of the ancien regime in France. ern, horizontal forms
kmg
, above about the t
of soc'Ial Im
' agm.
ary
' a y mod-
ypIC II
'
Before 1770, enlightened opinion was seen as a potential nui grasp themselves and gre
at numb ers of others ' m which people
sance or danger by the royal government. An attempt was ,
actmg simultaneously I as eXI.S t'mg and
mentIO ' ned the economy'
made to control the circulation of ideas through censorship. sphere, and the sov the public
ereign peop1e, hut also t
As this came to be more and more obviously ineffective, some ion. This IS he spa ce of fash-
' an example of :6
attempts were made to steer the public discussion through
"inspired" interventions by friendly writers. By the time we
is unlike the public sph : : ;:
er a
h
h
ctue of simultaneity It
vreIgn people, hecaus
.
these are sites of corom . e
on actIon. In thIS respec
get to the eve of the Revolution, public opinion comes to be economy, where a host t, it IS
' l'k
1 e the
' d'IVl,dual actIOn
of I ,
s concatenate he
seen as an irresistible force, forcing the king, for instance, hind Our backs, But It .
' IS different from th'
to recall Necker, the finance minister whom he had earlier our actions relate in the IS as well, because
space of fashIOn' m .
a p articular way. I
, g s0, I
sacked. wear my own kind of hat,
Many things underlie this development, including the style to all of you, an
hut m ' dotn d'ISPIaymg . my
d in th'IS, I am respond
mounting uncontrolled debt of the government which put it dispIay, even as you wIll
, respo mg to yo ur self
nd to m'me. The space of
at the mercy of its creditors. But an essential condition of the is one in which we sus fashion
tam ' together a language
turnover was the growth of the common understanding itself, " of signs and
hut Wh'ICh at any mo -
mearung' s, whIC h IS constantly changing
 ment is the backgound needed to give our gestures the sense their meanm g. ThIS strange
zone between Ione
they have. If my hat can express my particular kind of cocky munication fascina liness and com-
ted many of the ear
yet understated self-display, this is because of how the com ly observers 0f th
nomenon as it aro IS phe-
se in the mne. teenth
mon language of style has evolved among us up to this point. century. We can thin
some of the paint k of
ings of Manet or o
My gesture can change it, and then your responding stylistic . f BaudelaIre 's aVId m terest
m the urb an scene,
in the ro1es 0f flA . .
move will take its meaning from the new contour the language aneur and dandy,
observation and umtmg
display.
takes on. Of Course, these
nineteenth-century
The general structure I want to draw from this example topical; tha t is, all urban spaces we
. . re
the partIClp . ants were m
of the space of fashion is that of a horizontal, simultaneous, sight of each othe t he s ame pla ce, in
r. But twentlet .
h-century commu . .
mutual presence, which is not that of a common action, but have produced m mcatIOns
etatOp lCa1 varI.ant
.
s, when, f,or msta .
rather of mutual display. It matters to each of us as we act that 1ob a stone at the nce , we
ameras 0f CNN, kno
soldIe rs bef,ore the c
others are there, as witnesses of what we are doing and thus ing that this act will w-
1&8
resonate around the .
as codeterminers of the meaning of our action. of Our participatio worl d. The meanm
g
1 89
n in the event is sh
m
"e share It
Spaces of this kind become more and more important in ape d by the whole
dispersed audienc e . . vas t
WIt h.
modern urban society, where large numbers of people rub a
shoulders, unknown to each other, without dealings with each
other, and yet affecting each other, forming the inescapable
ge : :: :;:::::; :::: ::
n ,
tion, indeed the m
i
e betwee solitu

p over mto comm
de and to-
on ac-
oment they do so
. ' may be hard to pm-p .
context of each other's lives. As against the everyday rush to As we rIse as one to omt.
cheer the cruCIal . .
work in the Metro, where others can sink to the status of ob third-p erIO d goa1,
have undoubtedly we
bec ome a common
stacles in my way, city life has developed other ways of being agent , an d we may
to prolong this whe try
n we 1eave the sta .
with, for instance, as we each take our Sunday walk in the park dIUm by arching

or as we mingle at the summer street festival or in the stadium

.
chanting or even w
The cheering crowd
reaking various for
f,
at a rock estl.Val l. s .
:
ms of may em tog
eth
and
er.
before the playoff game. Here each individual or small group SImilar1y fused . The
IS a heightened exci re
tement at these m .
acts on their own, but with the awareness that their display oments of fuSIO n, remi
niscent of Carnival
or of sOme of the
great collective ritu
says something to others, will be responded to by them, will earlier days. So muc als of
h so that some ha
ve seen these mome
help build a common mood or tone that will color everyone's as among the new . nts
forms of religIOn . m our world.3 Durk
actions. gave an important heim
place to these times
of collective effierv
A host of urban monads hover on the boundary between cence as foun dmg es-
moments of society
and the sacred. " In
solipsism and communication. My loud remarks and gestures case, these moments any
seem to resP ond t0 .
s ome Important
are overtly addressed only to my immediate companions; my need of today 's "1 felt
oneIy crowd ."
family group is sedately walking, engaged in our own Sunday S ome moments of
this kind are indee
' d, the clos est ana-
outing; but all the time we are aware of this common space Iogues to the Carm.
vaI 0f preVIO US centurIe .
that we are building, in which the messages that cross take s, as has frequently
been noted . They
can be powerful and
moving, because th ey
 erly
im ginary contains a whole gamut of forms in complex inter
nt out of its form
ss the birth of a new collective age actIOn and potential mutual transition.
witne t unlike
heady, exciting. Bu
ial. They can be
disp ersed potent ent ren ched
any deeply
not enframed by
Carnival, they are unt er This understanding of society as not just the polity, as having
structure and co
if imp lici t co mm on understanding of
ently m y facets, has had another important impact in our world.
riveting, but frequ
often immensely
structure. They are by a host ThIS consists in the sense that action in the political sphere
being taken over
grab s, capable of has to take account of the integrity of the other forms and
also wild, up for revolutionary, xeno
of diffe r ent mor al vect ors, either utopian

can rys allize on
some ?
t e goals people seek in them. It is true that the idea of poli

phobic, or wildly
destructive; or they
d, hke nngmg
.
the key
tICS as purely i strumental to, say, economic prosperity is
monly cherished goo
deeply felt, com case of the funeral
hotly contested In our world (and rightly so, I believe) . In
chains in W enc esla s S quare or, as in the
the
f ct, the e ergence of popular sovereignty has given poli
out- of-ordinary life
celebrating in an
of Princess Diana, tICS a new Importance, which partly expressed itself in the
171
happiness.
ordinary, fragile
pursuit of love and
ntieth century, reple
te
retri v l of forms and ideals from the ancient republics and
history of the twe
170 Remembering the
such horror s, one has as POl IS:
m which political activity stood at the apex of the citi
rallies and other
with the Nurnb erg ents . zen s life. But even so, the integrity of the other spheres cannot
wild , kairotic mom
r as hope in these
much caus e for fea
ir immense app
al, is be gainsaid. The drive to override them, to control all other
for them, and the
But the potentiality ular tim e. aspects of life in the name of some radiant future, has be
modern sec
perhaps implicit in
the experience of
utua l
come famili r to us as the totalitarian temptation, visible early
iguous spaces of m
a t len gth on these amb on at the heIght of the lacobin Terror and latterly in Soviet
I hav e dw elt
'
obviously don t exha
st he r ge of po
ssi
display, but they ctIficatIOn. The re are communism and its offshoots. Not only do these attempts run
mon action and obJe
bilities between com power counter to certain fundamental features of our understanding
ce is filled with a
mo men ts whe n a common spa of moral order-most notably the demand for individual free
also ons
on, as with the milli
rather than an acti
ful shared emotion
Diana. These vas met a dom and moral autonomy-but they themselves have gener
ing the funeral of
of spectators watch por- ally been undertaken in the hope (vain, as it turns out) that
more and more Im
spaces have become . hypercontrol would issue in a world of nonconstraint For
topical spectator thIS

tant in our world . '

together don t just

Marxism, the ultimate end was the withering away ofthe s ate.
erent ways of being ore eloquent testimony is possible to the profound an
Moreover these diff No
how mutual dis
have already seen chon of the prepolitical in our modern understanding as
exist sid e b side . We
over, at least mom n
can sometimes flip
play, for instance,
ewhat more end ur the limIt and goal of politics.
action. On a som
tarily, into common
category may be

mO I (In the case of the other great totalitarian temptation of
as a mere censuS
basis, what starts nds , as With our century, fascism, we have, indeed, a frontal assault on our
mon dema
agency, making com
lized into common exist ing understanding of moral order. This is one facet ofthe reaction
ts. Or previously
une mpl oyed or welfare recipien ern against this order, which I describe below. It is important to
the
categories. The mod
into mere passive
agencies can lapse
 see that this order has been and will continue to be contested .
!nstead :
0 enshrinin
But it is hard to imagine its being replaced. We were lucky
in that fascism was eliminated by military defeat in the first
: g merely the righ
gan to e seen as refle
ts of Englishmen
ctions of the Natural

they
Right, of hich
t e great seventee
nth- century the oris
half of the century. But even if it hadn't suffered this fate, ts h d s ok
The e
I doubt that fascist regimes could have indefinitely resisted
were inv ked in the
macy of rIghts is give
Declaration of Indep
: :
nd nce he p
the demands for greater freedom that are so anchored in our
culture.)
ments to the Constitut
n a further push by
ion.

the first te Amen -

Thi whole d velop
ment reaches its
This sense of the modern age as one that gives a crucial culmination in our
time, In the perIod
place to the nonpolitical was articulated early on by Benjamin
Constant in his famous lecture on ancient and modern lib
the notion 0f rIg. hts
after the Second W
as prIor
' to and untouchable
.
orld ar, In which

caI structures bec by p0r1f1-

omes widespread -a
erty.5 The error of Jacobinism (and of Rousseau ), according to Ithough they are now
called "human " rath
. er than "natural"
Constant, was to think that the only freedom that matters to ri hts - d ' wh .
172 us is that of political participation, which the ancients prized.
thIS consciousness
of charters of right
is given expression
; : :
i the e e hm
ich
ent
173
s, by which ordinary
IegIs
" latIOn can be set
But we have become people for whom economic prosperity
and the satisfactions of private life also have a crucial impor
aside when I't VIO

' Iates these fund
T ese declarations
amental norms '"
tance. We cannot just apply the ancient models to our politi
preSSIOn 0f our mod
of rights are in a se

nse th clearest ex-
cal life.
In order to give a fuller picture of our contemporary no
political, which the
ern id
politic
:: f a moraI order u
as t0 resp ect.
nderlying the

tions of moral order, we should add to the three forms of

social existence we have already identified in our modern
imaginary- economy, public sphere, and a polity ruled by
the people- a fourth, which has been articulated in bills and
charters of rights . Here is a crucial feature of the original
Grotian-Lockean theory that has become embedded in our
understanding of normative order. It has come to structure
our social imaginary in somewhat the same way and by the
same process as popular sovereignty has. That is, earlier prac
tices were given a new sense, and thus came to be structured
differently.
So just as the practices of getting consent from elected as
semblies was transformed during the American Revolution
into a new definition of political legitimacy, so, at the same
time and through the same political changes, the practices
embodying the primacy of law began to change their sense.
 12 Modes of Narration

T
he move to a horizontal, direct-access world, interwoven
with an embedding in secular time, had to bring with it
a different sense of our situation in time and space. It
brings different understandings of history and modes of
narration.
In particular, the new collective subject, a people or nation
that can found its own state, that has no need for a previous
action-transcendent foundation, needs new ways of telling its
story. In some ways, these resemble the old stories of state
founding, drawing on the old images of larger-than-life fig
ures in a time of origins that we cannot recapture; think of
some of the treatments of Washington and other Founders in
American storytelling about their origins.
But for all the analogies, there is a clear difference. We are
dealing with a story in purely secular time. The sense that
the present, postfounding order is right has to be expressed
in terms that consort with this understanding of time. We
can no longer describe it as the emergence of a self-realizing
order lodged in higher time. The category that is at home in
secular time is rather that of growth, maturation, drawn from
the organic realm. A potential within nature matures. So his
tory can be understood, for instance, as the slow growth of
 a human capacity, reason, fighting against error and super :ing1e authority deci
de to take this ru e
l m- to their own
stition. The founding comes when people arrive at a certain
stage of rational understanding.
or certain elites deci
This was the cas e m .
.
de that they have to
Franc e m 178 9
hands
be led to this end
).
and less happ y, _
century attempts
This new history has its nodal points, but they are orga the early twentieth- ' d WIth
nized around the stages of a maturing potential, that for rea to establish an Otto
nationality.. 0r e1se a man
people establishes
son or for rational control, for instance. In one story, our itself out of the por
.aI chOIc
e for self-rule If1-
' as with the Amencan Rev
_

growth entails coming to see the right moral order, the inter - 1 . olut -
IOn.
l evo utlOnanes sepa The
rated themse1ves
locking relations of mutual benefit that we are meant to real offfrom 0ther Eng
men, even the Tories _ 1Ish
- -
. mIdst,
i n therr .
ize ("We hold these truths to be self-evident") on one hand by thIS deci sive
'ption. pol itical
and achieving adequate self-control to put it into practice, on .But much of what w
e call natI- naI"sm .
the other. When we are sufficiently advanced on both of tht<"-e that there is some basis
for th IS b ased on the idea
I cOsen other th
paths, we are at a nodal point, where a new and better societ,
176 can be founded. Our founding heroes, for all their exceptional
cal contingency or
political C : . The people be
n histori
mg led to
tatehoo d is thought
to b eIong together
177 ,,
qualities, emerge out of a story of growth in secular time. -in virtue of a com
mon language, co -
mmon culture com
"f common action
This can fit into the story (or myth) of progress, one of th mon rerIgI.On, or
. The pom _ ' history
t has been tirele
most important modes of narration in modernity. But it Call much ofthis com ssly made that
.. true, but It
mon past IS frequentIy pure
also fit into another widely invoked matrix, that of revolution. . invention 2 This
has certainly often .
been a politlCa - . .
lIy effectIv
This is the nodal point of maturation in which people becoml:' l ntion w _ e m-
' hich has b een mtenor
. . ized and become
capable of making a decisive break with age-old forms and , . IllIa
vCIal part of the
ginary of the p eop1
e concerned .
structures that impede or distort the moral order. Suddenly.
it becomes possible to carry out the demands of this order a s
Here again, the unde
potential I
rl -ng category . IS that of growth
of
never before. There is a heady sense that everything is po . : ;: :!
lack of cO S i
our dIspersi n, m
e we Were an slCh ultipliCity of dialect
s,
hatever. "tVr
sible, which is why the idea of revolution can easily turn info a ' Ukrainians" Serbs 5
vaks.. or w 10-
we had Imp - ortant things III .
.I.' us to functI. On
powerful myth, that of a past nodal point whose infinite possi. made it natural an common that
d right lOr
bilities have been frustrated, betrayed, by treachery or pusil together as a smgle
-
DYereign p eople.
Oniy we neede d to
lanimity. The revolution becomes something yet to be com be awoken Then,
haps, we needed to . . per-
struggle to realize
pleted. This was a sustaining myth of the radical French Lei this destiny. The I-
f a maturatIO - n, a growth in _ dea
. conscIOusness, an
during the nineteenth century and into the twentieth.l ultimately becomes _ an sich that
fiir SICh , IS central
But one of the most powerful narrative modes center here
of narrativitY p
These three mo des
.
around the nation. There is something paradoxical about . _ rogress, revolutIOn,
.
a nation- can obviou
s1y be combmed
people that can preside over its own political birth. What .
h interwoven with
apo calyptIc .
. A n d they can m
and messianic m
odes
. turn

makes it that just these people belong together for purpos" , m eIigIOu
rro - s understandi drawn
ngs of Heilsgeschic _
of self-rule? Sometimes, it is the accidents of history: a na "8lvatlOn): for instanc hte (his tory of
e, the idea that the .
tion is born because the people who were hitherto ruled by a confront violent maturmg order must
- . n, the more
0Pp osItIO
violent the closer . .
It IS
 to ultimate victory. Revolution will be attended by a titanic If we now bring in civilit

struggle, a secularized Armageddon. The devastating ffects not as a way of distingui
y or civilization in its oth
er sense,
shing one large cultural
of this in twentieth-century history have been all too eVIdent. complex from
another, but in the nor
mative sense that con
Beyond this placing of our present in a national politi trasts with sav
agery or barbarism, we
can say that in modern
cal history is our sense of our people 's place in the whole times, Europe
has often seen itself
not only or so much
epochal development or struggle for moral order, freeom, as Christendom,
but as the main rep osi
tory of civilization An
the right. This can be a very important part of our nabonal . d this sense of
a supranational order
has itself been gradua
self-understanding. Think of the place of a kind of universal lly transformed
over the centuries, unt
il one of its principal
ist chauvinism in French national consciousness at the time of defining char
acteristics has come
to be democratic rule
the French Revolution: France as the nation destined to bring and respect for
human rights. The mo
dern moral order has
freedom and the rights of man to Europe. Military glory and a colonized our
understanding of this
widest context of all .
universal mission are fused. This is heady stuff, as Napoleon Since the Euro
pean state system for
178
med the basis of its ext
knew. The USSR and communist China have tried to assume ension into a
world system, the ord
179
er has been imaginativ
this mantle at different points in our century. ely expanded
to include all the (prope , ,
rly behaved) members
of the global
community.
But there also is an extension of the imaginary in space. I have But this identification
of civilization and the mo
been talking of the nation or state as the locus for the three dern moral
order didn't come abo
ut without opposition
main forms of modern imaginary. But they all have supra . A rearguard
action was fought all the
way on behalf of earlier
national loci. The economy can be seen as international, and monarchical
hierarchical models of
order. From early on
the public sphere always extended in some aspects beyond na in the process
these began to be affect
ed by the modern notion
tional borders; the exchange of ideas that was central to the of order, as
we saw with the compro
mises implicit in the Bar

European Enlightenment linked different national deb tes: of order mentioned ear
oque notion
English, Scottish, British, and later German an Amerca .
lier. Revolutions could
be followed by
Restorations, but these
never quite brought bac
As for the European state itself, it has always eXIsted withm k the status
quo ante, as Charles X
discovered when he trie
what was understood as a system of states, which reached a d to stage a
full-scale traditional cor
onation ceremony at Rh
new stage of uniformity and a new set of ground rules with eims in 1825.
The ancient pageantry
could no longer really
the peace of Westphalia in 1648.3 come offin the
new context. Other aut
horitarian regimes inv
This sense of the unity of civilization goes way back, mto ested more in
becoming Machstaate tha

the original self-understanding as Latin Christen om bound
: archical complementarity
n they did in reviving for
ms of hier
. Some resorted to such bizarre and

together by an overarching supranational orgam atI n, the contradictory exercises
as the appeal to a Russia
Catholic Church. Since then, under altered descrIptlOns, of n nationalism
mobilized under the tsa
r as autocrat.
which the main modern one has been "Europe," this civiliza Nevertheless these
"reactionary" regime
tion has never lost the sense of its unity in shared principles s fought a
long rearguard battle
and eventually handed
of order. the baton to
twentieth-century forms
of autocracy. There was
some conti-
 peaceful production have been purchased at the expense of
se nostal
ween the two: some of tho
nuity of constituency bet greatness, heroism, the courage to risk life, and the aspiration
ranks of
mine Germany joined the
gic for the order of Wilhel to something higher than prosperity. Tocqueville continually
like Action
grew out of movements .
the Nazis; French fascists tempers hIS endorsement of democracy with the fear of a de
narchic res
posed to be seeking a mo
Frallliaise, which was sup cline in freedom. And, of course, there was no greater critic of
to the mod
two kinds of opposition
toration. But in fact, the welfare and equality than Friedrich Nietzsche, with his con
ntieth
different sources. The twe
ern moral order sprang from tempt for the "pitiable comfort" sought by the "last men."
this order,
from the reaction against
century opposition came One remedy for this felt lack was to propose a more heroic
began to set
has aroused since it first
the continuing unease it and full-bodied search for equality in self-rule, of the kind
the eighteenth centur y.
the terms of politics in Rousseau proposed. We see this with the Jacobins, with Marx,
the unease
involves if we look at
We can see what this and with communism. The decline into a pitiable comfort is
d among
commercial society arouse
that the advent of a polite headed off by the heroic nature of the attempt to establish
181
der n society
teenth century. This mo
many people in the eigh a new kind of republic of virtue, or a community of equal , ,
n what had
180
tive, and egalitarian tha
was more pacific, produc sharers . The other path followed Nietzsche in rejecting the
goo d. But
se things were seen as . .
preceded it, and all the egalitarIan and humanitarian values of the modern order al
in all this ;
that something was lost
there was a nagging fear together, and proposed a new politics of heroism, domination,
ng eroded;
, greatness of soul was bei
that manliness, heroism and the Will.
ple was being
certain exceptional peo
that the superiority of oth of these reactions produced totalitarian challenges
diocrity.
drowned in the love of me to hberal democracy in the twentieth century, which came
tinuing
ase emerged in the con
Some of this sense of une to define itself by a version of the modern moral order that
th cen tur y. Even
ue in the eighteen
interest in republican virt stressed its plural forms and the limits of the political. It
anc ed and
who gave us the most adv
some of those thinkers is the victories of liberal democracy in these struggles that
most clearly
the new society and saw
sophisticated theories of seem finally to have entrenched the identity of civilization and
e Adam Smith and Ad am Fergu
its advantages, for instanc the modern order. Although the sense of both communism
labor would
t a too great division of
son, expressed a fear tha and fascism as reacting against an established system seems
-ruling citi
ld unfit people to be self
stupefy and enervate, wou to suggest that this identification was already well underway
virt ue of the
end to the courage and
zens, and would put an at the beginning of the century. Ezra Pound could speak of
separating
As Ferguson put it, "By
warrior-citizen of yore. the tragically vain sacrifice of young men in the First World
supplied
tanner, we are the better
the arts of the clothier and War:
wh ich form
But to separate the arts
with shoes and with cloth.
war, is an
an, the arts of policy and
the citizen and the statesm There died a myriad,
ld be to
human character." It wou
attempt to dismember the And of the best, among them,
safe ty.4
what is necessary to its
deprive a fre e people of For an old bitch gone in the teeth
h the cen tury. The nag ging sense
This worry didn' t die wit For a botched civilization.5
the arts of
dern egalitarianism and
continually recurs that mo
 For the most part, we live now in Western societies with this its possible relation to
the persecution of sca
identification utterly taken for granted-though we might be pegoats. So, what
is the relation of a soc
ial imaginary to what
embarrassed by the politically incorrect invocation of civili Marxists call ide
ology, a distorted or fal
se consciousness of our
situation? The
zation in a normative sense. We are both horrified by and (not
very use f a t rm lin ked to imagination inv
ites this question;
always avowedly) look down on those who reject the basic ;vhat we ImagIne can
be something new, con
values of this order, be they the terrorists of Al Qaeda or prac structive, open
Ing new possibilities
, or it can be purely
titioners of genocide in the Balkans or Africa. fictitious, perhaps
dangerously false.
Moreover, we relate to this order as established in our civili In fact, my Use of the
term is meant to com
zation the way people have always related to their most fun bine both these
facets. Can an imagi
nary be false, meani
ng that it distorts or
damental sense of order: we have both a sense of security in Covers over certain cru
cial realities? Clearly,
believing that it is really in effect in our world and also a sense the answer to this
is yes, in the light of
some of the examples
of our own superiority and goodness deriving from our par- above. Take our
sense of ourselves as
182
equal citizens in a dem
ocratic state; to
ticipation in it and our upholding of it. This means that we
he e te t that we not
183
only understand this
can react with great insecurity when we see that it can be I g prInCIple but actual
ly imagine it as integr
as a legitimat
ally realize d, we
, ,

breached from outside, as at the World Trade Center; but also WIll be engaging in a
cover-up, averting our
that we are even more shaken when we feel that it might be gaze from various
excluded and disempow
ered groups or imagi
undermined from within or that we might be betraying it. xclu ion is their own
doing. We regularly
ning that their

There it is not only our security that is threatened; it is also n whICh the modern soc
come across ways
ial imaginaries, no lon
our sense of our own integrity and goodness. To see this ques
Ideal t es but as act
ually lived by this or
ger defined as
that population, are
tioned is profoundly unsettling; ultimately threatening our full of Ideological and
false consciousness.
ability to act.
.
ut the gain involved
in identifying these
social imaginar
This is why in earlier times, we see people lashing out at Ies IS that they are nev
er just ideology. They
such moments of threat, scapegoating violence against "the also have a con
stitutive function, tha
t of making possible
enemy within," meeting the threat to our security by finess the practices that
they make sense of and
thus enable. In this sen
ing that to our integrity, deflecting it onto the scapegoats. In se, their falsity
cannot be total; some
people are engaging
earlier periods of Latin Christendom, Jews and witches were in a form of demo
cratic self-rule, even if
not everyone, as our
cast in this unenviable role. The evidence that we are still comfortable self
legitimations imagine
. Like all forms of hu
tempted to have recourse to similar mechanisms in our "en
the s cial ima inary can
man imagination,
be full of self-serving
fiction and sup
lightened" age is unsettling. But it would not be the first such preSSIon, but It also is
an essential constituen
paradox in history if a doctrine of peaceful universalism were t of the real. It
cannot be reduced to
an insubstantial dream
.
invoked to mobilize scapegoating violence.6

This is the dark side of our modern Western social imaginary:

its connections with our sense of civilizational superiority and
13 The Meaning of Secularity

E
nough perhaps has been said to show how much our out
look is dominated by modes of social imaginary that
emerge from what I have called the long march and
has been shaped in one way or another by the modern
ideal of order as mutual benefit. Not only the troubling as
pects, like some forms of nationalism or purifying violence,
but other, virtually unchallenged benchmarks of legitimacy
in our contemporary world -liberty, equality, human rights,
democracy-can demonstrate how strong a hold this mod
ern order exercises on our social imaginary. It constitutes a
horizon we are virtually incapable of thinking beyond. Mter
a certain date, it is remarkable that even reactionaries can no
longer invoke the older groundings in higher time. They too
have to speak of the functional necessities of order, as with
de Maistre's executioner. They may still think in theological
terms, as do both de Maistre and Carl Schmitt (but, signifi
cantly, not Maurras) . But this is theology in a quite different
register. They have to speak as theorists of a profane world.l
What relation, then, does the modern social imaginary bear
to modern secular society?
Well, plainly, as my use ofthe term secular implies, the long
march must have contributed to a displacement of religion
 from the public sphere . It has helped to remove God from transition stages, of wh
ich the great modes of
Baroque public
public space. Or so it might seem . But this is not quite true. It space are striking exa
mples, as was also the
Classicism of the
has certainly removed one mode in which God was formerly Sun King.
present, as part of a story of action-transcendent grounding Plainly, then, this soc
ial imaginary is the end
of society in higher time. "The divinity that doth hedge a nd of presence of religio
n or the divine in pub
of a certain

king" and the powerful range of analogies/assimilations be lic space. It

IS the end of the era wh
en political authority,
as well as other
tween king and God, king and Christ, which Kantorowicz de metatopical common
agencies, are inconceiv
able without ref
scribes, are drastically undermined and finally dispelled by erence to God or higher
time, when these are
so Woven into
the imaginaries that have emerged from the order of mutual the structures of author
ity that the latter can
not be under
benefit.2 But this doesn' t mean that God must be altogether stood s parately from the
divine, the higher, or the
absent from public space. The American people who came to numinous.
This is the step that Ma
rcel Gauchet describ ed
as "the end of
invoke itself as "we" also defined (define) itself as "one people religion." Bu t this ala
rming expression is giv
188
en a more exact
under God." The order of mutual benefit was originally seen sense: it is the end of soc
187
iety as structured by its
dependence
as God-created, and its fulfillment as God-destined . on God or the beyond
. 3 It is not the end of per
sonal religion,
In order to understand our present predicament, we have as Gauchet insists: It
is not even necessarily
the end of reli
to see what this alternative form of God presence amounts to, gion in public life, as the
American case shows.
However, it is
and how it has been set aside in many contemporary societies. undoubtedly a decisiv
e stage in the developm
ent of our mod
The long march has plainly worked alongside and together ern predicament, in wh
ich belief and unbelie
f can coexist as
with the forces that have carried us away from the enchanted alternatives.
cosmos shaped by higher times. There is, of course, a close More precisely, the
difference amounts to
connection between disenchantment and the confining of all
ear ier phas e, God or
some kind of higher
this. In the
reality is an
action to profane time. The same factors that eventually dis .
ontlC neceSSIty ; that is, people cannot
conceive a metatopica
pel and empty the world of spirits and forces-worshipful agency having author l
ity that is not ground
ed somehow in
living of ordinary life, mechanistic science, the disciplined higher time, be it thr
ough the action of Go
d or the Great
reconstruction of social life-also confine us more and more Chain or some foundi
ng in ilio tempore. Wh
at emerges from
to secular time. They empty and marginalize higher times, the change is an unders
tanding of social and pol
itical life en
they repress the kairotic, multilevel time of Carnival, occlude tirely in secular time.
Foundings are now see
n to be common
the need for, even the possibility of, antistructure, and hence actions in profane tim
e, ontically on the sam
e footing with all
render notions of action-transcendent grounding less and less
other s c actions, ven
though they may be giv
en a specially
comprehensible. They plant us firmly in a secular time that is authOrItatIve status In
our national narrative or
our legal sys
more and more mapped out and measured as a comprehen tem.
sive environment without a chink that might give access to This freeing of politic
s from its ontic depend
ence on reli
the former connections of higher time. ion is sometimes what
people mean by the sec
ularity of pu b
And so these latter disappear, albeit through a number of lic space. There is no
har m in this; indeed,
it is probably a

good idea to give it this sense. This is the pict re of "Ie so ial mon purpose or value. This
is what I call their "political
iden
fonde sur lui-meme " (society as founded on Itself) , of which tity. " Let me try to explain
this further.
Baczko speaks.5 To take the case of democra
tic societies as our example,
.IS clea it
But we musn't lose from sight that this opens a new space r that this identity must invo
lve freedom, and that must
for religion in public life. Regimes founded on common action include the freedom of the
dissenting minority. But can
in profane time are in a certain sense based on a comm n cision that goes against me
serve my freedom? Here we
a de
meet a
will. This doesn't mean that they are necessarily democratIc; long-standing skepticism,
which is particularly strong
among
the common will may be that of a minority, it being taken for those who hold to an atom
ist political philosophy and
who are
granted that they can speak for the rest or that the others are suspicious of all appeals to
a common good beyond ind
not capable of self-rule. The common will is even the gro nd choice. They see these app
eals as just so much humbug
ividual

ing of fascist regimes, it being understood that the real of contrary voters to accept volu
ntary servitude.
to get
. IS al
It
the people is expressed through the Leader. In a sense, But we don't need to dec
ide this ultimate philosophi
188
. cal
most a tautology that, where we lose any ontic dependence on
189
ISSu e here. We are dealing with
a question not of philoso
the higher and the polity emanates from some fun ing com phy, but of the social ima
ginary. We need to ask : Wh
. at is
mon action, the shared will that this action realizes IS gIven a the feature of our "imagin
ed communities" by which
people
foundational role. very often do readily accept
that they are free under a dem
o
Of course, this reference to a common will is inescapable cratic regime even where the
ir will is overridden on imp
ortant
in democracies, which claim to be based on popular sover issues?

eignty. Here there is some common understandi g of w at The answer they accept run
s something like this: You
. , like
the state is about, which provides the framework Within whICh the rest of us, are free just
in virtue of the fact that
we are
the ongoing deliberation can take place, the reference points ruling ourselves in common
and not being ruled by som

of public discussion, without which periodic de isions can agency that need take no
account of us. Your freedom
e

not be recognized as expressions of the popular Will. B caus e sists in your having a guaran
teed voice in the sovereign,
con
. that
it is only if we have had a debate about a commonly Identl you can be heard and have
some part in making the dec
ision.
fied issue, and one in which each of us has some chance at a You enjoy this freedom by
virtue of a law that enfranc
hises all
hearing, that we will be able to recognize the outcome as a of us, and so we enjoy this
together. Your freedom is
common decision.
d defen e d by this law, whe
realized
ther you win or lose in any
. n. par
More, if I am to accept as authoritative a decision that goes tICular deCISIO This law defines a community
of those whose
against me, I have to see myself as part of the people whose freedom it realizes/defend
s together. It defines a coll
ective
decision this is. I have to feel a bond with those who make up agency, a people, whose acti
ng together by the law pres

this people, such that I can say: Wrong as this dec sion is in their freedom.
erves

its content, I have to go along with it as an expreSSIOn of the Such is the answer, valid or
not, that people have come
will, or interest, of this people to whom I belong. ccept in democratic societie
s. We can see right away that
to
it
What can bond a people in this sense? Some strong com IDvolves their accepting a kin
d of belonging much stronge
r
 t come together.
It
collective gency, had already to have an antecedent unity, of
nce group that migh
than that of any cha ch rea l culture, hIstory, or (more often in Europe) language. And so
mbership in whi
is an ong oing coll ective agency, me
as
behind the poli ical natio , there had to stand a preexisting
of fre edom. Insofar
important: a kind
izes something very
ntity, they thus
dent y cultural (sometImes ethmc) nation.

this good is crucial

to members' ide
te lI
Natio alism, in this sense, was born out of democracy,
also feel a b ond WI
agency, and hence
an app eal to thIs
strongly with this kind as a (bemgn or malign) growth. In early nineteenth-century

cop articipants in
this agency. It is only
llenge of an indi vidu l
Eu ope, as peoples struggled for emancipation from multi
can answer the cha
of membership that deCl- natIOnal despotic empires, joined in the Holy Alliance, there
inst an adverse
mplates rebelling aga
or group who conte seemed to be no opposition between the two. For a Mazzini

sion in the name of

their freedom.
er is ultimately righ
t they were perfectly converging goals.6 Only later do certai
The crucial point
here is that , whoev
ple accept some suc h
forms of nation lism throw offthe allegiance to human rights
only insofar as peo
philosophically, it is .
sovereIgnty
and democracy m the name of self-assertion.
191
the legi tim acy principle of popular
B t even before this stage, nationalism gives another mod
answer that effective
t. The principle is
190 can w ork to secure their consen tifi ulatIOn to popular sovereignty. The answer to the objecter
e agency. If the iden
via this app eal to a strong collectiv above- something essential to your identity is bound up in
only ms
this government see
rejected, the rule of
cation with this is cou ntle ss our common laws-now refers not just to republican free
as we see in
illegitimate in the
eyes of the rejecters,
le, dom, ut also to something of the order of cultural identity.
es: rule by the peop
ed national minoriti
cases with disaffect 't What IS defended and realized in the national state is not just
lot, because we aren
t accept rule by this
all right; but we can'
betw en de mocr !
c your freedom as a human being; this state also guarantees the
.
This is the inner link
part of their people.
ncy. It follows the
logIC of the leglt expreSSIOn of a common cultural identity.
ong co m mon age We can speak therefore of a "republican" variant and a "na-
and str fall
atic regimes. They
macy principle that
underlies democr IOna
. 1" ariant of the appeal to popular sovereignty, though
ntity at their peril.
to generate this ide . the practIce the two often run together and often lie undistin
tant modulatIon of
m

last exa mple points to an impor guished in the rhetoric and imaginary of democratic societies.
This just gav e, the
version I
appeal to popular
sovereignty. In the

republica fre edo ." It In fact, even the original republican prenationalist revo
ppea l was to wha t we might call " lutIOns, the American and the French, have seen a kind of
a m the
blics and mvoked
d by ancient repu
is the one inspire n afte r, the nationalism develop in the societies that issued from them
But very soo
American and Fren
ch Revolutions.
mpts The point of these Revolutions was the universal good of free
alist form. The atte
sam e app eal beg an to take on a nation
Revolution through
the om, whatever the mental exclusions that the revolutionaries
nciples of the French
to spread the pri y, Italy , m fact accepted, even cherished. But their patriotic allegiance
tion in German
s created a reac ?
force of French arm by was to the articular historical project of realizing freedom, in
part of, represented
sense of not being .
and elsewhere: the was Amenca, m France. The very universalism became the basis
which the Revolution
ple in the name of
that sovereign peo in man y of a fierce national pride, in the "last, best hope for man-
to be accepted
defended. It came
being made and for kind,'" m the republic that was bearer of "the rights of man."
the unity needed
ereign people, to have
circles that a sov
 ,
That s why freedom, at least in the French case, could e- We can now see the
. h the fateful results in reactIve
come a project of conquest, Wit space for religion
for God can figure in the modern stat
. e,
.
natIOnalism elsewhere that I mentioned above . ) strongly in the pol
itical identity. It
. that we see ourselv can be
And so we have a new kind of collective agency, with which es as fulfilling Go '
d s will in setting
polity that maXimal up a
'd tif as the realizatIOn
' /bulwark of their free- ly follows his pre
::=::\:;05 :r
.
their nationalJcuI mal
; :,,:::;
cans have done
national identity
in the revolutio
cepts, as many Am
nary period and afte
eri
r. Or Our
course, In premodern societies, too, peop e 0 can refer to God,
if We see ourselves
. . fine d partly by Our as de
with the regIme, With sacre d kings or hierarchical orders. unique piety and
faithfulness. This
often arisen amo has
. .
They oftn were WillIng sub' ts But in the democratic age, ng peoples who
are surroun ded,
we identify as free agents. i::t i
s why the notion of popular
dominated by (w
hat they see as)
heretics and nonb
or worse,

.
will plays a cru Ia1 .
Ie in the legitimating Idea.7
(e.g., the Afrika
ners, Poles, Irish,
French Canadians
elievers

This means t at t e mo dern democratic state has generally
As they struggle
to gain or preserve
independence, a
of yore).

192
kind of fi delity to certain
accepted common pu rposes or reerence points, the features Go d, a certain
' confessional belo
. comes constituti ngi ng be
. ve of their politic
193
whereby It can 1ay claIm to b emg the bulwark of freedom and al identity. We
. . how this can late have seen
. . r degenerate, so
locus of expression of Its CitIzens. Whether or not these claIms that the piety drai
and only the cha ns away
are actually founded, the state must be so imagined by its uvinism remains,
as in Northern
citizens if it is to be le itimat

and the former
Yugoslavia, but this
nourish a living fa
ith. 9
identity presence
Ireland
can also
So a question can arise for t e modern state for which there
This is the new
is no analogue m . most premo dern orms . What/whom is this space for God in
. the secular world
state for? Whose freedom7. Whose expressIO . n7. The question
in p ersonal life, . Jus t as
the diss olu tion of
the enchanted wo
compensated by rld can be
seems to rnake no sense appl'Ie d t 0, S av
J ' the Austrian or Turk- devotion, a strong
sense of the invo
ish EmpIres, unIess one answered the " whom or.7" question
. of God in my life, lvement
so in the public
world, the disapp
of an ontic depe earance
by referring to the Habsburg or 0 tt m dynasties' which ndence on somet
hing higher can
by a strong prese be replaced
. Iegi"t"Imatmg ldeas.
would hardly give you thelr nce of Go d in our
individual and political identity.
. social life, the sac In both
This is the sense m wh'ICh a modern state has a politi- red is no longer e
as an object amo ncountered
ng other objects,
.
cal identIty, defined as the genera11y accepted answer to the in a special plac
. person. But God ' e, time, or
. s will can still be
What/whom for? questIOn . Th"IS IS distinct from the identI very present to us
. design of things, in the
in cosmos, state,
ties of its members, that IS,
' the reference pomts, many and and personal life.
. . seem the ines capa Go d can
. ble source for our
varied, whlCh or each defines what IS 1mportant in their lives. power to impart or
our lives, both indi der to
There better b e some overlap' 0f course, if these members vidu ally and soc
ially.
It Was this shift
. WI. th the state, but the identities from the enchant
are to feel strong1y I'dentified ed to the identity
. presence that set form of
the stage for the
l
of individuals and const tuen g oups will generally be richer
and more complex, as well as emg 0ften quite different from
porary world, in whi
ch God or religion
secularity of the
contem
is not precisely abs
from public Space, ent
each other. 8 but is central to the
personal identities
individuals or grou of
ps, and hence alw
ays a possible defin
ing
 ntities. The wise decisin ma
y be
constituent of political ide
identity from any patlcular
con
to distinguish our political
s principle of seartIO n has con
fessional allegiance, but thi e:
esh in its apphcatIOn, where
stantly to be interpreted afr of Clt-
lives of substantial bodies 14 Provincializing Europe
religion is important in the the POSSI-
everywhere.lo And
zens-Which means virtually identity
" lvaSIOn 0f the political
the rise of the BJP III IndIa.
bility is ever present 0f a reIl .

by the confessional, as with

the frequent, rather loe sen
se
Modernity is secular, not in but
ates the absence of religIOn,
f th word where it design
: : :
ath r in th fact that religio
n occupies a different pla
all social action takes place
c ,
III
com
pro

-

R
patible with the sense that nd so secularity, as just defined, is another feature of
194 fane time. Western modernity, another facet of the social imagi
nary that has helped to constitute this civilization. This
brings us back to our starting point. I said at the out
set that one of the principal possible gains from this study
of our social imaginaries is that it is on this level that local
particularities most clearly emerge.
If we define modernity in terms of certain institutional
changes, such as the spread of the modern bureaucratic state,
market economies, science, and technology, it is easy to go
on nourishing the illusion that modernity is a single process
destined to occur everywhere in the same forms, ultimately
bringing convergence and uniformity to our world. Whereas
my foundational hunch is that we have to speak of "multiple
modernities," different ways of erecting and animating the
institutional forms that are becoming inescapable, some of
which I have just enumerated.
Nowhere does this hunch seem stronger than when we ex
amine Western secularity, deeply marked as it is by the heri
tage of Latin Christendom, from which the word itself de
rives. But I hope that the point will now be more evident, at
the end of this study, in a host of domains. Tracing the rise
 of the imaginary of popular sovereignty in the United States
and France has brought out the differences in political cul
ture even within the West (chapter 8), as do the different tra
jectories of the long march in the United States and Europe
invoked in chapter 9. If we give its rightful place to the dif
ferent understandings that animate similar institutions and Notes

practices even in the West, it should be all the more obvious

how much greater are the differences among the major civili
zations. The fact that these are in a sense growing closer to
each other, and learning from each other, doesn' t do away with
but only masks the differences, because the understanding of
what it is to borrow or to come close to the other is often very
196 different from different standpoints. Introduction
With the realization that these differences matter comes the
Benedict Anderson , IimalJl
humbling insight that there is a lot that we don' t understand, .ned eommumtz
1
" es (London: Verso, 1991).
that we lack even the adequate language to describe these dif
ferences. Negatively, it is very important to set about "pro 1 The MDdern Moral Order

In the Second Treatise on Gove

vincializing Europe," in Dipesh Chakrabarty 's pithy phrase. 1
1
rnment, John Locke defin
This means that we finally get over seeing modernity as a
ature as a condition "wh
erein all the Power and Juri
es the state of

single process of which Europe is the paradigm, and that we

Cl rocal, no one having mor
e than another: there bein
sdiction is re

understand the European model as the first, certainly, as the eVIdent, than that Creature
g nothing more
s of the same species and .
rank promiscu-
object of some creative imitation, naturally, but as, at the end ously born to all the sam
e advantages of Nature,
of the day, one model among many, a province of the multi me faculties, should be equa
and the use of the
l one amongst another with
. out Subor
form world we hope (a little against hope) will emerge in order dmatlOn or Subjection, unle
ss the Lord and Master of
. them all, should
and peace. Then the real positive work, of building mutual by any manifest Declaration
er o
of his Will set one above an
understanding, can begin. For me, this process has begun at
.
m by evident and clear appo
0 ther,
intment an undoubted Rig
and con-

ht to
of Covernment,
home, in describing the social imaginary of the modern West. DOInlmon and Sovereignty."
See Locke's Two Treatises
ed. Peter Laslett (Cambrid
But I hope that in a modest way it contributes to the larger ge, England.' Cambridge ' rsl'ty press
Umve
1967), part 2, chap. 2, para '

See 1. G. A. Pocock, The

project. . 4, p. 287.
2
Ancient Constitution and
the Feudal Law 2d
ed. (Cambridge, England '
: Cambridge University Pres
s' 1987).
3 The term "moral economy
" is borrowed from E. P.
Thompson, "The
Moral Economy of the Eng
lish Crowd in the Eighteen
th Century," Past
and Present 50 (1971) : 76-
136.
 4 Macbeth, 2.3.56; 2.4.17-18. See also Charles Taylor, Sources ofthe Self social space has deep fissures, which
are profoundly anchored in cul
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 298. ture and imaginary, beyond the reach
of correction by better theory.
5 Quoted in Louis Dupre, Passage to Modernity (New Haven: Yale Uni Francis Fukuyama, Trust (New York:
Mikhail Bakhtin, Speech Genres and Other
Free Press, 1995).
versity Press, 1993), 19. 3

"The sun will not overstep his measures; if he does, the Erinyes, thp
Late Essays (Austin: Univer
sity of Texas Press, 1986).
handmaids of Justice, will find him out." Quoted in George Sabine.
6
4 This doesn't mean that utopias don't
deal in their own kind of possi
A History of Political Theory, 3d ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and bility. They may describe far-off lands
or remote future societies that
Winston, 1961), 26. can't be imitated today, that we may
never be able to imitate. But the
7 Locke's Two Treatises, part 1, chap. 9, para. 86, p. 223. underlying idea is that these things are
Ibid., part 2, chap. 2, para. 6, p. 289; see also part 2, chap. 11, para.
really possible in the sense that
8 they lie in the bent of human nature.
This is what the narrator ofMore's
135, p. 376; and Some Thoughts concerning Education, para. 116. book thinks: the Utopians are living
Locke's Two Treatises, part 2, chap. 5, para. 34, p. 309.
according to nature. See Bronis
9 law Baczko, Les Imaginaires Sociaux
(Paris: Payot, 1984), 75. This is
10 See Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen (London: Chatto and also what Plato thought, who provid
198
ed one of the models for More's

199
Windus, 1979), chap. 28. book and for a host of other "utopian"
writings.
5 Immanuel Kant, "Von dem Schem
atismus der reinen Verstandnis

2 What Is a Social Imaginary"?

begriffe," in Kritik der reinen Vernurifi
, Berlin Academy Edition (Ber-
lin: Walter de Gruyter, 1968), 3: 133-3
9.
1 See the discussions in Hubert Dreyfus, Being in the World (Cambridge:

3 The Spacter of Idealism

MIT Press, 1991) and John Searle, The Construction of Social Reality
(New York: Free Press, 1995), drawing on the work of Heidegger, Witl'
genstein, and Polanyi. 1 See G. A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory
of History (Oxford: Oxford Uni
2 The way the social imaginary extends well beyond what has been (or versity Press, 1979), on whose analys
is I draw in the succeeding para
even can be) theorized is illustrated in Francis Fukuyama's interest graphs.
ing discussion of the economics of social trust. Some economies find 2 This is the transition that Michael Mann
, speaking of the English case,
it difficult to build large-scale nonstate enterprises because a climate calls the move from the "coordinated
to the organic state" (1: 458-
of trust that extends wider than the family is absent or weak. The so 63). He links it, in the context of the
constitutional regimes of this
cial imaginary in these societies mark discriminations -between kin period (England, Holland), to the creati
nation" (480). Michael Mann, The Source
on of what he calls the "class.
and nonkin-for purposes of economic association, which have gone s ifSocial Power (Cambridge,
largely unremarked in the theories of the economy that we all share, England: Cambridge University Press,
1986).
including the people in those societies. Governments can be induced to 3 This includes, but goes beyond, the impor
tant "monopoly of the legiti
adopt policies, legal changes, incentives, and so on on the assumption mate use of physical force" of which W
eber speaks. "Politics as a Voca
that forming enterprises of any scale is there in the repertory and jusl tion," H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills
eds., Max Weber (New York:
needs encouragement. But the sense of a sharp boundary of mutual rl' Oxford University Press, 1964), 78.

liability around the family may severely restrict the repertory, however 4 John Hale, The Civilization if Europe
in the Renaissance (New York:
much it might be theoretically demonstrated to people that they would Macmillan, 1993), 362. Spenser spoke
of the "savage brutishness and
be better offchanging their way of doing business. The implicit map of (loathlie) fylthynes" of the Irish; see
Anna Bryson, From Courtesy to
 Civility (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 53. A common view tion in the broadest sense, that is, institutional means and procedures
was that "the base people [are] by nature uncivil, rude, untoward, dis necessary to secure peaceful and orderly existence for the population
courteous, rough, savage, as it were barbarous" (quoted in Bryson, of the land." Marc Raeff, The Well-ordered Police State (New Haven:
From Courtesy to Civility, Civilization ofEurope, 64. Yale University Press, 1983), 5.

5 Hale, 367-68. 26 Ibid., 61, 86-87, 89.

6 Ibid., 366. This term "polite" is, of course, another borrowing from 27 Ibid., 87.

the Greek term that "civil" translates. 28 Ibid., 178.

7 Ibid., 367. See the statue of Charles V triumphing over savagery. 29 Michel Foucault, Surveiller et Punir (Paris:
chap. l.
Gallimard, 1975), part 3,
8 Ibid., 369-71.
9 See Montaigne, "Les Cannibales," in Essais (Paris: Garnier 30 See 1. A. G. Pocock, The Machiavellian Momen
t (Princeton: Princeton
F1ammarion, 1969), book 1, chap. 31. University Press, 1975).

10 Justus Lipsius, Six Bookes ofPolitickes, trans. William Jones (London, 31 See Philip Carter, Men and the Emergence of
Polite Society (London:
1594), 17; quoted in Hale, Civilization ofEurope, 360. Longman, 2001), 25, 36-39.

200 II
201
32
This is the process that Bryson describes in her brilliant From Courtesy See, e.g., Adam Ferguson, An Essay on the History
ojCivil Society (Lon
to Civility. I have learned a great deal from this book. don: Transaction Books, 1980).

12 Quoted in ibid., 70. 33 See Albert Hirschmann, The Passions and the
Interests (Princeton:
13 Bryson also makes this point; see ibid., 72. Princeton University Press, 1977).
14 Henry Crosse, Virtue Commonwealth; quoted in Michael Walzer, The 34 See 1. G. A. Pocock, Barbarism and Religion (Cambridge, England:
Revolution of the Saints (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, Cambridge University Press, 1999); Karen O'Brien, Narratives of
1965), 208. Enlightenment (Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press,
15 Quoted in Walzer, Revolution ofthe Saints, 211-12. 1997); and Pierre Manent, La Cite de I'Homme (Paris: Fayard, 1994),
16 Dod and Cleaver, Household Government, sig. X3; quoted in ibid., 216. part 1.
17 Richard Baxter, Holy Commonwealth (London, 1659), 274; quoted in

4 The Great DiBBmbadding

Walzer, Revolution ofthe Saints, 224.
18 See John Bossy, Christianity in the West: 1400-1700 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1985), 40-41. 1 See Robert Bellah, "Religious Evolution," in

See Bronislaw Geremek, La Potence ou la Pitie (Paris: Gallimard,

Beyond BelieJ(New York:
19 Harper and Row, 1970), chap. 2.
1987), 35. 2 Godfrey Lienhardt, Divinity and Experience
(Oxford: Oxford Univer
sity Press, 1961), 233-35.

Michel Foucault, Histoire de la Folie a l'o'ge classique (Paris: Galli

20 Ibid., 180.
21 3 Ibid., 292.

mard, 1958). 4 See, e.g., ibid., chap. 3; Roger Caillois, L'Homm

e et le Sacre (Paris: Gal
22 Quoted in Peter Burke, Popular Culture in Early Modern Europe (Alder- limard, 1963), chap. 3.

shot, England: Scholar, 1994), 209. 5 This is a much discussed feature ofaboriginal religion
in Australia; see
23 Quoted in ibid., 212. Lucien Levy-Bruhl, L'Experience mystique et les Symbole
s chez les Pri
143-45; W. E. H.
24 Ibid., 217. mitifs (Paris: Alcan, 1937), 180; Caillois, L'Homme,

25 Of course, this didn't mean "police state" in the modern sense. Polizei Stanner, "On Aboriginal Religion," a series of six articles
in Oceania,
(another term derived from polis) "had the connotation of administra- 30-33 (1959-63). The same connection to the land
has been noted
 3 Keohane, Philosophy, 249-51.
and Edward
Columbia; see Jerry Mander
with the Okanagan in British 4 Of course, a large and complex thesis lies behind this flip reference.
cisco: Sierra
the Global Economy (San Fran
Goldsmith, The Case against The basic idea is that Baroque culture is a kind of synthesis of the
. 39.
Club Books, 1996), chap modern understanding of agency as inward and poietic, constructing
Oxford Uni-
Stuart Mill, "On Libe rty," in Three Essays (Oxford:
6 John orders in the world, and the older understanding of the world as cos
versity Press, 1975), 77. mos, shaped by Form. With hindsight, we tend to see the synthesis as
rsity of Axial
ed., The Origins and Dive
7 See, e.g., S. N. Eisenstadt, instable, as doomed to be superseded, as it was in fact.
York Press, 1986);
State University of New
Age Civilizations (Albany: But whatever the truth of this, we can see in Baroque culture a kind
."
Bellah, "Religious Evolution of constitutive tension between an order already there and hierarchi
Artemis,
und Ziel der Geschichte (Zilrich:
8 Karl Jaspers, Vom Ursprung cal, and agents who continue and complete it through their construc
1949). tive activity and hence tend to understand themselves as acting out of
e 1960) : 276.
gion," Oceania 30, no. 4 (Jun
9 Stanner, "On Aboriginal Reli themselves, and thus in this respect as situated outside of hierarchy
Lessa and E. Z.
or "The Dreaming," in W.
tive Religion (Evanston, IL:
See also by the same auth and thus equal. Hence hybrid formulations such as those of Louis XIV.
203
Row, Peter
Vogt, eds., Reader in Compara

202
I have learned much from the very interesting description of Ba-
son, 1958), 158-67. roque art in Dupre's Passage to Modernity, 237-48. Dupre speaks of
e 1963) : 269.
gion," Oceania 33, no. 4 (Jun
10 Stanner, "On Aboriginal Reli

n
unt of reli the Baroque as the "last comprehensive synthesis" between human
here by the much riche r acco
I have been greatly helped agency and the world in which it takes place, where the meanings gen-
." My contrast is
ah's "Religious Evolution
gious development in Bell erated by this agency can find some relation to those we discover in the
e s; the primi
s of stages Bellah identifi
much simpler than the serie world. But it is a synthesis filled with tension and conflict.
religion. My
d in my category of early
tive and the archaic are fuse Baroque churches focus this tension not so much on the cosmos as
st of the axial
relief the disembedding thru
point is to bring into sharp static order, but on God, whose power and goodness is expressed in the
formulations. cosmos. But this descending power is taken up and carried forward by
Gallimard,
chantement du monde (Paris:
12 See Marcel Gauchet, Le desen human agency, creating "the modern tension between a divine and a

ividu-hors-du-monde a l'ind
1985), chap. 2. human order conceived as separate centres of power" (226).
ividu-dans-Ie-
13 Louis Dumont, "De l'ind Baroque culture, Dupre argues, is united by "a comprehensive spiri
tual vision. . . . At the centre of it stands the person, confident in the
l, 1983 ).
ividualisme (Paris: Seui
monde," in Essais sur l'ind

14 See Fukuyama, Trust. ability to give form and structure to a nascent world. But-and here
dian Broad
of Christianity (Toronto: Cana
15 Ivan Ilich, The Corruption lies its religious significance-that centre remains vertically linked to
series, January 2000).
casting Corporation, Ideas a transcendent source from which, via a descending scale of mediating
is: Grasset,
n tomber comme l'eclair (Par
16 See Rene Girard, Je vois Sata bodies, the human creator draws his power. This dual centre-human
1999). and divine-distinguishes the Baroque world picture from the vertical
one of the Middle Ages, in which reality descends from a single tran

5
ed Reality scendent point, as well as from the unproblematically horizontal one of
The Economy ae Objectifi
ury (Bristol, later modernity, prefigured in some features of the Renaissance. The
lish Thought in the 18th Cent
1 Leslie Stephen, History ofEng tension between the two centres conveys to the Baroque a complex,
2: 72.
England: Thoemmes, 1997), restless, and dynamic quality" (237).
State in
in Nanerl Keohane, Philosophy and the
2 Memoires , 63, quoted 5 Keohane, Philosophy, 164-67.
248 .
n University Press, 1980),
France (Princeton: Princeto
 6 I have discussed this at greater length in Charles Taylor, Sources ofthe tinction, a convergent unity and doesn't need to emerge from discus

Self(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1989), chap. 13. sion. It is analogous to the opinion of mankind. The ideal underlying

7 Hirschmann, The Passions and the Interests. I am greatly indebted to
the discussion in this extremely interesting book.
8 Alexander Pope, Essay on Man, part 3, 9-26, 109-14; part 4, 396.
9 See the interesting discussion in Mary Poovey, A History ofthe Modem
the eighteenth-century version emerges in this passage from Burke,
quoted by Habermas (Structural Transformation, 117-18): "In a free
country, every man thinks he has a concern in all public matters; that
he has a right to form and deliver an opinion on them. They sift, ex

Fact (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), chap. 3. amine and discuss them. They are curious, eager, attentive and jeal

10 See J. B. Schneewind, The Invention of Autonomy (Cambridge, En ous; and by making such matters the daily subjects of their thoughts

gland: Cambridge University Press, 1998), part 1; Manent, La Cite de and discoveries, vast numbers contract a very tolerable knowledge of

l'Homme, part 1. them, and some a very considerable one. . . . Whereas in other coun

11 Carter, Men and the Emergence of Polite Society, chaps. 3, 4; Bryson, tries none but men whose office calls them to it having much care or
thought about public affairs, and not daring to try the force of their
opinions with one another, ability of this sort is extremely rare in any
From Courtesy to Civility, chap. 7.
s of Enlightenment social
205
12 Indeed, what we now consider the height

204 to Fergus on, was not monochrome; these station of life. In free countries, there is often found more real pub-
science, from Montesquieu
n mode of objectifying science, but lic wisdom and sagacity in shops and manufactories than in cabinets
writers drew not only on the moder
ng. Adam Smith not only of princes in countries where none dares to have an opinion until he
also on the traditional republican understandi
ponde red the negati ve conse comes to them."
formulated the invisible hand, he also
ship and martial 4 Hahermas, Structural Transformation, 119.

The
for citizen
quences of the extreme division of labor
." Adam Smith , Wealth of 5 Warner, Letters, 41.
spirit "of the great body of the people
2: 787. Ferguson, the author 6 See Fox's speech, quoted in Habermas, Structural Transformation, 65-
Nations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976),
most influen tial stadial theorie s of commercial society, 66: "It is certainly right and prudent to consult the public opinion. . . .
of one of the
es could succumb to cor If the public opinion did not happen to square with mine; if, after
studied the conditions in which such societi
Essay on the History of Civil Society (New pointing out to them the danger, they did not see it in the same light
ruption. Adam Ferguson,
parts 5, 6. with me, or if they conceived that another remedy was preferable to
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1980),
mine, I should consider it as my due to my king, due to my Country,

6 The
due to my honour to retire, that they might pursue the plan which they
Public Sphere thought hetter, by a fit instrument, that is by a man who thought with

Jiirgen Habermas, The Structural Transf

ormation of the Public Sphere, them . . . . But one thing is most clear, that I ought to give the public
1
MIT Press, 1989); German the means of forming an opinion."
trans. Thomas Burger (Cambridge, MA:
keit (Neuwied: Luchterhand, 7 Quoted in Habermas, Structural Transformation, 117.
original: Strukturwandel der Offentlich
1962); Michael Warner, The Letters of
the Republic (Cambridge, MA: 8 Ibid., 82.
9 See Warner, Letters, 40-42. Warner also points to the relationship with
Harvard University Press, 1990).
the impersonal agency of modern capitalism (62-63), as well as the
2 Warner, Letters, chap. 1.
enth-century notion of public closeness of fit between the impersonal stance and the battle against
3 This indicates how far the late eighte
ch today. The phenomenon imperial corruption, which was so central a theme in the colonies (65-
opinion is from the object of poll resear
re is, in terms of my dis- 66), in the framing of this highly overdetermined mode.
that public opinion research aims to measu
 1926), division 2. But distinguishing secularity from the objectifica
10 Ibid., 46.
Uni- tion of time allows us to situate Heidegger on the modern side of the
Two Bodies (Princeton: Princeton
11 See E. Kantorowicz, The King's
divide. Heideggerian temporality is also a mode of secular time.
versity Press, 1957) .
rd
of this kind of thing, see Cliffo
For an extra-European example
7
12
, wher e
eton University Press 1980 ),
Geertz's Negara (Princeton: Princ Public and Private
is described.
1
the pre-Conquest Balinese state
of prem odern time consciousness, involving Habermas, Structural Transformation, chap. 2, sections 6 and 7.
13 I describe this picture
et
in Charles Taylor "Die Modernita 2 See Taylor, Sources ofthe Self, chap. 13.
different modes of higher time,
sztof Michalski, ed., Am Ende
des 3 In the discussion that follows, I have drawn lavishly on the insight
und die saekulare Zeit," in Krzy
Milleniums: Zeit und Modernitae
ten (Stut tgart : Klett Kotta, 2000 ), 28- ful analysis of lelfWeintraub, "The Theory and Politics of the Pub
lic/Private Distinction," in leffWeintraub and Krishan Kumar, eds.,
85.
nec-
religious dimension is not even a Puhlic and Private in Thought and Practice (Chicago: University of Chi
14 As a matter of fact, excluding the
a sufficient one. A cago Press, 1997), 1-42.
of secular let alone
207
essary condition of my concept

206
actio n, which Francis Fukuyama, whose discussion of this point in Trust I found very
ded purely on common 4
secular association is one groun
pre
ding f or this association, but nothing helpful, also holds that the new sociability that arises from this strand
excludes any divine groun
continuing a religious form of life; of the Reformation helped to create the conditions for a very successful
vents the people so associated from
ia mode of capitalist development.
re that, for example, political assoc
indeed, this form may even requi
ves for
are, for instance, religious moti
tions be purely secular. There
espousing a separation of churc
h and state. 8 The Sovereign People
Mircea Eliade, The Sacred and the
Profane (New York: Harper, 1959)
,
15
1 This was not as big a step as it might seem, because in the understand
80.
to
rson borrows a term from Benjamin ing of the colonists, the rights they enjoyed as Britons were already
In Imagined Communities, Ande
He sees it as a "hom
16
ogen eous, empt y seen as concrete specifications of "natural" rights; see Bernard Bailyn,
all The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge, MA:
describe modern profane time.
events
aspect I am describing, that
time." Homogeneity captures the
But the "emptiness" of time takes Harvard University Press, 1992), 77-78, 187-188.
now fall into the same kind of time.
both space and time come "Nul ne craint aux Etas-Unis, comme c'est Ie cas en France, que Ie

events contingently fill,

2
rapport de delegation puisse etre assimile Ii une pure forme de domina
way in which
us into another issue: the
things and
to be seen as "containers" that
fills them . This latter step is part tion." Pierre Rosanvallon, La Democratic inachevee (Paris: Gallimard,
rather than as constituted by what
of mode rn physi cs, as we can see with 2000), 28. This profound agreement on forms of representation didn't
of the metaphysical imagination
geneity that is crucial for seculariza- obviate very vigorous debates on structures, as we can see in the rag
Newton. But it is the step to homo
ing controversies around the new federal Constitution. It even allowed
tion, as I am conceiving it.
the objectification of time that has some profound issues to be raised about the nature of representation;
see Bailyn, The Ideological Origins ofthe American Revolution, chap. 5.
The step to emptiness is part of
in
outlook of the modern subject of
been so important a part of the
gger Nor did this basic agreement prevent popular uprisings against laws
has been "spatialized." Heide
strumental reason. In a sense, time
voted by assemblies, as with Shay's rebellion. The point was that these
on this whole conception in his understand
mounted a strong attack
rebellions were not attempting to set up rival modes oflegitimacy; they
Sein und Zeit (Tiibingen: Niemeyer,
ing of temporality; see especially
 two-place relations, transparency and unity demand that the
were, rather, the last resort against what were seen as crying injustices
that a system, however legitimate, could still enact. In this, they were
same term
figure in both places. These include the relation x governs
y, as well as
x portrays something before y.
rather analogous to the uprisings in ancien regime France, discussed
16 Mona Ozouf, Lajete rolutionnaire (Paris: Gallimard,
below. See the interesting treatment in Patrice Gueniffey, La Politique 1976).
17 Gueniffey, La Politique, makes good use of this distinctio
de la Terreur (Paris: Fayard, 2000), 53-57. n in his dis
cussion.
3 Fran,.ois Furet, La Rolution FraTlfaise (Paris: Hachette, 1988).
18 Furet, Penser, 271.
4 See Simon Schama, Citizens (New York: Knopf, 1989), chap. 4.
19 Just how elaborate and (to us) horrifying these could be
5 Orlando Figes, A People's Tragedy (London: Penguin, 1997), 98-101, one can glean
from the description of the execution of Damiens, who
518-19. made an at
tempt on the life of Louis XV in 1757, in the riveting opening
6 Locke had already developed an embryonic form of this mechanism. pages of
Foucault's Surveiller et Punir.
In his chapter on property, he assures us, "He who appropriates land
20 Gueniffey makes the point that the ancien regime popular
to himself by his labour, does not lessen but increase the stock of man insurrection
, . . .
"n expnme aucune revendIC
traire a une reconnaissance implicite de l'autonomie de
kind. For the provisions serving to the support of humane life, pro atIOn sur Ie pouvoir, mais equivaut au con-

208 duced by one acre of inclosed and cultivated land, are (to speak much ce dernier. ... 209
Le peuple revendique moins la souverainete qu'il n'affirme
within compasse) ten times more, than those, which are yielded by an son droit
de n'8tre pas opprime" (La Politique, 78-79).
acre of Land, of an equal richnesse, lying wast in common. And there
21 Albert Soboul, "Violences collectives et rapports sociaux:
fore he, that incloses Land and has a greater plenty of the conveniencys Les foules
revolutionnaires (1789-95)," in La RolutionjraTlfais
of life from ten acres, than he could have had from an hundred left to e (Paris: Galli
mard, 1981), 578.
Nature, may truly be said, to give ninety acres to Mankind" (Second
22 John Sewell, "Historical Events as Transformations of
Treatise ojCivil Government, 5.37).
1.-1. Rosseau, Du Contrat Social, book I, chap. 6.
Structure: In
venting Revolution at the Bastille," TheoryandSociety 25
(1996): 841-

Ibid., book I, chap. 8.

7
81.
8
23 Colin Lucas, "The Crowd and Politics," in Colin Lucas, ed.,
9 Ibid. The Politi
E cal Culture of the French Revolution (Oxford: Pergamon
10 J.-J. Rousseau, "Profession de foi du vicaire savoyard," in mile (Paris: Press, 1988),
Editions Garnier, 1964), 354-55. 259-85, traces the changes that the Revolution introduced
in the prac

11
E tice of urban crowds. It would appear that the reinterpr
Quoted in Georges Lefebvre, Quatre-Vingts-neuj (Paris: ditions So etation that
the elites were proposing had some effect. For one thing, the
ciales, 1970), 245-46. demands
they made began to go beyond the merely particular; they
Montesquieu, L'Esprit des Lois, book 4, chap. 5.
include certain larger political objectives. "Vive la nation! Le
12 began to

13 Fran,.ois Furet, Penser la RevolutionjraTlfaise (Paris: Gallimard, 1978), ble va di

minuer!" chanted the crowd at Nogent-le-Rotrou, allying traditiona
276. l
demands to the new agenda of national politics (276). And the crowd
14 Jean Starobinski, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: La Transparence et l'Obstacle
that invaded the Convention in Germinal-Prairial of year 3 called for
(Paris: Gallimard, 1971).
J.-J. Rousseau, Lettre d d'Alembert sur les spectacles, in Du Contrat So
"du pain et la Constitution de 1793" (278). Linked to this enlargemen
15 t
of its objectives, crowds were now sometimes ready to be mobilized by
cial (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 1962), 225. We can see from this how
the militants of the revolutionary clubs, that is, people outside their
the transparency that Rousseau seeks is the enemy of representation
usual range of leaders. This was the formula for the famous journees.
in all its forms, whether political, theatrical, or linguistic. For certain
 On the other hand, the crowds still seemed to take for granted that la tyrannie," by substituting "toutes les vertus et tous les miracles de

normal power resided elsewhere; they waited for the duly constituted la republique a tous les vices et tous les ridicules de la monarchie"

authorities to take their responsibilities. Even those who invaded the (quoted in Gueniffey, La Politique, 313).

Convention in 1795 didn't know what to do once they had entered the 32 This whole link between Revolution and violence needs further study,

premises; they deferred to the leadership of radical deputies. preferably with the aid of the writings of Rene Girard. I have discussed

24 Thompson, "The Moral Economy of the English Crowd in the Eigh- the social imaginaries of the French Revolution and their relation to

teenth Century," 76-136. the Terror at somewhat greater length in Charles Taylor, "La Terreur

25 Foucault, Surveiller et Punir. et l'imaginaire moderne," Franr;:ois Furet memorial lecture, May 2001.

26 Soboul, "Violences collectives et rapports sociaux," 577. But this just scratches the surface of the immense problem of modern,

27 Ibid., 579. Soboul also remarks on how much collective actions were postrevolutionary violence.

aimed at precise goals and took for granted a certain traditional moral 33 Furet, Penser La Revolutionfraru;aise.

ity: "Le pillage repondait Ii l'egalitarisme foncier des sans-culottes: la 34 Pierre Rosanvallon, Le Moment Guizot (Paris: GalIirnard, 1985), 16-

reprise individuelle se legitirnait par la disproportion des conditions 17, 285.

210 d'existence, l'exhortation au pillage ou son apologie n'ayant jamais 35 Robert Tombs, France: 1814-1914 (London: Longman, 1996), 20-26. 211
d'ailleurs vise que les boutiques de comestibles et de denrees de pre 36 Rosanvallon, Le Moment Guizot, 80, chap. 9.

miere necessite" (578). In addition, there was a certain proportionality 37 "Je parle pour ceux qui, parmi les conservateurs, ont quelque souci

in the rate of reprisals, stretching from hanging in effigy right up to de la stabilite, quelque souci de la legalite, quelque souci de la mode

the supreme penalty. ration pratiquee avec perseverance dans la vie publique. Je leur dis, a

28 See Franl,)ois Furet, La Revolutionfraru;aise au debat (Paris: Gallimard, ceux-Ja: comment ne voyez-vous pas qu'avec Ie suffrage universel, si on

1999). Ie laisse librement fonctionner si on respecte, quand i! s'est prononce,

how
29 Quoted in Soboul, La Revolutionfraru;aise, 289. Gueniffey shows son independance et I'autorite de ses decisions, comment ne voyez
ene
this influence of the Parisian crowds, with their obsessions about vous pas, dis-je, que vous avez la un moyen de terminer pacifiquement

mies and plots, cleverly stirred up by Marat and others, began very tous les conflits, de denouer toutes les crises, et que, si Ie suffrage uni
t
early to alter the liberal convictions of the members of the Constituen versel fonctionne dans la plenitude de la souverainete, i! n'y a pas de

Assembly. For some of them, it seemed necessary to make a semblance revolution possible, parce qu'i! n'y a plus de revolution Ii tenter, plus

at least of doing what the populace demanded. One had to appease de coup d'Etat Ii redouter quand la France a parle." Gambetta's speech

"la fermentation populaire," create an "abces de fixation" forextrapar of9 October 1877, quoted in Rosanvallon, Le Moment Guizot, 364-65.

liamentary agitation, "faire obstacle au dechalnement d'une violence 38 Pierre Rosanvallon, Le Sacre du Citoyen (Paris: Gallimard, 1992).

ressentie comme barbare et primitive" (La Politique, 81-93).

9 An All-Pervasive Order
30 See Lucas, "The Crowd and Politics," 259-85.
last
31 Robespierre's extravagant metaphysicopolitical ambitions in the
Conven
months of his reign are laid out in the report he made to the 1 E. S. Morgan, Inventing the People (New York: Norton, 1988).

tion on 5 February 1794: the aim of the Revolution was to vanquish 2 Quoted in Gordon Wood, The Radicalism if the American Revolution
de
vice and inaugurate a reign of virtue, in order to "remplir les voeux (New York: Vintage, 1993), 43-44.

la nature, accomplir les destinees de l'humanite, tenir les promesses 3 "L' aristocratie avait fait de tous les citoyens une longue chaIne qui re
et de
de la philosophie, absoudre la Providence du long regne du crime montait du paysan au roi; la democratie brise la chaIne et met chaque
 anneau it part." Alexis de Tocqueville, La Democratie en Amerique
(Paris: Garnier-F1ammarion, 1981), 2: 126.
4 See, for instance, Locke, Second Treatise of Government, chap. 6, para.
75: "But these two Powers, Political and Paternal, are so perfectly dis
tinct and separate; are built upon so different Foundations, and given
230. The discussion in this section owes a great deal to Calhoun's re
cent work.
4 This has been admirably traced by Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen
(London: Chatto, 1979).

11 Agency and Objectification

to so different ends," (Locke's Two Treatises, 332).

5 Indeed, in our contemporary, "advanced," Western liberal societies,

there are always important minorities in the population who continue 1 Quoted in Keith Baker, Inven
ting the French Revolution (Cam
bridge,
to see their family or religious life, for instance, as operating on a quite England: Cambridge University
Press, 1990), 189.
different model from that larger political and economic system. This 2 Quoted in Stephen Holmes,
Benjamin Constant andthe Mak
ing ofMod
is often true of recent immigrants, for example. ern Liberalism (New Haven: Y
ale University Press, 1985), 243.
6 I have drawn here on Wood, The Radicalism oftheAmerican Revolution, 3 See Daniele Hervieu-Leger,
La Religion pour Memoire (Pari
s: Cerf,
and Joyce Appleby, Inheriting the Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Har 1993), chap. 3, especially 82.

212 vard University Press, 2000); see also Bailyn, The Ideological Origins elementaires de la Vie religieuse
213
4 Emile Durkheim, Les Formes
(Paris:
of the American Revolution. Presses Universitaires de Fran
ce, 1912) .

te des anciens, comparee it celIe

7 Wood, Radicalism, 197. 5 Benjamin Constant, "De la Iiber
des
8 Ibid., 95-109. modernes," in Marcel Gauchet,
ed., Ecrits Politiques (Paris: Galli
mard'
9 Ibid., 31l. W.
10 Tocqueville, La Democratie en Amerique, vol. 2, part 2, chap. 2; 125.

12
11 Appleby, Inheriting, 11.
Modes of Narration
12 Ibid., 20l.
13 Ibid., 206, 215. 1 Baczko, Les lmaginaires Socia
ux, 117-18. I have drawn a great
deal on
14 See David Martin, Tongues of Fire (Oxford: Blackwell, 1990). This is the interesting discussions in
this book.
not just a phenomenon visible in evangelical Christianity. One could 2 See Ernest Gellner, Natio
ns and Nationalism (Oxford:
Blackwell,
s and Nationalism since / 780
argue, for instance, that conversion to the Nation ofIslam was the occa 1983); Eric Hobsbawm, Nation
(Cam
sion of a similar empowerment for many African Americans. bridge, England: Cambridge
University Press, 1990).
15 Appleby, Inheriting, 145. 3 Michael Mann, in his Sourc
es of Social Power, makes the
point very
16 Ibid., 123-24, 257-58. strongly that Western Europe
always had an understanding
of a supra
17 Ibid., 99-103. national order in which indiv
idual states functioned.
4 Ferguson, Essay on the Histo
ry of Civil Society, 230. This unea
se also

10 The Direct-Access Society

underlies the sense among the
Republican leaders of the Ame
rican
Revolution that ordinary peopl
e, engaged in making the mean
s to life,
1 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 37. couldn't rise to disinterested
virtue, and that those engaged
in trade
2 Martin Heidegger, "Die Zeit des Weltlbildes," in Holzwege (Frankfurt: would have trouble doing this
too.
Niemeyer, 1972). 5 From Ezra Pound, Hugh Selwy
n Mauberley, quoted in Samuel
Hynes,
3 I have borrowed this terminology from Craig Calhoun; see, e.g., "Na A War Imagined (London: Piml
ico, 1990), 342.
tionalism and Ethnicity," American Review of Sociology, no. 9 (1993): 6 This whole issue of violence
in modernity deserves further
extensive
 treatment, especially taking account of the pathbreaking work of Rene 9 See Charles Taylor, "Glaube und Identitat," Transit, no. 16 (winter
Girard. 1998/1999): 21-38.
10 See Jose Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago: Uni

13 The Meaning of Secularity versity of Chicago Press, 1994).

I
14
The pathos involved in the attempt to recover the unrecoverable was
Provincializing Europe
well illustrated by Charles X's attempt to restore the whole original

liturgy in his coronation at Rheims in 1825. See the description in I Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe (Princeton: Princeton
Furet, Revolutionary France, 300-303. University Press, 2000).
2 Kantorowicz, The King's Two Bodies.

3 "La fin du role de structuration de l'espace social que Ie principe de

dependance a rempli dans l'ensemble des societes jusqu'a la notre"
(Gauchet, Le desenchantement du monde, 233). I have learned a great
214
215
deal from this fascinating and profound work.

4 Ibid., 292.
5 Baczko, Les lmaginaires Sociaux, 17.
6 In fact, the drive to democracy took a predominantly "national" form.

Logically, it is perfectly possible that the democratic challenge to a

multinational authoritarian regime (e.g., Austria, Turkey) should take
the form of a multinational citizenship in a pan-imperial "people." But

in fact, attempts at this usually fail, and the people take their own

road into freedom. So the Czechs declined being part of a democra

tized empire in the Paulskirche in 1848, and the Young Turk attempt
at an Ottoman citizenship foundered and made way for a fierce Turkish

nationalism.

7 Rousseau, who very early laid bare the logic of this idea, saw that a

democratic sovereign couldn't just be an "aggregation," as with our

lecture audience above; it has to be an "association," that is, a strong

collective agency, a "corps moral et collectif" with "son unite, son moi

commun, sa vie et sa volonte." This last term is the key one, because

what gives this body its personality is a volonte generale (Contrat So

cial, book 1, chap. 6).

8 I have discussed this relation in Charles Taylor, "Les Sources de
l'identite moderne," in Mikhael Elbaz, Andree Fortin, and Guy La

forest, eds., Les Frontieres de !'Identite: Modernite et postmodernisme au

Quebec (Sainte-Foy: Presses de l'Universite Laval, 1996), 347-64.