Epilogue

Abstract

If the line of inquiry pursued in this book is cogent, it shows that investigating the nature of modernity and modern norms requires tracing their emergence in non-Western as well as Western societies. If these norms could gain public dominance in a wide range of societies, it must be asked: What were the conditions that made this possible in different social and normative contexts? Addressing this question enables us to move beyond teleological notions of the intrinsic “Westernness” of modernity by finding out at what level modern normativity could be articulated to existing norms outside the West. Seeing how modern concepts were formed through the modification of preexisting concepts in a variety of contexts reveals much more about modernity than the assumption that it is simply a natural and inevitable development of “Western” culture. Moreover, investigating the rise of modern normativity outside of the West brings out features of modernity that may be latent or obscure in Western historical development but which may have played important roles. The Middle Eastern context, in which the transition to modern normative concepts occurred in a relatively brief span of time, provides instances of rapid and striking conceptual shifts that may help to shed light on similar, less apparent developments in Europe. Uncovering the non-Western “prehistories” of modern norms enables us to escape the tenacious assumption that Western modernity is radically other to non-Western premodernity, and that anything that diverges from what is speculatively designated as the Western paradigm must be an intractable persistence of “otherness” or a failed imitation of authentic modernity.