Modernist dogma presumes modern forms cannot be worse than premodern ones.

Evidence

These modernist religious convictions (like all convictions of traditional religion) also entail the derivative dogma that no modern form can be inferior to its premodern predecessor(s) or analogue(s). Thus, a claim to the effect that, say, the Islamic premodern conception of the rule of law is as robust as, if not more robust than, the Euro-American model is dismissed out of hand, without evidence whatever, as preposterous or mythical. What is not seen as preposterous is the power that this dogma exercises over modernist minds, one that is self-justifying and entirely resting on unfounded supremacist ideology. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 1014 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

These various upsets, these disturbances in the continuity of the notion of the subject and the stability of identity, are indeed what modernity is like. It is not, incidentally, modernity itself. That has an older, and longer, history. But this is the beginning of modernity as trouble. Not modernity as enlightenment and progress, but modernity as a problem. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 185 (#complicates, via linked claim)

What I have tried to make clear, to repeat Talal Asad’s point discussed in chapter 5, is that modernity is a project that certain people in power seek to achieve. Freedom of the market, freedom of choice, secularism, individualism, and gender equality are ideas harnessed to the project of empire. They are made to function as a kind of dividing line between those who are modern and those who are not. What is so terrible about this? I contend that this framing of what is wrong with the world leaves no room for interrogating the more insidious ways in which modern states secure their power, the economic, social, and political arrangements on which human rights, individualism, and gender equality rest, arrangements that have required the domination of the North over the South and the eviction of large numbers of people from political community. Meaningful gender-equality strategies elude us when we isolate the problem as one of culture and fail to consider the social, economic, and political conditions under which equality thrives. Afghan women today are free of Taliban rule, but their lives have remained relatively unchanged in the ways that count the most; their personal security and that of their families are not assured. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 401 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Modernist dogma assumes no modern form can be inferior to a premodern one — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 1014; Modernity is trouble and a problem, not simply progress — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2: Identity…, 185; Modernity is a contested imperial project rather than a natural achieved state — Sherene Razack, Casting Out: The Eviction of Muslims…, 401

Broader Connections

• Modernist dogma assumes no modern form can be inferior to a premodern one #corroborates (1.00) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 1014
• Modernity is trouble and a problem, not simply progress #complicates (0.80) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 185
• Modernity is a contested imperial project rather than a natural achieved state #complicates (0.72) — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 401