Modernity as universal value is a historically necessary capitalist fiction.

Evidence

Some of the defining features of modernity are its secularism, materialism, rationalism, and central distinction between the public and private realms—operational through “the nation state, the world capitalist economy, the world military order and the division of labour.” According to Immanuel Wallerstein, modernity is “a catchall term for a pastiche of customs, norms, and practices that flourished in the capitalist world economy. And since it was said to be by definition the incarnation of the true universal values … modernity was not merely a moral goal but a historical necessity.” — Peter Morey, Islamophobia and the Novel, 45

Categorization

• XREF: Wallerstein’s framing of modernity as universalized mercantile custom connects to how Reluctant Fundamentalist’s Changez critiques the American dream as a self-universalizing fiction.