Third World countries lack the cultural homogeneity that binds advanced capitalist nations

Evidence

Now, countries of Western Europe and North America have been deeply tied together over roughly the last two hundred years; capitalism itself is so much older in these countries; the cultural logic of late capitalism is so strongly operative in these metropolitan formations; the circulation of cultural products among them is so immediate, so extensive, so brisk, that one could sensibly speak of a certain cultural homogeneity among them. But Asia, Africa and Latin America? Historically, these countries were never so closely tied together; Peru and India simply do not have a common history of the sort that Germany and France, or Britain and the United States, have; not even the singular ‘experience of colonialism and imperialism’ has been in specific ways the same or similar in, say, India and Namibia. These various countries, from the three continents, have been assimilated into the global structure of capitalism not as a single cultural ensemble but highly differentially, each establishing its own circuits of (unequal) exchange with the metropolis, each acquiring its own very distinct class formations. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 165

As for the specificity of cultural difference, Jameson’s theoretical conception tends, I believe, in the opposite directionnamely, that of homogenization. Difference between the First World and the Third is absolurized as an Otherness, but the enormous cultural heterogeneity of social formations within the so-called Third World is submerged within a singular identity of ‘experience’ Now, countries of Western Europe and North America have been deeply tied together over roughly the last two hundred years; capitalism itself is so much older in these countries; the cultural logic of late capitalism is so strongly operative in these metropolitan formations; the circulation of cultural products among them is so immediate, so extensive, so brisk, that one could sensibly speak of a certain cultural homogeneity among them. But Asia, Africa and Latin America? Histori~ cally, these countries were never so closely tied together; Peru and India simply do not have a common history of the sort that Germany and France, or Britain and the United Stares, have; not even the singular ‘experience of colonialism and imperialism’ has been in specific ways the same or similar in, say, India and Namibia. These various countries, from the three continents, have been assimilated into the global structure of capitalism not as a single cultural ensemble bur highly differentially, each establishing its own circuits of (unequal) exchange with the metropolis, each acquiring its own very distinct class formations. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory, 403

Categorization

• XREF: Ahmad’s materialist critique that submerging Third-World heterogeneity into a single ‘experience’ mirrors the essentialist move Spivak’s strategic essentialism purportedly resists yet reproduces. Connects to the reader’s research on whether ironic collective identity claims collapse into residence. — connects to: Colonized nations lack the shared circuits that unify advanced capitalist cultures. — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 403
• SEED: Contrasting internal heterogeneity (Peru vs India) with homogenizing first-world discourse about ‘the Third World’ could anchor an essay on who gets to flatten whom under collective identity labels.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Nations, Classes, Literatures, 165; Aijaz Ahmad, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures, 403