Dia-Logos Schriften zu Philosophie und Sozialwissenschaften

Studies in Philosophy and Social Sciences

Herausgegeben von/Edited by Tadeusz Buksiński / Piotr W. Juchacz

Advisory Board Karl-Otto Apel (Frankfurt am Main)

Manuel Jiménez-Redondo (Valencia) Peter Kampits (Wien)

Theodore Kisiel OHinois) Hennadii Korzhov Ponetsl<)

Marek Kwiek (Poznań) George McLean (Washington)

Evangelos Moutsopoulos (Athènes) Sergey Nizhnikov (Moscow)

Ewa Nowak (Poznań)

Bd./vol. 17

[PETER LANG IE D I T l O N

Tadeusz Buksitiski (ed.)

Identities and IVIodernizations

PETER LANG E D I T I O N

Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationaiblbliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication In the Deutsche Natlonalblbllografie; detailed bibliographic data Is available in the Internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de.

This publication was financially supported by the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

Library of Congress Cataloglng-ln-Publlcation Data

Identities and modernizations / Tadeusz Bukslnskl (ed.). pages cm

ISBN 978-3-631-64497-3 1. Nationalism. 2. National characteristics. 3. Civilization,

Modern. I. Bukslnskl, Tadeusz. JC311.1284 2013 320.5401—dc23

2013028882

ISSN 1619-005X ^ ISBN 978-3-631 -64497-3 (Print) ^ ISBN 978-3-653-03373-1 (E-Book)

DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-03373-1

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Contents

Introduction (Tadeusz Buksiński)

Parti

Between Identities and Modernization in Central-Eastern Europe

Tadeusz Buksiński, The Revenge of Culture 13 Gennadii Korzhov, Transnational Identities in Conditions of Global Modernization .. 33 Iwona Barwicka-Tylek, Should IVe Use of or Remove the Veil of Ignorance? 49 Yaroslaw Pasko, Ukrainian Intellectuals: New Class or Clients of Power? 61 Karolina Messyasz, Discourse of Modernization. Towards Young Generations after

1989. Assumptions and Implications for the Construction of Identity 73 Piotr W. Juchacz, On Political. Media. Cultural and Legal Environments of the

Institution of Public Hearing in Poland 87 Karolina M. Cem, Boyer 's Four Domains of Scholarship Critically Reassessed 101

Part II

Chinese Modernity

Wang Xingfu, The Complicated Modernity and Reconstruction of Chinese National Identity 129

Liu Senlin, Nihilism and the Cultural Identity of Modern Chinese Intellectuals: an Essay Concerning Zhu Qianzhi 147

Zou Shipeng, The National Identity and the Ethnic Consciousness of Modern China 165 Lin Yuchuan, Deconstruction of Universal Human Rights and the Value of Chinese

Human Rights Mode: An Analysis Based on Sinicization of Marxist Human Rights Theory 173

Zhao Sikong, Transformation of Chinese Peasants' Identity since 1978 187 Tian Ming, Difference and Identity: Modernity and the Aesthetics 197

Part III Universalism of Modernization Patterns

and Particularism of Identities

George Lohmann, Universal Human Rights and Particular Cultural Identities 213 Anna Antonowicz, Victorians and Aesthetic Modernization 229 Dinesh Chahal, Avoiding Negativity of Modernization with Blend of Values and

Traditions 247 Ivan Shimko, Ethnocentrism - Uses 257

Iwona Barwicka-Tylek, Jagieł Ionian University, Cracow

Should We Use or Remove the Veil of Ignorance?

Abstract: "Modernization" and "identity" are concepts with great political potential. So there is no wonder that the controversy between supporters of the modernization option and sup-porters of the identity option has a great influence upon the current political debates, especial-ly in the post-communist countries. The article discusses some general problems raised in this controversy.

The modernization offer tries to convince us that it is possible to respect cultural differ-ences and the pluralistic nature of modem societies and at the same time to push particular "identities" beyond the public sphere. That is, to separate them from procedures according to which decisions on terms of cooperation within a society are made. Such thinking can be summarized in the concept of a veil of ignorance presented in John Rawls's Theory of Justice. However, such resolution is criticized by supporters of the identity option, who claim that the term "identity" is a crucial and irreducible word in our political language. Thus the question arises whether it is possible to remove the veil of ignorance without the threat to moderniza-tion and democracy as such.

Keywords: modernization, human rights, democracy, identity, justice

As a historian of political thought, I find nothing particularly exceptional about the contemporary "modernization versus identity" debate in politics. It looks just like another incarnation of the long-lasting controversy - whether similarity or difference ought to govern society. Thus this key political is question derived from it: Which of these phenomena should be treated with greater respect?

The language has changed and both concepts became scientific but that is all. The admiration for modernization is not so far away from well-known philo-sophical longings for human unity expressed in every kind of universalism that seeks some common pattern and goals of cultural development and progress (material or spiritual). These longings have been expressed often in European history, but they were always accompanied by an alternative option. This is the option put forward by those who argued that we should rather pay attention to diversity of our human world because the qualitative differences between small-er and bigger groups reflected natural and welcomed variability of humanity. Against Plato we see Aristotle, against the representatives of the school of natu-ral law we find Montesquieu, and against liberals we find their opponents in the 19th century conservatives.

However, there is one difference that is quite interesting, and I'd even say frustrating for me as a researcher when I compare the influence of this moderni-zation V5. identity controversy on today's politics with the analogous influence of all earlier aporias of this kind. In the past they were usually used as a reposi-tory of some important general presuppositions while political discourse had its own language. Today the situation has changed. It looks like strictly political matters have lost their appeal. In a way it is comprehensible - there is a kind of a common agreement and mutual consent about many political concepts. It's im-possible to say something political without terms like "individual freedom," "human rights," or "democracy." And paradoxically because these words are used so often they seem to loose their political meaning. Many thinkers and poli-ticians realize that to bring them back to life that they should be defined anew -imbued with some new attractive content. To accomplish this goal, an external point of reference is required - theories referring either to identity or moderniza-tion, I believe, are the most powerful choice in this respect.

My primary concems are that sometimes this attempt to make a distinctive political stand is too strong, and these efforts result in overusing the polemical character of debates going on somewhere else, outside strictly political ground. Unfortunately concepts like "modernization" and "identity" are very good can-didates to be used (and abused) for this purpose. But when we take such wide concepts that conflict with o^e another (as they imply different conclusions con-cerning forces determining the development of our societies) and then we try to cram them in our political theories, they get so condensed that their contradicto-ry tenor grows beyond the right measure. Outside politics they make us look from different perspectives at the social reality. We can, for instance, wonder for hours whether globalization intensifies the pressure of modernization or maybe processes responsible for producing different identities are strong enough to block it. For both statements we may find arguments, justifications, and empiri-cal data; however, when the same concepts and their different implications are used by politicians instead of peacefully arguing, then they begin to fight - veri-fying the illusion that our democratic theory and practice is deeply divided. I find the problem important especially in countries like Poland - incipient de-mocracies - that are expected to transform their political language radically and adopt it to ideas present in contemporary political discourse.

The controversy between supporters of the modernization option and sup-porters of the identity option has a great influence upon the current political de-bates. So I would like to point out some general problems with translating such meaningful concepts as "modernization" and "identity" into the language of pol-

itics. More precisely, I am going to argue that if we rely on these concepts too much we may lose from sight something that should remain crucial in democra-cy; namely, its democratic character. 1 shall explain later what I mean by that small statement. Here 1 only want to remark that both "modernization" and "identity" are concepts formulated and analyzed from a perspective in a way that is external to individuals. Both are claimed to form and determine our personali-ty and behaviour, as inescapable evolutionary mechanisms, while the original concept of political democracy assumes a much more voluntaristic attitude to-wards social and political reality. In this view, individual freedom is posited as the source of the political order.

It is not without significance that new democracies, leaving behind the conunimist past, may sometimes find themselves in a chaotic state of affairs. On the one hand, they want to join the international community of the most respect-ed countries as quickly as possible. And criteria of that position are - whether we like it or not - attached to the success of modernization (economic growth, stability of institutions, rationalization of the society). On the other hand, they need to sustain the internal coherence of the society for which some important dose of common values and goals - that is "identity" - is required. Moreover, most of those countries, including Poland, have been culturally and ethnically uniform since the end of the WWII; which strengthens the pretence of keeping their identity (however defined) untouched.

I have lately noticed something that keeps on bothering me. I've been delv-ing into the works of the representatives of wide spectrum of the Polish demo-cratic opposition during the times of communism. Among them were socialists. Catholic thinkers, and successors of Polish independence tradition. One basic assumption was common to all of them. They described their strivings for a real political democracy - based on human rights and the value of individual free-dom - as a prerequisite for the opportunity to achieve other goals, including modernization of the society (the acceleration of the economic development) and also the need for expressing our subdued identity. Communism was found oppressive and barren as a political system mainly because of its false pretence of discovering a shortcut to outstrip capitalism on the way to economic paradise. But communism was also oppressive because of its rejection of differences and features out of which social and cultural identities are made such as religion, historical tradition, and language. By overthrowing the communist government and its political ideology, our societies hoped to regain two things at the same time: the potential coming from modernization and the potential inscribed in their cultural identity of being a distinctive community - with its own values and

goals. Democracy was viewed as a kind of a neutral tool that would allow to every option and provide procedures to negotiate between them if necessary.

Nevertheless things got rough very quickly. After the fall of communism, we gladly incorporated concepts and ideas present in the European and global political discourse. And so we also incorporated problems attached to them. In the West, within the old democracies that had their well-established and solidi-fied institutions and legal order, those problems were to a large extent theoreti-cal (at the end of the 20th century at least - 1 couldn't vouch for now, as new phenomena like the issue of fundamentalism or economic crisis appeared there). However, as we were here at the beginning of the road', in our case, every con-tradictory belief could have a practical significance. These beliefs had given birth to new institutions and a new order, but first they had to conquer minds of those who suddenly became enfranchised. No surprise that they soon started to play the role that embraced the "either-or" choice as political programs were formulated.

So it's worth examining what each of these two options (modernization ver-sus identity) has to offer to democracy: what kind of political thinking it encour-ages us to promote and how it deals with its adversary.

As for the modernization option, 1 think that the most credible answers to the above questions can be derived from John Rawls's Theory of Justice as fair-ness - more precisely his concept of the veil of ignorance^. I'm not going to ex-pound this aspect here, but I want to highlight a few points that I find important and may provide proof for the influence of a strongly modernization option in Rawlsian thinking.

Rawls's intention is, in the first place, to reject utihtarianism and its atomic vision of the society that justifies even the biggest disproportions in the alloca-tion of different goods (as they are found natural, that is, morally and politically neutral). In a way it is utilitarianism and political theories using it (like classical liberalism and libertarianism) with their concepts of rationalization, develop-ment, progress, and so on that can be viewed as standpoints that best fit the theo-

Just as a curiosity it's worth mentioning that according to "Democracy Index 2011", pub-lished by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Poland falls into the category of "flawed de-mocracies"; see: www.eiu.com/public/topical_report.aspx?campaignid=DemocracyIndex 2011. See: John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, Cambridge 1971 (here used the Oxford University Press edition, 1999); idem. Political Liberalism, New York: Columbia University Press, 1993; idem. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, ed. by Erin Kelly, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 2001.

ry of modernization. Still, as Alexis de Tocqueville proved almost two centuries ago,^ liberty is contradictory to equality, so the extreme liberal arguments are hard to defend within a democratic society.

To the contrary, Rawls's Theory of Justice puts the stress upon democratic" element of the „liberal democracy." Unlike typical theories of modernization which assume that democracy is an effect of the modernization processes (so it is secondary in that it comes only if the society is modernised enough'). Rawls suggests, that it is the modernization pressure that has to be postponed and con-trolled to some extent as to make sure that benefits coming from it (wealth, edu-cation) have time to spread fairly within the social organism. Reaching its bot-toms, they shall reinforce the social cohesion - essential to limit conflicts that could distort the liberal order in a long term.

For two reason, Rawls's theory is more applicable to post-communist coun-tries. First, it is important for us to accept the superiority of political justice over requirements of modernization because we do have democracy, however, we are not as yet modernized enough to trust the power of its processes in solving prob-lems our transformation meets. Second, modernization allows us to communi-cate in liberal terms like "social-democratic political economy" that explains the role the state plays when it governs the market to protect those who - for differ-ent reasons - cannot take care of themselves. In post-communist countries it is not without significance. Our societies are sensitive about social security and collective responsibility for the society as a whole. Every theory which com-bines this conviction with a liberal (not socialist) worldview can be quite im-portant for the liberal education of the society - eventually leaving the past be-hind.

As far as the attitude towards identities is concerned, Rawls also has a co-herent offer. It can be summarized in the concept of the veil of ignorance''. Orig-inally the veil of ignorance was used at the first stage of creating the liberal democratic society. What Rawls proposes is a thought-experiment that should teach us how to analyze the political sphere and to discriminate between actions

3 Alexis de Tocqueville, De la démocratie en Amérique, 1.1, Paris 1835. 4 We can observe it for instance in statements like this one: .justice as fairness assigns a

certain primacy to the social"; see: John Rawls, Collected Papers, ed. by Samuel Free-man, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999, p. 339.

5 See: Seymour M. Lipset, Political Man: the Social Basis of Politics, New York: Double-day & Company, 1960.

6 J. Rawls, A Theory of Justice..., op. cit., pp. 118-122.

and propositions that can be accepted and those that should be eliminated as be-ing "unfair." As he argues, we should start with drawing a veil of ignorance up-on everything that could in any way disturb our reason as well as avoid making unreasonable decisions about the rules and procedures that will undermine our future cooperation with others and the fiiture possibilities of such action. In short: He wants to make invisible all social and individual differences that typi-cally serve to compose our chances as we compete with others; the goal then becomes the attainment of the best position possible within society.

If we drawn a veil of ignorance over features like race, gender, intelligence, material status, and so on, we would be deprived of all knowledge (and preju-dice) that in everyday life influence our attitude towards others and towards our-selves. Not knowing who we are, and if we had any advantage over the others, we would have to be very careful about choosing principles that we wanted to make cornerstones for democratic order. Just in case we turned out to be weaker poorer, not smart enough, and so on than the rest, we would prefer to create or-der according to the "Maximin" principle in which the weaker part of the society is fairly entitled to get relatively better care than the strong. The veil of igno-rance is a very convenient tool to bring some order into the political sphere. It accords with universalism yet posits superiority of features that unify individuals and make us equal as citizens. And, it accords with the contemporary concept of democracy, accepting not only the majority rule but demanding "equality and justice for all."

Rawls's argumentation goes further than this. It is not hard to see that what Rawls wants to eliminate from the basic political discourse are issues connected with particular identities and affiliations. For example, he would eliminate cer-tain issues that are responsible for differences and divisions that we can observe in every society. Admittedly he doesn't claim that they are to be simply neglect-ed or forgotten, but they shouldn't influence the rational institutional structure created with the help of the veil of ignorance. This way we can think about the political sphere as being solid, well-ordered, and prepared to strengthen the ef-fects of rationalization and progress, however defined. There is an interesting passage in the Theory of Justice which shows that Rawls himself seems to share this belief It becomes more significant because of its indirect character. Dis-cussing the question whether the society should or should not "tolerate the intol-erant", Rawls wrote:

If an intolerant sect appears in a well-ordered society, the others should keep in mind the inherent stability of their institutions. The liberties of the intolerant may

persuade them to a belief in freedom. This persuasion works on the psychological principle that those whose liberties are protected by and who benefit from a just con-stitution will, other things equal, acquire an allegiance to it over a period of time.'

I believe this is part of the lexicon of modernization "revisited". We can view the attempt to adjust modernization and democracy in the

Rawlsian way as a mean to make room for modernization within the contempo-rary political sphere. In democracy this sphere tends to be littered with too many particularities. And these particularities obscure the right path that could lead us towards a better (more fair) future; they produce their own maps in this respect. Using a veil of ignorance, we can simply clean the slate and bring some order to the political discourse. Arguments derived from thought processes other than reason may be put aside as being irrelevant for making political decisions.

It doesn't mean that our identities - all things that make individuals and groups special and different - are to disappear. Not at all. Rawls allows us to slowly lift the veil of ignorance and regain our particular faces. However, there is a small political trick in this. According to Rawls, rules pre-established in the social contract are from then on superior over our identities. That is, in making political decisions we are expected to act using the elaborated language of poli-tics, and the language of identity cannot modify the content of our final choices. Reasonable citizens make reasonable choices no matter what kind of identity is the source of their motivations (e.g. let it be divine inspiration, if I claim to be a believer). This form of mutual consent, though rooted in different worldviews, is something that Rawls calls "overlapping consensus."**

The only political affiliation that Rawls takes seriously is our being reasona-ble liberal democrats interested in our freedom and its objectives like economic growth, peace, and security. Thus, on this basis, our first goal is to accelerate modernization. We don't have to invent new ways of doing it. Modernization is a concept derived from the experience of the West, so adopting it means on a general level following concepts and solutions elaborated from this source. From a general perspective, this looks good - especially on the assumption that once we put modernization mechanisms in action then individualism within the society and democratic government builds sufficient pressure to radically trans-form the state and the society. This pressure can also be assessed such as the

Ibidem, p. 192. John Rawls, "The Idea of an Overlapping Consensus", Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 1987 (Spring), vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-25.

amount of wealth in a society, the change in standard of living, and so on. Visi-ble effects of such rapid modernization, even if not as spectacular as hoped for, could support this option and energize and integrate the majority of citizens -enough to sustain this concept within the democratic order. Also, the moderniza-tion vision encourages political thinkers and politicians to think big - in catego-ries of world's politics and objective tendencies, like globalization, rationaliza-tion, or industrialization.

As a digression, this might be humorous: Under current circumstances (the European economic crisis and the related political crisis of the EU), some Polish believers in the power of modernization are more optimistic about it than their colleagues from the West.

At the beginning of this past September, I listened to an interview with Lech Wałęsa, the symbol of "Solidarity" and the modem Polish democracy; he was asked about the best way to overcome present difficulties. Our former President every clearly expressed the view that we should strengthen institutional structure of the EU, even by creating some superior institutions, and furnish it with power to re-estabhsh rational rules of economic exchange. Put in Rawlsian terms: We should use intemational power (the national one like the example of Greece shows is insufficient) to push national priorities and bring democracies on the right path again.

For supporters of the modernization option, politics is restricted to reason and therefore all things that are not directly connected with it cannot be named political - they should remain outside the political sphere. In short, they are simply not being serious. What a democratic politician should do is at first to understand the demands of modernization and then adopt his political actions to them. This is very often put in these words: "we must do it, there is no other choice." Of course, as he operates under democratic procedures, he must take care about being elected. If his voters are reasonable, they shall vote for his pro-gram anyway. However, the question arises what to do when, for one reason or another, they are not as reasonable as the theory proposes. Paradoxically that is not a big problem for the modernization option because every non-rational dis-course is just a social (and not so serious) game. There is no major mischief to play this game accordingly to its particular rules (which are not being taken se-riously as well), just to get some more votes during the election. It is this option to be responsible for statements like "politics is an art of getting votes" or "PR is superior to the political program."

It doesn't matter if these statements are meant mainly as jokes. I think they are harmful for democracy. It's because they lower the individual interest in po-

litical matters, and they question political engagements or evoke frustration of being manipulated.

There is where problems with this theory begin and show the limits of the modernization project (even in its milder or lighter, that is, Rawlsian version). Democracy is a choice, and differences in our possible identities matter politi-cally. We don't just "play" Catholics or Muslims, men or women, heterosexuals or homosexuals - "we are" this way. And what is significant, we are perceived this way by others. Moreover, all of this makes a real political difference, and we would be blind to deny this reality for the benefit of any, even the most promising, theory.

Modernization tendencies produce horizontal and not vertical divisions in the world. We have a global economy, global political elite, worldwide financial relations, and a global Internet community. Nevertheless, it is not so easy to jus-tify the value of making such horizontal affiliations part of the aspirations of the post-communist societies which hold a strong conviction that the institution of a state is a basic unit in the world's order - and it should remain being so. We have just recovered from the condition of being a part of a wider organism that was organized according to some horizontal rules. These were rules that as-sumed, for instance, that the working class is similar everywhere, and it has the same political and economical interests.

An alternative view is introduced by the identity option. It takes into account intemal divisions that "cut" societies vertically and deeply enough to prove that such identities should be reflected within the political order. Here the veil of ig-norance is lifted: We can observe how particular differences achieve political significance. Of course, they are to respect democratic procedures, but they find themselves empowered to paint democracy with particular colors. In the case of post-communist societies this trend is visible, and it can be justified.

From the beginning, we viewed the struggle for democracy as connected with our national identity. It is a fact worth mentioning that this axiological uni-ty of the Polish society - a unity based on such different values as Christian personalism, toleration, and respect towards individual liberty - was strong enough to create one of the longest preambles to the constitution enacted in Eu-rope. It was the longest in fact until the Hungarian Basic Law broke this record in 2011. As Ferenc Horcher states:

The recent literature on European preambles keeps telling us that as they serve to re-affirm the national identity of a given community, substantial preambles are more common among nations that experienced foreign or intemal tyranny than in the con-

stitutions of established democracies. The self-esteem and self-identification of the political communities of the new democracies are in need of reinforcement, and pre-ambles can help in their self-expression.'

The Hungarian preamble is even more strict in this respect than the Polish one. It expresses the national basis of Hungarian identity (a type of spiritual unity) in even stronger terms; it is basically an "avowal," - an oath taken by citizens.

Different origins of the concept of identity have been discussed in other arti-cles, so I'm not going to describe them. I only want to clarify that the supporters of the identity-offer also have some scientific theories to support their vision of the political sphere. Many cultural anthropologists and sociologists argue that there is no escape from mechanisms strengthening social cohesion, cultural dif-ferences and so on, and that every political system, including democracy, should adjust to them. One of the most widely discussed concepts in this respect is the dimension of individuahsm versus collectivism, introduced to social anthropol-ogy by Harry Triandis and then revealed in many ways. In examining it, we need to accept the fact that institutionalizing democracy within individualistic societies is different - and may actually be in accordance with modernization. However, it is worth mentioning that post-communist societies have been ex-posed to a "collectivistic" ideology for a long time, which doesn't necessarily lead to the conclusion that we became collectivistic societies in our cultural core.

Some philosophers are searching profoundly to find more basic factors that form (or rather facilitate to form) the identity of a given society than those which are usually named in this context (nationality, ethnicity, race, religion, and alike). Emmanuel Todd, a French sociologist, suggests that there may be some implications for the political organization and the values promoted by a society that can be deduced from the family structure patterned within it. In his recent book,'" Todd examines different family types throughout Eurasia. He argues that such differences provide better predictors of the perspectives for political and social development than any of the indexes we can glean from the moderniza-tion standpoint.

I'm convinced that the relationships between modernization, identities, and democracy caimot be reconciled in an easy way. For example, consider the issue

9 Ferenc Hôrcher, "The National Avowal", in: Lórant Csink, Balazs Schanda, Andrâs Zs.Varga (eds). The basic law of Hungary: A First Commentary, Dublin: Clarus Press, 2012 (pp. 25-46), p. 30.

10 Emmanuel Todd, L'origine des systèmes familiaux, Paris: Gallimard, 2011.

of the confrontational and political potential of identities and their disappearance as people sharing them learn greater articulation of their political goals in terms of "public reason."'' In a way, this is to say that the political significance of a given identity lasts only as long as it is neglected and denied. But as soon as people sharing it get "fair" institutional status, they are expected rather to avoid exposing their identity too much.

I prefer viewing the relationship between these three important elements of our contemporary experience - modemization, identities, and democracy - in a more complicated manner. What comes to my mind in this respect is the so-called "Borromean Rings (or links)." This is a figure that consists of three rings - like three elements in our above-mentioned puzzle - knotted in a particular way. No two rings have a direct connection, but they stick together because of the third link. In effect, when we remove any ring the other two also fall apart. Without the third element, there seems to be no common ground between them. This analogy is applicable to understanding the connection between modemiza-tion, identities, and democracy - each of them being an element that serves as "the third link" in understanding the relationship between the other two.

In this light, modemization can be perceived as a way to comprehend the debate analyzing whether identities should be taken into account and allowed to enter the public sphere of democratic societies without threatening democracy as such (which might be a danger if we accepted radical implications of so-called "identity politics"). Acceptance of the requisite power of identity can become a perspective from which relations between modemization and democracy get some new shape. I think it could be a perspective worth reconsidering to com-prehend issues like the Chinese version of modemization on one hand and the Arab Spring of 2011 on the other hand. Both question the popular thesis that there are strong (and straight) interdependencies between modemization and democracy.

In conclusion, democracy helps find common ground for modemization and identity options. It does so by underlining their basis: the free individual/citizen that has a right to express his opinion on both. It also allows us to view modem-ization as a part of our modem democratic identity, and instead of perceiving it as an objective historical process it encourages the view of modemization as "offensives" (as Peter Wagner'^, a German social philosopher labeled it) that is

11 The term introduced by I. Kant, but crucial also for Rawls. 12 Peter Wagner, A Sociology of Modernity: Liberty and Discipline, London: Routledge,

1994.

shaped and controlled by human agents. From this point of view, modernization is a product of human plaiming and action and is an active process that can be altered or criticized. Also, we can introduce in political reality more voluntarism and indeterminism to expose the value of real individual decisions we make in our political life. To paraphrase Michel Foucault, everything is politics nowa-days. I think it is essential to keep that old, even trivial notion of democracy that it is bom first of all out of aggregated individual choices. For if this is so, then we must take responsibility as citizens to protect it - no impersonal, objective historical process or any social mechanism shall do the same.