UNIVERSALIS M AND AMBIGUOSNESS: COMMENTS ON WAGAR' S PRAXIS OF WORLD 
I NTEGRATI ON 

Tei vo Tei v ainen 
Res e archer 
I ber o- Amer i can Center 
PO Bo x 4 , 000 14 Un i vers i ty of Hels i nk i 
He l s i nk i. F i n l and 
t el : 358 -0-1 9 17867 
fa x: 358 -0-1 9 1794 0 
e - mai l : t e i v o . t e i v a i nen@he l s i nk i. f i 

at present 
Visiting Researcher 
Desco Research Center , Li ma 
e - mai l: t eivo@desco . org . pe 

Copy r i ght 1 996 by Te i vo Te i va i nen 

Theoret i ca l d i scourses that emphas i ze d i fference , f ra gmen t a ti on 
and cont i ngency have presented var i ous cha ll enges to the s o c i al 
sciences of today . The po l itica l imp l ications of t h e se discourses 
have g enera ll y been e xp re ss ed i n rather va gu e ter ms and of te n s i mpl y 
lef t unspec i f i ed . I n t h i s c o ntext , W. War re n Wagar's b o ld and 

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provocat i ve defence of t he un i versal i st values of t he European 
Enligh tenment is a most we l com e contribution . 

Wagar ' s attempt , as I understand i t , i s to show th a t o n e ca nn o t have 
the ca ke of a project to tr an s form the modern world - s y stem 
into a more ega li tar i an an d democr at i c s y ste m and eat i t t oo by a 
wholesale reject i on of t he mod ern values t h at would be a ne c essary 
e lement in the trans f ormat ion . As h e states , choices must be made, and 
his choice is clea r : op t unamb i guous l y fo r un i v e rsalism and 
globalism , re j ect pa rt i cul a ri sm a nd mul t i cu l t u r al ism . 

Wagar ' s s t a te men ts are of te n harsh . Th e a r gumenta t i v e style of th e 
pape r i s s o mewha t d iff erent from t he more ba l anced perspecti v e of 
his wonderful book , _ A Sh ort Hi story of t he Fut u r e, in which on e can 
find many in s ightf ul c rit i c i sms of the ne o - En l igh tenment globali sm 
d efe nd e d wi t hou t much hesi t a t ion in t he paper (see Waga r 199 2) . 
Whi l e I agree wi t h ma n y , if n ot most , of h i s pro v oca t i v e a rgume n ts , 
and in many way s s ha re hi s b as i c obj ec tiv e of a socialist wo rl d -
system t ha t is b o t h relatively dem oc r a t ic and relati v ely 
ega li tar i a n, I would lik e to provid e some constr u cti v e ly 
cr i t i ca l co nunents on t h e paper . I s h a ll fo c us on his decl a red 
unambiguousness and universalism and argue t hat some of his 
f ormu l ations and concept ual cho ic es may imply a rather 
d epol i t i c iz e d vi s i on of our poss ib le futu res . 



UNIVERSALISM AND UNAMBIGUOUSNESS 

Wagar's declared political objective i s to work towards a sing l e 
planetary civilization which - apart from being demo c ra t i c and 
eg alitarian - would be consensual. He shows little tolerance to wards 
any elements that may deviate from the consensus based on the 

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universal moral authority of the Enlightenment. As a polemical 
criticism directed at pure re la ti vism and nihilis t celebra t ions of 
difference, his attitude is certainly refreshing . As a serious 
attempt to explore and construct the ideological and mo r al 
foundations of emancipatory politics in the 21st Century, I do, 
however, find some problems in it. 

One problem in Wagar's paper is that it constructs a simplified 
picture of the criticized position - be i t called mul t icul t u r alism, 
postmodernism , or something else - to make a dichotomo u s 
opposition between the enlightened values and tho s e of t he o t he rs . 
I agree with Wagar' s corrunonsensical but often forgo tt en i ns i s t ence 
that desi r ed va lu es must be defended even at the cos t of s a c ri ficing 
diversity, but have some doubts about his defini t io n of th e op t i ons 
we face. If the on l y alternative to hard-cor e univ ersalis m r e all y 
were pure relativism, one would be forced to make a d ifficul t 
decis i on i ndeed . Probably so d iffic ult that many would n o t be 
willing to make it. In this s en s e, the dichotomou s op t ion s given by 
Wagar may have inunobi l izing imp l ica t ions fo r t h e cons tr uc t ion of 
be t ter fu t ures. 

A p r agma t ic reason fo r not being as unambiguous l y u ni v e r sa list as 
Wagar argues for be i ng i s that a political moveme nt based pure ly on hi s 
idea s would be unlikely to find many a lli e s , or p e rh a p s e v e n 
members. It i s , of course, certainly conceivabl e th at " the g re a t 
ma ss of humankind" would be at some poin t persuad ed t o accep t t h e 
mor a l a uthority of th e universalist valu e s of th e Eu r op ea n 
Enligh t enmen t . This possibility is, in the l ong run, a sine q u a non 
for his projec t t o succeed . It is, howe v e r , quite unli ke l y th a t i t 
would h a ppen in any nea r fu t u r e . In s tead of waiting fo r 
a conspi r a t orial enligh t en e d v angua r d to take act i o n so me tim e i n 
t h e dis t an t fu t ure and lead eve ryo ne into t he p r o mis e d global 

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dem o c r a cy , we sh o uld s tart b uilding a lliances between diffe r en t 
movemen ts ar oun d t he wo r l d r ep r esen t ing v ar ious s t a n d p oi nt s r i g h t n o w . 
A "world pa rt y" commi tt ed t o t he t ask of concil i a t i n g t h e v a r ious 
s ta n d p o in t s a n d pe r su ad ing mo re p art i c ul ar is t ic mov e me nt s t o take 
seri o usly t he o bje ct ive o f gl o b a l d emocrat i c insti tut io n s would 



certainly be an impor tant - even necessary - e l ement of the 
p roce ss . In terms of wha t I nunanue l Wallers te i n (1 99 0: 52) has 
called in term ov ement d ip l omacy, the wo rld party should, however , 
show more humility about i ts own standpo in t . 

Apa rt f rom the t a ct i cal reasons for being less una mbiguou sly 
un iv ersal i st than Waga r , I fin d his insi stence on the desirabil i ty 
of a c on sensual s ingl e c iviliza t ion to be some what d i sturb i n g. I do 
not believe in the possibility o f a t o tal reconci liation of 
different value claims, nor do I find i t des irab le . Rather than 
striving for an unambiguous universalism, we should make sure that 
there will always be some room for ambiguousness. In o ther words, 
in my preferred possible future , there should always be political 
arenas where ex i sting an t agonisms can be p la yed ou t peacefully 
within a shared framework of rules. A utopia of co nsensus and 
unan imi ty im pl i es the end of p o l i t ic s , and without politics 
there can be no democracy. 

Even th o ugh Wagar begins h i s paper by r i d icu l ing a quotation 
from the program of the 90th annual meeting of the American 
Soc iological Association, I think the challenge of finding a " shared 
framework in which many colorful elements find a new place [ i n ] 
a commun i ty of commun i t i es " could be t ak en more seriously . This 
does not mean that I would agree with the program as such, but on l y 
that I f i nd the metaphor of " shared f ramew o r k" to be poli t icall y 
more usefu l and des i rab l e than that of " s i ng l e consensual 
c i v ili zat i on ". As Wagar correct l y po i nts out, t h e problem with the 

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us e of s uch a " nice " metaphor i s that most of i ts multicultura li st, 
postmodernist o r corrununi tarian pr opone nts make few attempts to 
problematize what i t could im p l y i n ter ms of t h e future of the 
wor l d - system . But this should be no reason for no t trying to 
exp lo re the metaphor further and, as Wagar does, simply 
opting for h ard - core universa li sm . 

SHARED FRAMEWORKS OR SINGLE CIVILIZATION 

Wagar ' s dichotomous presentation of the a l ternat i v es we face is 
als o apparent in his vision of the future beyond the 21st Century . 
Once we look t ha t far ahead , we can find a world of self -govern in g 
corrununities, but on ly after the n ecess ary stage of a hard - core 
universalist world state . At first sight, there is a v e ry ma r ked 
di ff erence between the necessary stage of a universalist world 
state and the following stage of autonomous conununi ties . First 
t o tal unity, then total diversity . What these two u t op ian vi s i ons, 
however, share, is t ha t in both of t h e m t h ere is little room for 
global and transnational politics . In t h e first one, the politica l 
struggles are suffocated by the enforced consensus supported by a 
rather totalitarian security apparatus of a wor l d sta t e . In th e 
second one, there is li tt l e interaction transgressing the 
boundaries of the se lf - governing conununities , and thereby 



basically no need for tran s national or global politics. 

It seems that in Wagar's conceptual framework, "co mmunity " is 
considered a closed unit with rather unambiguous territorial and 
moral boundaries. Therefore, he argues, we need to first dissolve all 
communities into one global community. Within this single communi ty 
humankind can develop to a stage where the big brother is no 
longer needed, and we can have a clearly demarcated set of self -

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governing conununi ties. I th ink th a t i t would be both more realistic 
and politically more helpful to regard communities as being more 
flexible and overlapping units. There can certainly be many 
conflicts within a particular subject position that 
is simultaneously situated within, for example, an Islamic 
conununi ty, a lesbian conununi ty, the French national conununi ty, and 
Civitas Humana. In terms of the praxis of world integra ti on, rather 
than try ing to simply erase the more particularistic identities, 
one should consider the possibility of finding shared f ram ewo rk s 
within which these multiple identities can be articulated in a 
re lat ive ly democratic and peaceful manner. 

The "po stmodernists " are epistemo logic a ll y right when they claim that 
there will never be a total reconciliation of the conflicts 
implied by the multiplicity of our identities, bu t th ey are 
politically wrong if they thereby refuse to consider the possibility 
of finding shared frameworks within which g lob a l and transnat i ona l 
democratic institutions can be imagined and const ru c ted . Even 
though some of her arguments over-emphasize fragmen tati on and 
plurality, I find Chantal Mouffe's attempt to conceptualize 
possible democratic orders by making a distinction between th e 
categories of " enemy " and " adversary " quite helpful. Within a 
political conununity (an d even if Mouffe clearly refers t o 
particu la r conununi ties, we can extend her arguments to the co nte x t 
of a possible global conununi ty), this distinction implies that the 
opponent should be regarded not as an enemy to be destroyed, but 
rather as an adversary whose existence is legiti mat e and must be 
tolerated . We can figh t the adversary ' s ideas, but not h e r o r h is 
rights to defend t hem, if (s )h e accepts the shared f ramework based 
on democra tic rules . (Mou ffe 1993 : 4-5.) 

Of course, one could argue t ha t t he one and only basis for a 

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democratic framework is t he European Enligh te nmen t, in which ca se 
t he Mouf fea n distinction would be quite compatible with Wagar's 
vision of a single c iviliz at ion. Without delving d eepe r into the 
issue of what t he true essence of , say, Is lam or precolombian 



heritages in the America s might be, I believe that one can find 
jus t ifica t ion for democrat ic form s of coexis te nce also from o ther 
sources than the European Enlightenment. Moreover, the p r ocesse s of 
transnationalization, transculturalization and hyb r idizatio n have 
been constant features of the 500 -year-old modern world-system , 
which means that i t i s often fut il e to argue that a pa rt i cular set 
o f values originates tru ly and only from one territorially demarcated 
civilization. 

As regards the fina l u top ia of Wagar, the world of perfectly 
autonomous self-governing conununities, I frankl y th i nk i t i s 
impossible. I am generally sceptical of necessitarian perspe ct iv es 
that argue:= "because X has happened, therefore we cannot reach a 
stage where X does not exist ". In the par t icular case of X being 
the ability and incentives o f the inhabitants o f the planet earth 
to participate in the process of human cross -poll ination across 
terr i tor ial divides, I do th ink we have reached a point of no 
return. As to the desirability of this vision of the future, I am 
aware of my particular biases as a North European va gabond, male 
internet-user, and so on. In any case , I do not th i nk th a t i t 
is realistic to imagine that the tension between unity a nd divers i ty 
could in any foreseeab le future be reso lved by the simple trick of 
estab lishing se l f -gove rn ing terr i tor ial un i ts with no pol i t i cs 
beyond them . We will always have t ran ste rri to rial political strugg le s , 
and in o rder to make them as democrat ic as possib le, one of t he 
worst th ing s we could do i s to im ag i ne that they ce a se t o exis t . 

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References 

Mouffe, Chantal 199 3 _T he Return of the Po li t ica l _ Verso : London. 

Wagar, Warren W. 1 992 _ A Short His tory of the Future Second Ed . , 
The Univers i ty of Chicago Pr ess : Chicago. 

Wallerstein , Immanuel 1990 "Antisystemic Move ments: Histo ry and 
Dilenunas", pp. 13 - 53 in Amin et al . _T ransform i ng t he Rev ol ut i on : 
Social Move me nts and the World - System _ Monthly Revi ew Press: New 
York. 

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