Week 8

I really appreciate one particular insight from the dinosaur piece, where Harootunian urges the distinction between homogeneity and universalism (page 49). It may be a minor point in the argument, but it answers some of my long-standing problems concerning how one should position oneself in relation to cultural differences and global exchanges. When we talk about the homogenizing tendency of global capital, we laud cultural differences; but then again we can easily fall into the trap of cultural relativism and essentialism. The point I take from Harootunian's comment (quoting Pierre Vilar) is that capitalism does not homogenize culture but universalize history - that all societies exist in the same "world time." Turning all cultures into the same global culture is not exactly on the agenda of capitalism, and asserting cultural differences as the site of resistance would just miss the target. Global capital totalizes in politico-economic terms, and infiltrates our daily life, actually creating unevenness while demanding a flattening synchronization in the web of production and trade.

What is in danger is thus not, horizontally, the widest possible spectrum of cultural differences, but rather the disregard for, vertically, historical depth and complexity in every particular point of convergence. Here I concur with Tug and Freda that the minuteness implied in the close inspection of everydayness seems difficult to manage in academic practices.