Modern Social Imaginaries

This book is Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor (not to be confused with the Liberian ex-dictator of the same name!) at his most concise and accessible. Here he uses his typical "history of ideas" approach to explaining the content of the modern way of seeing the world, one that so profoundly affects the West and its policies yet is so hard to describe. Taylor's general philosophical project is to attack the idea of Western liberalism as being a "neutral" or "non-ideological" view of the world, and to downplay its role in the formation of modern man. Instead, he proposes a more communitarian view of liberalism, where liberalism is one comprehensive moral doctrine between others, but happens (for historical reasons) to be one that has been very succesful in shaping the mindset of Western man, rather more so than it has been succesful politically. Taylor also rejects many of the ideas of liberalism itself, in particular the "rights-based" thinking and its concept of the individual's relation to his culture. The former is most clearly seen in his book "Sources of the Self", whereas the latter is most clearly expressed in this work. The modern social imaginary, i.e. the ways in which modern man is capable of seeing the world (which is not the same as the way he sees the world!) is explored from every possible cultural and philosophical angle. On the whole, his communitarian philosophy tends to be conservative, but rather of the traditionalist conservative kind than of the religiously inspired reactionary kind one sees in the US so much (though Taylor is very catholic). His interests are clearly in defining what makes modernist culture a culture of its own and why it is a historically developed integral whole, not a content-neutral political system as many liberals seem to think it is. Because of this appeal to historicism, Taylor's work is also very useful and interesting for more radical progressives seeking to criticize the liberal's claims to neutrality and autonomy. On the whole, this booklet (less than 200 pages of content) is an exciting and relatively legible summary of Taylor's views on Western society and where it came from. Recommended to everyone except those who have read Taylor's larger works (especially "Sources of the Self" and "Multiculturalism"), for whom it will perhaps not be as new as it was for me.

Charles Taylor, along with Will Kymlicka, represents Canada's claim to be taken seriously as an intellectual superpower. In this small work, he has brought his immense intellect to bear on the question of how we imagine who we are as members of societies. For students of political theory this is a useful work.

Charles Taylor is one of the Western world's foremost intellectuals and theorists of what is broadly called "modernity" which begins somewhere around the 16th century and continues today, even as it is challenged by so-called "post-modernists". The current work puts the concept of modernity into a theoretical framework which Taylor terms the "social imaginary" (hence the title of the book). The "social imaginary", broadly speaking, consists of images, stories and legends, is shared by large groups of people, and serves to make possible "common practices and a widely shared sense of legitimacy" (23). The particularities of the *modern* social imaginary is that "Modernity is secular ... in the fact that religion occupies a different place, compatible with the sense that all action takes place in profane time" (194). The modern social imaginary consists of the objectivity of the economic sphere, the public sphere (which is beyond the control of any particular political or religion interest group) vs. the private sphere (which is the sphere of the family and of religion), and the sovereignty of "the people". What emerges, then, is a series of fairly thick discussions of political philosophy, economic theory and, yes, theology. Taylor ties modernity to Protestantism for in setting itself against the medieval/catholic worldview of sacred time (feast and fast days with their attendant saints, liturgical seasons) and the broadly accepted idea that the world was enchanted - miracles, angels, demons and saints were all a part of the medieval worldview - time itself became a profane realm such that it would eventually become eclipsed by nationalism with its own local feast days and national saints (patriots, so to speak). The disenchantment of the world, then, is the foundation of the modern social imaginary and all modernities are rooted in this disenchantment. This disenchantment, however, is by no means the exorcising of the idea of a moral order. What the aforementioned disenchantment serves to do is to root the belief in a moral order in something other than a transcendent realm: nature. Nature, reason and science all serve to metaphysically ground a particular understanding of people - that they are fundamentally reasonable/rational - and, from this, that society must necessarily progress along natural, reasonable lines. This understanding of people makes people sovereign, so to speak, and eventually serves to ground what Taylor sees as the ultimate myth of modernity: the American myth of "We the people..." founding their own political *order*. This is a brilliant work and, despite its highly theoretical orientation, should be picked up by all who are interested in discussions of moderity, religion, the public sphere, democracy, and the moral order. As an extended discussion of a central section of his Gifford Lectures of 1999, "Living in a Secular Age", it also serves as a tantalizing prelude to Taylor's next book.

In Modern Social Imaginaries, Charles Taylor does what he does best - trace the trajectories of certain ideas that we take as unquestionable truths. In this particular piece, he examines the "imaginaries" of the market economy, the public sphere, and the notion of self-governing people. He then provides a facinating examination of the French Revolution in contrast to the American Revolution to demonstrate how new imaginaries are built upon past imaginaries -- with stunningly different results. I must say -- one thing that troubles me about Taylor is his writing style. He is often hard to follow. He has a habit of saying there are three points to x, but then not clearly stating what they are. Also, he often goes off on an example that is fascinating -- but it is difficult to know what his point is because he doesn't tie it back to his main argument clearly. This said - I still think this is an amazing book. I would reccommend keeping his argument in mind as you read his examples because he is so interesting that it is tempting to get lost in them, and lose the argument in the process.

This book seems an extension of Charles Taylor's Tanner Lecture delivered a decade ago on public sphere as a moral value imbedded in Western modernity. Now, he develops an interpretation on three modern imaginary (but real) spheres of market economy, public sphere, and self-governing people, regarding them as different instances in the construction of primary modern morality, 'mutual benefits.' I think this is an important step that seamlessly connects two different philosophy giants-Habermas and Foucault- as well as an original explication of Western modernity. Highly recommended those who interested in themes such as modernity in general, modern construction of market, and public sphere and public opinion.