Western Modernity as a Category Neutral and its self perception as the “Meta-Worldview”.
Introduction
“The smoothest trick that the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist”
One of the most attracting appeals of western modernity exists in its ability to portray itself as the neutral and default worldview, devoid of anything additional or extra ideologically. The primary reason of its adoption by the laity has to do with the assumption of the layperson that the western modernity that we are mainly understanding as a conundrum of secular-liberal-scientific, is simply a result of their free-flowing intellects, not influenced by any underlying philosophical commitments but merely the progress of unclouded pure rationality. To be secular is to be merely devoid of any ideological convictions and beliefs, to be modern is just how a ‘normal’ human in twenty-first century is, the isms of western modernity are just considered the as the ‘normalcy’ of human life.
And such beliefs fuel the modern west’s image of itself as the main character of the ideological game. Once seen as synonymous with neutral rationality itself, it doesn’t remain a task too difficult for the western modernity to judge, criticise, observe, analyse every other ideology or thought-structure as an object only in reference to its own criteria and standards of measurement. And since the laity holds the frameworks of modernity as superior to any other, mainly due to the belief of its lack of unnecessarily binding presumptuous philosophical commitments and due to its plainly visibly ‘success’ in the real world (not realizing that their definitions of success have also already been altered by the western worldview), it now observes even its own initial frameworks of thought (Islamic) through the modern western scales, hence appropriating modernity as a subjectivity and making Islam an object/target of that “neutral / rational” subjectivity. All in the name of the superiority of unclouded rationality and natural progress of human society devoid of any metaphysical (read; unseen, scientifically unprovable, religious) bindings, the name being synonymous with the modern west.
This essay explores the “main-character syndrome” of the western modernity in the form of its self-image as the “Meta-worldview” and then deconstructs its validity by unpacking some of the key metaphysical assumptions of this worldview (the primary assumptions of secular/liberal/scientific, three core aspects of the MWT) that would result in a debunking of its claims of neutrality, purely rational foundations and meta-worldview – showcasing the fact the modern western worldview is a result of particular historico-politico-religious contingencies that were a consequence of a specific lineage of intellectual discourse and thus stands in no position to act as the meta-narrative of human history and society that should be allowed to observe/judge every other worldview particularly in reference to its own doctrines.
Western Modernity as the “Meta-Worldview”
Behaving as the “Meta” to a category basically means transcending that category (not remaining on the horizontal plane but forcing a vertical one) and aiming to pursue the discourse of the category from an objective aspect, assuming thyself to have the ability to observe all the other participants of that category (who have a horizontal relationship to each other) based on one’s own principles. What this means is, playing the authority in one’s field with the belief that one is above all other participants because of either power, scope of view, amount of knowledge, amount of influence etc, one carries the right to influence the overall rules of the category and force other participants (subtly or harshly) to submit to using their principles as the universal ideological language of operations throughout the category. This is mainly executed by claiming to have overcome the very contingencies that allow multiple participants to exist and thus achieving a status where one’s methods of operation are devoid of any idea that is not objective/complete. In laymen/loose terms this would amount to the US enforcing the Dollar as the meta-currency, through which other currencies achieve their value, even when at the end of the day the Dollar falls in the same essential category (currency) as the rupee.
So what is meant by west’s self-proclamation as the “Meta-Worldview” is its assumption of transcendence over all the other existing worldviews in human society due to its portrayal of itself as the neutral, purely rationally driven civilisation with the understandings of reality and humanity that are a consequence of no metaphysical biases and hence constitute the natural/default idea of reality and humanity which makes it the most real and authentic, which legitimises it to be the universal worldview that ought to be the standard framework of thought for humans all over the world. Which would translate to observing the success, failures, weaknesses, strengths, achievements, developments, discourse, intellectuality, happiness, education, purposes and meanings of every other civilisation in accordance with the modern western worldview – every idea of every civilisation is only as good, as real, as true and as important as much as it overlaps with the western worldview’s ideals, as far as any idea is from the thought-structures of modernity as far it is from truth and reality.
An example of presenting itself as the Meta-narrative of human society and history can be seen in the language the western academia has universalized regarding the various fields of studies. Anything that the west does is established as the default/universal state of that category, an operation in that same category by any other civilisation is mostly localized and judged as a mere commentary by the periphery e.g. if science happens in the west its simply “science”, now if the same science is practiced anywhere else in the world its termed “Islamic science” or “Indian science’ or “Arab Science”, if west produces music, its just that, default/universal “Music”, anywhere else it’s “Japanese Music” or “African Music”. What this indicates is the idea that every where else in the world, man will always stay bounded by the contingencies and the bindings of their local cultural/religious commitments which would only produce local and limited ideas, art, ventures, discourse about the world, its only the western man who has the potential to produce the unfiltered, natural, universal that is not restricted by any contingencies or ideological bindings and thus if one desires to become neutral and universal they would have to aim to be like the western man. Aiming to be like the western man for the colonised laity/orient doesn’t appear to them as copying another culture/society, or holding a different worldview as superior to theirs but for them it’s equivalent to simply aiming to be universal, rational and neutral – ideals, that just ‘happen to be held’ by the western man. Not realising that the ideals they perceive to be universal and purely rational are contingently linked with the western intellectual particularities in reference to its political, religious, philosophical lineages and don’t possess any inherent characteristics that can essentially be considered universal.
And this is the subtlest form of cultural imperialism, where the image of western superiority is clothed in the ideas of neutrality and universality and the “orient” will fully embrace its own inferiority compared to the western worldview because of the assumption that the former is influenced by age-old metaphysical assumptions/beliefs that ‘limit’ and ‘control’ its course of action and the later paves its own destiny, un-influenced by any idea that isn’t a reflection of pure unbiased free human rationality. This inferiority complex of the maftuh helps the modern west export wholesale its worldview and consequently control the minds of the laity of the once-militarily-colonised – keeping them now, ideologically colonised. Thus, staying subservient (in chase of) the will/ideas of the modern west while remaining in their own “sovereign” societies / states. A practical case of this conundrum would be the British allowing the sub-continent to gain “independence” from Britain political domain/control but installing the leadership (to govern) that is ideologically subservient to the worldview of the British but appears nothing more than ‘civil’, ‘educated’ and ‘sophisticated’ (not noting that the nature of their civility, education and sophistication is British) and thus maintaining the ideological control over the sub-continent through the westernised local government. The exportation of the west’s human rights discourse or education system or its political models or social welfare projects are other actualities of the modern west establishing itself as the universal meta-worldview, that under the guise of generosity or enlightening or educating or helping others, intends nothing more than the integration of its ideals and values in the minds of the adherents of low tiered worldviews.
Making the world believe that the way the modern west thinks is the ‘normal’ way humans ought to think and the methodology of the western worldview is evolved enough to behave universally, with no metaphysical indicators other than provable free rationality – helps it decide/guide the principles of human society all over the globe without facing any considerable backlash or intellectual revolt by the masses for messing up with their ideological structures for the masses have been tuned already to demand universality and neutrality rather than to fight it, because the fight isn’t painted as one between a particular weltanschauung (western) vs Islam’s weltanschauung but as the one between a particularly restricted way of seeing the world (that is Islam’s) vs an open / free / normal / natural way of seeing the world. Playing meta, allows one always to stay beyond the scrutiny of other worldview simply because the very language of communication / discussion / criticism in the inter-worldview discourse, is adopted from the worldview that is considered to be meta and therefore as long as the foundational principles of discourse with the west are assumed to be western, if the very accepted playing field is western, its next to impossible to be able to successfully deconstruct the modern western worldview or to counter it, or to replace it. Accepting the modern western principles as the universal field of ideological communication allows you to only recognise and understand even your own worldview as much as it makes sense under the frameworks of modernity – you can only be as Japanese, as Indian, as Muslim as much as modernity appropriates you but the western man can only be wrong as much as his subjectivities and philosophical biases become visible. Thus, being aware of the metaphysical commitments of modernity is the key towards countering it, for if particular beings are assumed to be devoid of weaknesses/dependencies they would rarely be not imagined as unreachable gods rather than humans on the same ontological plane as us.
And this is precisely what the attention would be drawn towards, exploring the key metaphysical assumptions, that constitute the modern western way of thinking and guide/control its way of course – shedding light on its not-so-open but restricted, not-so-normal but ideologically biased and not-so-natural but philosophically bound nature. Which would unveil the fact that the modern worldview is much dependent upon its own local intellectual currents and arbitrary subjectivism and thus carries no right to the claim of being an all governing ideologically overlooking meta-institution. The west has been successful in keeping obscure from the sights of the majority its philosophical faith, a clear vision of which exposes the fragile metaphysical foundations of the sandcastle that the “neutral, universal, rational modern western worldview” is.
The modern western worldview here is defined in terms of secular-liberal-scientific(rational) and so, the multiple collective assumptions of these three ideologies would be discussed below under the four main headings of – Immanentism, Progress, Natural determinism, Hard Empiricism.
Hard-Empiricism (Materialism – Natural reductionism – Anti Dualism)
The idea that the physical world is all there is and our senses are the supreme guide to grasping the structures of reality, which again are solely material and therefore out there to be grasped by the abilities of human senses – is one of the strongest forms of empiricism, where all that there is to know, in fact all that there exists ought to fall under the purview of empirical-epistemology. If any thing cannot be observed through methodologies that are super-empirical in nature, it’s safe to assume its complete absence from the ontological plane, meaning that one of the aspects of this major assumption is the construction of ontology through epistemology, epistemology that is inherently radically empirical.
We find ourselves encountering multiple metaphysical assumptions through the exploration of west’s epistemological attitude and consequently its philosophy of science. Hard-empiricism of the modern western epistemology as a core belief further has the metaphysical assumptions of materialism and scientific anti-dualism. The belief that any idea or existence that does not submit to the materialistic scope of western science automatically becomes irrational or superstitious is merely an assumption of equating the rational with the empirico-scientific. Not to miss the self-contradictory nature of this hard-empirical scientific methodology that itself depends on simple rationalism rather than empirical proof for its validity – to believe that empirically verifiable truths are the purest form of truths/reality is an assumption of the modern west that cannot itself bear the absurdity of its claim.
Moreover, scientific materialism amounts to assuming that everything is merely a reformation of cold physical matter and therefore has no intrinsic value/meaning other than the ones we assign to it, making nominalism another assumption of the modern western worldview. Hard-empiricism as an assumption therefore leads towards multiple other philosophical commitments (that are hard to ‘prove’ even empirically) like nihilism and nominalism.
Scientific anti-dualism is another angle of materialism – which by assuming that because there is nothing beyond the material realm, no bifurcation between the material and the spiritual (immaterial), (western) science that has a dominion over everything material, is positioned as the sole interpreter of the reality. Which gives science the role of metaphysics in the western worldview encouraging it to make claims and pass judgements against the immaterial based on the its material manifestation (lack of) – anything that cannot be communicated through science or made sense through hard-empirical epistemology of the scientific method would have to face a verdict against it regardless of its intrinsic non-empirical nature. Philosophy and metaphysics have been rendered jobless because they mostly operate around the dynamics between the material and the immaterial, but now because there is no ontological domain that is not material and consequently does not fall under the authority of the scientific enterprise, there remains no utility for philosophy or metaphysics other than studying it as the previous (less-developed) evolutionary stage of modern science.
By committing to the assumption of materialisation all existence (still struggling with consciousness though) and making human sense the primary source of epistemology, and making the ontology (what exists) then dependent upon this certain kind of epistemology, the western worldview pivots its discourse around the assumptions that have little to do with actual provability and therefore doesn’t remain metaphysically neutral for it surely has basic philosophical assumptions about what truly exists, how it exists and our relation to understanding its existence.
Immanentism (Deism – Division of Temporal and Divine – Bi-furcation of Faith and Law)
One of the key assumptions of the secular worldview is the idea of the preference and prioritization of the temporal world to such an extent that it is considered to be a locked, self-governable system that is in no need of higher divine, spiritual or transcendent principles to operate. Immanentism is basically the belief that all values, meaning, laws, axioms that govern the natural world or that ought to govern it are contained in it, with little to no reference to anything transcendent of this closed system. Whatever humans need to live, sustain and develop themselves in this world is already present within the confines of the natural world as it presents itself to us and in our minds as they are in a relation to this world.
Further assumptions as implications of immanentism include deism, that is an idea of a deity that although might be responsible for the creation of everything, doesn’t interfere in the creation and stays aloof to the inner-dynamics of the world – very much like aristotle’s prime mover. Deism then leads to another assumption about the superiority of human-centered ethics i.e. ethics rooted in human reason – because immanentism eliminates the possibility of interreference of divine aid in human affairs, it necessitates humans to do all on their own and thus make reason and human mind the sole arbitrator of their affairs. Therefore, the idea that human reason is sufficient to set in proper motion all the affairs of the natural world and human society is a consequential sub-assumption of the metaphysical belief of immanentism.
The sufficiency of human reason to govern the temporal brings us to the classic distinction between the church and the state, the divine and the profane in the Christian-western intellectual lineage, that was for the most part established due to Christianity’s prescriptive own bi-furcation between the two worlds – “render unto Caesar…”. The essence of secularism persists in this distinction between the religious (personal) law and the socio-political (public) law and the active maintenance of this separation by the secular power. This idea like every other being discussed here, is a particular metaphysical assumption about the nature of ethics/law and their relation with faith/religious. One that is specifically dependent on the Christian intellectual lineage of the western world and would make little sense any where else where this bifurcation between the two worlds wasn’t prescribed by the religious authorities like it was in Christianity by the Church. The claim that the divine exists but plays no role in the ordinance of public human affairs is an assumption particular to the Christian west.
Not to miss that the very separation between the religious legal sphere and the secular legal sphere is itself an effect of a more primary belief regarding the bi-furcation between the law and the faith (spirit) – the Pauline distinction. Claiming to be the direct witnesses of isa ibn Maryam alayhi salam (the spirit) without having ever met him, Paul went on to define much of the early Christianity and its metaphysical attitudes based on divine inspiration about the nature of Isa ibn Maryam and the essence of his teachings. One of these principles Paul was passionate about was regarding the division between faith and the law, and the clear superiority plus normativity of the former over the latter in the Pauline Christian framework – a belief that directed the Christian world towards a certain religious situation where the (public) law was mostly excluded from the essential domains of the Christian worldview and to be handed over to the political wholly, making faith, personal law and the spiritual alone the core concern of the religion. All of this again shows how multi-layered the assumptions of the modern western worldview are (exploring just one of the assumptions unfolds a plethora of other ones) and how far back in history their origins are located which is what makes it way too tricky for the laity to fathom its ideological commitments and contingent metaphysical assumptions
Progress (Nature-centred theology: Logos, World Soul – Materialism as Success)
The crown jewel of modernity and secularism has to be the idea of progress, of development of humans and their society, an evolution from the lower stages to higher and better ones. The modern west views itself as the most developed of all the civilisations that have existed prior to it or are existing contemporarily. The mere fact that a civilisation existed prior to the western civilisation of today automatically turns that civilisation primitive, weaker and less of a civilisation than the west – every human society in history mainly existed to become a part of the story of the modern west i.e. the most civilized, advanced and the strongest civilisation ever to grace this planet. Such an assumption (progress) is built on a concept of time that is unilinear, meaning it flows in one direction (in reference to humanity and its affairs) that is from past to the future, where the past is conceived as the lower base and the future as the higher one, so the natural progression of time compliments the natural progression of the human societies, of which the modern west leads the charge as it is the most advanced and stands responsible for pushing the lines further and further for growth (towards what exactly is unknown).
The metaphysical assumption of the natural progress of human society is intertwined with the assumptions of immanentism. Depending on far back we extend our vision, the idea of the natural progress of a closed self-governing system has existed in some form or the other in the western civilisation, all in quite pantheistic fashion. The stoics had the belief of the “world soul” or the logos of the nature, where a certain rational spirit governed the overall flow and momentum of the world, including human minds and development, this logos was also believed to be the stoic conception of the natural world as an immanent semi-deistic god itself. In the modern era, Hegelian “Giest”/Spirit can be presented as another prime example of believing the world to be an enclosed self-developing system that tunes itself in various complex manners over the course of the historical progression towards a higher and truer plane of reality. Once the world is held to be immanent and inherently progressive, the assumption of the world itself carrying a conscious / rational / pneumonic spirit that sets everything in place over time isn’t that much of a stretch for the modern mind and in fact acts a kind of a nature-centred theology for the western civilisation. If the transcendent divine is sidelined in the majority matters of the human affairs through secularism and sidelined cosmologically through immanentism, the human reason (for the ethico-legal) and the natural world (for the telos) take the centre stage as the guiding force of the modern western civilisation. The modern west constructs its own sustainer “al-muqeet” and axis of cosmological telos to make sense of its assumption of progress through a further assumption of the reality of a self-developing intrinsic spirit of the natural world.
Progress as a metaphysical assumption also directly influences west’s definition of telos, success and achievements of man. According to the modern western worldview, progress by itself is the meaning of success – thus the current state of the world that the west has achieved i.e. modernity is a sign of success. To be precise, the ‘western’ conception of progress and becoming progressive is what amounts to success. The very act of moving with time and cultural/social unfolding of the maximum actualisation of human will (desires) is what constitutes success in the modern western progressive worldview. Success in this frame of idea isn’t a final goal, but the constant process of becoming modern, where modern means nothing more than keeping up with the process of progress – hence making the concept of success, a perpetual loop.
This precise point is what philosophers like Syed Naquib Al-Attas criticised. The fact that secular progress is blind and aimless is a subtle aspect of the Western worldview that not many tend to notice. Progress is only meaningful when it has purposeful goal, progress means becoming better with a vision of the perfect in mind for without a vision of the ideal state, the standard in mind, becoming better has no meaning. The process of “becoming” only makes sense when the vision of the final state of being is clear, otherwise one would never be able to become anything for becoming something that itself is unknown or under construction would push one in an eternal conquest of chasing a delusion. Although there are temporary goals in the modern progressive worldview, these goals too ultimately are under the influence of progression and unfolding or the dictations of unilinear time. Which makes the process of progress in itself (through the scope of logos or world soul) the underlying governing equation of human society and purpose. The western perspectives of success is the process of progress itself, meaning developing for the sake of developing only, because the very idea of perfection and final goal is also always under construction, the western man develops his own identity and purpose as they move along with time/natural world spirit, they are always open and welcoming to all types of ideas, even the ones they themselves have rejected in the past, if now is the right time and the stage of modernity overlaps with the human will to maximisetheir desires, all ideas can be let in – thus making the ambition (the purpose) of their progress itself a destination that is under progression as they move along with time. For what man wants to become, keeps changing, just as a child’s idea of what they want to be once they grow up. And in this current period of modernity, the ambition of progress is understood to be technological / materialistic growth (hard empiricism), that’s the current goal of the western man, a goal that was put in picture by killing God and everything to do with the sacred teachings of the primitive “people of the past”.
Ultimately, the modern western notions about the unilinear progress of time and the naturally guided progression of the human society, and materialistic current definitions of success achieved via the principle (perpetual loop) of progress – are nothing more than assumptions at primary metaphysical levels about the cosmology and the telos of the natural world, assumptions that help maintain the west its mirage of being the ‘main-character’ and the universal standard of success for every other civilisation.
Natural Determinism. (Natural rights – Ideals of Liberty and Tolerance – Individualism)
Liberalism is founded upon an understanding of primary human rights as naturally present and valuable – by the very essence of being human, nature has determined some necessary rights for the each of us, that are to be upheld and respected as self-evident truths and treasured ideals. Before moving further, it is important in the context of the essay to note that the liberal emphasis on the naturally intrinsic value and existence of human rights is also a consequence of the assumptions of secularism / immanentism about humans finding their own ways of assigning (or discovering) value and meaning to elements of social life, without any reference to the religious domain that appeals to the transcendent.
Although some founding fathers of liberalism tried to root their conception of natural rights in the theistic framework by claiming these rights to be God-given (Locke), its cannot be stated with certainty if all the major liberal thinkers agree on a unanimous belief of the divine because as demonstrated above it, its wholly possible that they conceive the natural world soul/the spirit of self-developing immanent natural world to be the guiding force that has installed these universal rights amongst the human race (Not Locke, but Grotius, Rousseau and Mill are more likely to fall under this possibility). Or like Rawls particularly, they considered these rights to be self-evidentially true through innate human wisdom (justice) but still having no connection with the transcendental.
The assumption that nature itself has determined self-evidently true rights for every human in the form of individual freedom, complete equality and tolerance of pluralism (difference of agreement) is ultimately only a belief about the relation between the natural-ontology and the ethical-telos, moreover the prioritisation of some ideals as more primary and deserving of being upheld over others also is a stance that cannot be empirically proven to be necessarily valid and therefore stand on metaphysical biases that then guide the liberal rationality to make sense of things based on those metaphysically assumed grounds. (Note: because reason in such philosophical discourses for the most part doesn’t operate on rock-solid, self-evidently true foundations but instead requires some inferential leaps of faith at the very basic metaphysical level, which then control heavily the trajectory of reason at secondary or tertiary tiers of thought)
So, most importantly the idea of the inherent value of individual liberty as a good that is to be actively maximized is a case of philosophical arbitrariness, for its completely valid for another society to value or prioritize the well-being of the community or the maintenance of a hierarchical social formation for the success of the overall community in the context of their ideals of success and wellbeing – through their own sensitivity of controlling individual liberty.
The liberal belief on the complete inherent equality of all humans (analysing theoretically only, since the political role of liberalism paints a wholly racist picture as demonstrated by the likes Domenico Losurdo in his monumental study on liberalism’s history) is hard to validate empirically or through evolutionary sciences (i.e. social darwinism and its horrific intertwined history with the liberal world order) because humans beings have varying abilities, skills, intellects, physical statures and moral natures, therefore can justly be judged differently based on their capabilities or utility (if we are to judge the liberal framework in the context of its moral methodology: utilitarianism), which turns the liberal idea of absolute inherent equality into a mere moral assumption about human worth in the societal fabric (not debating whether this assumption is morally good or bad).
Similarly, the liberal impression of tolerance being one of the highest values to be upheld and encouraged, although can be rationally self-defeating (as it won’t tolerate the intolerance of its own thesis by others in order to operate freely) is merely a philosophical assumption as it assumes the expression of truth and falsehood to carry equal value in the sense of the exposure they should receive, the liberal order theoretically limits itself from passing truth judgements. Due to its faith in tolerance, it doesn’t concern itself with seeking the true or the most objective position, but rather focuses on making sure that every position gets equal exposure regardless of its absurdity or sensibility (although once again, the liberal order’s political activities present it as much more imposing and intolerant towards other worldviews, it wouldn’t be stretch to claim therefore that the liberal ideal of tolerance only applies to the intra-western-liberal-modern-differences and not to the inter-worldview differences) – which yet again is an arbitrary ethico-philosophical stance that influences the liberal socio-political attitude as it cannot be proven to be right or wrong, true or false.
Other than these major pillars of the liberal viewpoint, even its beliefs about the secondary-level human rights that it believes to be just naturally-ordained on the human life such as the right to property or the right to political participation, have no empirical grounding to suggest their inherently subsisting value, and rationally are ultimately based on the same matrix of assumptions as the primary rights.
The Summary.
This brief overview of the core ideological tenets of the modern western worldview is enough of evidence to dismantle the claims of its neutrality, universality and meta-worldview since each and every philosophical constituent of the modern western civilisation is ultimately based on particular metaphysical assumptions which only make sense within the western historical contingencies. Any of the of the ideas discussed above would hardly be able to gain sensibility if stripped off of their inter-connected and (specifically) chronological historico-religious-philosophical amalgamation of dependencies. The claim of being a universal and meta-framework that can be appropriated by all civilisations regardless of their own intellectual lineages – stands baseless after a critical scrutiny of the western modern thought structures.
This is so, mainly because at the foundational level the western mind holds particular assumptions about the world and the humans, assumptions which aren’t completely provable as being definitive or necessary through reason or empirical methods (an approach that itself is a leading component of the modern western epistemology), which means that other civilisations, Islamic, Indian, Chinese etc can hold their own particular foundational level metaphysical assumptions that fit perfectly with their own specific historico-religious-political intellectual contingencies and are as much valid, reasonable and empirically sound (if not more) as the western primary beliefs. Thus, purely on intellectual and philosophical grounds the west carries no inherent right to the claim of being the meta-institution that can govern all other metaphysical institution of the world – any more than the Indian or the Chinese metaphysical institutions. Doing such a thing would amount to the claim that west’s historical, religious and philosophical particular context is by itself superior to the contexts and lineages of other civilisations, and this claim would itself also count as an assumption nonetheless. The image of universality and meta played by the west, is held not due to its theoretical universality and neutral rationality as has been discussed because it has no speciality or distinctness over other worldviews, but due to west’s military success all over the globe through colonial ventures. The conquerors or victors’ way of lifestyle psychologically has an appeal to it as one assumes their ideas and practices to be the empowering cause and influence behind their successful war strategies. In addition to that, the modern west itself has greatly capitalised on this psychological inferiority complex of the conquered, by establishing its own weltanschauung as not only a key to success, but precisely the only one there is. Moreover, the west has been crafty enough to maintain its hold over the territories it had ruled through cultural imperialism and ethico-social colonialism even after retiring from militaristic colonialism – which has helped it keep obscure the contingencies of its worldview.
When the last move of exploitation before contractual peaceful arbitration is from your side, it doesn’t take much to calmly enjoy the era of peace because while the exploited moans their loss in peace, you enjoy your gain in peace. So after military colonialism and exploitation of most of the world’s resources, the west sat in a pretty comfortable position where they could functionalise the financial, social and political weakness of the exploited into ideological slavery of the west (with the monetary help they offered, the hegemonic western ideals came as a necessary trade condition) so that even after recovering their financial and political status, the exploitered aren’t able to resist or counter, or confront, or acknowledge the modern west as an ideologically hegemonic monster or a bully since the exploited that know believes themselves to be politically or financially sovereign is unknowingly ideologically subservient to the west, as they have adopted their worldview, their definitions of success, meaning, purpose, happiness, all remain and are manipulated/utilised in the hands of the west for western ambitions and interests solely.
It has been highlighted to much extent now that when an individual claims to be secular, liberal or scientifically rational (or western or modern) in the context of our age over being religious or traditional, they are unknowingly adopting a plethora of inter-dependent metaphysical assumptions like hard-empiricism: materialism – natural reductionism – anti dualism, immanentism: deism – division of temporal and divine – bi-furcation of faith and law, unilinear progress: nature-centred theology: logos, world soul – materialism as success, natural determinism: natural rights – ideals of liberty and tolerance – individualism (and many more that we weren’t able to explore). All while believing to be neutral and simply exercising their unclouded free flowing rationality that is independent of any metaphysical assumptions, assuming that reason can operate all on its own unguided by any ground tier metaphysical inferential leaps of faith. Not realising, that to be western-modern-secular-liberal-scientifically rational doesn’t equate being neutral-universal-normal-default, as there is nothing rationally necessary (in the sense that plain reason does not inevitably lead to the western ideals) about the ideals of the modern western worldview, they can easily be imagined to be other than they are with equal (and greater) rational validity – and therefore cannot be perceived as the normal/universal framework of human inquiry. Being modern/western is as ideologically binding and controlling as being a Muslim, the difference is only regarding the ideals and axioms that the two worldviews bind you to – every man is a slave to something, where the modern man is to multiple masters, the Muslim is to a single one.
Concluding Remarks – Islam as a Meta-Theory: Reclaiming the Centre Stage
Being Muslim demands adherence to every aspect of the Islamic Worldview, and the Islamic weltanschauung intrinsically demands a holistically all-encompassing outlook on the entirety existence/creation through the truth of tawhid. Tawhid permeates the universe, the story of humanity and the purpose of both – in Islamic metaphysical framework the story of the human race, and the telos of every human being is wholly integrated with the divine and the transcendent and the divine is the sole master of all of existence, to judge any single aspect of human affairs thus, without reference to the transcendent unity of Allah, would be a compromise on the identity of being Muslim, on Muslim-hood.
To be Muslim therefore automatically requires one to behave as the main character in this world, being the representative of the transcendent divine, the khalifah of Allah in this dunya, the executor of his message and Will (with his gifted capabilities), the Muslim can not allow any other ideology to take the centre stage in running the course of this world, let alone become an active participant of that worldview. Base-level metaphysical resistance against any worldview that aims to minimise Islam’s global role or aims to capture the market-share (of ethico-socio-political influence) is demanded from the Muslim ummah. And hence, it is the duty of a Muslim to think, reason, observe and act through metaphysical axioms that inherently run counter to every man-made axiomatic principle derived through the internal passions of man (which also influence man’s reason) fused with the faulty empirical appearance of dunya and its nature – because the Islamic axioms by the very nature of their purpose (maximising submission to the system of tawhid) and transcendent (to this world) origin needs man to submit their internal passions and revoke the extravagances that the world appears to offer. Both the modern western worldview and the Islamic worldview, hold all-encompassing and complete ideological views on the whole of creation, that too in quite contrasting terms, with their distinct metaphysical foundations and therefore cannot in any manner be merged or shared by any individual – thus making them mutually exclusive to each other. Mixing even a single ideal of one into another completely disfigures the organic structure of that worldview and disrupts every aspect of it, turning it insensible.
It’s high-time that Islam is apprehended as a meta-worldview due to its truly transcendent origins (from the meta-reality), it being the message of the most meta-authority places it as the institution of thought completely capable enough to judge every other ideology, civilisation, subject and existent through its own cosmological, epistemological, ontological and teleological principles and be able to discover and understand the most meticulous points about the world, nature, humans and its internal dynamics. The Islamic philosophy of Insan-e-Kamil is precisely about undertaking such an approach where the whole of creation is comprehended as an unfolding of tawhid, and the perfect Muslim perceives every bit of the reality, in all of its inter-play, taking the centre the stage, as the story of Islam.
May Allah Guide Us All.