#martin jacques

[howieabel]

“The emergence of China as a global power relativizes everything. The West is habituated to the idea that the world is its world; that the international community is its community, that international institutions are its institutions….that universal values are its values…This will no longer be the case.”

- Martin Jacques

[geopolicraticus]

The Attack Of The Civilization-State - NOEMA

A world society seemed to be advancing. But then the civilization-state struck back.

I was very interested to see this article from Bruno Maçães (formerly Portugal’s secretary of state for European affairs) about civilization-states. I had previously encountered the term “civilization-state” in a Martin Jacques article (A Point Of View: Is China more legitimate than the West?) for the BBC in 2012. I wrote about this in some brief comments on the article, and then again in Civilization-States and Their Attempted Extirpation.

As with the earlier BBC article by Martin Jacques, there is a lot here with which I agree, and a lot with which I do not agree. It is an interesting read, but it should be read with caution. Maçães points out China’s and India’s growing rejection of western political ideas, which are tied to the nation-state, but doesn’t discuss the extent to which the liberal democratic nation-state of the west is itself in crisis and many within the west have recognized that the liberal world order will eventually have its reckoning. Of course, to do this would have required an essay of twice this length or more, so I can understand why Maçães didn’t do this. Also, it wouldn’t be so well received.

Maçães discusses western universalism and contrasts this to the implicit ethnocentrism of India and China, but he doesn’t note that western universalism is only as old as the Enlightenment. The nation-state system is a little older--dating to the early modern period, or about the same time as the scientific revolution, which is also older than Enlightenment universalism. So what is really going on here is the clash of the west’s Enlightenment ideology with the cultures and civilizations of Asia, where there was no scientific revolution, and no Enlightenment to grow out of the scientific revolution.

The tradition of western civilization is neither existentially dependent upon, not is it summarized in or exhausted by, the Enlightenment, which is only about as old as the United States, which is a relative newcomer to the political scene. Western civilizations are much older than this, and have roots that tap into forces that have nothing to do with the Enlightenment, although these roots have been neglected since the Enlightenment, and sometimes, especially recently, openly attacked.

[ladylabsinthe]

MARTIN Jacques. Painting French Impressionist Flowers Still Life, circa 1900

[jazzismus]

" Martin Jacques "...

[bluepecanpie]

Maybe it's because I'm a generation or two removed but I honestly can't be too mad at the 'New Times' collective. Yes, they were politically useless and inept, but I mean all the British left during that time was - and at their best, their insights were cutting edge. They (specifically Stuart Hall and Martin Jacques) coined the term 'Thatcherism' and had actually argued very convincingly that it was a mutation from conservatism as previously understood, that it was an authoritarian populism fuelled by historical narratives that Britain had never let go of, and that the kind of model of social democracy that had existed for a generation was not going to hold up for much longer - nor would any push from the British labour movement as it existed be effective.

I think that they were generally right but for the wrong reasons - the point of investigation was 'post-fordism' and the implications of it to many kinds of social organisation - notably in the workplace, in manufacturing, to labour organising, etc. and they seemed to believe that this foregrounded the conditions for neoliberalism, rather than the other way around.

I guess not too many people of that generation can forgive their caping for Neil Kinnock - and their overlooking of the kind of reactionary politics he was pushing for, and the deleterious effect that was having in the various caucuses - any specifically left-wing caucuses in Labour eg. Black Sections, Gay Labour Group, Women's Sections (although their advance was more consolidated, and their issue was more neglect than overt attempts at demolition). They had a (at best) noncommittal stance to the Miners' Strike of 1984-5, and frankly - they were overly focused on the developments in Europe, if not outright Eurocentric. That they basically used to Communist Party to cheer on anything that Labour did as it was unmooring itself from even the semblance of collectivist politics, I'm sure gave a bitter taste in the mouths that were there to experience it.

Alex Callanicos' arguments against them look mostly dated and horrible - as Trotskyist polemics usually tend to be, but it made sense at the time to strongly react against them given how aloof they presented themselves as. A. Sivanandan's critiques as far as I'm concerned were the gold standard, and no other during that period comes close to giving them an excorciation of that kind. Raphael Samuel's is a distant second.

'New Times' doesn't engender aggravation from me, nor do I feel inclined to call Stuart Hall a postmodernist - I think that they only serve to prove their point about 'left economism'. But it rather sad that the only ones appreciative of their work are Guardianista columnists who were uni students at the time of their publications, waxing on about how they inspired a generation (to go to the NGO-to- Labour spad pipeline maybe) and saved Labour or such tripe. I think that kind of legacy says it all about the extent of their influence, really.

[radioshiga]

China aguarda há 70 anos para resolver "questão de Taiwan"

Taipei, Taiwan, 23 de setembro de 2024 – Agência de Notícias Central News Agency – O comentário do acadêmico britânico Martin Jacques sobre a “questão de Taiwan” gerou controvérsia ao sugerir que a China tem sido paciente por mais de 70 anos. Durante um evento público em Pequim, Jacques teria afirmado: “A China esperou por mais de 70 anos, tem sido muito paciente”. O comentário parece implicar…

China aguarda há 70 anos para resolver "questão de Taiwan"

[tenth-sentence]

It will also be illiberal, dropping the West's rhetoric about universal human values; and statist, brooking no opposition to the powers of political rulers.

"Why the West Rules – For Now: The patterns of history and what they reveal about the future" - Ian Morris

[sinoeurovoices]

美國衰落的不穩定時代，中國如何發揮深層次力量

【導讀】 隨著中國的經濟持續發展，美國對中國的戒心近十年顯著增強，兩國關系急轉而下，甚至被一些人形容為「新冷戰」。馬丁·雅克(Martin Jacques)，英國劍橋大學政治和國際研究系前高級研究員，2009年出版的《當中國統治世界》(When China Rules The World: The Rise of the Middle Kingdom and the End of the Western World )一書中，預見了中國趕超美國過程中的許多情況。近日，馬丁·雅克接受觀察者網專訪，分析了中美關系的基礎及其過往和未來，總結了雙方應如何應對新的世界格局；闡述了中國與其歷史之間的關系；他還談及了《當中國統治世界》，其中自己哪些預測得到應驗，哪些情況是他未曾料及的，以及自己打算出版的「續集」。 【采訪、翻譯/觀察者網…

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