The countermodern moment: A world-historical perspective on the thought of Rabindranath Tagore, Muhammad Iqbal and Liang Shuming

Journal of World History

Volumn 19, Issue 2, 2008, Pages 189-212

  Webb, Adam K ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL INFLUENCE; CULTURAL TRADITION; HINDUISM; HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE; ISLAMISM; MATERIAL CULTURE; MODERNITY; PHILOSOPHY; SOCIAL HISTORY; TWENTIETH CENTURY;

ASIA; EURASIA;

EID: 49749103090     PISSN: 10456007     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (111)

1. For example, Roland Robertson, Globalisation: Social Theory and Global Culture (London: Sage Publications, 1992), especially his chronology on p. 179.
2. I discuss this global clash between liberal modernity and its critics in much longer term perspective in Beyond the Global Culture War (New York: Routledge, :2006).
3. Guy S. Alitto, The Last Confucian: Liang Shuming and the Chinese Dilemma of Modernity (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979), pp. 9-12.
4. Rabindranath Tagore, Creative Unity (New York: MacMillan, 1922), pp. 67-74, 80;
5. Muhammad Iqbal, The Reconstruction of Religious Thought in Islam (London: Oxford UniversitY Press, 1934), pp. 45, 72, 96-98, 177-178;
6. and Lakshmi Biswas, Tagore and Iqbal: A Study in Philosophical Perspective (Delhi: Capital Publishing House, 1991), p. 268.
7. Liang Shuming, Zhongguo ren: Shehui yu rensheng (1921-1970; Beijing: Zhongguo Wenlian Chuban Gongsi, 1996), pp. 221-226, 238, 372-374.
8. See also An Yanming, "Liang Shuming and Henri Bergson on Intuition: Cultural Context and the Evolution of Terms," Philosophy East and West 47, no. 3 (Ju1Y 1997): 337-362.
9. Liang, Zhongguo ren, pp. 116-119, 360-364.
10. See also Alitto, Last Confucian, p. 273.
11. Tagore, Creative Unity, pp. 24-25;
12. and Liang, Zhongguo ren, pp. 337-340.
13. Iqbal, Reconstruction, pp. 45, 72;
14. Liang, Zhongguo ren, p. 372;
15. and Tagore, Towards Universal Man (New York: Asia Publishing House, 1961), pp. 96-97. On the continuity between Liang's thought and the premodern Chinese tradition,
16. see Alitto, Last Confucian, pp. 58-59.
17. Tagore, Towards Universal Man, p. 318;
18. Liang, Zhongguo ren, pp. 337, 354, 366-368;
19. and Alitto, Last Confucian, pp. 321, 332.
20. Iqbal, Reconstruction, pp. 111-113, 118-119;
21. Islam as an Ethical and a Political Ideal (1908; Lahore: Orientalia, 11955), pp. 59-67.
22. See also Fazl al-Rahman, "Iqbal and Mysticism," in Iqbal as a Thinker, ed. Taj Muhammad Khayal (Lahore: Muhammad Ashraf, 1944);
23. and Earle H. Waugh, "Images of Muhammad in the Work of Iqbal: Tradition and Alterations," History of Religions 23, no. 2 (November 1983): 156-168.
24. Iqbal, Reconstruction, pp. 40, 107, 174;
25. Tagore, Nationalism (New York: MacMillan, 1917), pp. 94-95;
26. and Tagore, Creative Unity, pp. 12-13.
27. Liang, Zhongguo ren, p. 230.
28. Liang, Zhongguo ren, pp. 234-235;
29. Tagore, Towards Universal Man, p. 241;
30. Tagore, Creative Unity, p. 104;
31. Tagore, Nationalism, pp. 19-23, 38-45, 73;
32. and Alitto, Last Confucian, p. 51.
33. Tagore, Towards Universal Man, pp. 98, 330;
34. Tagore, Nationalism, p. 150;
35. Tagore, Creative Unity, pp. 21-23, 114-117, 141;
36. Liang, Zhongguo ren, pp. 247-249;
37. Iqbal, Islam, pp. 76-83;
38. and Alitto, Last Confucian, p. 201.
39. Tagore, Towards Universal Man, pp. 74-75, 245-246, 305-310, 338.
40. On his travels in Asia and the reactions he elicited, see Stephen N. Hay, Asian Ideas of East and West: Tagore and His Critics in Japan, China, and India (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1970), pp. 170-221.
41. On his educational vision, see Alex Aronson, "Tagore's Educational Ideals," International Review of Education 7, no. 4 (1961): 385-393;
42. and Swati Lal, "Rabindranath Tagore's Ideals of Aesthetic Education," Journal of Aesthetic Education 18, no. 2 (Summer 1984): 31-39.
43. Liang, Zhongguo ren, pp. 55-56, 104-106, 241, 358-359, 384-387. A reprint of Iqbal's response to Bolshevism appears as "Iqbal's Social Ideas," in Iqbal's Reconstruction of Political Thought in Islam, ed. Fateh Mohammed Malik (Delhi: Media House, 2004), pp. 44-45.
44. On Maoist critiques of Liang, see Chi Wen-Shun, "Liang Shuming and Chinese Communism," China Quarterly 41 (January-March 1970): 64-82.
45. Tagore, Nationalism, p. 138;
46. and Tagore, Creative Unity, pp. 77, 94, 133-134.
47. Liang, Zhongguo ren, pp. 150-155, 193, 239.
48. On Liang and democracy, see also Alitto, Last Confucian, pp. 136, 279;
49. and Ip Hung-yok, "Liang Shuming and the Idea of Democracy in Modern China," Modern China 17, no. 4 (October 1991): 469-508.
50. Iqbal, Islam, p. 99;
51. Iqbal, Reconstruction, pp. 120-125, 165-167;
52. and Muhammad Munawwar, Dimensions of Iqbal (Lahore: Iqbal Academy Pakistan, 1986), pp. 47-55.
53. Tagore, Towards Universal Man, pp. 52, 227-228, 282-284, 322;
54. Tagore, Nationalism, pp. 16-17, 117 Liang, Zhongguo ren, pp, 238-239;
55. Alitto, Last Confucian, pp. 137-138, 150-151, 160-176, 206-215;
56. and Lyman P. van Slyke, "Liang Shuming and the Rural Reconstruction Movement," Journal of Asian Studies 18, no. 4 (August 1959): 45 7-474.
57. For a passing comparison of Tagore's and Liang's rural development work, see Hay, Asian Ideas, p. 209.
58. Liang, Zhongguo ren, pp. 236, 357-358; Alitto, Last Confucian, pp. 61-62, 72, 217, 222-225, 274-275;
59. Alfred H. Y Lin, "Confucianism in Action: A Study of Liang Shuming's Theory and Practice of Rural Reconstruction in the 1930s," Journal of Oriental Studies 28, no. 1 (1990);
60. Tagore, Creative Unity, p. 148;
61. and Ashis Nandy, The Illegitimacy of Nationalism: Rabindranath Tagore and the Politics of Self (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1994).
62. Tagore, Creative Unity, pp. 15-16;
63. and A. Yusuf Ali, "The Religion of Rabindranath Tagore," Islamic Culture (Hyderabad Quarterly Review) 4, no. 1 (January 1930).
64. Fayyaz Mahmood, "Iqbal's Attitude Towards God," in Khayal, Iqbal as a Thinker. Al-Rahman, "lqbal and Mysticism"; Iqbal, Reconstruction, p. 87;
65. and Lakshmi Biswas, Tagore and Iqbal, pp. 271-272.
66. Iqbal's role in the movement for Pakistan was largely inspirational. See his speeches and correspondence reprinted in the first part of Pakistan as Visualised by Iqbal and Jinnah, ed. G. H. Zulfiqar (Lahore: Bazm-i-Iqbal, 1997).
67. Max Weber, "Politics as a Vocation," in From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, ed. H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958).
68. Liang, Zhongguo ren pp. 91-100, 191;
69. and Alitto, Last Confucian, pp. 7-8, 102. 187-188.
70. Iqbal, Reconstruction, pp. 92, 140-144, 169-171;
71. Tagore, Towards Universal Man, 63-64;
72. K. G. Saiyidain, "Progressive Trends in Iqbal's Thought," in Khayal, Iqbal as a Thinker; Alessandro Bausani, "The Concept of Time in the Religious Philosophy of Muhammad Iqbal," Die Welt des Islams 3, no. 3/4 (1954);
73. and W. S. Urquhart, "The Philosophical Inheritance of Rabindranath Tagore," International Journal of Ethics 26, no. 3 (1916).
74. Tagore, Creative Unity, p. 96;
75. Tagore, Towards Universal Man, p. 329;
76. and Liang, Zhongguo ren, p. 8.
77. Iqbal, Reconstruction, pp. 9-12, 30, 133-134, 139-140, 158-159;
78. Iqbal, Islam, p. 94;
79. and Fateh Mohammed Malik, Iqbal's Reconstruction of Political Thought in Islam, pp. 29-38.
80. For a less cosmopolitan view of Iqbal, cf. Sharif al-Mujahid, "Muslim Nationalism: Iqbal's Synthesis of Pan-Islamism and Nationalism," American Journal of Islamic Social Sciences 2, no. 1 (1985).
81. Tagore, Creative Unity, pp. 43-63;
82. Tagore, Towards Universal Man, pp. 89-90, 130-132, 255-256;
83. and Tagore, Nationalism, pp. 60, 119. On his selectively mystical image in the West, see Nabaneeta Sen, "The 'Foreign Reincarnation' of Rabindranath Tagore," Journal of Asian Studies 25, no. 2 (1966): 275-286.
84. Liang, Zhongguo ren, pp. 9-13, 41-47, 60-63, 232-233, 323-325.
85. On alleged contradictions in Liang's thought, cf. Lin Yusheng, "Reflexions on the Thought of Liang Shuming," Republican China 14, no. 1 (1988). On the differences between Liang's and Tagore's views of Sino-Indian differences, see Hay, Asian Ideas, p. 211.
86. Tagore, Creative Unity, pp. 96-97;
87. Tagore, Nationalism, pp. 26-30, 37, 46-50, 82-84, 107, 131;
88. Tagore, Towards Universal Man, pp. 16l-I73;
89. Liang, Zhongguo ren, pp. 60, 91-103;
90. and Iqbal, Reconstruction, p. 7.
91. Tagore, Creative Unity, pp. 43-63, 158-159;
92. Liang, Zhongguo ren, pp. 47, 234-235, 240;
93. and Iqbal, Reconstruction, p. 170.
94. Tagore, Nationalism, pp. 78-82;
95. Liang, Zhongguo ren, pp. 60-63, 323-325;
96. and Iqbal, Reconstruction, p. 170.
97. Iqbal, Reconstruction, p. 7;
98. Tagore, Towards Universal Man, pp. 142-146, 153, 246-247, 250;
99. Tagore, Creative Unity, pp. 21-23, 101, 106, 164-165, 194;
100. Tagore, Nationalism, pp. 15, 121-127;
101. and Hay, Asian Ideas, pp. 127-133.
102. For an attempt to assimilate Tagore to postindependence Nehruvian internationalism, cf. Vivek Ranjan Bhattacharya, Tagore's Vision of a Global Family (New Delhi: Enkay Publishers, 1987).
103. Tagore, Towards Universal Man, pp. 219-220;
104. and Tagore, Creative Unity, pp. 168-169.
105. Iqbal, Reconstruction, pp. 88-89;
106. Tagore, Towards Universal Man, pp. 229-230;
107. and Liang, Zhongguo ren, p. 240.
108. Alitto, Last Confucian, pp. 116-117, 182-183.
109. Hay, Asian Ideas, pp. 242-243;
110. and Alitto, Last Confucian, p. 149.
111. Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philosophies: A Global Theory of Intellectual Change (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998).