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The Intellectual and Modernization: Definitions and Reconsiderations: The Egyptian Experience
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2009
Extract
Past studies of modernization have assumed that intellectuals adhering toWestern values would be conduits of rational, scientific norms deemednecessary to the structuring of modern, complex societies. Littleconsideration was given to the attitudes of these intellectuals towards thesocial change presumably resulting from the distribution of rationalvalues. Modernization theorists supposed a positive relationship betweenrationalism as a mode of thought and social change, a suppositionreflecting their own expectations of a progressive and relativelypredictive evolution of traditional societies toward more modern and intricate social systems.
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- The Meetings of East and West
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- Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1980
References
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5 Shils' treatment of the Liberals' attitude towards Gand hi and their opinion of the peoplediffers from his monograph to his article “Influence and Withdrawal.” In the former, theLiberals are treated in light of their development of a constitutional framework from which India's parliamentary system would arise, not with reference to their opinion of Gand hi;Shils merely mentions that the Liberals “were lost in the shadow cast by Gand hi'spersonality and the politics of the Indian National Congress …“ (Tradition, p. 88).Furthermore. Shils presents most Indian intellectuals as being attracted by populismbecause they were alienated from British authority. This alienation made Gand hi attractiveto the intellectuals as a symbol of their being Indian (ibid., pp. 74–75, 101). They were alsoattracted by his personality, despite their dislike of the Congress Party, which he led.Although Shils incorporates material from his monograph (cf. Tradition, p. 101, and “Influence, ” p. 41), his discussion of the intellectuals' antipathy to the masses and massorganization in the latter conflicts with his discussion of an intellectual attraction to Gand hiand populism in the former. His association of intellectuals with bureaucracy exhibitsfurther confusion. He states in “Tradition, ” p. 12, that “the leaders of the States of Asia and Africa … and the intellectuals who play such an important part in most of them aspire totransform their societies according to an ideal of modernity… They wish to establish afar-flung system of modern bureaucratic administration… ” He then notes later, pp.97–101, that while many Indian intellectuals had played outstand ing roles in public life and the civil service, intellectuals as a whole hated the “distant bureaucratic power” of theIndian Civil Service and its role in ruling the state. For a discussion of the Liberals in Indianpolitics, see the two articles by Smith, Ray T., “The Indian Liberals and Constitutionalism in India, ” in Aiyar, S. P. and Srinivasan, R., eds., Studies in Indian Democracy (New York, 1965), pp. 27–29,Google Scholar and “The Role of India's ‘Liberals’ in the Nationalist Movement, 1915–1947.” Asian Survey 7 (07, 1968): 607–24.Google Scholar The similarities to Husayn Haykal and theal–Jarida group, discussed below, are many, particularly in their sense of elitism and tutorialattitudes toward the masses which required the maintenance of distance from them if arational approach was to be preserved. Both shared the conviction they should lead theircountries in their preparatory stages of education prior to gaining full independence. For abroader analysis of self-conscious elite attitudes toward modernization among nationalistradicals which did not entail a desire for social reconstruction, see Broomfield, J. H., EliteConflict in a Plural Society: Twentieth Century Bengal (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1968), particularly the introduction and pp. 131–62. 316–31.Google Scholar
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12 This longing for the rural past and its image of peace in contrast to present disorder, tobe discussed further below, was expressed vividly in Haykal's, “Al-Hayat al-Mahabba”(“The Beloved Life”). al-Hilal (04, 1934): 641–46.Google Scholar
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15 These matters and their fictional examples are examined more fully in my “Love, Passion, and Class in the Fiction of Muhammad Husayn Haykal, ” Journal of the AmericanOriental Society 99:2 (04–06 1979), 249–61.Google Scholar
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17 In this collection, published as Qisas Misriyya (Egyptian Stories), only one depicted ahappy marriage containing true love. Significantly, the couple met and married outside ofEgypt, in Paris, and did not return to live in its stultifying environment
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19 Tignor, Robert, “The Egyptian Revolution of 1919: New Directions in the EgyptianEconomy, ” Middle Eastern Studies, 12, 3 (10, 1976): 50CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Marius Deeb, “BankMisrand the Emergence of the Local Bourgeoisie in Egypt, ” Ibid, p. 76.
20 Haykal, devoted a chapter of his Mudhakkirat fi al-Siyasa al-Misriyya (Memoirs ofEgyptian Politics) (Cairo, 1951–1953), vol. 2 pp. 92–133, to his tenure as a minister of education.Google Scholar
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25 See al-Jarida, , 18 April 1908. Two references by Haykal to the “ruh al-casr” (“spirit ofthe age”) are in his diaries, 13 August 1909, and “al-Harb wa Harakat al-Tajdid fi al-Sharq”(“The War and the Movement for Regeneration in the East”), al-Siyasa al-Usbuciyya. 25 02 1928, and reprinted in al-Sharq al-Jadid(The New East) (Cairo, 1962), p. 120.Google Scholar
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30 Bramson, . Political Context, pp. 29–31.Google Scholar On the other hand. Weber was deeplyconcerned with maintaining elite leadership in a hierarchical structure of authority throughthe exercise of “responsible demagoguery” by the charismatic leader. This would result in“complete subservience and ‘blind obedience’ on the part of the followers, ” thus recreatingthe ideal of order and mass submissiveness, being “led unawares” in Lutfi al-Sayid's term, innew circumstances with results analogous to those sought by Haykal. Cf. Struve, PeterElites against Democracy: Leadership Ideals in Bourgeois Political Thought in Germany, 1890–1933 (Princeton, 1973), p. 143.Google ScholarCf. Ahmed, , Intellectual Origins, p. 91.Google Scholar
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34 “Ideology and Discontent, ” in idem, ed.. Ideology and Discontent (Chicago, 1964), pp. 37–38. It is ironic that while Apter argues that “ideology reflects the suppositions of itsobservers” (p. 16), he ignores the implications of this statement for his own arguments, presumably because social scientists are beyond ideology; nevertheless, social science “has become the ultimate ideology …” as opposed to “nonrational, vulgar ideologies” (p. 41).
35 Nettl, J. P.. “Ideas, Intellectuals, and Structures of Dissent, ” in Rieff, , ed., On Intellectuals, p. 81,Google ScholarNettl's, argument here is based on that of Edgar Morin, “Intellectuels:critique du mythe et mythe du critique, ” Arguments, 4, 20 (10, 1960).Google Scholar
36 Nettl, . pp. 82–83.Google Scholar
37 See the overview by Eisenstadt, S. N.. “Post-Traditional Societies and the Continuityand Reconstruction of Tradition, ” Daedalus (Winter, 1973), pp. 1–28,Google Scholar and his Tradition, Change, and Modernity (New York, 1973)Google Scholar. We have not been concerned with the retentionof traditional social structures or the growth of more modern “institutional ororganizational frameworks” (Ibid, p. 102) as such. Rather we wish to note an intellectual'simpression of these structures and frameworks and his changing relationship to them.
38 Cf jne Concept of Social Change, p. 94.
39 A British assessment is found in F.O. 371/21948/1197. dated 7 November 1938. whichviews the Liberals particularly and non–Wafdists in general as the best administrative talentsin Egypt. An Egyptian view is that of Abd al-Qadir, Muhammad Zakic. al-Tariq, Aqdamcala (Steps Along the Way) (Cairo. 1967), pp. 355–57. Al-Qadir admired the Liberals for theirindividual talents, intellectual and administrative, and was appalled at their cynicalmanipulation of political life in violation of their stated principles.Google Scholar