Futures.-Volume 31.-Numbers 9/10.-November/December 1999.-P.971-982.

The transmodern hypothesis: towards a dialogue of cultures

Marc Luyckx

Forward Studies Unit, European Economic Community, Brussels, Belgium

Abstract

For a Brussels Seminar at the European Commission, a "double hypothesis" was proposed: iat we are in transition to a transmodem way of thinking that combines intuition and spirituality with rational brainwork; and that 21st century conflicts will likely be not between religions or cultures but within them, between premodern, modern, and transmodem worldviews. Non-Western thinkers find this framework useful: it opens a door to criticism of the worst aspects of modernity without being "anti-Western". Western reactions are more mixed, some Clitics wanting to maintain a high fence between religion and governance, others welcoming the transmodem concept as helpful in relating states to religions, and in analyzing conflicts involving beliefs about belief. "Transmodernity" turns out to be a rich tool of analysis, with important implications for European foreign policy in the century to come. © 1999 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.

A Seminar on "Governance and Civilizations", co-sponsored by the World Academy of Art and Science, was held in May 1998 at the European Commission's headquarters in Brussels. The gathering included scholars able to describe and inter-pret the trends of thinking in many of the world cultures and religions, including Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism, and Christianity; several lively thinkers about political and social trends; and participants from the European Union including policy analysts from a number of Ministries of Foreign Affairs. The idea was to help European governments think through the mix of religious, cultural, and political dynamics that might, as the European Union comes into being, need to be fused into a "European foreign policy".

In preparing for the Brussels Seminar, Harlan Cleveland (President of the World Academy) and I had proposed a double working hypothesis. First, we suggested that the West is in a process of transition from modernity towards what we called transmodernity—which means keeping the best of modernity but going beyond it: the exclusion of spiritual and religious considerations from politics and public affairs is no longer appropriate, even though the distinction between the two realms needs

to be maintained.

Second, we suggested that in the century to come, the worst conflicts would not be so much between cultures such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Confucianism, Judaism, and Christianity, but inside each culture or religion, among the interpretations or paradigms such as premodern, modern, and transmodern. We were a little timid in advancing these ideas, believing that in our own societies they would still be regarded as unconventional wisdom.

At the Brussels Seminar, the positive reaction of the non-Western participants came as something of a surprise. They not only accepted the working hypotheses as interesting, but went further to use what they perceived as a Western opening to

criticism of modernity, as an entrance door to an unexpected new kind of dialogue with us. The outcome of the Seminar was also presented during 1998 at a meeting organized by Foreign Affairs, at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, at a World Futures Society conference in Chicago, in San Francisco at the State of the World Forum, and finally in Vancouver, at the 1998 Assembly of the World Academy, where the issues were reviewed at a session entitled "Spirituality Organized and Unorganized". In each case, where we had expected much more criticism from post-modern intellectuals, the reaction was surprisingly positive. I will first spell out our working hypothesis, then report on the non-Western response, present some Western reactions, and suggest some lessons from this analysis.

1. The double hypothesis

1.1. Hypothesis 1. We are in a transition toward transmodernity

In the modern era, the separation of religion from government has been a doctrine often repeated, but as often ignored, bypassed, honored in the breach. That separation was in turn a subhead of the distinction between "public" and "private", a dotted line fading fast as governments farm out to private entities a growing proportion of the public business, and private organizations play a more muscular part in making public policy. In this context, it now seems overwhelmingly likely that religion-defined as organized spirituality—will play a weightier role in governance, and indeed that individual spirituality will be an increasingly important element of leadership in every domain.

Both concepts, religion and governance, will carry into the 21st century a great deal of cultural baggage, the heritage of long spiritual traditions and of theory, trial, and error in organizing human beings to work together toward common goals. It may be useful to think of our time as a time of transition, from a modern way ofthinking besieged by the backlash of premodern mindsets, toward a worldview that (as even its advocates do not know just how to describe it) we call simply transmodern. The premodern worldview (see Fig.. 1) is an "enchanted" vision that was evidently

functional in the primarily agrarian societies of the past. There is one Truth, given to all people by a higher wisdom ("our God" or plural gods), as the source of authority and the foundation of values. Spiritual authority is delegated to religious intermediaries: as surrogates for the spiritual authority, they are responsible for making rales of behavior for individuals, and supervising the morality of public authorities. Authority of many kinds is exercised chiefly by men, who in turn oversee the functions of women and children and are responsible for their behavior. The core values of society are stable; the sacredness of tradition is society's unshakable foundation.

The modern outlook (sketched in Fig. 2) began as a healthy reaction against religious authorities who feared scientific discovery, resented independent thinking, and resisted technological development. Modernity pushed aside the clerical authorities: in the resulting secular societies, it relegated religion to the private sphere, making it harder to raise questions of meaning, ethics, intuition, or spirit in public affairs. If premodern society, asserting a sacred foundation for values, was "enchanted", modern society was "disenchanted". Rational analysis and empirical proof were in the ascendant; truth was what could be discovered, rationalized, and proved by the Scientific Method.

In the 20th century, the pedestal of Reason has been eroded by experience that scientific discovery and technological innovation can lead not only to miracles of change but also to unprecedented dirt, damage, and disease; by repeated demonstrations that rational planning can take us efficiently to where we don't want to be when we get there; by new kinds of science, such as chaos theory, that seem to

depend as much on intuition as on reasoning; and by the increasingly obvious limitations of the hierarchical, pyramidal, bureaucratic structures which had earlier seemed the rational way to organize human cooperation.

In consequence a transmodern way of thinking is now emerging. It features a creative mix of rational and intuitive brainwork; an enthusiastic embrace of new information technologies; a tolerance, even celebration, of diversity; a conviction that protection of the physical environment has to be a central concern for every human being; a dawning realization that scientific discovery and technological innovation have made human beings the dominant actors in their own future evolution; a new openness to spiritual guidance as a basis for "private" behavior and "public" policy; and a move away from vertical authority toward "flatter", more "horizontal", organizations, away from "recommendations-up-orders-down" management and toward more consensual decision-making.

The very concept of transmodern implies that the best of modernity has to be kept, but that there is an urgent need to go beyond it. Modernity has brought some excellent and indispensable progress, by helping to distinguish what was confused. As Ken Wilbur rightly explains [l],¹ modernity has enabled us to create Art, Science and Morals, installing distinctions between disciplines. These distinctions have been crucial for the intellectual, artistic, ethical, and religious progress of humanity. But we also suffer from distinctions that became separations—and even tended to exclude ethics and religion from science and public affairs.

The "transmodern" way of thinking, which we described as "re-enchanted", is actively tolerant. It acknowledges that all civilizations need to be receptive to that which is alien, whatever form this may take. It is open to the transcendental, while resisting any authoritarian imposition of religious certainty. The Truth is at the center of things (see Fig. 3); each person converges toward it through his/her own culture. along his/her own path. But no one gets to say, "The search for Truth can now be called off, for I have found it".

The transmodern way of thinking is still a minority mindset, but it can no longer be discounted as a negligible fringe. Recent survey research suggests that it is gaining ground with astonishing speed in the United States and other countries. Some of the "global mind shift" [5] that is evidently going on can be attributed to opportunities stemming from quite recent technological change: the marriage of computers and electronic telecommunications, the stunning developments in biotechnology and genetics, the new choices opened by space exploration and the chance to study our home planet from a genuinely global perspective.

1.2. Hypothesis 2. Conflicts among worldviews within each religion or culture will be the most difficult to manage

A worldview (paradigm, frame of reference) is largely unconscious and invisible-like a pair of glasses we cannot see. Conflicts driven by contrasting paradigms are especially dangerous because the protagonists have trouble understanding what they are fighting for. Such conflicts result from three pairs of protagonists.

Premodern vs modern. This is the conflict, visible in many places, between the sacred-authoritarian-religious, values-driven, tradition-anchored vision and a science-based rational, human rights, free trade, secular approach. Many poorer-country populations, and especially their political leaders, feel discouraged and disillusioned about what adopting secular and materialist development strategies can do for them, and feel they might as well return to the worldview of their ancestors.

Modern vs transmodern. The conflict here is between the secular-scientific-hierarchical-rational approach and a worldview that finds nourishment in complexity,

in networking, in consensual decision-making and in environmentally sustainable strategies. Conflict arises from differences about economic growth and environmental policy, arguments about openness and transparency in government agencies and large corporations, issues about the relative importance of "real" (physical) resources and information as a resource, and judgments about the comparative roles of military force and other forms of persuasion.

Premodern vs transmodern. This is the least visible conflict in any culture. The conflict is between those who adhere to a rigid interpretation of a tradition and those who believe in the same tradition, but interpret it in a dynamic and adaptive way. In Iran today there is an open conflict between a majority of Muslims, including large numbers of women, who voted for a "moderate" Ayatollah Khamenei, favor more openness, and are tolerant about some social taboos and favor fairer economic development; and a minority who support the dominant clerical leadership in a stance that is fiercely premodern. A failure by outsiders to recognize such internal cleavages as significant results in lumping large populations as "fundamentalists" and finding no relations with them possible.

In other cultures there are comparable cleavages between adherents of a literal tradition and those who regard their own tradition as strong enough to serve as a basis for tolerant dialogue with adherents of other ways of thinking. Some of these cleavages are dealt with by not dealing with them: in America there are large numbers of women who practice birth control in ways not endorsed by their church, but they remain active communicants and the church takes no initiative to deny them its sacraments.

This analytical framework is helpful in thinking about political conflicts with religious dimensions. Those political leaders who see themselves as waging "religious wars" operate from premodern assumptions: their definition of Truth is intolerant (Ian Paisley in Ulster) in contrast to the transmodern approach of some of Ulster's liberal clergy. Political authorities trying to deal with such "religious wars" are too often prone to adopt a modern stance, which can also seem intolerant in advancing "rational" proposals that take too little account of the nonrational factors in the equation.

2. Non-Western approaches to transmodernity

Our working hypotheses opened a door. In the Brussels Seminar and its aftermath, they seemed to encourage non-Western thinkers to make a crucial distinction— between modern and Western.

Muslim and Asian commentators spoke of their disinterest in becoming "modern", perceiving modernity as an intolerant and aggressive ideology, imposed upon them. What they were really interested in was going back to their roots, traditions, and faiths, recreating their cultural identity in a global and changing world. Those of us who came from Western cultures found that they were trying to think through the same kinds of anguished dilemmas as we were: how to keep the best of modernity (useful technologies, democratic ideas, fairness and equality for women, etc.) without signing onto its evident defects (soul-denying secularism, intolerances, injustices, unsustainability—and a superiority complex).

Modernity does not seem attractive any more. It no longer provides a common platform for dialogue between Western cultures and other cultures, so the Western strategy of trying to modernize the world has to be rethought. "Modernity is an ethnocentric construct invented and enforced by Europeans. It is no more the dominant mood." Fifteen years ago, a Muslim said, the modernization of Islam was a big issue. "We tried very hard to modernize Islam. We played with modernity in every possible way, and lost. We were forced to accept the Truth of modernity, without any

respect for our Truth; our Truth was regarded as backwardness. But suddenly there has been a stop. With the Rushdie affair, we have felt the sacredness of our tradition trampled, and we decided to divorce from modernity." In fact, the recent history in Muslim societies is "working modernity out of our system". That "modernist Muslim" is a disappearing category may be a sign of hope—if Westerners understand it, and take it seriously.

Modernity is also seen as a danger to religions, civilizations, and humanity: it has a lethal dimension. "Modernity has demonized religion. Modernity has attributed, often unjustly, many conflicts and wars to religion. Modernity has a religious hostility to religions; it has also killed millions of people, and animals. One can see a link between modernity and the Holocaust. The Holocaust would not have been possible without the dehumanization produced by modernity. Modernity has a frighteningly totalitarian dimension. Modernity has dehumanized religion."

Moreover, modernity is seen as too individualistic. Beyond its rejection of any transcendental reference, modern Western thinking is seen as having lost family and community values. "The Confucian concept of family consists of three main pillars. One is ancestor worship: you must be thankful for what former generations have done for us, for what we are. Next, intergenerational solidarity. And third, responsibility for future generations ... The constructive part of this culture is to extend solidarity to the outside: ... Confucius says that you should respect your parents first, and then you will be able to extend this respect to other people ..."

In ancient times, family was based only on blood relationships, but in Confucianism the concept is fluid and flexible. We can open up the concept to further membership, and envisage the global society as a family, as a sanctuary. This can be the contribution of Confucianism to global society: helping with this broad family concept to transcend the boundaries of egoism, and push solidarity with actual and future generations toward a more just and sustainable world. It is not "the West", but modernity and its dominance, that is rejected. The concept of transmodernity can be a door leading to new dialogue with non-Western cultures. There is a real request that the West agree to change lenses and begin looking at the rest of the world with transmodern glasses. Indeed, the categories of the critical traditionalists and transmodernists converge, if a flexible concept of "tradition" is mutually accepted. The growth of "unorganized spirituality" in the West is surely one indicator of the change toward transmodernity.

In a transmodern world, no one owns the Truth any more; ownership of Truth has been assumed both in modernity and in some faith-based traditions. The West is politely invited to abandon its superiority complex, and abandon also the intolerant and exclusive modern assumption that "aside from modernization, there is only backwardness". This corresponds to the principle proposed by one participant: in essence, every Culture has a part of the Truth.

When an Asian colleague says that "many conflicts start from the way you perceive yourself, and how you identify yourself, it is perhaps a discreet invitation for the West to rethink its own image as the only dominant, modern, and developed culture. Some participants underlined the crucial importance of a dynamic concept of tradition, which has to be conceived as life-enhancing, as flexible and in constant change and adaptation. Transmodernity presupposes this open definition of tradition; premodernity rejects it.

A basis for dialogue: rediscovery of roots, a relationship of equals. Three remarks by non-Western participants in the Brussels Seminar point to a new basis for East-West dialogue:

Going beyond modernity is, for us, an effort to find ourselves again. Contrary to Western understanding, our first aim is not to attack or criticize the West ... If we are in reaction against this "modernization"—which took the form of Euro-peanization

first, and Americanization later—it is because we understand now how deeply this "modernization" has alienated us from ourselves. We are interested in this new concept of transmodernization because, as we understand it, this concept allows us to find again our roots and identity in a global world.

We want to create a globally oriented yet indigenously rooted future. Among us, some are really backward-looking, right wing, wanting to return to the roots, nothing more. Others really want to be open to the future. They try to return to the roots, but with a future-oriented point of view. Those future-oriented people correspond to your concept of the transmodern.

There is already a dialogue and cross-fertilization going on between Asian cultures and Western culture. The same thing is true for the historic role of Islam. But we are urging the West to change, start from zero, in a new type of relationship among equals. Like Christ who emptied himself until death in order to resurrect. This is also coherent with the Buddhist tradition of "non-self and service as self-denial, and with the Confu-cianist tradition of the necessity to overcome selfishness.

3. Western reactions

Some Western participants in the Brussels Seminar and the discussions it provoked elsewhere did not believe that a new "transmodern" way of thinking was emerging, and found the vision of a potentially positive role for spirituality or religion in public affairs to be too optimistic, overstated, perhaps too North American. They argued that the political conflicts between religions were far from disappearing, quite the opposite; and if the conflicts between the secular and the religious are perhaps softening in Europe, that is not the case elsewhere.

Yes, there is an aspiration toward more justice, sustainability, and human values; but is this aspiration "spiritual"? Has it any link with organized religion? Instead of "re-enchantment", do we not observe a further "disenchantment" in the form of ethical relativism, a "post-modern" self-serving mentality, where everyone builds his own ethics and his own truth? In short: the working hypotheses are intellectually interesting but politically irrelevant.

Others regretted that the Seminar did not address the marginalization of religion in society. Why are religions able to foster only a kind of moral sentimentalism? Why are they so powerless in the world that they might best be compared to a Boy Scouts organization? Is it because today's dominant religion is a "religion of profit"? Don't citizens associate "globalization" with a pagan, market-dominated, materialistic, egotistical vision of life—which seems to be gaining ground everywhere?

3.1. Interest in the hypothesis

Other Western participants found both the working paper and the discussions it generated rich in contemporary relevance, and thought the research politically useful. There were also suggestions for extending the argument in the working paper. One advocated a "new secularism" as a way for states to relate to religions: remain neutral about organized religions, but accept the positive role religions can play in resolving conflicts and building social consensus. States might thus evolve toward acting as a tent for dialogue and collaboration; the juridical consequences of this evolution need further study.

Among Western commentators, there was a good deal of agreement with this observation by one of them: "In modernity, many conflicts were between belief sys

tems, between religions and science, religions and Marxism, between ideologies, between religions. But today we observe all over the world a new kind of conflict inside each religion, inside Marxism, inside science. So many of us are torn apart in our religious beliefs. Many find themselves with deep spiritual beliefs, but without defined religious affiliations, slowly becoming part of the 'unorganized spirituality' group"—which the working paper had characterized as growing fast.

3.2. The importance of beliefs about belief

An idea crystallized slowly during the Brussels Seminar, and reappeared in the later discussions about religion and governance: we may be increasingly confronted by culture wars about the definition of truth—by epistemological wars, wars between beliefs about belief. The problem lies in the belief / have about the Other's belief or vision; many people feel besieged by the beliefs of Others, uncertain how to react to them. The central puzzle is how to allow other humans to believe what they choose to believe, without forcing them to follow our own truth.

Toward the end of the Brussels Seminar, Walter Anderson illustrated with a story how seemingly irreconcilable beliefs may turn out to be reconcilable. "In a small meeting, I made some critical comments about 'absolutism'. A woman present was quite threatened by this, and said that her religion was one of absolute faith. I asked her if she would expect me to believe the same things. She immediately replied: 'Of course not. I only meant that these things are absolutely true for me'. What is significant about this", Anderson added, "is that she had no particular awareness of having made a complex and highly sophisticated adjustment of beliefs about belief.

How to deal with epistemological wars? During the Seminar and its aftermath, several discussants tried to answer that question; the answers turned out to be quite compatible with each other: "We must definitely abandon simplistic linear frameworks of thinking, and adopt a complex approach to order." "We have to look for a shared base, but one framed in a complex, non-linear, non-exclusive logic, which has room for other options between the Yes and the No." "We have to learn to manage disagreements. There is no way we can work to unanimity."

One Brussels participant said that one thing he had learned from the practice of diplomacy was that it is possible to get nations to agree on almost anything if you carefully avoid trying to get them to agree on why they are agreeing.

3.3. The transmodern concept as a catalyst

In meetings from Brussels to Vancouver last year, the transmodern concept worked as a kind of catalyst of many people's intuitions in their differing searches for new meanings. Like their non-Western colleagues, many people in the West are looking for a new kind of synthesis between the best of their premodern traditions and the best of their modern experience. They are looking for a deeply tolerant spiritual source of energy; they want to discover—or rediscover—the traditions and wisdom of humanity.

Some trends in the evolution of Europe's younger generations may be moving in the same ("transmodern") direction. Sociologists of religion keep finding that younger people are searching for meaning in their lives. Religions can help in this search for meaning—but they are disregarded if they fight one another. The depth of the search is clearly beyond any parochial structure.

In foreign policy speeches by leaders in some European countries, the search for a "third way" is already a subject of lively discussion. Recent speeches by the Foreign Ministers of Sweden and the United Kingdom bear witness. In Italy there is evidence of an emerging desire to get beyond the traditional clash between

premodern-sacred-intolerant and the modern-rational dominant. Will the transmodern way of thinking serve as a useful catalyst in the politics of the European Union and the varied populations that are coming together under its promising auspices?

4. Conclusions

The European Commission and the World Academy developed during 1998 a series of stimulating meetings with a wide variety of thinkers from around the world. Reflecting on these fruitful and timely discussions, one conclusion is clear: our hypothesis about a transition to "transmodernity" is a rich tool of analysis.

1. The hypothesis can improve conflict analysis. It allows us to dissect, forecast, and perhaps resolve some "religious" conflicts in a more sophisticated way. It helps analyze the sources of intolerance and the prospects for more tolerant behavior. It should help discover, rather than repress or deny, conflicts of interpretation, conflicts about the definition of truth.

2. The hypothesis suggests the presence, now or in the future, of a still invisible Muslim "transmodern" majority: the moderate tolerant believers who are working to combine the best in their tradition with the best in modernity. Moderates are too often lumped with premoderns, or "fundamentalists". It can make a huge difference in European foreign policy if the moderates are becoming major players in international politics.

3. The acceptance, wider than foreseen, of our hypothesis by many non-Western and Western thinkers alike seems to indicate that the transmodern mind-shift is under way to some degree everywhere. We were mistaken to present this shift as something happening primarily in the West; it seems that it is a global phenomenon. This means important changes to come in international politics—and mandatory changes in the political imagery that leaders carry in their heads.

4. Much of the resentful and aggressive rhetoric heard in non-Western cultures is really directed not against "the West", but against what people see as the political, economic, psychological, and cultural fallout from modernity. This is also a powerful political message; but we are able to understand it only when we take a critical look at the collection of ideas and technologies called "modern".

5. Western and non-Western aspirations are strikingly similar. One Asian participant in Brussels asked why we were always speaking of Asians. "Why do you not say, WeT' He was right, of course. Though we had used this distinction (Western/non-Western) to help clarify the text, it is more and more evident that there are very similar aspirations in transmodern citizens East and West. So why not connect more, instead of perpertuating hostile images? This fresh new global dialogue among transmoderns could be a promising pathway to peace in the 21st century

5. Annex

Finally, we can summarise the essence of premodern, modern, and transmodern with the aid of the three simple diagrams given below.

Fig. 1 shows a premodern paradigm. This vision is vertical and authoritarian. It is also exclusive—we alone are custodians of the Truth which is handed down by "our" God. Everything has the meaning assigned to it by God. Under God there is a strict hierarchy: religious authorities, political authorities, men, and (lastly) women. But the world is enchanted; everybody and everything has its place.

The modern vision with modernity as the Truth is shown in Fig. 2. The Renaissance used reason to do away with clericalism. It "disenchanted" and secularized the world.

("Secular"=definable without reference to the existence of a god.) It created a salutary distinction between the religious and the profane. That led rapidly to a separation of the serious-rational-masculine-economic-scientific pole from the religion-intuition-aesthetic-feminine pole, which was relegated to the "private" sphere.

The transmodern vision of Fig. 3. shows that the transmodern epistemology is

inclusive: the Truth is in the center, with each individual converging toward it along his/her own path, via his/her own culture. No one owns the Truth. There is active tolerance. Women are reintegrated into society. Transmodern cosmology brings

women and men together around the same table as equal citizens of the world to decide about their common future.