Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe. Postcolonial thought and historical difference

Why was it impor­tant that the modern indi­vi­dual be concep­tua­li­zed in terms of this inter­nal struggle bet­ween passion/sentiments and rea­son ? Timothy Mitchell’s dis­cus­sion of Durkheim in Colonising Egypt offers a sug­ges­tive ans­wer. The very concep­tion of modern indi­vi­dual, Mitchell says in dis­cus­sing Durkheim’s texts, poses a threat to the concep­tion of the social and the gene­ral, for if indi­vi­duals are endo­wed with infi­nite indi­vi­dua­li­ty (which is what the dra­ma of pas­sions is sup­po­sed to reveal—each per­son his or her own nove­list and ana­ly­sand at the same time), what is there to gua­ran­tee the uni­ty of the social ? What would prevent the social realm, made up of such indi­vi­duals (that is, people not sim­ply sub­ject to social prac­tice, as they were sup­po­sed to be in pri­mi­tive socie­ties), from col­lap­sing into the night­mare of ano­mie ? The ans­wer, at the level of the indi­vi­dual, would be : rea­son. Reason, by focu­sing the mind on the gene­ral and the uni­ver­sal, would guide the individual’s pas­sion into its right­ful place in the social realm. This thought, taken by itself, was not neces­sa­ri­ly modern, but its gene­ra­li­za­tion through socie­ty, one could argue, marks the coming of moder­ni­ty.