Postmodern Critique of the Grand-Narrative of History
For those, like Jean-Françoise Lyotard, who base their approach to the question of modernity by identifying its grand narratives (or metanarratives), history becomes one of the central entities of analysis. “History (in singular and in upper case) is understood as a succession of facts [...] that escalate in a lineal fashion, in the path toward emancipation. Present appears as the clogging of past events and its shifts as unavoidable traces of the route of «progress» towards new «development» stages (superior, transcendent, advanced, etc.) as the primitives, antiques, and inferior social formations are left «behind».” (Translation is mine; Gazir Sued, p. 24) In that passage Gazir Sued summarized the basic assumptions of the conception of history in modernity. That conception of history is fundamental to the understanding of modernity. Under the rubric of history there is a crystallization of the basic assumptions of modernity in terms of the subject, of its political projects, and of its philosophy. The historical teleology, either in its materialist or idealist versions, is the modern paradigm of history. The autonomous individual is capable of changing his objective conditions and guiding history towards a higher step in the quest for human freedom. So, change is a positive phenomenon as long it promises a “step forward in the route towards progress and emancipation.” But progress is not only characterized in terms of freedom. Its signals also are that of modern sciences, of industry, of production, of rationalization. This explains why the history of sciences is also a narrative of progress and economic history is one of the developments of different means of production which move humanity to a “higher level” on History’s ladder.
Postmodern Critique of the Grand-Narrative of History
The following are other of the Grand-Narratives of Modernity:
The Emergence of the Individual
Science: The Light of Modern Knowledge
The Political Economy of Modernity