Transmodernism, Marxism and Social Change

Transmodernism, Marxism and Social Change:

MIKE COLE

Bishop Grosseteste College, Lincoln, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT

The author first briefly outlines what he considers to be the defining features of
transmodernism and its relationship both to postmodernism and to Marxism. He then
suggests that transmodern interpretations of the legacy of the European invasions of the
Americas are illuminating, as is Marxism, in providing an understanding of how the
imperialism in which contemporary US foreign policy is currently engaged has a specific and
long-standing genealogy. However, he argues that the Marxist concept of racialisation is
more convincing in explaining the source of violence against the Other than the
transmodern positing of ‘basic narcissism’ as the source. Next, he contrasts the transmodern
perception of liberal democracy with Marxist analyses of democratic socialism. After this, he
challenges transmodernism’s conception of Marxism as an imposed and utopian philosophy
locked within modernism. He concludes with a consideration of the political and economic
choices open to us, and, with respect to these choices, the implications of both
transmodernism and Marxism for sustaining resistance to neo-liberal capitalism and US
imperialism within teacher education.

Introduction

Transmodernism, Modernism and Postmodernism

Transmodern ideas are relatively new to academia in the North. Indeed, it is still relatively difficult
to get copies in English of the publications of its leading advocate, Enrique Dussel. For me,
transmodernism’s defining features are:
• not so much a way of thinking as a new way of living in relation to Others;
• anti-Eurocentrism;
• anti-(US)imperialism;
• analogic reasoning: reasoning from outside the system of global domination;
• analectic interaction: listening to the voices of ‘suffering Others’ and interacting democratically
with suffering Others;
• reverence for (indigenous and ancient) traditions of religion, culture, philosophy and morality;
• rejection of totalising synthesis.

Transmodernism, Marxism and Social Change