Prepared for use at the panel on "Insecurity: Migration (Refugees) and Ethnic Nationalism as Symptoms of World Systemic Crisis" during the conference of the International Studies Association in Toronto, March 1997

DRAFT: Please do not quote or cite without the author's permission.

CONTENTS

• The Malody of Modernity,
• The Roots of Modern Ethnicity,
• Diversity versus Cleavages and Plurality,
• ENDNOTES
• REFERENCES

ABSTRACT

Although multi-culturalism is an ancient phenomenon, it has taken on radically new forms as a result of modernity, described here as a composite whose main elements include industrialism, nationalism, and democracy. All three components antedate modernity, but have acquired new forms and impact by virtue of their relationship to the modern states which they define. Under the impact of these forces, ethnicity has become a focus of concern in three main forms: ethnic diversity, ethnic cleavages, and ethnic pluralness (as distinguished from "pluralism"). The contemporary ethnic conflicts that increasingly perplex the world and will, I fear, escalate in the coming years, are a distinctive result of the negative consequences of modernity (what I call the para-modern) by contrast with the more admirable positive effects of modernity (here referred to as the ortho-modern). The distinctively modern and tragic consequences of modernity for ethnicity can only be understood in a historical context that links modernity with its roots in the rise to power of capitalism and its dire consequences as manifest in the emergence and death of modern imperialism.

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Updated: 3 March 1997

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