1.1
Two Imperialisms of the Universal
On the Strategies of Unification of the Cultural Field1

Much of what we can see in the relations between France and the United States is the product of a structure of relations that we need to think of as a confrontation between two imperialisms of the universal. One of the most eminent properties of these two nations, namely their claim to a certain universality, in the political domain in particular, with, for instance, a particular form of constitution and democratic tradition, is part of the political baggage and the symbolic capital that these nations can place at the service of very specific (and very different) forms of imperialism. As always, the sociologist plays the villain here: he disenchants, puts a spanner in the works; he does not fete democracy but questions the social usages that may be made of the democratic idea, which are not always very democratic.

France has the particularity of exercising a form of imperialism which may be characterized as an imperialism of the universal: an imperialism that operates above all on the political terrain, but which is also effective in the area of lifestyle and everyday existence, enjoying a legitimacy which it derives from its more or less widely recognized claim to universality. In the struggle for the monopoly of the universal, where the great nations have always challenged one another by invoking whatever is most universal at the time in question, not least through religions (such as Christianity) or ethics declared to be universal, France has had - at least in the modern period - a certain advantage, with its Revolution (whose priority has been contested, and not by accident, on the occasion of the celebration of the French Revolution). France includes in its patrimony the universal Revolution par excellence. The French Revolution, as founding myth of the French Republic, is the universal revolution and the universal model of all revolution. The Marxist tradition has drawn on this to provide the most extraordinary legitimization of France's claim to hold the monopoly of universal revolution. And we are not a little surprised to observe that the Marxists of all the great modern countries - England, the United States, Japan, etc. - have constantly asked themselves whether they have had a true revolution, that is, a French or a French-style Revolution. In so doing, Marx and Marxism have greatly helped to establish the French Revolution as the universal model of revolution.2 And everyone knows that the leading thinker of the universal, the figure that any discourse on the universal must invoke, namely, Kant, consecrated the French Revolution as the universal revolution.3 But we could find ever so many more, purely sociological attestations of this quasi-universal recognition of the universality of the particular revolution that was the French Revolution and, thereby, of the nation born of this revolution and consequently invested with a sort of exceptional status. If the French Revolution is the focus of such debates, on both sides of the Atlantic, and not only on the occasion of an anniversary, it is precisely because, through the French Revolution and the idea that we have of it, the key issue is perhaps the monopoly of universality, the monopoly of the rights of man, the monopoly of Humanity, etc.

In this perspective, the French Revolution figures as the legitimizing myth founding France's claim to universality, and thereby to the right to universalize its national culture. Since France has a national culture with claims to be universal, the French feel authorized (or did at least until the Second World War) to indulge in a form of cultural imperialism, which takes the form of a legitimate proselytism of the universal. This is nowhere better seen than in their colonial enterprises, as appears so clearly in a comparative history of the colonizing strategies of the French and the English. French colonization, often conceived as a civilizing and emancipating mission, is characterized by an extraordinary self-confidence, based on the certainty of having the particularity of universality (we often forget today that there was a left-wing colonialism, inclined to view annexation by assimilation as a liberating promotion to the universal).

The imperialism of the universal views itself as a liberating imperialism: there is nothing better than being colonized by France. 'What can I do better for the colonized than make him an alter ego, giving him access to what I am, to this culture that is mine but in addition is universal?' And this is why the claim to the universal is nowhere stronger than in the domain of culture. Now, one of the historical particularities of France, which affirmed itself above all at the end of the nineteenth century, is that for historical reasons it secured another monopoly for itself, that of cultural legitimacy, or, to be more precise, of that other cultural capital, the 'chic', which we can illustrate with two splendid texts by Valéry on Paris, showing triumphal insouciance:4 we wonder how it was possible to feel universal to such a degree, to the point of being able quite simply to say that Paris is by definition the universal capital of the cultural world. France appears here as a sort of ideology materialized: to be French is to feel the right to universalize your particular interest, this national interest which has the characteristic of being universal. And twice over, in a way: universal in the matter of politics, with the pure model of the universal revolution, and universal in matters of culture, with the monopoly of (Parisian) chic. We can understand how, although its monopoly of the universal is hotly contested, in particular by the United States, France remains the arbiter of elegance in matters of 'radical chic', as they say across the pond; she continues to offer the universe this spectacle of the universal at play, and in particular of the art of transgression that makes the political and/or artistic avant-gardes - with their seemingly inimitable manner of feeling always just out of reach beyond the boundaries - able to play with virtuosity on the elusive harmonies among the discord, etc., of political and cultural avant-gardism; it is no surprise that the writer whose name is most directly associated with that acme of radical chic, the review Tel Quel, has recently revealed himself to be one of the fiercest defenders of French spelling.5 No one may touch a language which, by the admission of the Berlin Academy that crowned Rivarol, is clearly universal.6

Faced with this French imperialism, which remains the paradigm of universal imperialism, the United States proclaims a rival version which finds its foundation or its justification in the myth of democracy in America, elaborated by Tocqueville,7 who was doubly suited to fulfil this function, since he was French and an aristocrat (for me to be legitimate, I need someone different - a foreigner - to recognize me; if I crown myself - as Napoleon did - instead of asking the Pope to do it, it fails to work). In the struggle for the monopoly of universality, the recognition accorded by others, in particular by other countries, is decisive. And it is no accident for instance if the French are always (even today) summoned (and sometimes volunteer) to crown American universality.

The strong points of the American version of the imperialism of the universal are obviously their constitution, Congress, and unity in pluralism, etc., and when the Americans claim political universalism, it is readily granted them. But for some time now they have also claimed cultural universality, not without success. On this point they particularly wound French sensibilities; although French ambitions of a political order have been blunted, despite some visible vestiges of Gaullism remaining, French claims to cultural universalism are still strong, and we could show that in many areas, including the domain of science, where the universal is measured in Nobel Prizes, the French do their best to remain competitive. The strategies of universalization that all ambitious nations use to justify their domination take on unexpected forms today; for example science itself - with its Nobel Prizes - has become one of the great goals in the struggle for legitimacy within what we might call the global political field; science, and also a form of philosophy based on science. In the struggle for the monopoly of the legitimate domination of the world, the capital, in Valéry's sense,8 is today Harvard or Chicago, which, in addition to a strong scientific capital symbolized by their Nobel laureates, unite and combine a constellation of talent and a philosophy of action that represents human action as produced by rational calculation and which therefore connects human intent very strongly with scientific rationality, an economic theory strongly formalized and legitimized in the name of mathematics, a philosophical theory of rational decision, etc., and this rationalistic-technocratic complex appears to have quite extraordinary powers of legitimization; science, which is the universal discourse par excellence, becomes the supreme form of ideological apologia.9 To which we should add that other weapon which is morals, a traditional strong point (all American foreign interventions since 1917 have been covered by the claim to be acting in the name of universalism and in defence of values and morals; and it is worth analysing the strategies of universalization forwarded...