The Tyranny of the European Context: Reading Classical Political Theory in International Relations

Abstract

‘What was it which gave unity to the ideas about the structure and development of society generated in Europe during... the century traditionally described as the Enlightenment?’ (Meek, 1976:1). Against the deeply held beliefs of (almost all) European scholars I will argue in the following pages that the answer to this question is: the discovery of the American Indian. The ‘discovery’ of ‘natural man’, or rather the identification of the American Indian with man in the state of nature, triggered a revolution in, or perhaps even the emergence of what would later become, the modern social sciences. In the first instance, now that ‘natural man’ had been ‘discovered’ one could ‘apply to the study of man and society those “scientific” methods of enquiry which had recently proved their worth and importance in the sphere of natural science’ (1976: 1). Secondly, the identification of the American Indian with man in the state of nature led to a redefinition of history along a linear timescale providing a secular telos as the basis of the historical process (Lestringant, 1994: 174; Cro, 1994: 388f; Pagden, 1993: 93, 111, 115). Thirdly, the ‘discovery’ of man in the state of nature provided European reformers with a basis from which to criticize the particular historical development of their own societies and with the means to theoretically reconstruct an alternative, universally valid, political community.