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Research Journal of the University of Ruhuna, Sri Lanka- Rohana 12, 2020

dependency has continued in one form or another. The situation of colonial
mentality experienced by Asian sociologists has been described by the term ‘captive
2
mind’ .

Western Modernity, its Influence and Critique: Santos, Connell, Comeroff &
Comeroff

As a paradigm that emerged in the global north and influenced thought and action in

the colonised periphery, we have to explore the basic features of Western modernity

paradigm and the manner of its export to colonised countries. According to Santos
(2014), Western modernity is characterized by abyssal thinking. ‘What is usually

called Western modernity is a very complex set of phenomena in which dominant
and subaltern perspectives coexist and constitutive of rival modernity’s (Santos

2014: ix-x). Santos argues that the paradigm of modernity consists of two forms of

knowledge: knowledge-as-emancipation and knowledge-as-regulation:

This social and epistemological paradigm suffered a historical accident…
th
from mid-19 century onward, the possibilities for the implementation of
this paradigm of modernity were reduced to those made available by world
capitalism. This accident created enormous turbulence between social

regulation and emancipation, which eventually led to the cannibalization of
social emancipation by social regulation. This led to a double crisis, each

feeding on the other. We find in this situation today. (Santos 2014: 139).

The fundamental problem confronting us today is ‘the failure to acknowledge the

presence of abyssal line dividing metropolitan from colonial societies decades after
the end of historical colonialism’ (Santos 2014: 70-71). Santos believes Western

modernity ‘underlies the hegemonic knowledge, whether philosophical or scientific,

produced in the West in the past two hundred years’ (Santos 2014:165-166). It

2 Syed Hussein Alatas developed this concept in the early 1970s. For a discussion of the concept and
its meaning, see (Alatas 2006: 30-31).
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