Dichotomously Stiffened Dialectics in the Entangled Modernity of the Colonized and the Colonizers: A Critical Comment on Professor Singh’s Article“, Colonised’s Madness, Colonisers’ Modernity and International Law: Mythological Materialism in the East-West Telos”

Dichotomously Stiffened Dialectics in the Entangled Modernity of the Colonized and the Colonizers: A Critical Comment on Professor Singh’s Article“, Colonised’s Madness, Colonisers’ Modernity and International Law: Mythological Materialism in the East-West Telos”

A primary purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate Professor P. Singh’s Article,“Colonised’s Madness, Colonisers’Modernity and International Law: MythologicalMaterialism in the East-West Telos”published in Volume 3, Number 1 of theJournal of East Asia and International Law. In his article, Singh attempted tooverlap various conceptions of modernity taken from a wide range of academicdisciplines, and experimentally collapse them into one with a post-colonial point ofview. In spite of incomplete argumentation and obscurity in the conceptualformulation, I found his original ideas on the internal connection of modernity withthe operating mode of international law to be highly impressive. The most critical point against him was the firm and stereotypical dichotomy of the colonizer and thecolonized without any potentiality of sublating the state of colonization, that is,disconnecting the colonizers with their colony and liberating the colonized from theircolony. By such sublation (Aufheben) of the existing oppressive relation between thecolonizers and the colonized, we can plan to build a new world of peaceful coexistencebetween the colonizers and the colonized of the past. But although Singh’sconception of modernity is dangerously one-sided, I expect his further research topenetrate into the deep life-reality of the Indian subaltern, which would make a greatcontribution to the establishment of the new vision of international law in this globalsociety.

A primary purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate Professor P. Singh’s Article,“Colonised’s Madness, Colonisers’Modernity and International Law: MythologicalMaterialism in the East-West Telos”published in Volume 3, Number 1 of theJournal of East Asia and International Law. In his article, Singh attempted tooverlap various conceptions of modernity taken from a wide range of academicdisciplines, and experimentally collapse them into one with a post-colonial point ofview. In spite of incomplete argumentation and obscurity in the conceptualformulation, I found his original ideas on the internal connection of modernity withthe operating mode of international law to be highly impressive. The most critical point against him was the firm and stereotypical dichotomy of the colonizer and thecolonized without any potentiality of sublating the state of colonization, that is,disconnecting the colonizers with their colony and liberating the colonized from theircolony. By such sublation (Aufheben) of the existing oppressive relation between thecolonizers and the colonized, we can plan to build a new world of peaceful coexistencebetween the colonizers and the colonized of the past. But although Singh’sconception of modernity is dangerously one-sided, I expect his further research topenetrate into the deep life-reality of the Indian subaltern, which would make a greatcontribution to the establishment of the new vision of international law in this globalsociety.