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TEACHING CLASSICAL SOCIOLOGICAL THEORYIN SINGAPORE: THE CONTEXT OF EUROCENTRISM*

We argue that there is a need to rethink the teaching of classical sociologicaltheories given our concern with the limitations of the received theoreticalcanon, and through our encounters with students of sociology who alsopersistently ask that the classics be shown to be meaningful and of contempo-rary relevance. In our teaching, we highlight Eurocentrism as an additional andessential context for understanding the rise of classical sociological theory, andto attune students in more meaningful ways to the works of Marx, Weber, andDurkheim. Ironically, such an approach constitutes a new form of legitimatingthe classics by revealing their timeless qualities, notwithstanding their Eurocen-trism.

SYED FARID ALATASNational University of Singapore

ViNEETA SiNHA

National University of Singapore

WHY READ OR TEACH the works of Marx,Weber, and Durkheim, or other Europeanauthors long departed to a class of Singa-porean or Southeast Asian students? Whathave the ideas of three European theorists,born in the last century, in a differentcultural milieu, to do with the SoutheastAsia of today?

The issue of the relevance or applicabilityof the social sciences to non-Western con-texts has been raised by scholars across awide variety of disciplines since the 19thcentury (S.H. Alatas 1956; Fei [1947] 1979;Rizal [1890] 1962; Sarkar [1937] 1985). Ithas also been noted that the social sciencesemerged amidst specific historical conditionsand cultural practices, a recognition thatshould lead to a critique of received theoriesand methods and the creation of originalperspectives (S.H. Alatas 1972; 1974; 1979;Bennagen 1980; Blake 1991).

While the various calls for alternative

•Please address all correspondence to the au-thors at the Department of Sociology, NationalUniversity of Singapore, Singapore 117570, Re-public of Singapore; e-mail: [email protected](Syed Farid Alatas) and [email protected](Vineeta Sinha)

Editor's note: The reviewers were, in alpha-betical order. Jay R. Howard and ChristineIngraham.

discourses (S.H. Alatas 1981; Atal 1981;Bell 1994; Ben Jelloun 1974; Khatibi 1967;Zawiah 1994) have in theory noted Eurocen-trism and Orientalism in the social sciences,they have so far been unable to displacethem in practice. Presently, many socialscientists are engaged in at least the dualtask of tertiary education as well as personalresearch. The critique of the social sciencesthat emanated from academic institutions inAsia, Africa, and Latin America tend toremain at an abstract and reflexive level.'Neither have these calls manifested them-selves at the level of teaching in the socialsciences. In fact, there is sufficient evidencefor the great gulf between undergraduateteaching and the realm of research.^

This is not to suggest that sociologists

'There have been several thoughtful pieces onthe state of the various disciplines, raising theissue of the lack of connectedness between thesocial science and the societies in which they aretaught (S.H. Alatas 1972; 1974; Asante 1990;Atal 1981; Fu 1993; Lie 1996; Uberoi 1968).The calls to decolonise the social sciences weregenerally not followed by successful attempts tobuild "indigenous" theories or autonomous so-cial science traditions delinked from the aca-demic core of Western Europe and North Amer-ica.

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have not critically addressed problems in theteaching ofthe classics. In Teaching Sociol-ogy and other journals, several pieces ad-dressing colonial and global topics appearedin the 1990s. Many of them, however,discuss these topics within a specificallyAmerican context and are not necessarilyconcerned with reorganizing sociologicaltheory courses (for example. Lie 1995; Mar-tin 1996). Those that do deal with the con-tent of sociological theory syllabi are alsogenerally writing within an American orBritish context (see Lewis and Alshtawi1992; Parker 1997). The present paper fur-ther develops the idea of what has beenreferred to elsewhere as a multicultural soci-ology (Dumont 1995; Parker 1997) by out-lining our experience in teaching classicalsociological theory in a novel way.

An essential component of sociologicaltraining in most universities is the teachingof classical sociological theory. No doubt allstudents of sociology have at some pointencountered Marx, Weber, and Durkheim asthe "founding fathers" of their discipline.What constitutes sociological theory is gen-erally defined as the particular writings of aset of European scholars, names with whichmost social scientists are familiar. Startingfrom a rather large pool, central, maleWestern figures have emerged and are con-sistently viewed as forefathers of sociology.Furthermore, in mainstream discourse, thesocial sciences are defmed and accepted asbeing of "Western" orighi. This is institu-tionalized as common wisdom not just inWestern acadeniic circles but also in thenon-West.' The rationale for rethinking theteaching of sociological theory is not onlygrounded in our theoretical concems butalso in our encounters with sociology stu-dents. Generally speaking, undergraduate

See note 4.'There are, however, some scholars (albeit a

minority) who problematize the taken-for-granted defmition of the social sciences as"Western" disciplines (Alatas 1993; 1995; Sanda1988; Sinha 1997). Conceptually and ideologi-cally, we consider this to be a legitimate re-search agenda.

Students consider social theory to be "dry,dull and boring, intimidating, and full ofjargon." Frequently, the label "irrelevant"is also heard in this connection, even in theWest itself (Parker 1997). The followingquestion is then logically raised: how cansocial theory be made interesting and rele-vant?

Additionally, the issue of teaching"Western" sociological theory in a non-Western context to non-Westerners adds acritical dimension to the subject. Of course,a more universalistic approach to the studyof sociological theory would have to raisethe question of whether it is possible toidentify examples of sociological theorizingoutside of Western/European responses tomodernity. The example of the 14th centuryArab scholar, Ibn Khaldun, comes to mind.Recognition of theoretical insight in IbnKhaldun's work would imply changes insociology theory curricula. Nevertheless, itis not our contention that the recognition ofcontextuality requires that Western sociolog-ical theory be deleted from sociology curric-ula in non-Western tiniversities. Rather, weargue for a fresh approach to teaching classi-cal sociological theory that attunes studentsin more meaningfiil and critical ways to theworks of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim.Ironically, such an approach constitutes anew form of legitimating the classics byrevealing their timeless qualities, notwith-standing their various conceptual andmethodological limitations.

This paper proceeds as follows. We beginby stating the rationale of rethinking thetheory course given our critique of Eurocen-trism. This is then followed by a descriptionof the classical theory course that we refor-mulated and co-taught. Finally, we docu-ment and review student responses to thenewly structured course as evinced fromclassroom discussions, and thus reflect onthe value and effect of teaching classicalsociological theory in this different mode.

RETHINKING SC3101:THE CONTEXT OF EUROCENTRISM

Classical sociological theory courses are

318 TEACHING SOCIOLOGY

taught in Asian countries without due recog-nition of the historical context and culturalpractices of the students who enroll in thesecourses. The emphasis is on the context ofthe rise of sociological theories in Europe,dealing with issues that may bear little his-torical relevance or cultural meaning to ourstudents. It is often noted that sociologicaltheory arose as a result of thinkers reflectingupon social forces and problems, such aspolitical revolutions, the industrial revolu-tion and the rise of capitalism, urbanization,and the growth of science (Ritzer 1983:6-8),^

In general, we discern two fundamentalproblems with such syllabi. First, non-Western founders or precursors of socialthought and social theory are generally leftout of the course outlines. Second, classicalsociological theory is not contextualized in amanner that establishes a relevant referencepoint for students everywhere. While Euro-pean enlightenment, the transition from feu-dalisrn to capitalism, and democratization inEurope, and so on, form a relevant context

"A gtance at the course outlines of undergradu-ate sociological theory courses in a number ofuniversities in Asia shows that theory is taught inmuch the same way as it is offered in a British orNorth American university. For example, theclassical sociological theory (M1040) syllahus ofthe department of sociology. National TaiwanUniversity is devoted to the study of AugusteComte, Karl Marx, Friederich Engels, HerbertSpencer, Ferdinand Toennies, Emile Durkheim,Georg Simmel, Max Weber, and Vilfredo Pareto(For more information contact Alatas). At thedepartment of sociology. University of Dhaka, acompulsory course for the Bachelors of SocialScience in sociology, history of sociology (Soc301), covers very much the same ground inaddition to the inclusion of more contemporarytheorists such as Karl Mannheim, Talcott Par-sons, Robert Merton, George Herbert Mead,and others (University of Dhaka 1988: 18-20).An elective course, history of Western socialthought (Soc 311), does, ironically, include IbnKhaldun, while there is a separate course onnon-Western thinkers in India and Bangladeshhistory of social thought in the orient withparticular reference to India and Bangladesh Soc

for understanding the emergence of socio-logical theory, we argue that the historicalfact of European political and cultural domi-nation of non-Europe from the 15th centuryonwards is a crucial additional context. Thelatter is seldom given any space, let aloneequal weight, in conventional teaching ofclassical theory. As is well known, thisdomination resulted, among other things, inthe implantation of European social sciencesin non-European societies, whether thesesocieties were colonized by the Europeansor not (Dube 1984; Karim 1984; Kyi 1984;Rana 1984). Furthermore, and more impor-tantly, it was in the period of Europeancolonial domination that the European classi-cal theorists wrote not only about their ownsocieties but the "Orient" as well. Often,their analysis and reflections on non-Western societies were as much statementson the "Occident" as they were on the"Orient." Such a realization suggests theneed for a different and critical approach toteaching classical sociological theory. In ourreconstruction of the syllabus for SC3101,'

312 (University of Dhaka 1988: 43-50). Soc 311and Soc 312 are both elective courses, however.At the University of Delhi, sociological theory(Paper V) covers only Marx, Weber, Durkheim,Parsons, and Merton (University of Delhi), Thedepartment of sociology at the University ofJordan offers a sociological theory course cover-ing Ibn Khaldun, Comte, Spencer, Durkheim,Toennies, and Gabriel Tarde (For more informa-tion contact Alatas), By and large, non-Westernthinkers are not included. Neither is sociologicaltheory contextualised differently in comparisonto how it is taught in North America and Europe.The above is also true of SC3101 (social thoughtand social theory), offered as a compulsorymodule to third (final) year sociology majors atthe National University of Singapore, as it wastaught in previous years.

'The course consisted of 23 lectures taughtover 13 weeks. The class size per semesteraveraged about 160 students. The students brokeinto groups of about 10 and would meet with usfor a total of 10 tutorial sessions, in the course ofthe semester. The primary pedagogical strategywas the tutorial. During each of the 10 tutorialsessions, each of which lasted an hour, selected


we highlight in this paper the problem ofEurocentrism* as one of several central bi-ases in the existing sociological canon.

Given our theoretical interests and teach-ing experiences, we formulated an alterna-tive mode of introducing sociological theorygiven our non-Western teaching location.Nevertheless, the new version is equallyappropriate for Western universities, dealingas it does with biases that must be correctedin any context. Using Marx, Weber, andDurkheim as our starting point, we aimed toask the question: How can we teach thesociological canon to incorporate both ourtheoretical concems and the needs of ourstudents?

Bearing in mind these concems, we beginwith the theme of Eurocentrism as a crucialpoint of orientation. A cautionary word onour usage of the term "Eurocentrism" isnecessary. As we understand the term, itsignifies far more than its literal and com-monplace meaning, "Europe-centeredness."We hold that Eurocentrism connotes a par-ticular position, a perspective, a way ofseeing and not-seeing that is rooted in anumber of problematic claims and assump-tions. We also did not want to ourselvesessentialize by assigning to the three theo-rists the same, generalized usage of the label"Eurocentrism." In fact, we quite con-sciously strived to establish the specific anddifferent ways in which aspects of the theo-ries tinder consideration may or may not beEurocentric. We are aware, furthermore,that the recognition of Eurocentrism in thewritings of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim is

topics from the lectures and course readingswere assigned and discussed at some length.The student responses included in this paper arederived from discussions we had with our stu-dents during the tutorials. The full course out-line, including the lecture and tutorial schedules,is available upon request froni the authors.

'When we taught the same course the secondtime around, we included Harriet Martineau asone of the four classical theorists in our attemptto address the bias of androcentrism in classicalsociological theory. Unfortunately, we are un-able to give equal treatment to androcentric bias

neither a surprise nor a recent discovery.Yet despite the datedness of this theme in thesocial sciences, the critique of Eurocentrismhas not meaningfully reshaped the ways inwhich we theorize the emergence of theclassical sociological canon. So despite"knowing" that some aspects of Marx's,Weber's, and Durkheim's writings are"Eurocentric," and expectedly so, the issueof how this impacts our contemporary read-ing of their works remains largely unad-dressed and untheorized.

In an effort to deal with these issues, weassign an essay by Wallerstein on Eurocen-trism (1996). Through this paper, we alertstudents to the complexity and multi-dimensionality of the concept. This includesattention to Eurocentric historiography, defi-nitions of progress, the claims to uniquenessof European civilization and capitalism, andthe problem of Orientalism. We also aim todemonstrate that social science theories as-stime that the development of modem capi-talist society in Europe was not only good,but would be replicated elsewhere, and thattherefore, scientific theories are valid acrosstime and space.

We contextually locate the issue of Euro-pean political, economic, and cultural domi-nation of the non-West in the very emer-gence of sociological theory itself. We thenraise a series of related questions: How havecolonial and imperial encounters shapedconceptualization in the social sciences byWestem scholars? How have these writersimagined both the "non-West" and the"West?" How are we to assess and gaugeclassical sociological theories given the pos-

in the social sciences here in this paper. In aseparate written piece: "Reading Harriet Mar-tineau: Parallels in Counter-Androcentric andCounterTEurocentric Discourses," (2000) Vi-neeta Sinha has documented more comprehen-sively our experiences of introducing womensocial thinkers and theorists in the teaching oftheory. We fiiUy recognize and endorse the needto give equal emphases to these two biases, andto pay attention to the ways in which they furtherintersect—something we intend to incorporate indeveloping the course further.


sibility of different kinds of biases, includinga Eurocentric bias?

In posing these questions, we operate onthe premise that a creative approach tosociological theory that imparts a level ofmeaning to the students hitherto unexperi-enced, should incorporate these three inter-related objectives: (1) to generate conscious-ness of "Eurocentrism" as a theme andcontext that informs classical sociologicaltheory, (2) to demonstrate the utility oftheory for the recovery of our past(Singapore or Southeast Asia) from Euro-centric accounts of it, and (3) to demonstratethe utility of theory for the understanding ofcontemporary realities in areas and regionscloser to home. Our teaching approach wasabove all influenced by the first of theseobjectives.' The need to reorient the coursein this way is held to be all the moreimportant because we note that Eurocen-trism is not only found in European scholar-ship, but has affected the development ofthesocial sciences in non-Western societies in anumber of ways: (1) the lack of knowledgeof our own histories as evidenced in sociol-ogy textbooks, (2) through Eurocentrism,images of our society are constructed whichwe come to regard as real until Eurocentricscholarship yields alternative images thatmay be equally Eurocentric,* and (3) thelack of original theorizing. Because of thedeluge of works on theory, methodology,and empirical research arising mainly fromNorth America and Europe, there has beenmuch consumption of imported theories,techniques, and research agendas. Bearingin mind these three problems, we suggestedto students that they should (1) bear in mindthe context in which sociological theorydeveloped; (2) gauge its usefulness for the

'We plan to include Ibn Khaldun and othernon-Western sociologists and social thinkers infuture incarnations of this course, but these arenot meant to replace Martineau, Marx, Weber,and Durkheim.

'it was widely believed that values, attitudes,and cultural patterns as a whole change in theprocess of modernisation, and that such changeswere inevitable (Kahn 1979; Rudolph and

study of our own context (i.e., non-western); and (3) be aware of the Eurocen-tric aspects of sociological theory, whichdetracts from its scientific value.

In terms of teaching tools and strategies,the rethinking of this course entailed empha-sizing those aspects of say, Marx's worksthat demonstrate his Eurocentrism, or selec-tions of Weber's writings that either proveor invalidate similar charges levelled at him.For example, in addition to reading Marx'sContribution (1970) and Grundrisse (1973),we also chose to focus on Marx's discussionof the Asiatic mode of production and hisdiscussions on colonialism in India (Marxand Engels 1968), themes that are routinelyexcluded in sociological theory courses.More importantly, through our treatment ofthese substantive issues, we further hoped togenerate discussions about the effects ofidentifying Eurocentric biases in theseworks. Hence, we presented to our studentsthe following reading vis-k-vis specific as-pects of the works of Marx, Weber, andDurkheim.

MarxWhile the section on Marx did deal withtraditional topics such as the transition fromfeudalism to capitalism, circulation and pro-duction, alienation, class-consciousness, thestate, and ideology, there was an attempt towork into the materials the three inter-related objectives referred to above. Forexample, we argued that the relevance ofMarx's discussion on the transition fromfeudalism to capitalism is that it suggeststhat the presence of an emerging bourgeoisiein feudal society and a weak decentralizedstate in feudal societies were preconditionsfor the rise of capitalism. This in turn

Rudolph 1967). However, after the experienceof high growth in East Asia in the 1980s andearly 1990s, traditional cultural patterns such asthose derived from Confucianism were offeredas a factor explaining growth. With the onset ofthe Asian financial crisis in 1997, however, onceagain Confiicianism and Asian values had be-come suspect for having a hand in the economicdecline.


implies that these preconditions were non-existent in non-European societies. Wepushed our students further with thesequeries: To what extent is this tme, and towhat extent is this a Eurocentric view?

Further, we asked whether in line withEurocentric assumptions that Europe wasunique, did Marx assume that such prerequi-sites were not to be found outside of Europe,and that precapitalist modes of productionoutside of Europe were obstacles to capital-ist development? This question led to adiscussion of Marx's Asiatic mode of pro-duction, particularly with reference to India.

Here we pointed out that Marx was oftenfactually wrong about his characterization of"Asiatic" economies and societies, and thatundergirding his political economy wereOrientalist assumptions, which viewed non-European societies as being the polar oppo-site of Europe. Bearing in mind the prob-lematic nature of Marx's characterization ofIndian society and his discussion of theAsiatic mode of production, we noted thatdespite this limitation, Marx's concept ofthe"mode of production" is extremely centralto sociological analysis. Yet, recognizing thelimitation is cmcial as it informs even con-temporary interpretations of his works, andperpetuates certain images of Asiatic and/orIndian society..

These discussions then made it possible toprovide a more critical reading of Singa-pore's or Southeast Asia's past while retain-ing the universalistic aspects of Marxisttheory. For example, an article on colonialideology in British Malaya was assigned(Hirschman 1986). Here it was possible todemonstrate the utility of the Marxist con-cept of ideology for the critique of theEurocentric aspects of colonial capitalism,of which Marx himself partook.

In addressing such topics as class con-sciousness, the state, and ideology, we in-cluded readings on contemporary ThirdWorld societies and on Southeast Asia inorder that students might see the relevanceof the ideas of Marx to regions other thanhis own. There was a concerted attempt,therefore, to expose Eurocentric elements in

Marx's writings while preserving the univer-sal elements of his work as well as his largertheoretical contributions.

WeberIn our discussions of Weber's work, weexplored two related themes: first, howWeber and his writings have been"Orientalized," and second, the nature ofWeberian Orientalism or Eurocentrism, ifindeed Weber is "Orientalist." In these con-versations, we impressed upon the studentsthat in evaluating Weber's work, we werenot concemed only with Weber's intentionsor his personal position, that is, with thequestion of whether Weber was himselfEurocentric or Orientalist. Our goal wasalso to ask if Weber's sociological writingsrevealed, or were embedded hi Eurocentricand Orientalist assumptions, and how ouranswers would shape our subsequent inter-pretation of Weber's theoretical contribu-tions.

According to Weber, the form that capital-ism took in the West could only originatethere because it required an attitude of com-mercial gain and profit that Weber called thespirit of capitalism, which he assumed wasto be foimd in Protestant-dominated areas ofEurope (Weber 1958a). Weber acknowl-edged that although Islamic and Confucianworld views do stress frugality and hardwork, the spirit of capitalism did not emergein the Arab world or in China because ofthese missing elements: an ascetic compul-sion to work, this-worldly asceticism, andthe rationalization of life. In class, we askedif this reasoning revealed Eurocentric as-sumptions.

We also addressed how Third Worldscholars have received Weber's theories.The latter have generally assumed that forWeber, capitalism was an advanced, pro-gressive economic system, and thus some-thing "good and desirable," and followingfrom this, that Westem society was superiorin this respect. Consequently, some non-Westem scholars have reacted defensively toWeber, and attempted to show that theirown religions (Islam, Buddhism, Confucian-


ism) were indeed conducive to the develop-ment of capitalism. We saw this as the"Orientalisation" of Weber's Protestantethic theory in which Orientalist tendencieswere attributed to the works of Weber.'

This led to a discussion on the relevanceof Weber's Protestant ethic theory to South-east Asia in which we attempted to rescueWeber from various misreadings, and high-lighted the value of his sociology of religionfor theorizing culture and development. Forexample, some class time was spent dis-cussing the possibility that current interpre-tations of Confucianism and developmenttend to implicitly valorize a disenchantedworld. Weber's views on objectivity and thesocial sciences, and his separation of factand value were discussed as well (Weber1969). We found them useful in clarifyingthe distinction between value-laden and Eu-rocentric social science.

Turning to the second theme, the nature ofWeberian Orientalism or Eurocentrism, wediscussed Weber's arguments about the ori-gin of modern, rational capitalism in theWest in The Protestant Ethic and the Spiritof Capitalism (1958a) by contextualizing thistext in the larger corpus of his comparativesociology of religion. We then assignedselections from Weber's The Religion ofIndia (1958b) and Religion of China (1951).Through attention to Weber's sociology ofreligion, we were able to abstract Weber'sdiscourse on the specific socio-economic andcultural descriptions of "Western" and"non-Western" societies. For example, inlooking at The Religion of India, we notedWeber's attention to caste and Hinduism asdefining and distinct features of Indian soci-ety. We further pointed out that Weber'sunderstanding of caste and Hinduism is in-formed by a textual reading that is problem-atic and provides some evidence for hisessentializing and Orientalizing Indian soci-ety, in addition to a weak substantive ac-count of the same. Similarly, Weber's ac-count of Confucianism and Taoism in his

'On the Third World consumption of Weber,see Buss (1984).

Religion of China raises broader conceptualquestions about the limitations of treating theJudeo-Christian notion of religion as a uni-versal category of investigation; can Confu-cianism and Taoism be treated as religionsin this sense? Furthermore Weber's charac-terization of Confucianism as "world affirm-ing" and of Confucian rationalism as a"rational adjustment to the world," con-tribute to the image of Chinese society asstatic and unchanging or at least not inclinedtowards change. This again feeds into Orien-talist constructions of the non-West as"passive," lacking a history, and ultimately"different" from the West.

Taken as a whole, we suggested thatWeber's writing on the comparative sociol-ogy of religion does reveal specific Eurocen-tric biases. Parts of his writings were clearlyethnocentric (in interpreting other societiesin terms of criteria drawn from the West)and also Orientalist (to the extent that heessentializes the West/non-West by empha-sizing the differences between them, andthrough asserting the uniqueness of the Eu-ropean experience).

We also impressed upon our students thatwe do not find in Weber a simplistic notionof progress, and that Weber does not linkthe uniqueness, distinction, and singularityof Europe with a parallel notion of theprogressive, civilizational superiority of Eu-rope. Neither do we see in his work anattempt to impose a universalist history. Wemade the point that far from suggesting thatother, non-European societies, should adoptcapitalism, Weber was extremely explicitabout the negative aspects of modern, ratio-nal capitalism. We emphasized that Weber'sattitude towards capitalism and bureaucraticstructures were ambivalent. Thus, despitethe various substantive and methodologicalweaknesses in Weber, we nonetheless notedthe value of his theoretical contributions; forexample, Weber may have been mistakenabout the nature of caste in India and aboutConfucianism in China, but his larger pointabout the relations and connectedness ofreligious, political, and economic structuresis certainly worth pursuing.


DurkheimContinuing the theme of Eurocentrism, weasked if Durkheim's writings show any suchsigns. Comparing Marx and Durkheim onthe issue of colonialism, we made the fol-lowing observations. While Marx explicitlyaddresses colonialism and talks about itseffects on a colony (India), Durkheim, in hissociological writings, remains silent on thesubject of European imperial and colonialactivities. What we find problematic inMarx is his treatment of British colonialismand its justification for the "progress" ofIndian society. What is troubling inDurkheim is precisely his neglect of colo-nialism and conflict. Indeed, we are notsaying that all sociologists must address theissue of colonialism in order to avoid thecharge of being Eurocentric. We are notsuggesting that Durkheim's mere neglect ofcolonialism and silence on this issue fumishevidence for his Eurocentrism. However,this silence does impact his theorizing ofsocial change, both in the West and thenon-West.

Durkheim conceptualizes social change asthe transition from mechanical to organicsolidarity, that is, from traditional to modernsociety. His proposal that this change isnormal, natural, inevitable, spontaneous, de-sirable, and progressive is problematic. Thistheory is not only conceptually flawed butalso ahistorical. Durkheim does not ask howcolonialism might affect his theory ofchange. Neither does he seem to acknowl-edge that "real" historical societies did notchange spontaneously and naturally, but thatvery often, change was imposed throughextemal domination, conquest, and threat ofviolence. In fact, Durkheim's silence oncolonialism leads one to speculate if hemight actually view the devastating changesbrought about through European colonialencounters with the non-West (which wereviewed as tiaditional societies) as desirableand good because it led to differentiation,organic solidarity, and moral individual-ism—in a word, modemity.

In making a case for the continued con-temporary relevance of Durkheim, we fo-

cused on these three texts: Division ofLabour in Society (1933), Suicide: A Studyin Sociology (1952), and The Rules of Socio-logical Method (1895). We argued thatDurkheim's methodological contributions tosociology are indeed immense, seeing hismost lasting contribution carried in his ques-tion. What is the social? The latter continuesto engage contemporary sociologists, whocreatively debate about how to place bound-aries around an entity labelled the "social."In addition to methodology, the impact ofDurkheim's conceptual categories was alsohighlighted. Evidence was gamered to sup-port the continuing relevance of such con-cepts as anomie, moral individualism, col-lective conscience, and mechanical and or-ganic solidarity in theorizing contemporarysocieties. Students were asked to think abouthow Durkheim's ideas of mechanical andorganic solidarity could be used to makesense of the "Shared Values" debate inSingapore. They were asked to applyDurkheim's concepts to an analysis of thestate's efforts to forge a sense of common,national identity in the face of socio-cultural,religious, and economic differences withinthe citizenry. The question of searching forthe social glue to bond people also hasshades of Durkheim's "collective con-science." It was suggested that mechanicalsolidarity, premised on the perception ofsimilarities between hidividuals, might con-tinue to be relevant in societies thatDurkheim may otherwise label modem. Weassigned a provocative piece, by Tiryakian(1994) on Durkheim and the "retum" ofmechanical solidarity to continue the discus-sion of Durkheim's relevance to the present.

. A Discussion of Student ResponsesIn the previous section, we outlined how wetried to put into practice an altemate way ofteaching the classical sociological canonthrough our lectures, tutorials, and assignedreadings. We now move to a discussion onstudent responses to the course. The follow-ing discussion comes from two sources:tutorial discussions and student term papers.We selectively present the various student


responses, some of which we anticipated andothers which surfaced unexpectedly, interms of the three interrelated objectives ofthe course referred to above.

EUROCENTRISM

During the first tutorial, students were intro-duced to the underlying theme of freedom inthe works of Marx, Weber, and Durkheim.They were also asked to address the implica-tions of Eurocentrism as a context for therise of sociological theory. As expected,questions were immediately raised aboutwhat is meant by Eurocentrism, and whatmany students labelled as its "opposite"—an"Asian perspective." Some students werequick to point out that Eurocentrism hadnegative connotations, and that the correc-tive to Eurocentric approaches did not lie intaking an equally ethnocentric perspectivefrom an Asian point of view.

Admittedly, there was a degree of confu-sion about what these various terms meant.For instance, some students wondered ifeverything European was Eurocentric. Manystudents interpreted Eurocentrism to mean adominance of European things and ideas.Class discussions led to students asking ofeach other:

Student 1: Are you Eurocentric?

Student 2: Yes, to a large extent. But we don'thave a choice. We didn't choose this...it wasthrust upon us. So just bear with it. It's notvoluntary. I have no choice.

Student 1: Are you sure? Maybe you like it.

This discussion brought to the fore thosewho self-defmed themselves as Eurocentricand saw nothing "wrong" with it. Onestudent thought herself to be Eurocentricwith regard to the clothes she wore, the foodshe ate, the movies she watched, and thefact that she spoke English as a first lan-guage. She added that she was not ashamedof this. Was it not "better" and "good" thatshe was "Eurocentric"? She defended herposition thus:

But my Eurocentrism can be explained. Thereis a reason for it. Like clothes. I like jeans andt-shirts because they are so comfortable.

To which another student replied somewhatsarcastically:

You mean tight jeans are more comfortablethan a loose sarong, samfoo and saril

Another student said of his Eurocentric (read"Western") preferences:

Quite good, what. Anyway the whole worldlikes jeans so it is not really Eurocentric butsomething like global centric.

Wallerstein's paper: "Eurocentrism and ItsAvatars" (1996), helped to continue thediscussion on Eurocentrism in our secondtutorial. As expected, we did not achieve aconsensus with regard to defining Eurocen-trism, but we agreed to use Wallerstein'sformulation as a useful starting point. Somerightly asked if some of the central questionsraised by Western social scientists were notEurocentric. For example, referring to thediscussion the previous week, one studentsaid:

Is the "problem of freedom" a true problematicfor us? What is meant by freedom anyway?Isn't freedom an enlightenment ideal and soWestern, thus European and Eurocentric? Isthis a "problem" for everybody? The same canbe said for democracy.

Continuing in this vein, other students won-dered why we should be concerned with theproblem of reason and freedom (the topicsof the second lecture) and whether Euro-peans do not impose these ideals on "us."

Of the three theorists we read, Marx wasmost obviously seen as Eurocentric. Marx'sportrayal of Indian society generated livelydiscussion:

How can Marx make fiin of people praying toHanuman and considering the cow a sacredanimal?

What makes Marx think Europe is all good?


What is so great about capitalism anyway?Didn't Marx think capitalism should be de-stroyed?

Does he have double standards or what?

These students and their somewhat emo-tional responses to Marx's letters to Engels(Marx and Engels 1968) concluded that itwas essential to recognize Eurocentric biasesin Marx as these affected how we continueto look at the West and the non-West. SinceMarx had not visited India, and as hisaccounts were based on second-hand re-ports, did Marx produce only stereotypicalimages of Indian society? Others argued thatat least Marx was not "hypocritical," sincewith different information about Indian soci-ety, he admitted his earlier mistaken views,as discussed in an assigned reading (Ghosh1984). But they also saw that Marx's retrac-tion only showed that he was wrong aboutthe progressive role of colonialism, not thathe thought Indian society could now success-fully adopt a different historical develop-ment route from that of Europe. In this theysaw absolute evidence of Marx's Eurocen-trism.

Some even suggested that Marx's changein views did not necessarily signal that headopted a non-Eurocentric stance, as we arestill unclear as to whether he accepted theprogressive role of colonialism in principle.At this point, we all realized the complexityof the problem of Eurocentrism in asking ifthe view that social change in Europe fromfeudalism to capitalism representedprogress, was itself Eurocentric. In otherwords, if Europeans believed themselves tobe progressive for having made this transi-tion, does this belief in itself constituteEurocentrism? What the class consideredone possible answer to this was that whatdefines a belief or theory as Eurocentric isnot the view that capitalism could only haveoriginated in Europe or that capitalism wasa progressive system, but rather the convic-tion in European superiority and the "whiteman's burden."

A further question then surfaced: IfMarx's theories are Eurocentric, does it

mean that his works are irrelevant? Ourposition was that there was much in Marxthat continued to be of relevance. An aware-ness of Eurocentric elements in his workmade it possible for us to pick out what wasrelevant. In fact, we were later able todistinguish between the factual and ideologi-cal statements contained in the concept ofthe Asiatic mode of production.

By our sixth tutorial, students were quickto pick up on what they saw as Eurocentricelements in the works of the classical theo-rists. Referring to the "Protestant Ethicthesis," most students concluded that Weberwas Eurocentric because he regarded capi-talism as a superior economic system thatcould only originate in Europe. Some evensuggested that Weber used Protestantism toengage in propaganda for capitalism. Never-theless, we were impressed that at leastsome students were perceptive enough topoint out that such a view (even if falselyattributed to Weber) was reductionist be-cause it did not consider the role of stmc-tural factors in the rise of capitalism inEurope. This does not preclude the possibil-ity of the presence of the spirit of capitalismoutside of Europe, or the possibility ofcapitalism with a different spirit from thatfound in Europe elsewhere. Later, the stu-dents were to leam that this view came closeto Weber's own, and that Weber was notquite as Eurocentric in ways earlier as-sumed. In response to the question ofwhether it was justifiable to speak of aWeberian Orientalism (Tutorial 7), studentsunderstood that the fact that Weber sawmodem capitalism as a uniquely Europeancreation itself did not justify his being la-belled an Orientalist, unless it was demon-strated that he held Eurocentric views suchas the "double mission of British colonial-ism" (Marx and Engels 1968), and so on.

After having read some analyses, views,and comments of Marx and Weber on Indiaand China, students were able to appreciatethe different ways in which sociologicaltheory could be Orientalist. For example,Marx was Orientalist in that he held tonegative defmitions of non-Westem soci-


eties, a case in point being that he definedIndia in terms of the absence of featurespresent in Europe—such as private property.Weber, on the other hand, was Orientalist inhis tendency to look at non-Europeans inhomogeneous and undifferentiated terms.For example, this was how he saw Hin-duism. Weber also tended to be textualist inhis reading of Indian society in that heassumed Indian reality conformed to ver-sions presented in the text, an assumptionthat he explicitly avoided in his analysis ofEurope. There is also the question of theimposition of terms and concepts originatingin a European setting, and their applicationin non-European contexts. For example,Weber used terms such as church and sectwhen discussing Hinduism and Islam. We-ber was also guilty of essentializing aswhen, for example, he regarded Confucian-ism as the main value system in China.Thus, through the works of Marx and We-ber, Eurocentrism was seen to be complexand multidimensional.

Having become familiarised with a Euro-centric account on the rise of capitalism,students were asked, in the second tutorial,to assess the claims made with regard to therelationship between Confucianism and de-velopment in East Asia in terms of theirbeing Eurocentric or counter-Eurocentric.As expected, both arguments were made.Some students feh that the argument thatConfucianism was conducive to economicdevelopment and that it was a factor in therise of East Asia was counter-Eurocentric,whereas others came to a consensus thatsuch an argtiment bought into Eurocentricnotions of the superiority of capitalism, andtherefore reinterpreted the role of Confu-cianism in development. It was even sug-gested in a discussion over our seventhtutorial, that such a view was the reverse ofOrientalism (what some call Orientalism inreverse, or Occidentalism).

Our goal in highlighting the theme ofEurocentrism was to get students to thinkseriously about the problem of Eurocentrismwithout reacting emotionally and ethnocen-trically to Western knowledge. By the end of

the semester, students better understood Eu-rocentrism in terms of its various dimen-sions as pointed out in Wallerstein's essay(1996).

THEORY FORTHE RECOVERY OF OUR PAST

FROM EUROCENTRIC ACCOUNTS

It was interesting that the subject of colonial-ism, and particularly the colonial past ofMalaya and Singapore, did not inspire adiscussion of any significance with a major-ity of the students. Most of them seemed toview Singapore's colonial experience inrather benign terms. They also appeared toaccept Malaya's and Singapore's past, asarticulated in mainstream and "official" dis-course. This could possibly be due to theway that colonial history has been so farpresented and preserved in Singapore,where the British are perceived to havecome, not as conquerors, but as harbingersof "progress." Even in our discussions ofcolonial and state ideology, most studentsdid not appear to be able to theorize thepower of these dominant ideologies in thepast, and indeed, in the present. Most ar-gued that if not for the British and thecolonial episode, Singapore would not havebecome a modem and developed society.

Both in tutorial discussions and in essays,we repeatedly encountered the familiar dis-course about Singapore being a small island,a fishing village with little or no naturalresources until the British came and modern-ized it. Very few students attempted toconstruct Singapore through ancient or colo-nial history. Most contemporary narrativesof "modern" Singapore begin with its"founding" by Sir Stamford Raffles as aBritish trading post in 1819. The year andthe name are synonymous with the veryexistence of Singapore, particularly in his-torical reconstructions of the island's past bylocal political elites. Our students recountedthe official history. They did not fmd it oddthat a European man, a colonizer, should becrowned the founder of Singapore. Also, noone mentioned Malay sources as well asthose in other non-English languages forSingapore history. Few students seemed fa-


miliar with the notion of an alternativehistory of Southeast Asia, the rest of Asia,or of Europe, for that matter. Most, on theother hand, carried rather fixed, stereotypi-cal notions about what constitutes Europe,China, India or Singapore, both today and inthe past. This was evident in our discussionsabout "modernity" and its relationship to thenon-West. Most saw Europe or the West asthe locus of modernity and its transmissionto the rest of the world.

It was in this context of the understandingof the past that the notion of ideology and itsrelationship to the ruling class was intro-duced in class. There were some students,however, who did problematize the officialhistory of Singapore. They questionedwhether the British had been "good" forSingapore and whether "progress" and"modernity" can only be achieved with capi-talism and industrialization. While somesuggested that the proclamation of Raffles asa "hero" was due to gratitude on the part ofSingaporeans, others understood it as aproduct of the ideas of the ruling class.Nevertheless, how the image of Raffles fitsinto the ideology of postcolonial capitalismin Singapore remained vague for the class.

On the utility of Weber for the study ofthe historical role of religion in SoutheastAsian development, students generally failedto note that it was less Weber's views on theProtestant ethic and capitalism than the rela-tionship between «ligion and economy thatwas important. In discussing the applicabil-ity of Weber to Southeast Asia, some hadthought that Weber was irrelevant, as hewrote on Protestantism while Protestantismwas not a major religion in the region. Itwas then necessary to make a distinctionbetween Weber's specific statements on theProtestant ethic and the theoretical implica-tions for the study of religion and capitalism.

THEORY FOR THE UNDER-STANDING OF CONTEMPORARY

REALITIES IN AREAS AND REGIONSCLOSER TO HOME

The question of "relevance" necessarily sur-faced in view of our discussion that Marx,

Weber, and Durkheim were European schol-ars, concerned most explicitly with theoriz-ing the profound changes occurring in West-em society.

Many students thought that Marx was"wrong" in his account of capitalism, itsimpending destruction, and the anticipatedpolarization of society into two classes. In-deed, most saw capitalism as a universalmode of production as well as a "goodthing," and wondered what Marx meant bythe "evils of capitalism." They observed thatcapitalism had not disappeared, that themiddle classes had burgeoned in contempo-rary society, and that most of the world isnow capitalist. Many had difficulty agreeingwith Marx about the issue of"pauperization." Questions such as thesewere typical:

Are workers in Singapore really that bad off?

Is capitalism that evil?

What is wrong with capitalism anyway?

How can the capitalist be exploiting the work-ers? He also has to take some risks by investingthrough capital, etc.?

If not capitalism, then what else? The wholeworld is capitalist now. Don't tell me you canescape it?

With reference to Singapore, most studentswere of the view that Marx's description ofcapitalism as "exploitative" and "alienating"did not quite "fit" their experience. Manythought this was due to the "moderating"effect of the Singapore government, whichin their assessment did not represent theinterests of the ruling class, but served all itscitizens equally. One very perceptive studentnoted that Singaporeans could not identifywith Marx's thesis about the emiseratingeffects of capitalism because Singapore wasnot a "real" developing country. As such,living here, one did not see the "bad side" ofcapitalistic development, as one would inmost Asian and African cotmtries. She alsosaid that Singapore was an advanced, capi-


talist society, about which Marx was nottheorizing. Insights like this, however, werequite rare. With regard to the use of Webe-rian theory, after having considered thepossibility that it was Weber's interpreterswho Orientalised his works on the Protestantethic, students were ready to explore the useof Weber's ideas for the study of develop-ment in East Asia. They came to understandthat the importance of Weber's work lay inthe understanding of the nature of the rela-tionship between religion and development(tutorial 7). In other words, quite apart fromthe validity of his theory of the Protestantethic, the question of how religious doctrinesand practices relate to econotnic conductwas one that could be addressed for anyreligion, and it is this kind of issue thatneeds to be raised in the context of EastAsia. Students often suggested that officialinterpretations of Islam and Confucianismwere meant to align them with corporatevalues, and that this was a result of formalrationalization processes in modern EastAsian and Southeast Asian societies.

On a different theme, most studentsagreed that Marx, Weber, and Durkheimrightly noted the presence of alienation,disenchantment, and anomie in capitalistsociety. But they felt that all three theoristswere too pessimistic about the effects ofthese on individuals. According to some,these phenomena may be present in modemsociety, but were confined to the workplace.Others suggested that people in capitalistsocieties had developed "coping mecha-nisms" so that they would not feel anomie,disenchanted or alienated. Others asked ifalienation could only be "economic" in na-ture, suggesting that in non-Westem soci-eties there could be other sources of alien-ation, such as politics and religion. A vastnumber of students also noted the"datedness" of the theories we were read-ing. The question of their applicability tocontemporary societies (Westem and non-Westem) was thus raised. These are crucialelements of our project as they highlightboth what we accomplished with our stu-dents and, more importantly, what we need

to take into accoimt the next time that weteach this course.

CONCLUSION

We want to emphasize that the ideas carriedin this paper reflect a project that is inprogress and far from complete. This re-flects our initial and experimental effort toconceptualize an altemative way of teachingsociological theory and, more importantly,to put it into practice. Given our own theo-retical and political locations, we tried torestmcture the syllabus and the course con-tent of social thought and social theoryaccordingly. We used the theme of Eurocen-trism as a major organizing principle as thisallowed us to raise a number of relatedissues about the state of the social sciencesand its teaching. It should be noted, how-ever, that this was not the only organizingprinciple around which the course was de-veloped. We maintained the perspective thatguided previous instmctors of the coursewhen we stressed to the class that a commonthread connecting the works of Marx, We-ber, and Durkheim was the problem offreedom in modemity.

When we embarked on this rethinkingexercise, we assumed that the course neededto be made relevant and meaningful to thestudents in order for it to be of some interestand use to them. We conceived of thisrelevance in terms of the dual stress on theEurocentric context of the rise of sociologi-cal theory as well as the concem with themoral condition of humanity.

How then did the students respond? Didthey find the course meaningfiil? In ourassessment the student reactions weremixed, and probably for a number of differ-ent reasons. Most students respond to theoryin a dull fashion anyway, so the lukewarmresponse to any course m theory is the normrather than atypical. It was the same for us.Did our students appreciate discussions ofEurocentrism? Those who saw the problem-atic of Eurocentrism through the lecturesand their own readings and reflections wereprobably in a minority, and debated the

issue. Most "got it" when it was pointed outto them via examples and illustrations.Some, however, remained untouched by itstheoretical or political value.

Nevertheless, even for those who wereless than enthusiastic about the course, theproblematic of Eurocentrism was somethingthey could relate to, as it is this theme thaibrings the ideas of Marx, Weber, andDurkheim within the orbit of relevance inthe Southeast Asian context. Our aim wasless to make the course more interesting tostudents than to infuse it with a set ofmeanings that were hitherto unavailable tothem, and which resonated with ideas thatwere in circulation in critical academic dis-ussions on the state of global social science,

rhose who saw Eurocentrism as an impor-ant issue collectively raised a number ofnteresting questions:

If one identifies Eurocentric bias in the writ-ings of Marx, Weber and Durkheim, are alitheir writings meaningless and therefore to berejected?

We can talk about ami-Eurocentrism. Whatabout -d non-Eurocentric position? Is it possibleand necessarily better?

What is the value and purpose of locatingEurocentric biases in sociological theory?

Does identifying any kind of bias, includingEurocentrism make the bias go away?

hese questions show that at least some ofIT students were thinking about issues thate raised in the course. We view theseleries positively in that they suggest possi-lities for rethinking the course. Writing ine late 1990s and early 2000s, one is nonger required to justify the need to identifyd critique the biases in which the variouscial science disciplines are often stronglylbedded. Yet criticism alone is insufficientunseat these biases, as the last student'sestion so well articulates. But we contendIt such critique is empowering and mustthe first step in any rethinking process.

e fact remains that Eurocentric biases do:st, and that these biases have been ex-

posed in the literature. Our aim in thisproject has not been merely to conduct anexpos6 of Eurocentrism in a sociologicaltheory course, but to indicate to studentshow one set of biases needs to be madeexplicit and not be replaced by another. Itwas repeatedly stressed that other ethnocen-tric perspectives need not substitute the cri-tique of Eurocentrism.

Many students suggested that Eurocen-trism was unavoidable as Marx, Weber, andDurkheim were simply products of theirrespective times. We did point out, how-ever, that it is possible for individuals totranscend the dominant consciousness oftheir 5ime. Furthermore, it is always thecase that future generations of thinkers areable to see through the ideological precon-ceptions and biases of earlier scholars, andpresent a different reading of the same facts.To some extent, this involves the correctionof erroneous conceptions and distortions.However, more than this, future thinkersalso bring theoretical perspectives informedby alternative ideological positions. So,while Eurocentrism may have been unavoid-able for Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, it isalso unavoidable that we engage in its cri-tique, bearing in mind our own context ofpostcoloniality.

Highlighting Eurocentrism in classical so-ciological theory is essential to the achieve-ment of our other two previously statedobjectives. In this theory course, we wereonly able to briefly explore how the critiqueof Eurocentrism can shape our interpreta-tions of the past as well as the present. Inshowing Marx, Durkhehn, and Weber to beEurocentric in specific ways, we are notsuggesting that their ideas or theories shouldbe dismissed or deemed irrelevant for theo-rizing contemporary society—Western ornon-Western. Through our critique, we aresearching for ways of reading and rereadingthe classical sociological theorists that allowus to see continued meaning in their ideas,but with a critical, yet constructive eye. Butwe do insist that it is imperative that webecome sensitized to the Eurocentric biasesnot just in these classical texts, but also in


the current readings these texts are subjectedto. Most importantly, we wanted to translatethis critique into practice, that is, throughteaching classical sociological theories witha difference.

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Syed Farid Alatas is an associate professor at thedepartment of sociology. National tJniversity of Singa-pore. A Malaysian national, he had his schooling inSingapore and obtained his Ph.D. in sociology from theJohns Hopkins University in 1991. He lectured at theUniversity of Malaya in the department of SoutheastAsian Studies prior to his appointment at Singapore. Hehas contributed articles to a number of scholarly jour-nals, and his hook Democracy and Authoritarianism:The Rise of the Post-Colonial State in Indonesia andMalaysia was published by Macmillan in 1997. He iscurrently working on a second book in the area of thephilosophy and sociology of social science.

Vineeta Sinha is a lecturer at the department ofsociology. National University of Singapore. She ob-tained her Ph.D. in anthropology from the Johns Hop-kins University in 1995. Her research interests includethe critique of concepts and categories in the socialsciences, the sociology and anthropology of religion,and theorizing health and healing.

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