What is the “narrative” of the history of social thought? Is the “ethos” of our society, SHST which was founded in 1976, really “liberal left” or based on “the civil society school of Marxism”? In fact, the history of our society shows some struggles among different “narratives”.
The mainstream narrative was about the historical formation of “modern” ideas, for example, individualism, rationalism, and radical democracy, in Western Europe. Characters on stage were Hobbes, Locke, Smith, Marx, and so on. And its task was the re-examination of Modernity, that is, the critical assessment of the ideas of nation-state and capitalism.
This narrative was soon challenged by some critical ones. First, the historians of popular thought insisted that the mainstream talked about only the thought of ruling class intellectuals. Second, the historians of social history or popular history criticized the mainstream as Eurocentric modernism. Third, the feminist historians emphasized that the narrative of popular history as well as the mainstream was based on the voices of men ruling women.
However, after the collapse of “socialist” bloc, Eurocentric modernism appears reanimated in our society. Therefore, we need to learn from those challengers once again.
