On Centrism and Dualism - Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

CENTRISM AND DUALISM
fundamental premise of his analytic model termed hierarchical opposition 27
1979; 1980; 1986).
DUMONT identifies the absolute distinction between fact and value as a characteristic feature
of modern societies (cf. DUMONT 1979: 809; 1980: 244). He contrasts modern and nonmodern
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(DUMONT 1972;
societies on grounds of their respective ideologies, understood as a system of ideas
and values current in a given social milieu (DUMONT 1991: 19 [1986]).
In non-modern societies, ideology is the unity of fact and value. […] Distinguishing and according
a value are not separate activities, nor even two steps in the same process, but another
simultaneity: to distinguish is to value, and to value is to introduce hierarchy. Thus in non-modern
ideology we should talk of the ‘fact-value’ or the ‘idea-value’, which amounts to the same thing:
that is, here fact and idea also occupy the same space, since ‘actual men do not behave, they act
with an idea in their heads’ (PARKIN 2003: 42, 45, original italics).
The concept of fact-value emphasizes their inseparability, since fact and value can never be
purely one or the other, because they, by being at the same time fact and value, always consist
of both aspects (ALVI 1999: 193).
DUMONT explains the observable existence of different and sometimes contrasting
relationships found between opposed fact-values within a single society by identifying their
belonging to different socio-cultural contexts and their location on different ideological levels
which are hierarchically related to the ideological whole. According to DUMONT’S theory, the
existence of contrasting fact-values proves their essentially ‘asymmetrical’ relationship since
the change of ideological levels may include the reversal of oppositions, which, itself,
highlights the change of levels, hence their existence. Thus, the reversal of an asymmetric
opposition produces a meaningful contrast to the initial opposition since the previously
encountered hierarchy is turned upside down and the change of levels marked. The reversal of
a symmetric opposition, in contrast, produces no meaningful contrast. Since the relationship
of the poles remains symmetric, the change of levels can not be identified (DUMONT: 1979:
811).
In DUMONT’S model ideology constitutes a whole that does not consist of only one, but of
many levels seated upon each other like layers of an onion, thus forming a whole (ALVI 1999:
193). The opposition of fact-values happens on subordinated levels that are encompassed by
this whole: the supreme level where no oppositions exist, representing the cardinal value. The
27 PARKIN (2003) identifies DUMONT’S ‘model’ or ‘perspective’ as a ‘method’. “First, it should presumably be
treated not as a theory but as a method in accordance with LÉVI-STRAUSS’ view of his own work: in Daniel DE
COPPET’S words, a hierarchical opposition is propositional, not theoretical” (ibid.: 102, references omitted).
28 For DUMONT, non-modern does not imply the notion of progress as in the sense of pre-modern. The terms
modern and non-modern are used to contrast ideological configurations (cf. BERGER 2000: 129).
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