The Countermodern Moment: A World-Historical Perspective on the Thought of Rabindranath Tagore, Muhammad Iqbal, and Liang Shuming

Abstract

In the early twentieth century, traditionally minded intellectuals in Asia offered strikingly similar responses to modernity. This article examines the countermodern visions of Rabindranath Tagore, Muhammad Iqbal, and Liang Shuming. Inspired by high-culture versions of Hinduism, Islam, and Confucianism, these three thinkers offered parallel critiques of materialism and the decline of self-cultivation. At the same time, they brought issues of civilizational identity and universalism to the fore. While their cosmopolitanism never reached the point of making common cause politically, their intellectual legacy has enduring relevance for the global culture clash between modernity and its critics.