Lerner is very upfront with his sympathies for the Grocer in his article. He mentions his feeling of sadness when he learned that the Grocer had died. We are made to believe that the Grocer is the prime example of modernity. For example, the author writes, “As one saw it now, the Grocer had shown the way…” While it is certainly true that the Grocer had values consistent with the future development of Turkey, it seems that Lerner primarily believed this because he saw the Grocer as a Western figure. Among other things, he continuously points out the Grocer’s idealization of the United States. Through the story of the Grocer, it feels that Lerner is arguing that the only way to modernize is to imitate the West. Perhaps the best example of this is when the Chief’s son opens his store. Lerner writes, “The Grocer’s words of aspiration came leaping back to mind…His dream house had been built in Balgat – in less time than even he might have forecast – and by none other than the Chief!” This struck me as a strange sentence. It seems that the Chief’s son had no real agency, he was simply following the example of the Grocer. This is not the only example. Every development in Balgat is traced back to the Grocer. In this way, Lerner westernized the development of Balgat by explaining it through the vision of the Grocer.
Introduction to Comparative Politics: Nationalism, Ideology, and State Power
Professor Shervin Malekzadeh
I also agree with your assessment that Lerner identifies with the Grocer because of a sense of familiarity and Western values. In some ways, the Grocer is similar to Tom Doniphon in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance; both individuals helped usher in modernity into their respective environment, and both were forgotten over time as modernity fully took root. What does the forgetting of intermediate individuals (between the traditionalist past and the modern future) say about culture and society?
I also completely agree with your take on Lerner’s association of the West with the Grocer. I think it is a great connection with and further evidence to a lot of the ideas laid out by Gray in his Al-Qaeda book. Not only is so much of the “anti-modern” rhetoric/ideas/progressions by states in fact, modern, but the bulk of this “anti-modern” modernization, if that makes sense, is rooted in Western philosophy, as Gray lays out.
I completely agree that Lerner likes the Grocer because he senses that the Grocer wants to be more like Lerner than like the other villagers. The Grocer represents the path towards Western thought and culture, but he has died and been forgotten about now that Balgat is “modern.” I wonder if it has any significance that the Chief and his sons live and get to enjoy the new bus and the clothing stores but the Grocer is not remembered or thought of by anyone other than Western researchers like Lerner.