Modernity

Modern- Characteristic of the present and recent times; new-fashioned; not antiquated or obsolete (O.E.D.)

Modernity- a term that refers to historical and sociological configurations

Modernism- a term that refers to cultural and epistemological concepts(c.1890-c.1960)

• Modern: This industrial, post Enlightenment society marks a clear break with the past.

• Modernity: Can be traced back to the The Age of Reason/ The Enlightenment (17th and 18th C.)

The Age of Enlightenment c. 17-18th C.

Rembrandt, ,The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp, 1632

The Age of ReasonThe Enlightenment

The two are oftenconsidered as parts of awhole and referred toas The Age ofEnlightenment.

Enlightenment ideals• Reason (human autonomy: Humans seek knowledge and use own reason rather than

being told what to think by the church)

• Enlightenment is universal (humans are equal by nature, differences less important than inherent sameness)

• Progress (away from superstition and ‘immaturity’)

• Secularism (the separation of church and states)

• Idea of popular government (not just aristocrats should rule but also the Bourgeois- middle class)

Gidden’s Institutions of Modernity, 1990

• Industrialism (transformation of nature, development of created environment)

• Surveillance(control of information, social supervision)

• Capitalism(capital accumulation within competitive labour and product markets)

• Military Power(industrialization of war)

“At its simplest, modernity is shorthand for modern society or industrial civilization…it is associated with…[1] the idea of the world as an open transformation by human intervention…[2] industrial production and a market economy…[3] the nation-state and mass democracy.”

Conversations with Anthony Giddens: Making Sense of Modernity, 1988 p.94

Activity

With regard to Giddens’ institutions of modernity think of, and list, examples of these in the period of history we have covered this far.

Modernity as grand narrative

‘grand narrative’ (or meta-narrative): a grand narrative is anarrative form which seeks to provide a definite account of realityEdgar / Sedgwick (2004). Cultural Theory - Key concepts. Routledge, p163

the grand narrative of modernity: the story of progress throughuniversal human reason (Enlightenment ideals). Modernity was "a progressive force promising to liberate humankind from ignorance and irrationality" (Rosenau 1992, 5)

Capitalism vs Marxism

Marxism as grand narrative: the analysis of history as asequence of developments; Capitalism is the last stage in a longhistory of class struggles, culminating in a liberating workers’ revolution

Cover of Paris Match magazine

Colonialism/European Imperialism legitimized by the grand narrative of progress. “We are modernizing, and thus liberating you.”

Human shock in the face of the unimaginable (pollution, Holocaust, WWs, atomic bomb) results in a loss of fixed points of reference. Neither the world nor the self any longer possesses unity, coherence, meaning. They are radically 'decentred.'

“One can note a sort of decay in the confidence placed bythe two last centuries in the idea of progress. This idea ofprogress as possible, probable or necessary was rooted inthe certainty that the development of the arts, technology,knowledge and liberty would be profitable to mankind asa whole. (...) [We] concurred in the same belief thatenterprises, discoveries and institutions are legitimate onlyinsofar as they contribute to the emancipation of mankind.After two centuries, we are more sensitive to signs thatsignify the contrary.”

Jean-Francois Lyotard (1986). Defining the Postmodern.

critical attitudes towards the notion of ‘historical progress’

POSTMODERNITYJean-Francois Lyotard: stresses the collapse of ‘grand narratives’, andtheir replacement with ‘little narratives’, since metanarratives are createdand reinforced by power structures and are therefore not to be trusted;they ignore the heterogeneity or variety of human existence.

Michel Foucault: stresses the questioning of all truth claims. Discourse isalways inseparable from power. It determines what it is possible to say,what are the criteria of ‘truth’, who is allowed to speak with authority,and where such speech can be spoken. In a given period only certainkinds of speaking and writing are recognised as valid.There are no absolutely ‘true’ discourses, only more or less powerfulones.

Jürgen Habermas: argues for the importance of the unfinished modernproject; it needs to be reconsidered, but not relinquished