This is my 2nd part in a series on commonly used words. The 1st was on Nation and State. Words are important. This 2nd part is on Modernity. How we think is affected by the words we use because there are hidden assumptions in the words we use:
When we say something is ‘modern’ what we really mean is it is ‘contemporary’, that is, it is of our time.
To be modern is something else. Modernity is a revoluntionary concept arising from the 18th Century European Enlightenment, the so-called, “age of reason.”
Tired of religious wars, Modernity placed reason above faith. Thus aesthetics and morality were also freed from ritual and tradition.
Modernity thus boosted science and material technology. Art and social norms were also liberated from the dictate of past norms.
Reason thus defined “progress” and “development”. These defined the look and feel of modernity. This is “Modernism” and progress is thus “Modernisation,” that is the move towards becoming “Modern”.
Modernity spurred science and technology thus the industialisation of production this requited centralisation which meant urbanisation. Thus the look and feel of modernity became associated with industrial urbanism.
Industrialisation thus defined development and progress. The contemporary condition is thus understood as steps in the process of becoming Modern. And in trying to be Modern the Modernism meant trying to look Western where Modernity began…
Leave a Reply