A General Overview

The modern contemporary world has its own characteristic understandings, paradigms,¹ and circumstances. We think in terms of the ideas that modernity has thrust upon us, and most of us have no choice in the matter because we do so without knowing it. The ideas and ways of understanding the world and ourselves that are unique to our time in the West is what I call “the modern frame”.

To live within a given age–in our case the modern age–is in a sense to be limited by it. We take its ideas for granted, and often cannot see or fully comprehend those which exist beyond it. Thus, for better or worse, the ideas of modernity hold us captive, so to speak, and provide us with a structure of thought and a frame of reference which we unknowingly adhere to. The following list² of ideas and circumstances are for the most part unique and characteristic to the modern epoch:

• The rise of freedom (or autonomy) as an ultimate value.³
• The rise or invention of the individual, i.e., the rise of individualism.
• A growing emphasis on subjective aspects of human life.
• The rise of existentialism.⁴
• A shift in the meaning of words.⁵
• A continual struggle to communicate outside specialized fields.
• A shift in the purpose and meaning of education and life.
• Increased awareness between different peoples and cultures.
• Increased rate of movement among peoples and continents.
• The rise of pluralism or multiculturalism.
• The rise of liberalism and secularism.
• The rise of the idea of progress.
• Measuring the good of past epochs on the basis of standards unique to our own.
• Increased rate of trade and commerce; a growing sphere of economy.
• The rise of industrialization.
• The rise of specialization.
• A growing hegemony of utilitarian or instrumental rationality; means become dominant.
• Use-value becomes the standard of good.
• As external goods come to dominate our thinking, internal goods recede.
• Expansion of the world of “total work”.
• The replacing of ethics by economics.
• The exponential growth of technology.
• Limitless information expansion and information exchange.
• An increasing rate of literacy and education.
• The rise of the scientific method and scientific research.
• The rise of medical science.
• An increase in human life expectancy.
• The worship of efficiency.
• The endless attempt to quantify.
• The rise of organizational methods and the resulting impersonality.
• The permeation of society by the use of money.
• Development of a culture of achievement, complete with literature; “success” becoming the end or purpose of life.
• The rise of “career” as the end or goal of life (interchangeable with “success”).
• Production for the sake of production; sales for the sake of sales; money for the sake of money.
• The rise of consumerism.
• Celebrity culture eclipses mythology, storytelling, hero-worship.
• Changes in norms associated with romantic relationships and marriage.
• The necessity of diversion, or amusement.
• The growing sphere of virtual reality (internet, games, pornography).
• Changes in the pace of everyday life.
• The idea of virtue being surpassed or replaced by the idea of effectiveness.
• The expansion of atheism and receding of religious belief.
• The rise of scientism.
• A change in the notion of time, i.e., the absoluteness of linear time.

These are some of the characteristics of the world we inhabit in the modern contemporary West. Indeed, many may be–in fact, are–familiar to most of us, and are viewed by us as normal and even common sense. Some of them have articulate defenders, but most are presupposed by the way our society is organized and functions. To challenge these ideas and circumstances is, therefore, a kind of taboo, a sacrilege even. Something almost none of us would consider, since as good moderns we take them for granted. Yet questioning such things is one purpose of the essays that will be published on this website.

If I am right, that is to say, if some of the ideas characteristic to modernity are in fact not the great ideas we believe them to be, then this fact will be counter-intuitive indeed. It is a testament to the age we inhabit that its frame of reference (the modern frame) has permeated society to its near core, almost preventing us from questioning ourselves. This has been discussed by some, most notably Alasdair MacIntyre. In the Prologue to his book After Virtue, MacIntyre argues that perhaps the only possible way to understand the predicament of modernity is to try to understand it from a perspective outside–external–to it. This is another aim of the essays that are published on this website–they are an attempt to get outside, to escape the modern frame, and view it from a fresh angle.

Some ideas and circumstances, however, I will not challenge but rather endorse. For example, the rise of modern science and modern medicine I see as definite goods with only limited qualifications. The rise of technology has indeed been instrumental in the advance of science and medicine, though as I see it technology itself is a good that must be heavily qualified. Rates of increasing literacy and education are certainly desirable and good, though they pose new and likely unforeseen challenges and complexities to the modern world. This final point of endorsement is perhaps the one that needs the most emphasis since I do not wish to be counted among those who crassly condemn the present and glorify the past. Thus, the attempt to identify both the beneficial and the problematic aspects of the modern predicament will remain an active focus.

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Notes:

1. My understanding of paradigms draws heavily upon the work of Thomas Kuhn. For example, see Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.

2. This list is not intended to be comprehensive but serves as a general snapshot. It may be the case that some items on the list entail necessary consequences, such as “the rise of pluralism” entails “an increase of tolerance”. Other items may entail certain unspecified presuppositions, such as “the rise of consumerism” presupposes “the rise of capitalism” historically. It may also not be clear what is meant by certain things on this list. In due time I will explore each of these items as well as those which may be logically connected.

3. The idea of freedom, of course, predates modernity; likely having its origins in ancient Greece. What is unique about the modern notion of freedom is the gravity of its value and the broadness of its scope extending beyond the political. Ultimately, this idea culminates in the Existentialist ideas of self-definition and self-creation, what Robert Bellah calls expressive individualism.

4. I am here using the small “e” to describe existentialist phenomena as opposed to Existentialism itself as a formal philosophy. Although modernity did witness the rise of Existentialism as a philosophy, it was not until the 20th century when Jean-Paul Sartre coined the phrase. What I am here referring to is not merely the rise of formal Existentialism but also and more importantly the permeation of existentialist ideas into the mass of society itself.

5. This by itself is not a phenomenon of modernity, as there has been semantic drift as long as language has existed. What is different about the modern epoch is that general, especially political, communication is harder, and it is not at all clear that people mean the same or even similar things despite the fact that they are using the same vocabulary.