Page 148 - Cultural Studies Dictionary

MODERNITY

‘negativity’ of modernism, its refusal to be incorporated by the dominant language
of contemporary culture, which allows it to stand as a beacon of hope and a symbol
of non-accommodation.
As a philosophy of knowledge, modernism has been associated with an 125
emancipatory project through which Enlightenment reason would lead to certain
and universal truths that would lay the foundations for humanity’s path of progress.
That is, Enlightenment philosophy and the theoretical discourses of modernity
have confidence in reason and modern science to find the truth that heralds
progress. Yet, modernism is ambiguous for it is far from clear that science does
proceed through laws of certainty. Thus, for Popper science proceeds through
experimentation and the principle of falsification; the Einsteinian paradigm which
predominates in contemporary science is one of relativity and Kuhn has explored
the way in which science periodically overthrows its own paradigms. Consequently,
modern science can be understood as premised on the methodological principle of
doubt and the chronic revision of knowledge. Enlightenment science may have
begun with the search for certain laws but it is now beset with doubt and chaos.

Links Aesthetics, avant-garde, Enlightenment, flâneur, modernity, paradigm, postmodernism,
truth

Modernity Modernity can be understood as a post-traditional historical period marked
by industrialism, capitalism, the nation-state and increasingly sophisticated forms
of social surveillance. The institutions of modernity are said by Giddens to consist
of capitalism, industrialism, military power (of the nation-state) and surveillance.
The institutions of modernity are inherently dynamic and expansionist.
Britain was transformed by the industrial revolution from a pre-industrial society
with low productivity and zero growth rates into a society with high productivity
and increased growth. Between 1780 and 1840 there were significant changes to
British economy and society, including a shift from domestic production for
immediate use to mass consumer goods production for exchange, and from simple
family-centred production to a strict impersonal division of labour deploying capital
equipment. The population trebled and the value of economic activity quadrupled.
Changes also occurred in personal, social and political life, including alterations in
working habits, time organization, family life, leisure activity, housing and the shift
from rural to urban living.
The industrial organizations of modernity have been organized along capitalist
lines, a mode of production premised on the private ownership of property and the
pursuit of profit. In the Communist Manifesto, first published in 1848, Marx
characterized the processes of inquiry and innovation that marked capitalist
modernity as involving the subjection of nature to the forces of man and machine.
Subsequently, the productive dynamism of capitalism has spawned not just coal but
nuclear power, not just trains but rockets, not just filing cabinets but computers and
e-mail. Capitalism is restless in its search for new markets, new raw materials and
new sources of profit and capital accumulation.
The emergence of an industrial labour process included an increase in the size