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The Modern Era
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The Modern Era **************************************************************************************************************************** The Modern Era Here is the beginning of chapter 1 of Modernity's Misery. Bibliography references are not given in full -- but available for anyone who wants to see my sources. Modernity's Misery: The 1970s and Modernism's Final Gasp by Scorpion Tussle The Modern Era (part I ) Before we begin to review the events and attitudes of the nineteen seventies as they apply to the demise of twentieth century Modernism it will be essential to discuss its defining characteristics. Identification and distinguishing marks of a corpse are always essential first steps in any homicide investigation -- if indeed it was murder and not accidental or even of natural causes. Motive is more easily established by this method. Means and opportunity discovery is similarly enhanced. The modern era followed directly on the heels of the Victorian era. In the early decades, modernity was largely defined by its anti-Victorian characteristics and attitudes. It could be seen as a positive reaction to all that was wrong or failed with Victorianism. Victorianism itself failed and came to an end for generic reason that seem to herald the end of all cultural epochs. Specific attitudes in any particular era's cultural paradigm may be identified within the generic subset of its failings. It can be seen that the possible causes for the decline and fall of modernism falls into this same generic set. Specificity arises upon comparison. The general and specific causes for the death of modernism will be examined in more detail later when we discuss the presaging signs of its fall -- the rise of Post-Modernism which fills (or not) the void of its passing. As will be seen, the fact that post-modernism is largely defined as a void unto itself is, for the most part, the crisis with which we are currently confronted. The clear beginnings of modernism are not evident until around 1900. The end of one epoch and the beginning of another never falls so neatly into a chronology however and only in hindsight can historians adequately determine that a preponderance of the evidence signals a cultural shift. The same that is true with regards modernism/post-modernism is true of Victorianism/modernism. The early warning signs of the death of Victorianism can be seen as early as the 1880s. The clear evidence becomes apparent around 1900. Norman Cantor in The American Century provides a model of modernism that is useful. He identifies fourteen characteristics from which we can build in our discussion of the era's demise. 1. Modernism is Antihistoricist. Historicism holds that all knowledge or essence is defined by history. Society and human activity such as art, science and philosophy, according to historicism is only comprehensible in this context. The history of society and human behavior not only accumulates unto itself but it also reacts to what has come before. Thus we arrive at the dialectic of Thesis, Antithesis, and Synthesis. This represents, respectively History, Reaction, New Paradigm. Modernism rebels against this. The past cannot be validated as good or repudiated as evil, and the future cannot be shaped into an objective, normative entity as it is ultimately unknowable. An object, an act, a phenomenon is only knowable by close analytical "reductionist," in situ examination outside any context of what may have preceded it. Antihistoricism in modernism strongly rebels against historicist Victorianism. In the course of modernity, it has done so twice. The first rebellion may be seen in the birth of modernism itself as it fought against the fundamental failings of Victorian historicism. The second may be seen in the final gasps of modernism in the early 1970s as it struggled to resolve and reconcile its own antihistoricst shortcomings. This synchronic approach to knowledge in all fields is also evident in other characteristics of this model to include Micro-cosmic, Self-referentiality, Random Access, Realism, Functionalism, Moral Relativism, and Cultural Despair. It is not by whim that Antihistoricism holds first position in this model. It is only fundamental in its rejection of the Victorian approach and it finds integration in so many of the other defining attributes. (to be continued) |
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