Contemporary modernity is a puzzle. The 19th century image of modernity as the speeding locomotive with its internal dynamic, determinant shape and sure direction is only a distant memory. On the one hand, this originally Western concept has become the property of the whole world; it sets apart societies, peoples and regimes, fixing them on the calendar of time; it is the bearer of universal aspirations to material abundance, mastery and autonomy. This renders modernity virtually inescapable. Yet, on the other hand, modernity also fuels a rising tide of uncertainty. The casualties of its "progress" and the incalculability of its risks means that it is no longer perceived as the long anticipated exit from the historical highway. It increasingly looks like an open field of warring possibilities, neither well defined nor unequivocally attractive. This enigmatic constellation of inescapability, ambivalence, uncertainty, of attraction and anxiety today pervades everyday modern experience.
This unit will look at this constellation of themes through the prism of major 19th and 20th century theories of modernity
We consider from among the following: Marx, Nietzsche, Weber, Durkheim, The Frankfurt School, Foucault, and Heller.
