A Note on Modernity

Abstract

L N RECENT YEARS the crisis of Western civilization has been the subject of a considerable number of comparative studies on the present state of Western societies and culture. According to these studies, many of the social and political problems afflicting modern societies in the West cannot be properly understood as long as the inquiry remains restricted to the historical conditions and national circumstances of a particular society. They are generally regarded as problems which pertain specifically to modernity as the common condition of human existence in all societies of the contemporary West. These problems, easily recognizable in any society, include: the fragmentation of the social world, the absence of universally accepted values and norms of behaviour, the paramount role of the selfish individual as prototype for the human existence, the public display of private obsessions transmitted in an imagery of chaos and terror, dream, and fantasy, the swift succession of fashions in intellectual and cultural matters, the collective feeling of superiority towards the past and ancient cultures, and the widely spread predilection for disorder, disruptions, disobedience. Clearly, these manifestations of modernity indicate the critical state of social and political life in the contemporary world. One might assume, therefore, that anyone who wants to assess the present state of our 'modern civilisation should begin with an inquiry into modernity. In perusing the numerous studies on modernism in politics, literature, art, or architecture one will find, however, that the meaning of