What is “Modern?”
“Modern” is essentially a Western concept, based upon cultural forces, specific to European countries and transplanted to their colonies. As a small and compact continent, Europe was a site of circulation for new ideas and new ways of living in the world. Other continents, such as Asia and Africa, were isolated and self-sufficient and would not be touched by European ideas and values until the age of imperialism. The Middle East, equally self-sufficient, chose, according the Princeton professor, specializing in the Middle East, Bernard Lewis, to sidestep, not so much modern life, but the implications of modernism. The characteristics or events usually associated with the “modern” were invented in Europe, developed in Europe, and played out to their logical (and often tragic ends) in Europe. Both as a British colony and as an independent nation, America played a significant role in developing the modern way of life, but the American “modern” would be significantly different from the European “modern.” When did “modern life” begin? The answer depends upon one’s historical perspective. Some would argue that modern life, the life we in the West have inherited, can be traced back to the Renaissance period in Europe. For the purposes of this website, it is more efficient to move beyond the nascent beginnings of the middle class and capitalism and international trade to the outcome of these tendencies, the most significant of which, it might be argued, being humanism. For the modern age, the human being is firmly situated at the center of the universe.
Most discussions of the Modern can be divided into distinct parts, all of which are interlocked. There is no “first,” there is no “beginning,” in absolute terms. For convenience sake, it can be stated that the Seventeenth Century saw a significant shift away from God and towards scientific discovery and experimentation. The trend to empirical observation and material research not only expanded the discourse of knowledge based upon observable facts but also threatened the role of religion in society. By the Eighteenth Century, the culture was more secular than spiritual and a new breed of people, called “new men” were able to build upon the scientific bases to develop a more rational means of production that evolved into industrialization and mass production. These “new men” were an ever-growing group of professionals, doctors, lawyers, financiers, and business owners who were middle class and ambitious. They financed, built and serviced the Industrial Revolution, supported on the backs of the lower classes. Women formed a support system, either at home or in the fields or in the factory and were denied the benefits of the modern. Human labor was needed for industrialized modes of productions and people, both proletariat and peasant, began to drift away from traditional artisan occupations and rural employments and towards factory work. Mass manufacture and trade encouraged the increase in the size of cities, and by the beginning of the Nineteenth Century, London was the largest city in Europe.
Urbanism and industrialism and the trend away from an agrarian society, which was ruled by the landed gentry, began in England and America. The combination of a concentration of people in urban areas and alternatives to traditional life styles that brought pressure on the political system to grant “natural rights” to the people. The concept of a “natural” right to freedom and happiness was essentially a middle class and secular concept. As opposed to pleasure being the sole pursuit of the upper classes, human beings had the “natural” right to be happy. As opposed to the Divine Right of Kings, as sanctioned by God, people began to think of themselves as the “natural” rulers of their own society. Monarchs ruled with the consent of the governed and had the obligation and responsibility to preside over their subjects wisely and benevolently. The Seventeenth Century Benevolent Despot gave way to the Citizen King or Enlightened Monarch, answerable to the people.
The emerging “Modern” way of life would have major consequences upon Western culture. The “modern” that was emerging was unprecedented and needed to be articulated. Explaining the social and cultural and economic changes was the task of the philosophers who referred to their period as the “Enlightenment.” Enlightenment philosophy articulated a social reaction to scientific achievements, was the achievement of several societies. French and English and German philosophers all made major contributions to Enlightenment thought, the cornerstone of which was Reason. The center of philosophy was human reason, not God’s ideals. Human reason was capable of establishing a new kind of society, based upon what Jean-Jacques Rousseau called “the Social Contract,” established by the free will of humans who agreed to come together and live in democratic harmony, without Kings and without God dictating the terms. The philosophy of the Enlightenment inspired two political revolutions, one in America and one in France, and was the impetus for political change in other parts of Europe. Thus the “Modern” can be characterized by a number of “revolutions:” 1. A philosophical revolution, 2. A social revolution, 3. A political revolution, and 4. An economic revolution. The task of artists, poets, novelists, musicians, and the visual artists was to give subjective expression of the new age in new languages, which would produce new forms. The artist is the product of all of the “revolutions” of the Modern, which are discussed in the next chapters.
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Tags: Industrial Revolution, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Modern Art, Modern Culture, natural rights, social contract