Modern Era: Historical and Philosophical Arguments Essay

Introduction

For people, endowed with an analytical mindset, it is being utterly clear that the realities of today’s living differ dramatically from what used to be living realities even as recent as through the 20^th century’s seventies and eighties. For example, unlike what it used to be the case thirty years ago, due to continuous progress in the field of informational technologies, it now does not represent any particular challenge to transfer huge amounts of information from one corner of the planet to another via Internet, in essentially instantaneous manner. Moreover, in ten-twenty years from now, it will become a commonplace practice among people to learn foreign languages instantly, by inserting microchips in their brains, to modify the physical appearance of their children, by taking practical advantage of genetic engineering techniques, and to even go as far as attaining virtual immortality, by the mean of saving their consciousness (soul) onto computer’s hard drive. In other words, there can be very little doubt as to the fact that we indeed live during a ‘modern era’.

Nevertheless, even today, most historians and political scientists do not quite agree as to what can be considered the modern era’s starting point and as to what should be considered a proper definition of modernity. For example; whereas, Walton (1987) suggests that it was named the process of industrialization that had brought about the initial phases of a modern era: “Most features of modem society are traced to the influence of industrialization” (89), Escobar (1992) implies that the concept of ‘modern era’ should be solely discussed within the framework of late 20^th century’s egalitarianism-related discourse: “Modernity… is the attempt to provide a foun­dation for the social order (one that is grounded in reason) and a project of global emancipation” (23).

What adds to the problem of defining the initial phase of a modern era are the spatial subtleties of this concept – whatever used to be considered ‘modern’ a century ago, may no longer be considered modern today. Alternatively, in hundred years from currently modern aspects of today’s living will be thought of as technologically and ethically outdated. Therefore, it is quite inappropriate to refer to the ‘modern era’ as a spatially and discursively unified concept. In this paper, we will aim to substantiate the validity of such our claim, while pointing out the fact that, even though the notion of modernity does derive out of objective socio-political preconditions, brought about by Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution, it never ceased to remain in the state of constant qualitative transition. This is the reason why the concept of the ‘modern era’ should be discussed as such that consists of pre-industrial, industrial, and post-industrial historical periods. Moreover, as we will show later in this paper, the post-industrial phase of the ‘modern era’ may be very well-referred to as nothing less than the beginning of essentially new ‘technological era’.

Analytical part

Nowadays, it became a commonplace practice among many people to refer to the term ‘modernity’ and being synonymous with the term ‘progress’. And, once we inquire into the historical etiology of the word ‘progress’, such their tendency will appear justified. The reason for this is simple – it is only the society where impersonal/secular law regulates just about all the aspects of public life, which can be set on the path of progress and to eventually become ‘modern’, in the first place. Therefore, it will not be much of an exaggeration, on our part, to suggest that the beginning of the pre-industrial phase (in conceptual rather than in the literal sense of this word) of the modern era can be traced back to the works of such famous proponents of societal secularism as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Thomas Paine, because these individuals have succeeded with substantiating the legitimacy of impersonal law, as the only ‘voice of final authority’ in the society that exists for the beneficence of its members.

According to Rousseau (1762): “The Sovereign, having no force other than the legislative power, acts only using the laws; and the laws being solely the authentic acts of the general will [of people]” (70). It is needless to mention, of course, that such Rousseau’s idea resonates with that of Paine’s (1791) perfectly well: “A public force being necessary to give security to the rights of men and citizens, that force is instituted for the benefit of the community and not for the particular benefit of the persons to whom it is entrusted’ (57). By having conceptualized the subtleties of a secular living, Rousseau and Paine had exposed the sheer fallaciousness of aristocrats and clergymen’s claims to possess some ‘divinely inspired’ special rights and privileges, which in its turn, created objective preconditions for the land to be increasingly looked upon as a commodity that can be bought and sold freely. Quite predictably, this provided additional momentum to the process of Europe and America’s economies growing progressively more industrialized.

Apparently, during the late 18^th and early 19^th centuries, it was becoming ever clearer to the representatives of social elites that the piece of land, with some industrial manufactory on it, could generate often as much as thousand times more of an annual monetary profit that equally sized piece of land, solely used for agricultural activities. Thus, it will only be logical to assume that, even though Rousseau and Pain’s ideas were so much more concerned with improving the code of public ethics then with stimulating industrial production, their actual beneficence was revealed in regards to how they accounted for providing a powerful boost to the pace of Industrial Revolution.

By the end of the 19^th century, an ongoing process of industrialization had effectively altered the socio-political and demographic matrix of American and European societies, as, during this time, the industrial workers have come to political prominence as representatives of a separate social class – ‘proletariat’. In its turn, this created objective preconditions for such economists as Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels to theorize that, because the continuously increased ‘surplus value’ of industrial manufacturing is being unevenly distributed among capitalists and workers, it was only a matter of short time, before the world would see workers’ uprising against ‘capitalist exploitation’. According to Marx and Engels, this would bring about the institutionalization of a qualitatively new socio-economic system on a global scale – Communism. In the eyes of these two bearded advocates of ‘freed labor’, who never held in their hands anything heavier than a pen, the eventual demise of the bourgeoisie, as a social class, was dialectically predetermined by the laws of nature.

In Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels articulated their reasons to believe in the eventual victory of the proletariat over bourgeoisie with perfect clarity: “The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property” (1888, 5). Given the fact that, throughout the 20^th century, Communists played a rather prominent role in defining the essence of social, economic, and geopolitical dynamics in the international arena, while going as far as physically exterminating the representatives of ‘counter-revolutionary’ social classes (as it was the case in Stalin’s USSR, Mao’s China and Pol Pot’s Cambodia), it will not be much of an exaggeration, on our part, to suggest that their activities did contribute to forming the qualitative essence of an intermediate phase of the ‘modern era’.

After all, even today, a substantial number of Western ‘progressive’ intellectuals continue to refer to Marxism as a conceptually legitimate socio-economic philosophy, which had simply been misinterpreted – hence, the historical failure of Socialism. For example, according to Burawoy (1990): “Al­though we have a great deal to learn from the experience of state Socialism, it would be falla­cious to conclude from the failure of but one of its forms that Socialism, in general, is impossible” (791). Moreover, as practice shows, it is named on the account of neo-Marxian academic activities in Western colleges and universities, that many students continue to naively believe that the reason why people in Third World countries never cease suffering from poverty is that their countries’ natural resources are being mercilessly exploited by ‘evil’ Westerners.

Nevertheless, the sheer fallaciousness of such a belief becomes increasingly self-evident, because we now live through the post-industrial phase of the ‘modern era’, closely associated with the concept of economic Globalization and with the growing capacity of people’s intellect to serve as a substitute for natural resources. For example; whereas, after the end of WW2, 80% of Transatlantic telephone cable’s self-cost accounted for copper, the material cost of today’s fiber-optical Transatlantic telephone cable accounts for only 10%. And yet; whereas, the old cable could only sustain 128 parallel calls, the fiber-optical one sustains 750.000 parallel calls.¹ This is exactly the reason why, even though the intensity of industrial manufacturing in Western countries appears to decline in exponential progression to the flow of time, citizens’ living standards continue to improve in the same exponential progression – hence, exposing the out-datedness of Marxist socio-economic methodology. Marx and Engels had failed to realize that in the 21^st century, the accumulation of a ‘surplus value’, as one of the foremost aspects of industrial manufacturing, will not only allow industrious people to enjoy good living but that it will also serve as the driving force behind technological progress. In its turn, the pace of technological progress, which seems to pick up more and more momentum as time goes on, exposes the methodological inconsistency of several social, political, economic, ethical, and religious paradigms, the validity of which used to be taken for granted by the majority of people, even as recent as a few decades ago.

For example, ever since the policy of multiculturalism had obtained official status in Western countries, we can no longer refer to the concept of nationhood as a universally recognized legal principle, which legitimizes the form of political governing within these countries. This is exactly the reason why in Britain, recently arrived immigrants from Pakistan are being allowed to hold mass rallies in the center of London, while publically announcing their intention to cause as much harm to the host-country as possible. Whereas; as recently as twenty years ago, the safeguarding independent countries’ national sovereignty was considered the cornerstone of international law, enforced by the UN, ever since NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, this is being no longer the case.

Nowadays, it is not only the nation-states that are being considered de facto legitimate players in the arena of international politics but transnational corporations and privately owned ‘defense contractors’, as well. Whereas; not long ago, the colonization-related discourses were solely concerned with exploring the negative effects of Western ‘colonial legacy’ onto ‘developing’ countries; nowadays, they increasingly refer to the concept of colonization about how legal and illegal immigrants from the Third World colonize such formerly colonial countries as Britain, France, Belgium, and Spain. Whereas; during the 20^th century’s second half, the creation of genuinely thinking Artificial Intelligence (AI) used to be commonly referred to as the subject of the sci-fi genre, it now became the subject of well-established scientists’ eager anticipation, etc. The list of these methodological inconsistencies is long.

Therefore, even though formally speaking, the realities of today’s living can be discussed within the discursive framework of a ‘modern era’, as something that had begun in the middle of the 18^th century, it would be so much more appropriate to refer to them as belonging to the discursive framework of a new ‘technological’ or ‘post-modern’ era, which we believe had begun during 20^th century’s nineties.

The following is the list of this era’s most distinctive characteristics:

1. 1. Globalization – Nowadays, the very existence of national borders is being increasingly looked upon as counter-productive, because these borders undermine the effectiveness of economic transactions on a global scale, which in turn, prevents commercial enterprises from realizing the full extent of their operative potential. As it was rightly noted by Ohmae (2005): “The global economy ignores barriers, but if they are not removed, they cause distortion. The traditional centralized nation-state is another cause of friction. It is ill-equipped to play a meaningful role on the global stage” (IV). Therefore, it will only be logical to conclude that in near future, the protection of national borders will cease to remain one of economically developed countries’ foremost priorities, just as it is now being the case within European Union.

2. 2. Intellectualization – is a Globalized World, the value of ‘human capital’ will reflect such capital’s ability to substitute physical goods and services, just as we have mentioned earlier. Therefore, today’s talks about ‘combating poverty’ in the countries of the Third World are being deprived of any rationale, whatsoever. The reason for this is simple – these countries’ poverty does not come as the consequence of the ‘legacy of colonial oppression’, but as the consequence of native citizens’ evolutionary predetermined intellectual underdevelopment, reflected by the lowered average rate of these people’s IQ. For example, citizens’ average rate of IQ in such African countries as Equatorial Guinea and the Central African Republic, falls below 50; whereas, in Western countries, individuals who score lower than 70, while IQ-tested, are being declared mentally deficient.² This is the reason why intellectually underdeveloped people in Third World counties will continue to sink ever deeper into poverty, especially given the fact that, as we have pointed out earlier, the value of natural resources in the post-industrial world will continue to diminish. Darwinian laws of evolution apply to people as much as they apply to plants and animals, which is why those representatives of Homo Sapiens species who have proven themselves intellectually stagnant, will have to extinct – pure and simple.

3. 3. Secularization – As sociological surveys indicate, during the course of In recent decades, native-born citizens in Western countries have been growing increasingly non-religious, which appears to be especially the case in those Western countries that feature the world’s highest standards of living. For example, in Denmark and Norway, only 2% of native-born White citizens affiliate themselves with any religion, whatsoever. The reason for this is simple – people who enjoy high-quality living, while solely relying on their sense of rationale, when it comes to dealing with life’s challenges, do not need some tribal/revengeful God representing an integral part of their worldviews. In his book, Dobbelaere (2004) states: “Examining the impact of CNP per capita, as a context vari­able, on church commitment for the eleven European countries… we found a significant and negative relationship: the higher the country’s GUP per capita the lower individual church commitment was” (167). Therefore, another important characteristic of the ‘post-modern’ era would be the rapidly declining power of organized religion. That is if the hastily growing population of Muslim immigrants in Western countries will not attain the status of a majority, of course.

4. 4. Trans-humanization – Even today, people in Western countries have grown utterly dependent on the utilization of several life-enhancing technological gadgets. For example, an average Westerner would have a hard time, while trying to imagine how it is possible to live without a fridge, vacuum cleaner, TV, dishwasher, etc. During the ‘post-modern’ era, this tendency will be brought to its logical conclusion. Very soon, people will begin resorting to technology as the mean of overcoming the biological constraints of their bodies – hence, becoming cyborgs. As Haraway (1991) had put it: “A cyborg world… about lived social and bodily realities in which people are not afraid of their joint kinship with animals and machines, not afraid of permanently partial identities and contradictory standpoints” (154). This will create objective preconditions for the new ‘evolutionary jump’ to take place, which will eventually bring about the emergence of an entirely new species of Supermen, the representatives of which will regard regular humans in the same way as humans regard apes.

Conclusion

We believe that the earlier provided line of argumentation, as to what should be considered the beginning of the ‘modern era’, fully substantiates the soundness of the paper’s initial hypothesis. Even though that the classical definition of ‘modern era’ is being concerned with the discussion of socio-historical and economic phenomena that had prompted Western civilization to break free out of intellectual imprisonment of Christianity – namely, Enlightenment and Industrialization, there can be few doubts as to the fact that we now live through the initial phase of entirely new ‘modern era’. Throughout this era, Westerners will prove that their undisputed geopolitical dominance, which marked the duration of industrial modernity, was not incidental but dialectically predetermined by the very laws of evolution.

References:

Burawoy, Michael “Marxism as Science: Historical Challenges and Theoretical Growth.” American Sociological Review 55.6 (1990): 775-793. Print.

Dobbelaere, Karel. Secularization: An Analysis at Three Levels. Berlin: Peter Lang, 2004. Print.

Escobar, Arturo “Imagining a Post-Development Era? Critical Thought Development and Social Movements.” Social Text 31.32 (1992): 20-56. Print.

Hoag, Christopher “The Atlantic Telegraph Cable and Capital Market Information Flows.” The Journal of Economic History 66.2 (2006): 342-353. Print.

Lynn, Richard & Vanhanen, Tatu. IQ and the Wealth of Nations. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. Print.

Marx, Karl & Engels, Friedrich “Manifesto of Communist Party.” 1888 (2007). MyOOPS.Org. Web.

Ohmae, Kenichi. Next Global Stage: Challenges and Opportunities in our Borderless World. Upper Saddle River: Wharton School Publishing, 2005. Print.

Paine, Thomas “The Rights of Man.” 1791 (2011). TaleBooks.Com. Web.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques “Social Contract or Principles of Political Right.” 1762 (2011). University College Cork. Web.

Walton, John “Theory and Research on Industrialization.” Annual Review of Sociology 13 (1987): 89-108. Print.

Footnotes

1. Christopher Hoag “The Atlantic Telegraph Cable and Capital Market Information Flows.” The Journal of Economic History 66.2 (2006): 350.
2. Richard Lynn & Tatu Vanhanen. IQ and the Wealth of Nations. (Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002): 80.