A Sociology of Modernity (1) II `The Birth of Modern Thought‘

Prof. Dr. Joost van Loon

Institut für Soziologie, LMU

Nottingham Trent University, U.K.

Outline

(i) Modernization and Modernity

(ii) The Birth of Modern Thought - Foucault

(iii) Examples of Modern Thought: Kant, Hegel, Marx and Weber

(iv) Romanticism – a second modernity?

(v) Nietzsche’s Philosophy

(vi) Appropriations of Nietzsche

(vii) The Dark Side of Modernity: The Holocaust

The issue of ‘beginnings’

• 1266 Marco Polo meets Kublai Khan in Bejing (Europe no longer represents the whole universe)

Diseased Beginnings

• 1348: The arrival of the Black Death in Europe and the Collapse of European Feudalism

Technological Beginnings

• 1439 Johannes Gutenberg ‘invents’ the moveable typeset printer

Artistic Beginnings

• 1470 The Renaissance emerges with the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti and others under patronage of the De Medici Family in Florence

Leonardo Da Vinci

Colonial Beginnings

• 1492 America discovers Christopher Columbus

Cynical Beginnings

• 1513 Machiavelli publishes ‘the Prince’

Argumentative Beginnings

• 1517 Martin Luther nails his Ninety-Five Theses on the Power of Indulgences to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg

Most common mentioned beginnings of Modernity

• Enlightenment (mid 17th century)

• Industrial Revolution (mid 18th century)

• American & French Revolutions (late 18th century)

• The combination of the latter two is referred by Karl Polanyi (1944) as ‘the Great Transformation’

It all depends on definitions

• Modernity as …..– An economic process: The rise of (Industrial)

Capitalism – A political process: The rise of the (Nation)

state – A Cultural Process: The separation of faith

and reason, the rise of techno-science, and secularization

Theorists of modernity

• Scotland: Hume, Ferguson, Smith

• France: Descartes, Montesquieu, Rousseau

• Germany: Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche

Immanuel Kant

Immanuel Kant• The existence of God is beyond the realm of Reason, • Faith and reason are completely separate • What is true and what is just are completely separate

1.Validity = questions of truth -> critique of pure reason

2.Ethics = questions of justice –> critique of practical reason

3.Aesthetics = questions of taste –> critique of Judgment

Concept of Radical Evil: Doubt at the Heart of Reason?

Modernity

• Man over Nature (through technology)

• Man over God (through reason and science)

• Man over history (planning rather than fate)

Hegel and Marx

Hegel and Marx• Dialectical reason: Justice and truth are not separate but

realised in history (= progress);• The laws of history can be known• The task of knowledge is to facilitate practices that enable the

unfolding of history according to its own logic • Marx: men make history but not under conditions of their own

chosing.

Max Weber

Weber• Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism• Entzauberung der Welt - disenchantment (a reverse Harry Potter)• Dominance of rationality• Bureaucracy

The Rise of Romanticism

• Against the idea that reason grants mastery

• Creativity rather than productivity

• Spirit rather than mind

• Subjectivity rather than objectivity

• Pessimism rather than optimism

• Tribal rather than universal

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

Friedrich Nietzsche

• Writes in the context of an Emergent Romanticism and Nationalism

• Rather than ‘reason’ driving history, Nietzsche stressed it was the Will to Power

• Critique of ‘Enlightened’ Philosophy as a ‘hypocrisy of denial’ and ‘mediocratic’ (Herd Mentality)

• Critique of emancipatory politics as infused by Slave Morality

• ‘ethos of suspicion’: there is no universal grounding of morality

• Nihilism: history does not have a `grand destiny´

The Will to Power• section 514 (p. 365):• Eine Moral, eine durch lange Erfahrung und Prüfung erprobte

bewiesene Lebensweise kommt zuletzt als Gesetz zum Bewußtsein, als dominierend … und damit tritt die ganze Gruppe verwanderter Werte und Zustände in sie hinein: sie wird ehrwürdig, unangreifbar, heilig, wahrhaft; es gehört zu ihrer Entwicklung, daß ihre Herkunft vergessen wird… Es ist ein Zeichen, daß sie Herr geworden ist…

freely translated as• A morality, a tried and tested and proven way of life, finally enters

into conscience as Law, as dominating… and with it engages the entire collection of values and conditions of the group; it becomes honourable, untouchable, holy, truthful ; it belongs to its development, that its origin is being forgotten… It is a sign that it has become ‘Lord’

Friedrich Nietzsche

• Writes in the context of an Emergent Romanticism and Nationalism

• Rather than ‘reason’ driving history, Nietzsche stressed it was the Will to Power

• Critique of ‘Enlightened’ Philosophy as a ‘hypocrisy of denial’ and ‘mediocratic’ (Herd Mentality)

• Critique of emancipatory politics as infused by Slave Morality

• ‘ethos of suspicion’: there is no universal grounding of morality

• Nihilism: history does not have a `grand destiny´

Appropriations of Nietzsche• His work used by Nazis who failed to see the critical irony of, for

example, his concept of the Übermensch• Disliked by left-wing radicals because he exposed their inherent slave

morality• Liked by critical philosophy (e.g. Bataille, Debord, Deleuze, Foucault)

because he abandoned universalism

• Nihilism: dominant ethos of postmodernity• Re-ignites a concern over the question of evil

Zygmunt Bauman

Bauman: Modernity and the Holocaust

• ideal typical’ modern event and organization:

– The precise and perfectly programmed coordination of biological and medical science, bio-chemical technology, engineering, logistics, management and propaganda.

– The extermination of Jews was carefully planned in population-administration, the logistics transport, the appropriation of science and technology, the setting into work of the death machine, and the use of images and ideas for propaganda purposes

– The role of radio – disembodied tribal drum (McLuhan, 1964).

Why?• The separation from action and consequences (just doing one’s job,

just following orders) - Eichman• Fascism is within us - Deleuze & Guattari (1977) – it is a neurotic

disorder caused by capitalism and modernity, justified by psychoanalysis and driven by a will to power and to know