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Bejing (Europe no longer represents the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 populationadministration, 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