In my Media in Modernity class, it seems as if every week we are exposed to a new definition or characteristic of modernity. Consider the following:
Modernity is a disruption of continuity. Innovation surpasses tradition as a core value, even as the desire for consistency and stability grow stronger.
Modernity requires a classical tradition that can be exploited and used. Despite the emphasis on innovation, all that is new is done within the context of the past. The past is always in mind, either as something to move away from or someting to reclaim.
Modernity’s defining condition is the dislocation of space and time. Appreciation for distance and travel time is lost. Did you visit relatives several states away this Thanksgiving? If so, was the trip to see them anything more than an inconvenience? And if you didn't visit them, did you at least talk to them over the phone? Did that strike you as at all unusual?
Modernity needs a communication and transportation revolution. See above.
Modernity: reassuring you while terrifying you. Everything is an assessment of risk. Every public service announcement reveals a danger we never knew of before. Every precaution reveals a fundamental flaw in the system.
Modernity makes people more sensitive about fine shades of disgust.
Modernity is a rupture, a break rather than an abyss. The feeling is of a distinct break from the past and the way that things were, yet the past remains close enough that we can still see it, fear it, and long for it.
Modernity - you can’t go back again. Even if we can see the past, we know we can never have it again. The past becomes the unattainable paradise to strive for unsuccessfully, or the hell we will thankfully never go back to again.
Modernity is when people don’t believe in God. Even if you do.
Modernity is a constant encounter with strangeness. Innovation, mobility, enhanced perception: we see everything beyond our established boundaries, and no day can ever be the same as the last.
Modernity is space taking over. Expansion is the order of the day, and all points draw together to become one.
Modernity is the imminent proximity of revolution. Though we have constant innovation, we constantly wait with bated breath for the change that will change everything else, that will break us away from modernity the way that modernity broke from the past.