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Modernism

An Overview

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Herrick on ModernismChar acteristics

questioning received truths of Christian tr adition

elevating r ationality over other sour ces of truth

seeking solutions to social problems by meansof scientific method

viewing the universe as governed by inviolablephysical laws

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Three Key Concepts1. Modernism is gener ally used as a way of referring to an aesthetic

approach dominant in European and American ar t and liter aturein the Twentieth Centur y. The principles of formalism and the

autonomy of ar t are key features of modernism.

2. The "project of Modernity" can be thought of as the development of science, philosophy and ar t, each according to its own inner logic. This links the concept of modernity to the concept of modernism as it was ar ticulated by Greenberg.

3. The concept of the avant-garde is that of a loosely organizedoppositional for ce and challenge to the dominant ar tistic culture. The avant-garde is of ten thought of as par t of the "inner logic of modernism" - the built in sour ce of contr adiction or critique that moves ar t forward. (Note that this assumes a model of progress

as par t of the inner development of the ar ts and culture.)

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Gener al DefinitionsModernism

a term typically associated with the twentieth-centur y reactionagainst realism and romanticism within the ar ts. More gener ally,

it is of ten used to refer to a twentieth-centur y belief in the vir tuesof science, technology and the planned management of socialchange.

Modernityrefers to a period extending from the late sixteenth and early

seventeenth centuries (in the case of Europe) to the mid tolate twentieth centur y char acterized by the growth andstrengthening of a specific set of social pr actices and waysof doing things. It is of ten associated with capitalism andnotions such as progress.

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History & the Influence of

Modern Science1. Modern European society emerged from the 18th Centur y with an

Enlightenment optimism based on the apparent success of science

& technology in explaining various natur al phenomena in r ational

& mechanical terms and in utilizing aspects of "Nature" for thepurposes of "Man".

2. This modern, Enlightenment approach retains, for the most par t,

vestiges of a Christian world view which assumes

a separ ation of "Man" and "nature", mind and body, and thus

the possibility of understanding human experience as, in some sense,

distinct from natur al events.3. The experience of human beings on ear th becomes the basis for

a gr and teleological concept of Histor y [Hegel]. On this account,

the histor y of "Man" becomes the stor y of how human beings came

to increase their freedom from the natur al world and the material

constr aints associated with it by the exer cise of their innate capacity

to think logically in the pursuit of truth and knowledge.

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A Working DefinitionModernism is a cultur al movement which rebelled against Victorian mores

emphasis on nationalism & cultur al absolutism. placing humans over and outside of nature.

belief in a single way of looking at the world, andin absolute and clear -cut dichotomies betweenright and wrong, good and bad, and hero and

villain. seeing the world as being governed by God's will,and that each person and thing in this world had a specific use.

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A Working DefinitionModernism is a cultur al movement which rebelled

against Victorian mores

seeing the world as neatly divided between "civilized"and "savage" peoples.

According to Victorians, the "civilized" were those

from industrialized nations, cash-based economies,

Protestant Christian tr aditions, and patriar chal

societies; the "savage" were those from agr arian

or hunter -gatherer tribes, bar ter -based economies,

"pagan" or "totemistic" tr aditions, and matriar chal

(or at least "unmanly" societies).

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In contrast, Modernistsrebelled against Victorian ideals

emphasized humanism over nationalism, and arguedfor cultur al relativism.

emphasized the ways in which humans were par t of and responsible to nature.

argued for multiple ways of looking at the world, andblurred the Victorian dichotomies by presentingantiheroes, uncategorizable persons

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In contrast, Modernistschallenged the idea that God played an active role in the world,which led them to challenge the Victorian assumption that therewas meaning and purpose behind world events.

Instead, Modernists argued that no thing or person was born for a specific use; instead, they found or made their own meaning inthe world.

Challenging the Victorian dichotomy between "civilized" and"savage," Modernists reversed the values associated with each

kind of culture.

Modernists presented the Victorian "civilized" as greedy andwarmongering (instead of being industrialized nations andcash-based economies), as hypocrites (r ather than Christians),and as enemies of freedom and self -realization (instead of good patriar chs).

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Modern PhilosophyModern philosophy liber ates itself (to a large extent) from the Aristotelianworld view. In doing so it shif ts its emphasis (via the French philosopher Rene Descar tes) toward the notion of an a priori conscious ego--a thinker or cogito--that observes the world and historical events from a position of

r ationality, detachment and objectivity.

Rationalism: We, as thinkers, are linked to pure r ationality--a tr anscendentalorder . We are r ational beings because the universe is r ational. Theuniverse is r ationally ordered because God is r ational. Thus, by objectively--empirically and scientifically--studying the order concealed in Nature weare studying the ways of God the Mathematician.

This "objectivity", together with an increasing value placed on the individual,puts the human being ("Man") at the center of Histor y and knowledge.

With this freedom and centr ality comes a strong measure of responsibility and the duty to protect and increase the autonomy of ever y r ational human being. [Kant]

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Liter ar y Char acteristics

"a gener al term applied retrospectively to the wide r ange of

experimental & avant-garde trends in the liter ature (and other ar ts) of

the early 20th centur y....

Modernist liter ature is char acterized chiefly by a rejection of 19th

centur y tr aditions and of their consensus between author and reader:

conventions of realism ... or tr aditional meter .

Modernist writers tended to see themselves as an avant-garde

disengaged from bourgeois values, and disturbed their readers by adopting complex and difficult new forms and styles.

Modernist writing is predominantly cosmopolitan, and of ten expresses

a sense of urban cultur al dislocation, along with an awareness of new

anthropological and psychological theories. Its f avored techniques of

juxtaposition and multiple point of view challenge the reader to re-establish a coherence of meaning from fr agmentar y forms."

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General CritiqueLate Modernism: Social turmoil, increasing nuclear threat, the

technologization of the workfor ce under multinational capitalism,

and the breakdown of religious belief leads to a kind of nihilism

and anxiety about the future.World War II - Negative effects of the war are offset tempor arily

by the economic prosperity & postwar reconstruction which

takes place during the µ50s.

Cold War - Tension between the Soviet Union and the United

States under the str ain of a nuclear buildup offsets the

psychological effects of the post-War economic prosperity.

Domestic tensions: Civil Rights Movement, Women¶s

Movement, Environmentalism, Viet Nam, political

assassinations (JFK, Rober t Kennedy, Mar tin Luther King,

Malcolm X).

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General Critique All aspects of the Enlightenment project of modernity

are called into question. This involves a r adical critique

and of ten uncritical rejection of:objectivity;

the a priori subject as the sour ce of meaning, authenticity,

and authority;

the impor tance of truth and abstr act reason;

the teleological approach to histor y;universalizing gr and narr atives that aspire to completeness;

the distinction between "high" and "low" culture.

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General Critique According to Frederic Jameson, postmodernism

rejects what he calls "the depth model" and its binar y

oppositions:essence vs. appear ance,

latent vs. manifest content,

authenticity vs. inauthenticity

signifier vs. signified.

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General CritiqueThought, reason, & observation come to be seen as dependent

on language as a structur al, mediating system and not as the

acts of a pure, nonmaterial consciousness with direct access

to reality.

Thus, "there is no outside-the-text" [Derrida], i.e. there is

no point outside of some conceptual fr ame-work, model or

form of representation.

There are no origins or fixed references. All discourse is

an inter textual play of signifiers on a level surf ace without

depth and without a foundation.

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General CritiqueThe alienation of the subject is replaced by a sense of

"free-floating and impersonal" fr agmentation. This signals

the "death of the subject", i.e. the end of Individualism. Modernism valorizes personal style.

This presupposes a unique individuality - a private identity or self

(subject) - that gener ates his or her own style according to a

personal vision.

This individualism is put into question in High (or Late) Modernism.

The concept of the individual, autonomous subject is looked uponas ideological.

This presents us with a problem: If there are no individual, creative

subjects, and nothing new is possible, what is it that an ar tist does?

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