Modernity

Their children are required to do nothing which service can be hired to do for them.

teachers are paid to learn their lessons for them extravagant pains are lavished on their pleasures religion also must be made very easy children must be let off from religious observances which they do not happen to fancy we have the extraordinary spectacle of a generation which owes its success to its obedience to the stern stress of necessity trying with all its might to contrive to take away from its children the very conditions that made its own life hardy and virile moreover the circumstances of modern society readily exempt the individual if he chooses from his normal share of public responsibility in the old days the employer lived close to his men for whose welfare he was obviously responsible the wealthy or educated citizen was a marked man to whom his community naturally looked for public service wealth and education thus created an obligation of leadership if there were particles of steel in the body politic more carefully tempered than the rest it was in order that they should act together in the cutting edge of the tool we have changed all that modern business is organized on so colossal a scale that millions of employees hardly see the captains of their industry thousands of persons draw income from factories mines and railroads which they have never visited boards of directors sheltering themselves behind their corporate capacity approve or share the proceeds of transactions for which any individual member of the vast corporation might be ashamed personally to avow himself responsible what is more startling great communities of wealthy people removing their homes from the bustle and din of the working world build up stately rows of palaces or fill great parks with their splendid villas there is a single town in massachusetts rich enough in men of education and resources to lead a score of colonies such as established the commonwealth in the beginning the fathers or grandfathers of these men were natural leaders cheerfully carrying civil responsibilities in a hundred new england towns but this well-to-do class to-day so largely endowed with all the capacities to make responsible leaders for the city the state the nation are merely private citizens often too careless of their civil duties to take the trouble to vote Youths grow up in the wealthy homes of Beacon Street and Fifth Avenue, on whom no serious burdens rest, who believe that their chief function in life is to be ornamental, to travel abroad, to sail yachts, to discover pleasure.

There was a Greek word, idiotes, which meant one who counted for nothing in the state.

Our word, idiot, comes from the old root.

We are rearing thousands of such political idiots.

It is as if we had withdrawn the tempered particles of the steel from the cutting edge of the tool and had planted them in the haft where the costly temper could do the least possible good all this is bringing the natural consequences of injured law while it is not necessary to urge that society or the nation has actually deteriorated while we chronicle a fair measure of improvement in the course of the century it is none the less obvious that we confront very grave social political and economic evils As our industrial machinery, becoming more and more complicated, delicate, and at the same time colossal in its proportions, requires greater skill, patience, care, and accuracy in its management.

As the steel ship presents new problems greater than the little coasting shallop had to meet, so the problems of modern society demand not merely men as good as our fathers, but even better and more thoroughly equipped men.

the more intricate social complications require not only good individuals but more effective organization among them is it not evident that mere individualism irresponsible and unsocial however well-intentioned it may be has had its day or if individualism is always good the signs of the times point to the need of a higher and more social order of individualism waste and mischief on a vast scale already menace us At a time when society needs peculiarly faithful, honest, and well-directed service, we find our great cities under the role of bosses, rings, and machines.

Guardini sees modern societies as disconnected from that fundamental Christian account of power that I've just outlined as a participation in the divine order.

guardini argues that the modern era which he sees as beginning at the renaissance and lasting till the eve of the first world war championed the idea that every increase in intellectual technical power power as mastery over self and nature was an unquestionable human gain Modernity, he thought, was defined by grabbing after such forms of power in relation to the world, a logic of taking things into possession.

That consensus began to shake, Guardini thinks, and he writes, quote, and he's thinking of the moment immediately after the First World War.

We no longer believe.

Never fear that villainy will do any harm to honor, that corruption will break down justice.

when the evil weight accumulates once given the presence of manhood the latent elasticity is ready to prevail strangely enough faith in god has never failed in evil times when the faithful stood alone when martyrs went to the stake the law of faith is that it grows stout-hearted under stress the problem of the prosperous now begins to appear the prosperous classes never before so numerous are everywhere trying to evade this strenuous law of effort and pressure through which as we have seen life grows sturdy they command easy and luxurious physical conditions for their children their children are required to do nothing which service can be hired to do for them teachers are paid to learn their lessons for them extravagant pains are lavished on their pleasures religion also must be made very easy children must be let off from religious observances which they do not happen to fancy we have the extraordinary spectacle of a generation which owes its success to its obedience to the stern stress of necessity trying with all its might to contrive to take away from its children the very conditions that made its own life hardy and virile moreover the circumstances of modern society readily exempt the individual if he chooses from his normal share of public responsibility in the old days the employer lived close to his men for whose welfare he was obviously responsible the wealthy or educated citizen was a marked man to whom his community naturally looked for public service wealth and education thus created an obligation of leadership if there were particles of steel in the body politic more carefully tempered than the rest it was in order that they should act together in the cutting edge of the tool we have changed all that modern business is organized on so colossal a scale that millions of employees hardly see the captains of their industry thousands of persons draw income from factories mines and railroads which they have never visited boards of directors sheltering themselves behind their corporate capacity approve or share the proceeds of transactions for which any individual member of the vast corporation might be ashamed personally to avow himself responsible what is more startling great communities of wealthy people removing their homes from the bustle and din of the working world build up stately rows of palaces or fill great parks with their splendid villas there is a single town in massachusetts rich enough in men of education and resources to lead a score of colonies such as established the commonwealth in the beginning the fathers or grandfathers of these men were natural leaders cheerfully carrying civil responsibilities in a hundred new england towns but this well-to-do class to-day so largely endowed with all the capacities to make responsible leaders for the city the state the nation or merely private citizens often too careless of their civil duties to take the trouble to vote youths grow up in the wealthy homes of beacon street and fifth avenue on whom no serious burdens rest who believe that their chief function in life is to be ornamental to travel abroad to sail yachts to discover pleasure there was a greek word idiotes which meant one who counted for nothing in the state our word idiot comes from the old root we are rearing thousands of such political idiots it is as if we had withdrawn the tempered particles of the steel from the cutting edge of the tool and had planted them in the haft where the costly temper could do the least possible good all this is bringing the natural consequences of injured law while it is not necessary to urge that society or the nation has actually deteriorated while we chronicle a fair measure of improvement in the course of the century it is none the less obvious that we confront very grave social political and economic evils As our industrial machinery, becoming more and more complicated, delicate, and at the same time colossal in its proportions, requires greater skill, patience, care, and accuracy in its management.

As the steel ship presents new problems greater than the little coasting shallop had to meet, so the problems of modern society demand not merely men as good as our fathers, but even better and more thoroughly equipped men.

The more intricate social complications require not only good individuals, but but more effective organization among them.

Is it not evident that mere individualism, irresponsible and unsocial, however well-intentioned it may be, has had its day? Or if individualism is always good, the signs of the times point to the need of a higher and more social order of individualism.

Kidd's book on social evolution, has been translated so as to set the reason of man and revolt against his religion, is now lifted to the level of the free and willing action of conscious moral agents.

is transferred from the realm of outward forces to the inner and spiritual kingdom it now becomes the pressure of human sympathy of duty of social ideals already many appear as typical men of the new era thoughtful observant of facts reverent of law who not only know the splendid secret but bow an enthusiastic willingness to accept the weight and obligations of an educated and civilized human life the life of a son of god We thus find that a deep necessity is at work in human society, pressing men almost in spite of themselves to fulfill the marvelous prophecy of social good with which we started.

That modern society may hold together, that industries may be permanently organized, that governments may work out their legitimate ends, yes, that men of means and brains may have solid happiness and their children may maintain the honor of their families.

And he's been reading a lot.

So he read The Great Gatsby as a 10-year-old, which I was kind of excited, as a book called Modernity.

And he said, yeah, Dad, it's just kind of a sad book.

Great.

The popular and progressive newspaper Young Communists of Moscow has apparently provided a regular daily horoscope for its readers, whilst the publishing house of the Academy of Sciences has recently released a large number of copies of a book on astrology.

Even what purports to be a scholarly journal, Social Sciences and Modernity, also published by the Academy of Sciences, bears a message on the back cover of one of its issues promising the future publication of Dialogues with the Cosmic Mind, as received by staff members of the All-Union Scientific Coordinating Study Centre for Ufology.

Such cases can no doubt be explained, at least in part, by the relaxation of censorship that has followed as a result of Glasnost, and by the fact that publications now have to compete for circulation and even advertising.

The temptation for editors to resort to sensationalism must be strong, but a market for such material clearly exists, and the absence of open dissension and debate that has previously characterized Soviet political culture can only assist the uncritical acceptance and further propagation of such sensationalist stories.

He is most truly modern inasmuch as he touches fingers with the creators of the Sphinx.

Those who bear the legend Modernity as a battle cry are only people who lack the historical sense.

They exult in the theory that a live ass is better than a dead lion.

Let that fallacy explode.

Christianity was America's civil religion until... after world war ii and it was replaced with the post-war consensus which we will get into right now

saint boniface is known for taking an axe and cutting down the sacred tree the pagans worshipped as a god exposing its impotence and bringing many into the light and if you'd like to be like saint boniface you've come to the right video Because today I'll teach you not only how to identify Modernity's false idols, but how to cut them down.

And if you enjoy the video, consider subscribing, it helps the channel.

To understand how to oppose Modernity's idols, we must- By

the way, you should.

You should subscribe to them.

Ugh.

Okay, so today's episode is the second installment of our What is Modernity series.

We're gonna focus on decoloniality, um, and critiques of modernity from the broadly post-colonial tradition.

We're gonna focus on Enrique Dussel's Europe, Modernity, and Eurocentrism, and Aníbal Quijano's Paradoxes of Modernity in Latin America.

I divided the text that we read into kind of five main themes, 'cause I actually think there's quite a similar argument structure in both, but there are different points of emphasis.

The first is that both of these authors are challenging the idea that modernity is an endogenous process that happened in Europe.