By Matthew Gibbons
Modernity is subjective, relative, and paradoxical – it both encompasses everything, yet ultimately amounts to nothing.
By definition, ‘modernity’ denotes all that is ‘modern’, the attributes of recent and current culture, society, politics – everything that uniquely exists in the present and recent past. So what is unique to our time?
One might think of computers, the internet, social media, bluetooth, virtual & augmented reality, deepfakes and generative AI…in other words, the newest technology. The period of History we are currently experiencing is sometimes referred to as ‘The Digital Age’ or ‘The Age Of Information’ because of the prominence of technological development – but is an era only defined by its scientific progress, or is technological progress just the defining feature of the current era?
Perhaps relying on technology to define Modernity is too simplistic, but there’s no denying its widespread influence. Our language has adopted concepts, words and phrases such as ‘memes’ ‘influencer’ and ‘Google it’ that would be utterly anachronistic outside of the last 20-30 years because of wide access to the Internet and Social Media. 20-30 years is approximately the age of a generation too, thus making Modernity generational, with young people growing up in time with technological innovation.
Perhaps we are not examining Modernity itself so much as the experience and perceptions of Modernity through technological possibility. However, this means that whatever is believed to be ‘modern’ is modern. In a world where culture and society feeds into and out of these experiences and perceptions, through the internet or social media, whatever the majority of people believe to be true about Modernity becomes the belief of the era – it becomes a truth. Modernity is subjective.
This is enhanced by the immense freedom and anonymity these technologies provide in spreading information. Consider the dominant political trends from the last decade – ‘fake news’, ‘culture wars’ and ‘identity politics’ are political buzz terms that have emerged, partly, due to the social interactions and cultural constructions of the internet. In recent years these terms have become landmarks in political conversations focused on what is factual or true, because virtually anyone with a device and a connection can spread information, of any type or validity, anonymously. Debates are often simplified into two sides because everyone and anyone can engage with them more directly now, so extreme ideological divides have a new way of manifesting among millions of users, especially impressionable or young people.
Is this exclusive to our understanding of Modernity though? Did these divides and ideas not exist, perhaps under different names, in previous decades or centuries? Even if they did, these ideas and debates were unable to openly clash in a way that allowed direct communication between any individual, rather than just whoever was qualified or famous enough to represent views on TV broadcasts and in newspapers. The technologies of Modernity have connected ordinary people all over the world in ways previously impossible, which has led to unique cultural and social hallmarks of this era. There are many more examples of this, from decreasing attention spans due to short form video content, to ‘speedrunning’ videogames – phenomena that only make sense in this period.
All time periods have their own distinctive features, and all time periods would have considered themselves ‘modern’ by our logic. In the study of history, ‘The Modern Era’ is roughly dated as 1500-1945. 1945 to the present day is, in fact, ‘The Contemporary Period’. In the same way that we refer to ‘The Enlightenment’, what we call Modernity may one day be something like ‘The Contemporary Era’. Perhaps Modernity is every historical period, but only when they are new.
Ultimately, ‘Modernity’ is subjective, relative, and paradoxical. It is everything that defines the present, but simultaneously nothing, as the present is always changing from the future to the past. It is fleeting, always constant, eternally transient.