Tag Archives: modernity
Just Modernity Things
Blog Post 9/13/2016
Carl Marquis-Olson
We Grow Out of Iron and The Ion Messiah
Gastev’s poem and his background represent a modernizing Russia. Gastev was a factory work, a member of the proletariat which was the fastest growing class of people and the new face of Russia in the early 20th century. He was a peasant who became literate and politically active. His profession and class play an increasingly important role in Russian society and according to Marxists, his class occupies the most politically crucial role in the new socialist order.… Read the rest here
The Fallacy of Industry
Both Vladimir Kirillov and Aleksei Gastev express their admiration of the growing collectivization of industry in revolutionary Russia through their free verse poetry. The poets envision industry as the cure to class struggles that plagued revolutionary Russia, for under a rational and efficient system of production, all workers will be equal. Kirillov tells his readers that the leader of Russian industry may be a common man, “From the suburbs,”1 with enough power and charisma to bring citizens “to eternal fraternity”2.… Read the rest here
Catherine’s conceptions of state and subject
Her reforms were progressive in the sense that they moved Russia towards modernization and brought the state in line with Western concepts of the relationship between a government and its subjects. One theme present throughout Catherine the Great’s reforms is an attempt to balance state powers and individual liberties. The Statute on Provincial Administration states that “the personal security of each loyal subject is quite precious to the Monarch’s philanthropic heart,” and the establishment of an ordered, hierarchical bureaucracy within the provinces is one way to enforce order and protect personal security among and of the subjects.… Read the rest here
Creating a Modern Public
In the fifth chapter of Three New Deals titled “Public Works,” Wolfgang Schivelbusch compares the motivations for and the goals of the large public projects carried out by Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and the United States during the 1930s. Schivelbusch argues that each country’s project responded developments within the Soviet Union, their shared competitor1. Although Italy’s drainage of the Pontine Marshes, German’s construction of the autobahn, and the United States’ construction of dams and power plants through the Tennessee Valley Authority Act uniquely reflected each country’s unique social context and needs, all of the projects reflected the modern theme of promoting individualism through collectivism. … Read the rest here
Antiquated Modernity
Hoffman defines the traditional sense of modernity as liberal democracy and industrial capitalism. This idea or narrow concept of modernity, in my mind, proceeds from our desire to clearly identify the others: to separate the proverbial tares from the wheat. However, in our insatiable egotism and self justification we construct rigid lines of demarcation by which to separate ourselves from the others. Hoffman deconstructs this archaic version of modernity to define the more fundamental, rational sense of true modernity.… Read the rest here
Holocaust as an Outcome of Modernity
Bauman’s introduction to Modernity and the Holocaust raises questions pertaining the Holocaust and its relationship with modern civilization. While there are many historical and theological arguments attached to the questions raised, there are minimal accounts of sociological arguments.
If looking though through a historical/theological lens, one can find how modernity contributed to the Holocaust. While human beings would like to think only about the positive outcomes of modernity, we must think of the negative outcomes that resulted in such a change in society. … Read the rest here
The Dormancy of “Aberration”
In the first chapter of Zygmunt Bauman’s “Modernity and the Holocaust”, multiple perspectives are provided regarding the relationship between modernity and the Holocaust. Bauman begins by refuting the concept of the Holocaust- or any major sociological development, for that matter- as a singular “event” that can be scrutinized in terms of the multitude of historical elements that contributed to its development. Rather, he projects the idea that unless we revise our sociological perspective on the past, we will never see it as anything but “a unique but fully determined product of a particular concatenation of social and psychological factors” (4).… Read the rest here
A New Society: Modernity in Soviet Russia
For most of Europe in the 19th century, modernity was seen as the emergence of nation-states, the establishment of a parliamentary democracy, and the rise of capitalism. Imperial Russia and Soviet modernity differed from this concept. Instead, their modernity focused on Enlightenment ideals such as the belief in progress, a focus on reason, and the belittlement of religion and tradition. The inclusion of Russian modernity broadens the definition parameters of this obscure term. The Soviet Union encompassed mass politics, population management, and socialism.… Read the rest here
Technology and Instincts: Modernizing Genocide
The Holocaust may not have been an unpredictable genocide in regards to the potential extremes of human nature, but when compared to other large scale pogroms it remains an anomaly through its modernized nature. The Holocaust does not elicit the usual genocidal imagery often characterized by a type of primitiveness and chaos, but is marked by a bureaucratic industrial system in which the organization of upscaled executions became reminiscent of a pragmatically scheduled business model. How should we expect our ethical values to progress relative to industry?… Read the rest here