Modernity

[onesteptwostep]

http://blogs.ancientfaith.com/glory2godforallthings/2015/09/01/a-purpose-filled-life/

I'm a reader of this blog and thought I'd share this.

It's basically an attack on the modernity narrative. Individualism, 'democraticness', capitalism, and its ironic purpose; of which the author highlights with a poem.

Here's an excerpt:

[...]but the pinnacle of the Enlightenment failure (and the failure of the model pictured above) is enshrined in the poem “Richard Cory.” I’ll use the better known Paul Simon lyrics:

"They say that Richard Cory Owns one-half of this whole town
With political connections to spread his wealth around
Born into society, a banker’s only child
He had everything a man could want
Power, grace and style

The papers print his picture almost everywhere he goes
Richard Cory at the opera, Richard Cory at a show
And the rumor of his party and the orgies on his yacht!
Oh, he surely must be happy with everything he’s got

He freely gave to charity, he had the common touch
And they were grateful for his patronage and they thanked him very much
So my mind was filled with wonder when the evening headlines read
“Richard Cory went home last night and put a bullet through his head”

But I work in his factory
And I curse the life I’m living
And I curse my poverty
And I wish that I could be
Oh, I wish that I could be
Oh, I wish that I could be Richard Cory. "

To reach the “purpose” proposed above is a proposition of emptiness. It persists and lingers and tempts so many because so few actually achieve it that its failure goes unnoticed. But the tabloids are filled daily with Richard Cory’s of every stripe and form. They are empty and vapid, insipid and decadent. But we wish that we could be…them.[...]

The site is (Christian) Orthodox, but you can do away with the religious trimmings and still notice the definite weaknesses in modernity. If things go wrong, it is our fault.. and not trying harder is still our faults... and so on.

Thoughts?

 

[Hadoblado]

I don't understand what you're arguing here. Some fictional person committed suicide even though they're rich so modernity is bad?

It sounds like you're arguing that material wealth and social capital does not necessitate individual happiness, which is a position few people hold.

Modernity as a concept is notoriously broad - I think you need to be a lot clearer than quoting a poem and schmattering terminology.

 

[Brontosaurie]

The site is (Christian) Orthodox, but you can do away with the religious trimmings and still notice the definite weaknesses in modernity. If things go wrong, it is our fault.. and not trying harder is still our faults... and so on.

Thoughts?

What weakness? Life is unfair and shit happens? Grass is greener etc and there are no guarantees? The empty promise of strife, illusory satisfaction, never being pleased?

That's not modernity, that's existence. Even thinking of thinking of that as a flaw in modernity specifically is not a flaw in modernity specifically.

 

[Jennywocky]

Hey, it's just their angle.

"Sure, you can do/get/have lots of things... but you're still empty inside, you know it deep down, like a splinter in the back of your mind. You need something deeper. Something more. Whatever it is I am selling -- that's what you need."

That's what's going on with the blog, at least. It's the typical avenue by which religion nowadays sells god.

Spoiler

from the blog:

Your purpose in life is union with Christ. Not surprisingly, we ask godparents at a child’s baptism, “Do you unite yourself to Christ?” If it begins in infancy and continues for a lifetime, that is a good life. That is a purposeful life.

As for the other false myth, it and its institutions are “the enemy we must attack through Christian preaching.”

As far as Paul Simon, he's more just focused on materialism, not necessarily modernity -- at least, that's how I view it. Everyone wants to run the race, but people can't find their happiness in it; material success doesn't always lead to happiness.

Also, I was like "Hmm, that sounds a helluvalot like EA Robinson's poetry"... I did a term paper on the guy's works back in high school, which was years ago for me ... and when I Wiki'ed it, looks like Simon ripped off Robinson for his song.

Robinson wrote Richard Cory before the turn of last century (1897).

 

[StevenM]

Psychologically, it might be depressing and pointless having anything which one desires without effort. Had the same Richard Cory had his wealth, but only in cause of many hours of work and dedication, he may have been faring more well.

My point above sounds like I'm lending a hand to calvinism, which I think is slightly different.

 

[onesteptwostep]

I don't understand what you're arguing here. Some fictional person committed suicide even though they're rich so modernity is bad?

It sounds like you're arguing that material wealth and social capital does not necessitate individual happiness, which is a position few people hold.

Modernity as a concept is notoriously broad - I think you need to be a lot clearer than quoting a poem and schmattering terminology.

It's not really an argument, it's more of an observation, but from a religious tilt. Have you read the page?

What weakness? Life is unfair and shit happens? Grass is greener etc and there are no guarantees? The empty promise of strife, illusory satisfaction, never being pleased?

That's not modernity, that's existence. Even thinking of thinking of that as a flaw in modernity specifically is not a flaw in modernity specifically.

No this isn't what the blog is saying. It's talking about the narrative democracy, capitalism, and more individualism has brought upon us since the 18th~19th century. It doesn't go for everyone, but it's definitely there in the cultural mindset. I've fantasized about this myself; I don't think it's too uncommon.

Spoiler

Hey, it's just their angle.

"Sure, you can do/get/have lots of things... but you're still empty inside, you know it deep down, like a splinter in the back of your mind. You need something deeper. Something more. Whatever it is I am selling -- that's what you need."

That's what's going on with the blog, at least. It's the typical avenue by which religion nowadays sells god.

Spoiler

from the blog:

Your purpose in life is union with Christ. Not surprisingly, we ask godparents at a child’s baptism, “Do you unite yourself to Christ?” If it begins in infancy and continues for a lifetime, that is a good life. That is a purposeful life.

As for the other false myth, it and its institutions are “the enemy we must attack through Christian preaching.”

As far as Paul Simon, he's more just focused on materialism, not necessarily modernity -- at least, that's how I view it. Everyone wants to run the race, but people can't find their happiness in it; material success doesn't always lead to happiness.

Also, I was like "Hmm, that sounds a helluvalot like EA Robinson's poetry"... I did a term paper on the guy's works back in high school, which was years ago for me ... and when I Wiki'ed it, looks like Simon ripped off Robinson for his song.

Robinson wrote Richard Cory before the turn of last century (1897).

Yeah this seems like this is the way the church sells itself now these days. The song has an origin, but the idea behind it isn't lost in the lyrics I think.

I was hoping people wouldn't focus on the religious angle of this, like I said in the OP you can do away with the religious facet.

Psychologically, it might be depressing and pointless having anything which one desires without effort. Had the same Richard Cory had his wealth, but only in cause of many hours of work and dedication, he may have been faring more well.

My point above sounds like I'm lending a hand to calvinism, which I think is slightly different.

So the whole 'it's a journey' mantra?

 

[StevenM]

So the whole 'it's a journey' mantra?

I suppose. Because the topic is modernity, I'm saying the effort -> reward system is messed up. To those like the example depicted, it's flipped backwards. Empty Reward -> consequences.

In a way, it's like ordering groceries online, eating, then buying and using a thread-mill to keep in shape. The natural order gets fragmented.

Can't put my thought into words. I'll just throw this out: It's funny how only in the most desperate times will a person take full responsibility and actually put tremendous energy into fixing their problems. Which means the capabilities are there.

 

[Cognisant]

Lets say 5% of the population are fabulously wealthy and the there's a overall suicide rate of about 5%.

So of 10,000 people 500 are fabulously wealthy and 25 of them commit suicide.

25 rich people killed themselves, that gets a lot of attention.

The fact that 475 other people killed themselves does not.

In reality what we consider to be rich is about 1% of the world's population, so for every celebrity that kicks the bucket and becomes international news there's hundreds if not thousands of normal people do the same and unless it's someone you know personally nobody really cares.

 

[Jennywocky]

Yeah this seems like this is the way the church sells itself now these days. The song has an origin, but the idea behind it isn't lost in the lyrics I think.

I was hoping people wouldn't focus on the religious angle of this, like I said in the OP you can do away with the religious facet.

... whereupon then you proceeded to really only respond to the religious parts of my post and ignore anything I said about perhaps how this is less about modernity and more about materialism?

This ties into the relevance of me pointing out this lyric is cribbed from a poem written 70-80 years earlier... so where do you think "modernity" begins? Things are always changing, but you refer to modernity as if it were an event that occurred once on the timeline rather than an ongoing process of social change, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, but always typically present at least in hot/western cultures where there's a forward arrow of "progress" pushing things along.

If "modernity" is always ongoing over decades of time, then it perhaps isn't quite as relevant as what was directly described by the lyrics... expectations that conventional appearances of wealth and success, coupled with an outward demeanor of calm and contentment, would somehow reflect the reality of someone's internal happiness with life. Instead people are living lives of quiet desperation, hungering for something that ultimately won't quell any of the agitation or necessarily make life worth living.

 

[onesteptwostep]

I guess you can take a materialistic angle from the lyrics, but I don't think that was what the author's message was, when he incorporated that into his blog post. The post isn't really about modernity itself, it's the narrative which modernity sells to contemporaries. "The project of modernity was to produce people who believe they should have no story except the story they choose when they had no story. Such a story is called a story of freedom – institutionalized economically as capitalism and politically as democracy." - Stanley Hauerwas. I guess you could argue that narratives are constructs, but that's up to you, I guess. :P

As to where 'modernity' began: according to the blog modernity begins in the 18th century, which I'm guessing it alludes to Kant and the end of the Enlightenment. It was after him that Napoleon wrote his civil codes/law and the USA gained independence, which then marks the advent of democracy. After the world's debacle with socialism and communism, capitalism began to be more pronounced. With these forces gave rise to philosophers who put individualism on the forefront, accumulating, with all of these forces, into this ironic situation illustrated by the poem.

I'm guessing that this is the line of thinking that the author had in mind when he wrote it.

 

[Cognisant]

I feel like an apologist saying the failure of capitalism to bring happiness isn't systematic but personal and I could be convinced to turn my back on it, if you can present a better alternative.

Is it the responsibility of society to make the individual happy?

 

[Jennywocky]

I guess you can take a materialistic angle from the lyrics, but I don't think that was what the author's message was, when he incorporated that into his blog post. The post isn't really about modernity itself, it's the narrative which modernity sells to contemporaries. "The project of modernity was to produce people who believe they should have no story except the story they choose when they had no story. Such a story is called a story of freedom – institutionalized economically as capitalism and politically as democracy." - Stanley Hauerwas. I guess you could argue that narratives are constructs, but that's up to you, I guess. :P

See, you say not to talk about religion, but when I try to pull it away from religion, then you go right back to trying to determine how this religious blogger is using the lyrics to support their particular take informed by religion, and in the process you quote a noted religious apologist. (Hauerwas is a Christian theologian and famous, among other things, for his debate with atheist Anthony Flew a few decades back about whether the Resurrection actually happened.) So it's hard to say this whole discussion isn't grounded in the blogger's particular religious views -- it colors everything that he is conjecturing about.

As to where 'modernity' began: according to the blog modernity begins in the 18th century, which I'm guessing it alludes to Kant and the end of the Enlightenment. It was after him that Napoleon wrote his civil codes/law and the USA gained independence, which then marks the advent of democracy. After the world's debacle with socialism and communism, capitalism began to be more pronounced. With these forces gave rise to philosophers who put individualism on the forefront, accumulating, with all of these forces, into this ironic situation illustrated by the poem. I'm guessing that this is the line of thinking that the author had in mind when he wrote it.

So what do you think about what the blogger had to say? Is this just his view or yours as well?

 

[onesteptwostep]

It depends on what you're referring to: if you mean that everyone needs Christ, then not exactly, if you mean modernity seems to sell a broken narrative, then yes.

The religious part which I was trying to pull away from was the instilling of worldview. We could talk about religious things, but I'd rather not discuss the purpose aspect of it, since the lot on this site are atheistic.

 

[onesteptwostep]

I feel like an apologist saying the failure of capitalism to bring happiness isn't systematic but personal and I could be convinced to turn my back on it, if you can present a better alternative.

Is it the responsibility of society to make the individual happy?

Yeah, good question.

 

[Hadoblado]

It's not really an argument, it's more of an observation, but from a religious tilt. Have you read the page?

I read the excerpt but not the blog.

It felt like the blog wasn't worth looking at, because rather than talk about it you talked about a poem that the blog quoted, and then took even more emphasis off the blog and pointed us to modernity itself:

The site is (Christian) Orthodox, but you can do away with the religious trimmings and still notice the definite weaknesses in modernity.

I'm not trying to have a go at you, I'm just trying to make clear the reasons why you're not. It's just I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to be talking about modernity, the blog, the poem, the 'Christian tilt', media portrayal of celebrities, suicide, or materialism.

I do appreciate the thought of bringing a discussion piece to the forum, rather than a position in an argument.

 

[Jennywocky]

It depends on what you're referring to: if you mean that everyone needs Christ, then not exactly, if you mean modernity seems to sell a broken narrative, then yes.

... which does lead to the question of, if modernity or if materialism (hell, let's just talk about both of them, as different entities) are both broken narratives, then what could and should be a better narrative to replace them with?

IOW, "This book isn't so great, but everything on the market sucks worse."

 

[onesteptwostep]

I don't think it's in anyone's place to name a new system, either philosophical, political or economic. I think the best action we could take is, how to make the best of the situation, or guess at how culture will evolve and how it will unfold.

What do you mean exactly by the narrative of materialism though? People already have tried to manifest that, which had devastating consequences, politically and economically.

 

[Sinny91]

Modernity and materialism go hand in hand.
And as far as time has told, the basic distilled Christian doctrine bore good heed. As our materialism has grown, our spirituality has died.

The Christian laws forbade all that which causes destruction, and promoted all that which creates. This isn't just an early Christian teaching, most religions can be boiled down to the same fundamental spiritual laws, which have all since been corrupted and bastardised.

Main crux of humanity's story, 'you reep that which
you sow'. Has this not proven consistent?

“And He said, unto you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God: but to others in parables; that seeing they might not see, and hearing they might not understand” (Luke*8:10).

 

[onesteptwostep]

A couple of discussions relating to the problem, I believe.

On culture:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOdMBDOj4ec

On the modern generation, the millineials:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARDfbMJpMqQ

They're long and wordy, but I'm sure there are points to take from both of them relating to the issue, it's also a part of modern discourse and current events, so uh, so yeah.

 

[DrGregoryHouse]

All previous civilizations believed -no knew- that they were 'modern' too.

Especially pathetic is the built in assumption that anyone born 100 or more years ago was a troglodyte at best.

I was reading about the book found with Archimedes writings in it where it was discovered that he actually knew calculus...eegads!

Previous peoples aren't allowed to know such advanced subjects! How dare he!

Seriously the 'modern' paradigm, especially prevalent in schools, that somehow only 'modern' folks can possibly be enlightened is so damned tedious. And I do mean damned.

Good luck with that, modern man and woman.