http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wamc/local-wamc-960717.mp3
Albany, NY – In today's Academic Minute, Dr. David Langston of the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts reveals how the assumption of progress underlies the concept of Modernity.
Dr. David Langston is a professor of English at the Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts where he teaches courses in comparative literature, literary theory, film, romanticism, modernism, and post-modernism. He holds a Ph.D. from Stanford University.
Dr. David Langston - The Myth of Modernity
2009, marked the 150th anniversary of numerous extraordinary events that became ingredients for our collective myth that modernity is the inevitable consequence of natural abundance. In 1859, Charles Darwin and Karl Marx each published works that caused everyone to re-consider biological or economic causation. The elixer of modernity, petroleum, began flowing from Pennsylvania's first commercial wells. John Brown raided Harper's Ferry, and abroad, the French started digging the Suez Canal while the British re-organized their empire following the calamitous Sepoy Rebellion. Among writers, Charles Baudelaire englarged his revolutionary poems in Fleurs du Mal, and pioneering novels appeared by George Eliot and our first African-American female novelist, Harriet Wilson. Among painters, Frederick Church and Albert Bierstadt redefined the codes for representing nature. Intercollegiate baseball got started, and psychological testimony first entered America's courtrooms.
Everywhere at mid-century changes that had been developing for decades lurched into public view. Leadership by charismatic individuals yielded to organizations marked by heirarchy, norms, methods, and predictable consequences. From the Civil War's conscripted armies, to the professional scientific guilds, to the Niagara Falls Hydraulic Power company and eventually to labor unions, professional associations, corporations, mercantile combinations, and even collegiate athletic programs -- all these gave shape and direction to modernity that yielded a scope, authority, and impact for modern society without historical precedent. Together, this collective effort constructed a narrative of destiny and inevitable progress that, after 150 years, has begun to look threadbare because its underlying presumption-- that nature is not only abundant but limitless -- looks doubtful and unsustainable. 2009 was a sesquicentennial worth observing because it may have marked a decisive turn in modernity's long story.
For more on the myth of modernity, see Modernity's Long Shadow.