139 TEASER | What is Modernity? Part I: Marshall Berman and the Contradictions of Modern Experience

In this episode, we begin our new series on modernity with a discussion of Marshall Berman’s 1982 book All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity. Some of the questions we will tackle in this series will address the substance of modernity, whether modernity is singular or multiple, the relationship of art to modernization, and whether modernity is better understood as a rupture from the past or a development out of it. Berman, for his part, argues that modernity has always been about development through contradictions. We moderns bear witness to the constant dissolution of the traditions, political forms, and social mores of the past in the name of the production of the new. However, Berman thinks the 20th century has lost touch with the essentially contradictory nature of modernity by becoming either dogmatic enthusiasts of creative destruction or resolute pessimists who see nothing but degradation in modern life. He returns us to the 19th century where artists and thinkers such as Goethe, Marx, and Baudelaire had a more vivid and sensitive appreciation of the contradictory demands of modern development. We discuss Berman’s ultimately hopeful account of modern experience, its relation to urban life, and why any future politics must reckon with people’s desire for stability. Get ready to ride the wave of modernity (it’s not like you have a choice)! 

This is just a short teaser of the full episode. To hear the rest, please subscribe to us on Patreon:

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References:

Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air: The Experience of Modernity (New York: Verso, 2010).

Perry Anderson, “Modernity and Revolution”, New Left Review I/144 (1984): 96-113.

Music:

“Vintage Memories” by Schematist | schematist.bandcamp.com

“My Space” by Overu | https://get.slip.stream/KqmvAN