Modernism

Last updated Aug 15, 2023

• Source:
  • Great Books class: Miscellaneous Notes/Daily Notes/2023-02-01
• Keywords: Cards/permanent notes
  • #philosophy #psychology
• Relevant Notes:
  • Cards/Metamodernism
  • Sources/The Undiscovered Self

• The modern condition is characterized by a struggle of being as a ==process against all the external and internal forces against us==
  • The tensions of the modernist: external forces that impact the self (e.g. social expectations, nature, what people say about us, what people say we should do, events like political issues, national elections, and war)
  • The self also clashes with the self (a.k.a. the unconscious/psyche)

• Modernism is not about a certain time period; instead, it’s about ==a way of perceiving, a way of being, a way of thinking about the self.==

• 2 ways of perceiving the self: Romanticism v.s. Modernism

  • Romanticism: the reality & identity are external
    • E.G. Keats’ poem, which exhibits aspiration
  • Modernism: the reality & identity are internal
    • E.G. Shakespheare’s poem, which exhibits inevitability

• One takeaway: despite knowing that life is finite, ==the process of truly be-ing itself seems to be what life is all about==

• Related concepts to the modern:

  • Identity
    • Existence of stable, coherent “self”, independent of culture and society.
    • Identity is static: one either is one’s racial, ethnic, national or gender identity (the traditional view) or ==one has an innate identity which should be separated from social influences== (Rousseau’s romantic view).
  • Absurdity
    • Albert Camus defines the absurd as ==the tension created by humanity’s need for meaning and the universe’s refusal to provide any.== We can find no evidence for the existence of God, so all we are left with is an indifferent universe where bad things happen without a higher purpose or justification.
    • Absurd literary works present and explore the absurd nature of existence. They took a good look at the fact that ==there is no inherent meaning in life, yet we keep on living and keep trying to find meaning.== This was achieved by being themselves absurd in form or plot or both.
  • Fragmentation
    • Modernist literature embraces fragmentation as a literary form, since it reinforces the ==fragmentation of reality and contradicts notions of totality and wholeness.==
  • Alienation
    • The basic form of ==rootlessness==
    • Result of ==loss of identity==, which emerges as natural consequences of ==existential predictament==
    • The dispossessed personality’s search for identity is a common place theme in modern fiction. Man fails to perceive today the very purpose behind life and the relevance of his existence in a hostile world.

• The internal life is the cardinal element of the modernist sensibility. However, what is internal is shadowy, difficuult to define, and hard to understand.
• Freud
  • human tendency towards violence and sex
  • Id, ego, superego
  • The Oedipal complex
  • Growing up is working through these aspects of the self, and silencing the more difficult parts…
    • But the unconscious always finds a way to come out
• Before Freud & Jung, no one had a way to study the mind (thus mental illness wsn’t a concept back then). But thanks to their work, it became ==impossible to think of the human being as ‘whole’==
• Jung: ==we are ’enigmas’ to ourselves==; our lack of knowledge leads us to a state of conflict

• “Modern society”: defined by state/collective action/generalities
  • The problem of bein an indivdual in this type of society, according to Jung, is ==society only cares for what is external.== This leads to psyche being ignored, causing many mental health and behaivoral issues.

• The cure: self-knowledge
  • Statistifical fact does not reflect our individual reality
  • Demographic v.s lifeworld (Cope & Ralantis? 2019)
    • Lifeworld: your own individual world, the one that matters most to you
    • You will get along with those who ==have the same lifeworld==
    • Teacher advice: “You have to make space for all your students’ lifeworld”
  • Guide questions
    • What is self-knowledge? Why is it hard to get?
    • How can we acquire self-knowledge?
    • Is self-knowledge more important than collective and scientific knowledge?