2020-09-16

Last updated Aug 15, 2023

modernity = contemporary
modernity = self-mystification (intentional confusion -> jargon) of the fact that “we have never been modern”
- any notion of alternative modernities must be rejected -> we have always been traditional
Alternative modernities: characterization of a particular form of articulation between peripheral societies in the world system and centrally initiated capitalist processes
- basically the integration of world societies and capitalism
- Vary along two axes:
  - degree of ==transformative integration== into the global system
  - representations of the ==center as future, wealth, and well-being== (+ strategies)
So what really is modernity?
- Alterity of modernities: ==result of new set of mixtures + contemporary sameness, spread across the world==
- COMBINATORIAL in nature
- all alternative forms are variations on the same basic themes: ==“structures of common difference”==
- cluster of phenomena that may or may not be systematically related to one another
Where the future fades, people tend to invest in the past.
- Result: ethnification + cultural fragmentation
even if the objects and actors are different, the mode of going about identifying others and the central issue of wealth accumulation and inequality is admittedly part of the ==“old” logic==.
- but this new introduction is crucial to modernity (the contemporary aspect)

typical terms/fragments like nation-state and capitalism are associated with modernity because they act as ==signs?==
- aspects of a ==unitary process== that inflects them all in a particular way (Friedman 1994)
Alterity: founding dynamic of modernism
- worldview where identity is reduced into a social role
- springs from the fracturing of the person into ==private subject and public identity==
Evolutionism: ordering of world in terms of degrees of ==developmental success==
- can be equated to individual success
Modernity: rationalist, universalist, progressive?
- See Cards/Metamodernism
The way people ==identify== over time is a function of ==global systemic processes.==
==Global/local relation:== double process of TRANSFORMATION
- ==incorporation== of local structures into the reproductive cycles of an expanding capitalist system
- cultural ==assimilation== of imported relations, cateogires, and objects into local strategies
Types of Transformation:
- local change is organized but initiated + challenged by global relations
  - Bigman strategies
    - E.G. Hawaii’s entire society being replaced by colonial America
- local structures replaced by dominant power

“==Revolutions== are linked to local dreams of progress, images of a future” -> French Revolution
Confusion of contemporaneity and modernity
- contemporary = RIGHT NOW
- doesn’t exactly mean it’s a modern idea
- “Capitalist penetration dissolves moral and other forms of social control and community is ==not identical to the politics of ‘progress’”.==
E.G. of public identity = citizenship
- a center of the world is created, but at the cost of individualization
- The world is one because ==capitalism is now globalized.==
“revolution” is made by ==capital==, and not by those who would oppose it

modernity = set of modern products, specifically products of capitalism
Spitulnik tries to avoid “modernity” as an indicator of progress due to its ethnocentricity
things of outside world -> life processes of the local social order
modernity is continuously restructured (==discursive space==)
commercial capitalism = introduced new form of differentiation of wealth
consumption is a primary means of ==social self-definition==
- So…to be modern = to consume?
  - whether you consume media, culture, etc. if you’re out of the loop, you’re seen as not modern
Modernity: ==cultural field of commercial capitalism, its emergent identity space==.
Everyone who participates in ==world capitalism== is part of modernity
driving force of change: ==globalization== itself, the speeding up of circulation of goods, images, information, T-shirts, and cults, etc.
capitalism = cultural phenomenon
modernity as the contemporanous: integration within ==capitalist world economy==

modernity = cultural space
Modernity: ==transhistorical== structure
^ consumption can apply here as well
- E.G. The Enlightment: to be enlightened you had to consume
^ capitalism too
globlization goes together with ==“cultural continuity”==
modernity in structural sense is the ==cultural parameters== of capitalist experience space, outgrowth of ==commodification of social relations.==

modernity= leading sector/region
Desire for the things or the life, ==objectified in images of the West,== does not require the term “modernity”.
==relations to Western goods== -> local gender relations + local interpretations of objects (also capitalist)
- cultural assimilation (e.g. colonial mentality?)
what is modernist in one place may be reactionary in another
- e.g. fundamentalist Christianity is only traditionalist with respect to certain forms of social control
- it’s happening right now, but it’s not exactly modern
true ==ethnography==: venturing into native territory without the interference of the larger context (a.k.a. Eurocentrism)
Europe is a center of capitalist accumulation
There are many different ways of appropriating Western products that aren’t contained within Western cultural logics
- E.G. potlatching w/ sewing machines
  - not a different way of being modern, but a different way of ==connecting to a larger world.==
To ==identify continuity== is to ==deny the absolute contemporaneity and coevalness== of the entirety of the world’s populations.
- Basically, trying to find consistency through defining modernity makes us exclude others

modernity shouldn’t be equated to a globalized world
because its definition is so contextual… see alternative modernities
if we try to find consistency/unity within modernity, we’ll just end up excluding others

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