The concept of modernity (or post-modernity) for that matter is a difficult one to grasp. How can one conceptualize, illustrate and simultaneously understand the intricacies of an experience that seldom we have ever noticed. I won’t pretend to be an intellect and attempt to unravel the nuances between the modern and the post-modern, but slowly the blurry veil that separates myself from understanding to misunderstanding shifts when one looks simply to the building blocks of understanding, the building blocks of consciousness— language.
“In the beginning, there was a word, and that word was “GOD”.
Language is the basis of thought. Without complex language, there is no complex thought. Language lends meaning to what previously would have been meaningless. Ferdidand De Saussure was a modernist— though he probably would never have called himself that. De Saussure founded the fields of linguistics and semiotics. He famously thought that to study man, perhaps he should study that which is specific to man— namely language. De Saussure asserted that the way language was organized was a reflection of the structures of the world.
One of the benchmarks of modernist theory is the idea of monolithic binaries. There is nothing, but two. There is no existence of a space of grey, there is no happy medium— there is only black or white, man or woman, rich or poor. Whereas there exists a space of grey, there are few words for it.
In language, particularly those descended from Latin, are composed of words separated by gender. Language, the very building blocks of thought are divided primarily on the basis of a binary.
Our world, for instance, is divided into a binary. Monolithic binaries are the defining actors and forces of the modern (or post-modern) world. The tete-a-tete between Communism and capitalism was the benchmark of all conflict post-world war, as was fascism v traditional democracy— there are countless other examples. The study of language aids my understanding of the structures of the world, both past, and present— revealing the current world to be one of dualistic forces.
This phenomena is easily identified in the changing ways words function. The transgender movement seeks to remedy transphobia by opting out of using traditional pronouns. By refusing to use the pronouns assigned at they're birth, or even by adopting the pronouns of "they/them", they're language indicates a reflection of their experience, as well as a reflection of their critiques of gendered institutions.
The idea that language forms the basis of thought, culture, and society is a powerful notion. Language, its meaning, and perhaps, more importantly, the transient nature of meaning, can then serve as a powerful looking glass in which we can observe how the structure of the word actually works.
Thought linguistics and De Saussure are decidedly modern, the applications of linguistic and structuralist thought aid me, however vaguely, in the understanding of the post-modern. It lends me a footing where I can at least attempt to grapple the questions of post-modernism and modernism.
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