When reading Habermas’s thoughts on modernism, I had to look up a lot of unknown words such as “milieu,” “avant-garde,” and even “neoconservatism.” This last word is the one that interested me the most, as I had heard it used before in terms of economics and sociology, but I had never fully grasped what the term meant or what the beliefs of that ideology were. Reading Habermas’ critique of modernity was helpful because he gave a bit of a history on the movement. From my understanding, it started when the world-view on the “reason expressed in religion and metaphysics” was not united anymore and they separated into three spheres: morality, science, and art (9).
Out of many compelling passages, one that I found most compelling was Habermas’ conversation on the neoconservatives. I was surprised to read such a negative take on postmodernism. Habermas seems to equate postmodernism with neoconservatism and suggests that they are taking a step back from modernity and promoting rigidness again in cultural values and practices.
He said that the neoconservatives had a limited support of modernism, and would “welcome the development of modern science, as long as this only goes beyond its sphere to carry forward technical progress, capitalist growth, and rational administration” (14). He is talking about modernism in comparison to the ‘corruption’ of capitalism, just like we saw Marshall Berman discuss in the expert from All That is Solid Melts Into Air.
However, Berman seemed to discuss capitalism as adding to the dizzying effect of new paces of life in modernity, not taking away from them (pg. 21-22). Maybe he would actually support the neoconservative argument that Habermas is refuting—that there needs to be more morality and a return to cultural ‘norm’ in the postmodern era. For instance, Habermas highlights Daniel Bell, an American neoconservative, who argues that “modernist culture is altogether incompatible with the moral basis of a purposive, rational conduct of life” and calls modernist culture “adversary culture” (6). Neoconservatives see capitalism as a system to enforce work ethic and keep society functional.
Comments
Post a Comment