Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Derived from the word modern to mean a sense of present times in
contrast to ancient times, the modernism of the nineteenth and twenti-
eth centuries was also to be viewed in contrast to earlier traditional
customs. As an intellectual movement in the arts, literature, architec-
ture and cultural fashions, modernism brought about a transformation
of society modelled upon Western, European rational thought, charac-
ter and practice. Modernity, on the other hand, though also derived
from the word modern, is a distinct concept. This is because it focuses
upon the transformation of social relations related to the emergence
and domination of capitalism in its successive forms - from early urban
industrialization, to advanced capitalism, and on to neoliberal and glo-
bal capitalism. In addition modernity, as Western modernist thought,
firmly placed Third World or global South 'traditional' societies as
'backward' if not also 'savage' and 'uncivilized'. For development and
progress to take place, modernist changes similar to those in play in
Europe and the West had to occur (Power, 2008).
Modernity, therefore, is distinguishable from modernism in terms of
the new technologies and innovations that accompany capitalism's evo-
lutionary transformations and scale changes of its interrelated political-
economic systems. Modernity brings about new modes of transport,
new sources of energy, new management and communication technolo-
gies, new media forms and the like. These, in turn, change social rela-
tions, power relations, institutional structures and supplant, or modify,
previous 'ways and means'. To Giddens and Pierson modernity is:
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associated with (1) a certain set of attitudes towards the world, the idea of
the world as open to transformation, by human intervention; (2) a complex
of economic institutions, especially industrial production and a market
economy; (3) a certain range of political institutions, including the
nation-state and mass democracy. Largely as a result of these character-
istics, modernity is vastly more dynamic than any previous type of social
order. It is a society... which… lives in the future, rather than the past.
(Giddens and Pierson, 1998: 94)
Early Modernity and Modernization Theories:
their Multidisciplinary Pedigrees
Sociologists were among the first to advance conceptual notions con-
cerning the dichotomy between traditional and modern societal orders.
