The modern and the postmodern in culture

The most important component of modern culture is modern science. Science provides the modern means of control and knowledge. The modern scientific viewpoint (the mechanistic worldview) is based on studying the building and functioning of controllable machines. Modern scientific knowledge becomes general and situation independent by looking at the world as an “infinite series” of controllable situations.

The most important result of the modern understanding of the world is that it turns the medieval view into its exact opposite and provides a worldview in which individual objects dominate their environment. This change, in which the object is emancipated, set free and liberated from its environment and even, in which the object itself becomes dominant is the radically daring, revolutionary content of the modern worldview. In the relationship between the individual and his social environment, the huge sacrifices in the political struggle for individual independence and freedom and an unflagging revolutionary spirit characterize this situation well. But the new value system gradually unfolds in its relation to human nature as well. While the humanists and artists of the Renaissance aimed only at a control over man’s own, inner nature, the thinkers of the 17^thcentury are about gaining control over nature which is external for man. While in the worldview of deism God’s generally effective role is still preserved in setting aims and man can only replace him in quite concrete activities (e.g. as a craftsman), later developments make the providently calculating active man the determinant of all aims.

It is suitable to differentiate between three clearly separable phases in the spread of the modernist, mechanistic worldview as the authentic basis of the modern civic world order. In the beginning, this worldview is an abstract, ideological, philosophical program; this first phase can be observed at the beginning of the 17^thcentury. However,

3The papers [Ropolyi 1999a; 2000c] provide a more detailed analysis.

The transformation of culture in late modernity

at the end of the 17^thcentury, we see that the mechanistic worldview appears in more concrete problems, it becomes a scientific program and it appears more and more obviously in the background of scientific principles, hypotheses and theories. Finally, during the 18^thcentury – in the third phase – the rapidly developing industrial activity, as the motive of the Industrial Revolution becomes a practical program.

Even already the movements and figures of theRenaissanceclearly committed themselves to the new worldview, but they often expressed their opinion in a religious or artistic and not in a philosophical form. The need that indi-viduals should be able to shape their relationship to God without any mediation by the church was expressed in Luther’s and Calvin’s teachings; furthermore, the possibility of individual freedom is revealed in Calvin’s idea of predestination. The representation of a joyful, harmonic relationship to human nature – of course chiefly to our own nature –, free of any subjugation was an important ambition of Renaissance art. The engineering geniuses and polymaths of the Renaissance represent individually the unlimited possibilities of human will and knowledge and the mighty power and victory of man. The Renaissance is also significant in the historical process of the devel-opment of the individual. Though elements of the civic world order appear in the Renaissance, they are not put together into a scientifically systematized idea or philosophical system. We can see a conscious, organized discussion of the civic value system from the 17^thcentury.

Bacon puts the desired goal very clearly: man can be the ruler of his world if he possesses the appropriate knowledge.

Knowledge is important becauseknowledge is power.

“… Man’s advantage lies in his knowledge, this is without any doubt. There are a lot of things in knowledge which cannot be bought even on all of the treasures of the kings, over which their orders have no power; about which their spies and messengers cannot provide any news, and their shipmen and explorers cannot sail to their source.

Today, we only rule nature in pure imagination and we are subjected to its force; however, if we could have ourselves led by it in our studies, we could command it in practice, too.” (Horkheimer – Adorno 1990, 19-20). In other words: “Human knowledge and power are one and the same because if we do not know the cause, the effect will not occur either. For nature can only be defeated through obedience … In practice, the only thing that man can do is bringing closer certain natural bodies or taking them apart; nature does the rest of the work alone” (Bacon 1954, 27). In his new methodology, which secures gaining knowledge, Bacon gives an important role to experi-mentation. Note that in the experimental situation, the experimenter rules the experiment, he decides in what sense the given part of reality is interesting for him and he does not submit to it.

The power factors of the new worldview are also clearly revealed in Descartes’ methodological principles. The subjective evidence connected to the individual is the basis of all understanding: I may only accept things as true which are evident for me, which are clearly presented to my mind. That is, the individual, the ‘I’ wants to decide in the question of truth. But perhaps this does not apply to the ‘I’ as a whole. Note that Descartes’ famous principle,

“I think, therefore I am” treats thinking as more important in connection with certainty than existence, and in this way, it provides a basis for understanding thought as an activity which is outside life, directed at life and which makes life its own object. Now, this treating as an object clearly expresses the relations of power: rationality wishes to be a factor which rules over life. Descartes summarizes the technology of treating problems in a general form in his well-known methodology. During its analytic work, the rationality favored by Descartes takes possession of and controls reality, just as Bacon’s experimenting scientist. It seems that in this sense, empiricism and ration-alism understand each other well. Thus, based on rationality, we have to gain power over nature, society and our own nature.

The trains of thought above became a part of the philosophy of the Enlightenment. We know it well that “the essence of the Enlightenment is the alternative the inescapability of which is the inescapability of power at the same time.

People always had to decide whether they subject themselves to nature or they subject nature to their own Self”.

(Horkheimer – Adorno 1990, 50). In this situation, the standpoint of the philosophers of the age is clear: “in the general sense of progressive thinking, it was always the aim of the Enlightenment to liberate them from dread and make them rulers”. (Horkheimer – Adorno 1990; 19). Voltaire, Holbach, Diderot, Rousseau and several of their lesser known contemporaries played an important role in the concrete naming of the towering obstacles to this liberation of people and in the creation of the concrete programs of their destruction. They launched powerful attacks on the hierarchical power structures that could be observed in various spheres of society: their philosophical, literary writings and journalism was characterized by a strong opposition to the church and religion and the radical rejection of feudal privileges. They developed a philosophical program sketching the possibility of civic development which turned into a revolutionary action plan resulting in the transformation of the whole society. The unfolding modern civic society recognizes its citizens as independent, free and equal.

The transformation of culture in late modernity

In its explanation of the world, the mechanistic worldview utilized a rational idea based on observation. The whole world can be constructed of simple elements, it is a system which can be reviewed, completely understood and calculated. While studying the system and its elements, in principle, we can always chooseonecorrect method, thecorrect method, and if we follow it,thetruth about things is revealed. The modern civic circumstances in society and the rational ambition in science secure the universal prevailing of the civic value system, that is, man’s control over nature, society and his own nature. Man can become the ruler of his own fate. “However, the completely en-lightened Earth is glowing in the light of Misfortune” (Horkheimer – Adorno 1990, 19). For besides the signs of man’s power, the symptoms of his lack of power and alienation soon appear.

Perhaps the sustainability of the control situation based on the unlimited activity of man and the ultimate passivity of nature seems to be doubtful for the careful observer. It was even already clear for certain thinkers of the 18^th century that matter cannot simply be regarded as a passive factor but it has self-movement and “senses”, and con-sequently change and development can be observed in nature. It becomes clear soon from the results of various sciences that the living world, the Earth, even the whole Cosmos has an evolution and a history. This characteristic cannot be fitted into the mechanistic worldview in any way – the interpretation of evolution urges to transcend this conceptual framework. The limits of man’s activity also appear more and more clearly. The destructive technologies based on a lack of knowledge and caring already caused problems in 18^thcentury England.

During the practical operation of man’s control over nature and society, it becomes clear that science which develops serving man’s power does not fulfill the expectations and does not make us powerful since it is completely insens-itive to many things, above all, to anything which does not promise any profit. This is clearly shown by the fact that in a somewhat later stage of the development “…occupying the judiciary position of enlightened rationality, not only it simply prohibits excursions into the intelligible worlds, but it regards them as a meaningless banter … The estrangement of thinking from its factual working through, that is, leaving the magic circle of the actually existing (…) seems to be insanity and self-destruction for the scientific sentiment…” (Horkheimer –Adorno, 1990;

43).

As a result of the pressure to control the actually prevailing circumstances which determine our actual existence, in factsubmitting to the actually existing becomes the main principle of the modern world. We cited the book co-authored by Horkheimer and Adorno several times and it clearly shows that the modern world helps the hidden totalitarian nature of the Enlightenment unfold; not only in connection with control but in this unwanted sense, too, and it can even turn the splendid ideals of the Enlightenment into a support of fascist ideology. Knowledge taken out of its context, modern science separated from its concrete social environment can easily lose orientation, and thus rationality operated merely for the sake of power realizes the possibility of insane rule.

Horheimer’s and Adorno’s book can be regarded as one of the first documents of postmodern thinking. The disil-lusioning social processes of the years of fascism which they diagnosed along with others, the inhuman consequences of the dominance of abstract rationality broken lose form the realm of life and ruling over life circumstances did not cease to exist. From the 1960s, the long lasting working through of the events and consequences of the Second World War and the Cold War urged many thinkers to give up the modern program at least partially, even though at the time, the outlines of a new value system which could be chosen were not visible. Thus, in this unfolding in-tellectual situation only the rejection of the monopoly of the modern value system and a need for alternatives appeared emphatically; the character of the alternatives were quite varied, uncertain or obscure. The ideology of the

“movement” which rejected themonopoly of modernismwas expressed in the varied value systems of postmodern views. The viewpoint of postmodern ambitions cannot be unified if we take its principles seriously, since otherwise they would replace one monopoly with another, which would obviously question the meaning of the whole activity.

Nevertheless, we can point out some common characteristics in the standpoints (Almási 1987; Babarczy 1998;

Erjavec 1992; Érdi 1992; Jameson 1991; 1997; Lyotard 1993; Nagy 1991; Vajda 1990; 1991).

We can clearly observe the emphatic declaration of diversity as a basic value and respecting and following its various versions and their manifestations (playfulness, absent-mindedness, chance, situation dependence, etc.).

Contrastingthe manywiththe oneand its cultivation appears in various contexts, thus for example the rejection of the onlycorrect way of thinking, the onlytruthand the onlyrealityand the acceptance of the plural versions of these. Consequently, postmodern knowledge cannot be universal, only situation dependent (that is, technological).

The pluralization of reality necessarily leads to the value ofvirtualityand the relativization of any kind of unity and wholeness. The postmodern is not the excluding opposite of modernity, instead, it represents an order in which modernity has alternatives; that is, it only rejects theexclusivityof modernity but does not reject modernity itself.

We could also say that the postmodern includes the modern as a part of itself (though they sometimes claim the The transformation of culture in late modernity

exact opposite) but it is a much wider system and there is room in it for other value worlds. Postmodern views can be compared but without any conclusive consequences: one standpoint cannot be truer or more valid than another;

referring to such hierarchies is a characteristic strategy of modernity. The opposition of the postmodern to power can be put in the simplest way in ananarchistpolitical philosophy or philosophy of science.

The consequences of the postmodern standpoint can partly be realized, though Habermas advises it otherwise (Habermas 1993) and Latour draws our attention to the fact that actually, the modernist project has not been realized either (Latour 1999). Perhaps the beat movement, flourishing from the 50s of the 20^thcentury and certain artistic ambitions which have developed since then, illustrate best that the postmodern project can be realized. However, the actual flourishing of postmodern culture is connected to the spread of information technologies in our days.

For drawing further conclusions, it seems to be suitable to take a look at the circumstances of the development of postmodern ideologies. In what follows, we will try to show that the postmodern attitude is a crisis product.