A Sociology of Modernity (1) II `The Birth of Modern Thought‘

1. A Sociology of Modernity (1) II`The Birth of Modern Thought‘ Prof. Dr. Joost van Loon Institut für Soziologie, LMU Nottingham Trent University, U.K.

2. Outline • Modernization and Modernity • The Birth of Modern Thought - Foucault • Examples of Modern Thought: Kant, Hegel, Marx and Weber • Romanticism – a second modernity? • Nietzsche’s Philosophy • Appropriations of Nietzsche • The Dark Side of Modernity: The Holocaust

3. The issue of ‘beginnings’ • 1266 Marco Polo meets Kublai Khan in Bejing (Europe no longer represents the whole universe)

4. Diseased Beginnings • 1348: The arrival of the Black Death in Europe and the Collapse of European Feudalism

5. Technological Beginnings • 1439 Johannes Gutenberg ‘invents’ the moveable typeset printer

6. Artistic Beginnings • 1470 The Renaissance emerges with the works of Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo Buonarroti and others under patronage of the De Medici Family in Florence

7. Leonardo Da Vinci

9. Colonial Beginnings • 1492 America discovers Christopher Columbus

10. Cynical Beginnings • 1513 Machiavelli publishes ‘the Prince’

11. Argumentative Beginnings • 1517 Martin Luther nails his Ninety-Five Theses on the Power of Indulgences to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg

12. Most common mentioned beginnings of Modernity • Enlightenment (mid 17th century) • Industrial Revolution (mid 18th century) • American & French Revolutions (late 18th century) • The combination of the latter two is referred by Karl Polanyi (1944) as ‘the Great Transformation’

13. It all depends on definitions • Modernity as ….. • An economic process: The rise of (Industrial) Capitalism • A political process: The rise of the (Nation) state • A Cultural Process: The separation of faith and reason, the rise of techno-science, and secularization

14. Theorists of modernity • Scotland: Hume, Ferguson, Smith • France: Descartes, Montesquieu, Rousseau • Germany: Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche

15. Immanuel Kant

16. Immanuel Kant • The existence of God is beyond the realm of Reason, • Faith and reason are completely separate • What is true and what is just are completely separate • Validity = questions of truth -> critique of pure reason • Ethics = questions of justice –> critique of practical reason • Aesthetics = questions of taste –> critique of Judgment Concept of Radical Evil: Doubt at the Heart of Reason?

17. Modernity • Man over Nature (through technology) • Man over God (through reason and science) • Man over history (planning rather than fate)

18. Hegel and Marx

19. Hegel and Marx • Dialectical reason: Justice and truth are not separate but realised in history (= progress); • The laws of history can be known • The task of knowledge is to facilitate practices that enable the unfolding of history according to its own logic • Marx: men make history but not under conditions of their own chosing.

20. Max Weber

21. Weber • Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism • Entzauberung der Welt - disenchantment (a reverse Harry Potter) • Dominance of rationality • Bureaucracy

22. The Rise of Romanticism • Against the idea that reason grants mastery • Creativity rather than productivity • Spirit rather than mind • Subjectivity rather than objectivity • Pessimism rather than optimism • Tribal rather than universal

23. Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)

24. Friedrich Nietzsche • Writes in the context of an Emergent Romanticism and Nationalism • Rather than ‘reason’ driving history, Nietzsche stressed it was the Will to Power • Critique of ‘Enlightened’ Philosophy as a ‘hypocrisy of denial’ and ‘mediocratic’ (Herd Mentality) • Critique of emancipatory politics as infused by Slave Morality • ‘ethos of suspicion’: there is no universal grounding of morality • Nihilism: history does not have a `grand destiny´

25. The Will to Power • section 514 (p. 365): • Eine Moral, eine durch lange Erfahrung und Prüfung erprobte bewiesene Lebensweise kommt zuletzt als Gesetz zum Bewußtsein, als dominierend … und damit tritt die ganze Gruppe verwanderter Werte und Zustände in sie hinein: sie wird ehrwürdig, unangreifbar, heilig, wahrhaft; es gehört zu ihrer Entwicklung, daß ihre Herkunft vergessen wird… Es ist ein Zeichen, daß sie Herr geworden ist… freely translated as • A morality, a tried and tested and proven way of life, finally enters into conscience as Law, as dominating… and with it engages the entire collection of values and conditions of the group; it becomes honourable, untouchable, holy, truthful ; it belongs to its development, that its origin is being forgotten… It is a sign that it has become ‘Lord’

26. Friedrich Nietzsche • Writes in the context of an Emergent Romanticism and Nationalism • Rather than ‘reason’ driving history, Nietzsche stressed it was the Will to Power • Critique of ‘Enlightened’ Philosophy as a ‘hypocrisy of denial’ and ‘mediocratic’ (Herd Mentality) • Critique of emancipatory politics as infused by Slave Morality • ‘ethos of suspicion’: there is no universal grounding of morality • Nihilism: history does not have a `grand destiny´

27. Appropriations of Nietzsche • His work used by Nazis who failed to see the critical irony of, for example, his concept of the Übermensch • Disliked by left-wing radicals because he exposed their inherent slave morality • Liked by critical philosophy (e.g. Bataille, Debord, Deleuze, Foucault) because he abandoned universalism • Nihilism: dominant ethos of postmodernity • Re-ignites a concern over the question of evil

28. Zygmunt Bauman

29. Bauman: Modernity and the Holocaust • ideal typical’ modern event and organization: • The precise and perfectly programmed coordination of biological and medical science, bio-chemical technology, engineering, logistics, management and propaganda. • The extermination of Jews was carefully planned in population-administration, the logistics transport, the appropriation of science and technology, the setting into work of the death machine, and the use of images and ideas for propaganda purposes • The role of radio – disembodied tribal drum (McLuhan, 1964).

30. Why? • The separation from action and consequences (just doing one’s job, just following orders) - Eichman • Fascism is within us - Deleuze & Guattari (1977) – it is a neurotic disorder caused by capitalism and modernity, justified by psychoanalysis and driven by a will to power and to know