The Concept Of Modernity

Modernity is an absurd idea because it creates a line between what is modern and what is not modern. Today, we see modernity as a class difference. We call ourselves modern but, are we really “modern”?
Modernity is a global phenomenon; it is the idea of progress, of being developed. It began in the 17th century with the rise of scientific thinking and rationality. It is a period of history, but it is not a sudden dawning of a new era, but an influence in the Western Civilization. Modernity is an unfinished project because it is multiple, it does not have a single meaning and different societies think of it differently. We cannot construct it or put it in a single category because as we dig deeper in to the concept of modernity, the more complex

Pre-modern cultures have not been thought of creating a sense of distinct individuality among people; people’s sense of self was defined through religion. Everything was explained, validated and formulized in terms of religious and supernatural ways of understanding. Modernity is different from pre-modern in many ways, as people became aware of modernity and they started to accept it then religion was not given much importance, but scientific methods were used to explain things. These scientific methods led to the believe that use of science would lead to all kinds of knowledge. Nothing was secular in the pre-modern age, everything was spiritual. The concept of modernity is also different from pre-modern in a sense that it is not another era in history, but it is a result of a new type of change where people actually strived hard to change their situation. We cannot really say that people of pre-modern age were backward or that they had no knowledge. They discovered ways to cook, eat, wear, cure and travel but as modernity came these discoveries became advanced. People started to discover new lands and a rapid change came in the traditional religious and ethical norms of the pre-modern age. Modernity and pre-modernity are distinguished by the fact that modernity is based on construction and pre-modernity is based on naturalness, by naturalness it means to use all the natural resources to live but when modernity came and when the Europeans found a way to use all the natural resources and to take over all the natural resources of other lands, that is when it is said that modernity started. Through using those natural resources, the European advanced and that is why “The West” is called the prototype of modernity. When the Europeans explored through the nearby lands, they decided to settle in and that is how Europeans unlawfully took over native territories and