First modernity’s own successes eroded its authority and created self-directed individuals
Evidence
The hierarchical social compact and mass society of the first modernity promised predictable rewards, but their very success was the knife that cut us loose and sent us tumbling onto the shores of the second modernity, propelling us toward more-intricate and richly patterned lives. Education and knowledge work increased mastery of language and thought, the tools with which we create personal meaning and form our own opinions. Communication, information, consumption, and travel stimulated individual self-consciousness and imaginative capabilities, informing perspectives, values, and attitudes in ways that could no longer be contained by predefined roles or group identity. Improved health and longer life spans provided the time for a self-life to deepen and mature, fortifying the legitimacy of personal identity over and against a priori social norms. — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 111
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to Giddens/Beck’s reflexive modernization thesis and echoes the general theory of second modernity Zuboff builds on throughout. — connects to: Successful institutions can dissolve from their own premature success — Angus Burgin, The Great Persuasion: Reinventing Free…, 314; Modern individuality arises from rupture with the world, not harmony with it — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 841; Modernity’s need for self-justification arises from the collapse of traditional norms — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 264 (+12 more)
Broader Connections
- Modern individuality arises from rupture with the world, not harmony with it
#corroborates(0.85) — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 841 - Emancipation from society weakens rather than empowers the individual
#contradicts(0.82) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 169 - Modernity’s need for self-justification arises from the collapse of traditional norms
#corroborates(0.80) — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 264 - Modernity’s paradigmatic structures have failed the consumers of the good life
#exemplifies(0.80) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 463 - Modern individualism emerged from the Renaissance-Reformation shift to immanentism
#corroborates(0.80) - Contemporary transformations are modernity’s self-radicalization, not its ending
#expands(0.78) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 127 - Neoliberalism exists to reverse modernity’s claims to self-determination
#responds-to(0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 116 - Individualization as a modernization outcome differs sharply from neoliberal individualism and psychological individuation
#expands(0.75) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 103 - Modernity’s reflexivity makes its own rational grounds ultimately puzzling
#complicates(0.75) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 124 - Unchecked individualism destroys individuality rather than protecting it
#complicates(0.75) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 169 - Disciplinary power produces individuality rather than merely restricting it from outside
#complicates(0.73) - Modern methods cannot solve problems caused by modernity itself
#complicates(0.72) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 481