Modernity’s defining trait is permanent self-transcendence toward an unreachable state.

Evidence

Modern modality of being is characterized first and foremost by its endemic unfinishedness; by its orientation towards a state of affairs not yet in existence. To speak of modernity as an unfinished project is to commit a tautology. Modernity is by definition forever in the running, always (and incurably) not yet accomplished. What is “modern” about any project is precisely its being a step, or two, or a hundred steps, ahead of reality; what is “modern” about modernity is its built-in capacity to self-transcend, to push back the finishing line in the course of running, and so to bar itself from ever reaching it. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 430 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

All orders constructed under the aegis of modernity are therefore, even if only unintentionally, local, temporal, until further notice - bound to be reshaped before reaching fulfillment. “Modernization” is not a road leading to the station called “modernity.” Modernization - the continuous, unstoppable, compulsive, obsessive, and in many ways self-propelling, modernization - is the very human condition the concept of “modernity” stands for; the permanent urge to modernize is modernity. Were the modernizing thrust ever to grind to a halt, this would not augur the completion of modernity, but its demise or bankruptcy. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 432 (#expands, via linked claim)

Modernity is an inherently transgressive mode of being-in-the-world. Visions of order are born out of dissatisfaction with the existing state of things, and attempts to make them into flesh give birth to new disaffections and new, revised – and so deemed to be improved – visions. Modernity rolls and blends into one the act of drawing a frontier and the resolve to transcend it. All orders constructed under the aegis of modernity are therefore, even if only unintentionally, local, temporal, until further notice – bound to be reshaped before reaching fulfilment. ‘Modernization’ is not a road leading to a station called ‘modernity’. Modernization – continuous, unstoppable, obsessive and in many ways self-propelling modernization – is the very human condition the concept of ‘modernity’ stands for; obsessive modernization is modernity. — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 651 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Modernity’s future is a teleology already accomplished, at once open and closed — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel: Plasticity,…, 1279; Modernity is a universal maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and renewal — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 157; Modernity is defined by an permanently unfinished, self-transcending orientation toward the unrealized — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 430 (+7 more)

Broader Connections

• Modernity is defined by an permanently unfinished, self-transcending orientation toward the unrealized #corroborates (0.97) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 430
• Modernity is defined by the permanent compulsion to modernize, not by any achieved endpoint #expands (0.93) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 432
• Modernity is best understood as compulsive, self-propelling modernization, not a completed state #expands (0.92) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 651
• Modernity’s own utopian promise of progress helps generate its inversion into unfreedom #complicates (0.72) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 49