Modernity’s endless self-obsolescence persists as corporate upgrades
Evidence
And in a way it’s a pre-postmodernist thing. The whole experience of modernity was this double perception that whatever your current experience is, it’s already obsolete; because modernity is a process which never reaches an end: there’s no resting, no point of equilibrium, only this endless upgrading. And then today you have corporations such as Apple, whose business model is entirely based on this: obsolescence. — Mark Fisher (edited by Darren Ambrose), K-Punk, 2304
Categorization
- XREF: Connects to the earlier chapter claims about capitalist realism and ‘modernise’ meaning ‘privatise’; the upgrade-as-future argument resonates with them. — connects to: Modernity is the permanent urge to modernize, not a destination; Modernity’s novelty is the industry monetizing communion with exalted figures — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 771; Contemporary transformations are modernity’s self-radicalization, not its ending — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 127 (+7 more)
Broader Connections
- Modernity is the permanent urge to modernize, not a destination
#corroborates(0.85) - Modernity is defined by an permanently unfinished, self-transcending orientation toward the unrealized
#corroborates(0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 430 - Modernity’s novelty is the industry monetizing communion with exalted figures
#exemplifies(0.80) — Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, 771 - Contemporary transformations are modernity’s self-radicalization, not its ending
#corroborates(0.80) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 127 - Consumer tech shifted from utility to aspirational culture within a few years
#exemplifies(0.80) — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 276 - Post-2015 consumer tech innovations added mostly marginal novelty rather than genuine transformation
#exemplifies(0.80) - Corporate optimization creates both new species and new precarities
#expands(0.75) — , The Braided Reading EPUB, 2370 - Modernity is trouble and a problem, not simply progress
#expands(0.70) — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 185