Modernity and modernization concepts may be inadequate to explain modern experience

Evidence

The dynamism of the social world offers the promise of happiness - and of disaster. What is much less clear is whether concepts such as those of modernity and modernization are adequate to characterize and account for this contradiction. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 146

Berman’s thesis has been subject to searching though sympathetic criticism by Perry Anderson in an essay I discuss in section 2.2 below. Though I find Anderson’s arguments convincing, Berman’s central claim — developed in a series of rich and subtle analyses of particular cases from Goethe to Bely — concerning the peculiar contradiction of modern experience seems to me essentially correct. The dynamism of the social world offers the promise of happiness - and of disaster. What is much less clear is whether concepts such as those of modernity and modernization are adequate to characterize and account for this contradiction. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism, 146

Categorization

• XREF: This doubt about modernity’s explanatory adequacy presages the Marxist critique arguing such categories mask more fundamental socio-economic determinations. — connects to: The traditional-modern dichotomy obscures the pathologies of modernization. — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 156; A critique of modernity that stays within modernity’s framework only reinforces it; Modern methods cannot solve problems caused by modernity itself — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 481 (+8 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Alex Callinicos, Against Postmodernism: A Marxist…, 146

Broader Connections

• Modern methods cannot solve problems caused by modernity itself #corroborates (0.85) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 481
• A critique of modernity that stays within modernity’s framework only reinforces it #expands (0.80)
• The European modernization narrative has no overriding importance for analyzing modernity #corroborates (0.80)
• Modernism, modernity, and modernization are distinct concepts with uneven circulation across nations #qualifies (0.75) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 663
• Modernity is best understood as compulsive, self-propelling modernization, not a completed state #expands (0.75) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 651