Modernity is a universal maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and renewal

Evidence

There is a mode of vital experience—experience of space and time, of the self and others, of life’s possibilities and perils—that is shared by men and women all over the world today. I will call this body of experience, “modernity.” … Modern environments and experiences cut across all boundaries of geography and ethnicity, of class and nationality, of religion and ideology: it pours us all into a maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and renewal, of struggle and contradiction, of ambiguity and anguish. To be modern is to be part of a universe in which, as Marx said, “all that is solid melts into air.” — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 157

Categorization

• DEFINE: Berman’s classic definitional statement of modernity as shared vital experience.
• CANDY: The Marx ‘solid melts into air’ epithet is a readily quotable encapsulation of modernity.
• XREF: connects to: 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; Modernity’s temporalization of time restructures every social form and concept. — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration: A New Theory of…, 199; Modernity is the permanent urge to modernize, not a destination (+5 more)

Broader Connections

• Modernity is the permanent urge to modernize, not a destination #corroborates (0.92)
• Modernity is defined by an permanently unfinished, self-transcending orientation toward the unrealized #expands (0.90) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 430
• Modernity’s defining trait is permanent self-transcendence toward an unreachable state. #expands (0.90)
• Modernity’s temporalization of time restructures every social form and concept. #expands (0.85) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 199
• Modernity is defined by its endemic, incurable unfinishedness. #corroborates (0.80) — Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust, 650
• Modernity’s acceleration corrodes the very institutional stability it depends on #complicates (0.75) — Hartmut Rosa, Social Acceleration, 297