Modernity is defined by wholesale reflexivity, not merely love of the new.

Evidence

The reflexivity of modern social life consists in the fact that social practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of incoming information about those very practices, thus constitutively altering their character. We should be clear about the nature of this phenomenon. All forms of social life are partly constituted by actors’ knowledge of them. Knowing “how to go on” in Wittgenstein’s sense is intrinsic to the conventions which are drawn upon and reproduced by human activity. In all cultures, social practices are routinely altered in the light of ongoing discoveries which feed into them. But only in the era of modernity is the revision of convention radicalised to apply (in principle) to all aspects of human life, including technological intervention into the material world. It is often said that modernity is marked by an appetite for the new, but this is not perhaps completely accurate. What is characteristic of modernity is not an embracing of the new for its own sake, but the presumption of wholesale reflexivity—which of course includes reflection upon the nature of reflection itself. — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 99

Categorization

• DEFINE: Kernel Giddens definition of the reflexivity of modernity—social practices constitutively altered by knowledge about them.
• XREF: Stevens fails this reflexive turn: he does not examine his practice in the light of incoming knowledge (Miss Kenton’s warnings, the staff departures), so his deference is a premodern trust stance within a modern institution. — connects to: Modernity’s reflexivity rests on cultural commitment and power, not pure reason — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 407; Modernity’s reflexivity makes its own rational grounds ultimately puzzling — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 124; Contemporary transformations are modernity’s self-radicalization, not its ending — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 127 (+1 more)

Related

• Modernity’s reflexivity subverts reason’s claim to certitude. (similarity 0.88)
• Modernity’s reflexivity rests on cultural commitment and power, not pure reason (similarity 0.88)
• Modernity’s reflexivity makes its own rational grounds ultimately puzzling (similarity 0.86)
• Contemporary transformations are modernity’s self-radicalization, not its ending (similarity 0.85)
• New social knowledge alters the social world rather than merely describing it (similarity 0.83)
• In modernity tradition is justified only by knowledge not derived from tradition. (similarity 0.83)
• Modernity consists in the destabilization of the subject, not mere progress (similarity 0.82)
• Modernity’s core is an irreducible enigma that cannot be overcome (similarity 0.82)
• Modernity institutionalises doubt, making all knowledge claims inherently circular (similarity 0.81)
• Modernity names the felt conviction of newness that postmodernity has lost. (similarity 0.80)
• Social knowledge alters its subject, unlike natural-science observation (similarity 0.80)
• Modernity is best understood as compulsive, self-propelling modernization, not a completed state (similarity 0.80)
• Social science knowledge changes the social world it studies. (similarity 0.79)
• The feeling that systematic knowledge is impossible stems from uncontrollable modern events, not epistemology (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Modernity’s reflexivity makes its own rational grounds ultimately puzzling #expands (0.70) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 124
• Contemporary transformations are modernity’s self-radicalization, not its ending #corroborates (0.60) — Anthony Giddens, The Consequences of Modernity, 127