The Myth Of Modernity
The Illusion of Progress
When did we get so modern that we forget how old we are? Not as individuals but as a collective, as a species. We are right to assume that our technological advancements are actually advancing us and not retarding us but if we look closely we may find some surprising details. Though we are technologically wiser, our human nature is shining through in its most ugly aspects. Where it was once thought that our lower and lesser natures might be saved by modern technology and information, we sadly find that not to be true. Greed is still greed, albeit with smartphones. Ignorance is still ignorance, albeit with a general consensus from the internet. Hatred is still rampant and with the rise of the internet has only found new and ever widening digital channels to spread its false message.
We are not modern. I want to start out by stating this fact—we are living in a myth of modernity. We didn’t get a fresh start with all this development. We don’t just get to throw away millennia of evolution and growth as a species. And we’d best let go of the notion that we are the smartest species on this planet because first, it only strokes our ego and makes us all more complacent and less responsible. Second, we are not the smartest species for if we were, we would not leave a wake of destruction on our natural environment. If you truly think about it, a smart and intelligent species would also be aware of the interwoven and interconnected nature of its existence with that of its environment. It would not be so blind to the effects of its activities. This, in itself, clearly shows we’re not there yet. Even some animals are more aware of the environmental impact of their actions than we are.
The laws of nature have not changed. Water still flows to the sea; the sun still rises in the east and wind still blows. But when did we become so modern? When did our laws and contracts with the planet change to such an extent that we can just do whatever we want with the land we inherited? Yes, it’s a wise thing to remember we inherit the land, first from our forefathers and second from our future generations. We are but temporal stewards of this land and in the larger scheme of things, this land is inherited from planet Earth itself.
Was it our science that made us so full of ourselves or when we realized we could fly? When machines made it easier for us to do our work and we felt like gods being able to manipulate the physical universe. Or rather, the small physical corner of our reality. The universe is a vast thing that we have little idea about. What’s funny is we know more about the universe than we do about the depths of our oceans. Numerous ancient civilisations and religions knew about the stars and plotted their movement to accuracy. They even determined the circumference of the earth through the stars. A feat we could not imagine accomplishing. Can we still entertain the notion that we are modern?
The Price of Progress
Eratosthenes, who lived in Alexandria calculated this value to a precision of less than 5% from our current value by watching angle at which the sun’s light fell. Aryabhata-I who lived in the 7^(th) century BCE calculated the circumference of the Earth to a precision of 0.02% from the current accepted value today. The details of these feats is beyond the scope of this essay but the implications are hugely relevant. Those we call ‘savage’ or ‘primitive’ people, we easily attribute abilities to them that are inferior to our own. Showing that they could achieve the same feats with nearly zero equipment as we do with our fancy ‘modern’ equipment, gives us pause to realize that we may not be the smartest collective to have existed on this planet—even that assumption could be the sign of a foolish species, for ‘little knowledge is a dangerous thing.’
As Neil Postman reminds us in his prescient work ‘Technopoly’, we’ve moved through distinct stages in our relationship with technology—from using tools to serve our cultural needs, to letting technology shape our culture, to finally surrendering our culture to technology entirely. We’ve shifted from wielding tools with purpose to being wielded by them, often without noticing the transition. This technological wisdom we pride ourselves on may be leading us further from the human wisdom that sustained us for millennia.
If we look at the progress we have made then it does make us proud.
Achieving flight, the internet and so many modern technological
innovations that have made our lives easier. These are blessings in
themselves. But, let’s look at this closer by asking ourselves one very
important question:
Have these innovations empowered our collective humanity or taken us
away from it?
The answer, sadly, is not what we wish it to be. We could live in naïve optimism and say, ‘yes it has empowered us’ but if we look at the reality of it, we would only be deluding ourselves with such an answer. Firstly, a large part of these innovations are present in the minority of the western ‘developed’, ‘first-world’—whatever that means for a species that shares one planet. The comforts of life that money can buy are present most where there is most money. The underdeveloped or the ‘developing’ ‘third-world’ still lives the way it has for generations, although now it has more waste and trash to deal with and also internet to distract itself. The benefits of modernity are not global, they are exclusive and it seems they must be earned.
Have we made progress that has alleviated the suffering of our fellow human being? Have we added to it? Does putting our fellow human in a fancy house with modern amenities, in front of a shining screen on a super comfortable chair equate to alleviating suffering? Or are we simply trying to avoid this problem with the excuse of comfort. What is underneath this disguise of modernity? Think about it.
When it comes to progress we are like foolish voters who bank on the responsibility of their representative while avoiding as much responsibility themselves. We are riding the waves of progress and proud of the achievements of others, while we ourselves have contributed nothing. A passive consumer adds to the economy but does not grow themselves. Do we have a desire to contribute to human progress or to contribute to economic progress? At the time of writing this, I do not believe these two means meet the same ends anymore.
What I shudder to think of is what happens next. We’ve thrown out the baby with the bathwater. In discarding all the things that hinder us from being ‘our modern selves’ we have relegated a large amount of wisdom to dark corners. What essential wisdom have we thrown out in this delusion of modernity? We think science can explain it all, our governments can handle it all and we, with our technology, can solve it all. When the rude awakening comes that all this is not true, will we wake up? To be fair this is not a criticism of modernity but rather of the implicit arrogance present in mankind. Each civilisation has lived as if they were the best. History has historically been written by the winner and in any society, we only knew what was true by what was told to us. If we bothered to research it ourselves, we might come across a wholly different truth. The error we have largely committed as a collective species, one that I think we are destined to commit again, is not of oversight but of under-sight. Of not seeing the larger perspective but being bound by our immediate environment and believing that is the extent of truth and of the world.
Are we going to slip farther into decadence because all our comforts
have ceased to challenge us? We can of course have discussions about
what is right and what is wrong, what is the meaning of life and how
does one live it. But all that is irrelevant if we don’t ask ourselves
this one question: Who are we?
There is no short answer to this question.
Remembering Our Heritage
Walter Benjamin spoke of what he called ‘Jetztzeit‘—a kind of ‘now-time’ where past and present collapse into each other, where history isn’t a string of beads we count but a big jewel we hold up to the light, seeing all its facets at once. We don’t just remember history; we embody it. Each moment contains all moments, each of us contains all of us—we are our ancestors, their hopes and fears and wisdom still alive in our cells, their stories still whispering in our dreams.
So, we need to think of the ancient heritage we all carry. That in some way, we are all descendants of the greats. We carry the history of our people inside us, in our very actions and in our beliefs, in the smallest of our behaviours and the keenest of observations. Their unfinished work is our work. We are not just people in the modern era. We are the story of humanity. The condensed collective version of all that has happened before us and in some way, all that might happen after us. We are tasked to mend the past and look after the future. All the wisdom accrued over generations has served a larger purpose to remind us of who we are and what we are doing here. Often it’s not as simple as instructions or commandments. We must search for this wisdom in our personal and collective pasts.
The age of information technology has been confused with the modernity that was promised to us. Have skyscrapers made us any closer to reaching God or further away from it? Has our Wi-Fi and ‘always connected’ lifestyle served to connect us more to the world or has it disconnected us more from each other and ourselves? Has our ‘always on the move’ jet-setter lifestyle given us the mobility and freedom we always craved or has it trapped us in an illusion of freedom where we feel stuck in our desires?
The answers to all these questions can be summarized thus: we are human. We are not the last evolution of mankind. We have made mistakes before, we are making mistakes now and we will make them again. Doing things perfectly never made us human, but making mistakes with a smile on our face did. Loving each other in a common acceptance and feeling of collective origin—that made us human.
There are so many things that indeed made us human and these are the things we are tasked to rediscover in this modern era. We are not to take the current state of this world lying down or sitting in that comfortable chair in front of the TV or our computers. Giving a shit about the world means nothing if we don’t actively give a shit. That means caring and getting out there to spread love in any form, not merely trying to save the world. Rather, it is an attempt to save those we love from destroying themselves.
If we call ourselves modern then we better update that definition and call ourselves Modern Ancients. The slates do not get wiped clean and natural evolution isn’t the same as technological progress. We are a species developing for centuries and millennia. We carry the burden from the past, things we need to address and fix. If not, then we pass on a greater burden to our children, to those who follow. And in the spirit of love that is wholly human, this is not a burden that feels right to pass on. For if we do, what are we doing with our lives? Simply consuming and chewing all that ‘good stuff’ that we get to enjoy in this generation?
There is a give and take in this world, whether it’s between human beings or unseen forces of nature and spirit. We don’t just exist, we live. That is sometimes a task and sometimes a privilege. If we ask ourselves the right questions, we can determine which is which. We can live our lives not in blind optimism or blind pessimism, but active participation.
E.F. Schumacher, in his seminal work ‘Small is Beautiful’, spoke of technology with a human face—development that serves people rather than profits, progress that enriches rather than depletes. He understood that true advancement is about building better relationships—with each other, with our work, with our world. As we face our planetary crisis, his wisdom becomes more relevant: we don’t need grand technological solutions as much as we need to rediscover appropriate scale, to remember that bigger isn’t always better, that progress isn’t always forward, that sometimes the most ‘modern’ thing we can do is to step back and reconsider our direction.
Climate change is a manifestation of how we’ve gone wrong and the one thing it asks of us — is that we work together as a collective. The path to individual progress has run rampant and needs to be balanced. If we can start to work together and work towards developing characteristics that are wholly human, then we will have truly made progress. When we can treat each other, kindly and with love, then we can extend that same love and respect for the natural world that sustains us. What is highest in the human race is the ability to love and love dissolves all boundaries. We’re not loving each other right now, we’re not loving nature right now. Anyone well-versed in loving knows there’s a difference between saying it and showing it.