Substack does a poor job of linking content together - this sitemap helps.
The original impetus and format for this was a talk I gave at an Emergent Ventures Unconference. I’ve since made a few small changes. This material is very much mid-flow, and I'm asking others to join in the flow. I reserve the right to continue to make small changes. Do not expect watertight facts or fully explored or explained conclusions. The purpose of this document is to raise more questions and make provocations versus seeking to have the last word on anything.
The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the renaissance? maybe
The medieval period is not known for its innovation. Though many scholars will tell you the dark ages were not as dark as you have been told. Even still, the dark ages were enchanted, superstitious, and yes, stagnant. Lives in the dark ages were Hobbesian: nasty, brutish and short. The innovators of the day channeled their energy into alchemy. If the renaissance is mainly characterized as the birth of humanism, then the dark ages paints the perfect contrast: they were not humanistic. In the dark ages, humans were disposable tools in an enchanted machine. Truth was not for the individual to find, it was for the individual to follow.
With potentially fascinating prescience to today, a strong case can be made that the dark ages ended with the black plague killing half the continent of Europe. The failings of the religious and monarchical state to prevent, deal with, and explain the plague led to skepticism of their legitimacy.
The late 14th century English cleric, William Langland, in his epic poem “Piers Plowman.” wrote:
“God is deaf nowadays and will not hear us. And for our guilt he grinds good men to dust,”
In the north of Italy, feudalism quickly fell apart as good farmland land became cheaper and wages rose. (Elites in southern Italy blocked this) Former serfs bought their land and their freedom. The conditions of one's birth no longer determined the destiny of one's life. This increased social mobility led to beliefs that one's merit, virtue and ability mattered and not one's birth. And so the emphasis on developing one's virtue and abilities rose: individualism.
The increase in a dynamic middle class led to an explosion of wealth in Northern Italy and the riches of the De Medici's. Secular education rose in prominence over religion. All old certainties were up for reconsideration. The urban elite turned towards the classics, classical art, philosophy, and therefore reason to attempt to understand and react to the world. The renaissance was born, the preeminence of the individual and skepticism of authority. Its effect on religion in the Reformation was soon to follow. With Gutenberg, now the layperson could read the Bible directly and for themselves. Truth was universally accessible, discoverable and knowable.
A belief in the preeminence of the individual led to its natural conclusion in the Enlightenment. Individuals could perceive objective truth. Reason was dependable, the world was understandable. Cogito ergo sum.
I would argue that from the Renaissance through the Reformation and Enlightenment until the 1970s, there was a clear direction. The direction of Modernity.
Raising the status of the individual: Individual rights, individual property, individual knowledge, individual salvation, individual freedom.
Raising the status of reason: objective truth exists, it can be commonly observed and agreed upon. We can figure out the rules of the universe and master our domain. We can discover axiomatic truths about God. The world of emotions is messy, but reason reigns pure.
Raising the status of the mind: the individual mind is where reason happens.
Raising the status of knowledge: Knowledge is power. Knowledge makes us free. Knowing is more important than acting and comes before acting.
Raising the status of finality: We can know things. Once we know them, we know them and they work. F=MA, E=MC^2. End of history.
Modernity
Fast forward to the 20th century and "Modernity" has come into full picture with even an artistic movement named after it: Modernism.
Michel Foucault, the famous postmodern philosopher, said Modernity was:
"a historical category marked by developments such as a questioning or rejection of tradition; the prioritization of individualism, freedom and formal equality; faith in inevitable social, scientific and technological progress, rationalization and professionalization, a movement from feudalism (or agrarianism) toward capitalism and the market economy, industrialization, urbanization and secularisation, the development of the nation-state, representative democracy, public education"
But the 20th century was not good to Modernity.
"From the gas chambers of Auschwitz to the massive casualties of the cultural revolution - from the perspective of many the political utopianism of the far left ended in violence, while the tools of freedom ended in Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Religion had been “killed” by Nietzsche sometime before." - (Can't find reference but too good not to include).
This was followed by the cold war.
"modernism's victory was hollow, The West — and I do mean that literally — did win the Cold War, and that is beyond dispute. But what it sacrificed to achieve that victory was history. If Adorno thought Enlightenment died in the gas chamber, we might counter that it was buried, prematurely, in Berlin 1989" - reference
With September 11, we realized that modernity could not contain violence and could not explain it either.
With COVID-19, perhaps we are back to a dark ages moment in questioning the fundamental efficacy of the state.
Why? Why did this all happen? Did WW1 or WW2 lead to the end of modernity, or did modernity lead to WW1 and WW2, in that they did not sufficiently deal with human violence? I would posit that Modernity committed suicide.
It's technology led to violence and death in WW2, the atom bomb, and Auschwitz
It's science led to a quantum dead end
It's politic led to Marxism and Stalin and Mao
It's capitalism led to a lack of authenticity and consumerism, simulacra and simulation
It's religion left the arena entirely or chose political sides, the “Death of God”
If there is no more progress, all that is left is redistribution.
This has led to a quake in the foundations of the pillars of progress and our democracy. And perhaps we can have empathy for some of these critiques. Surely Modernity told lies about humanity, and all lies have unintended consequences.
Part 3 discusses postmodernism, critical theory and how they relate to progress studies.