Flaming Youth

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1. What is Modernism?

Whoever battles monsters should take care not to become a monster too, for if you stare long enough into the Abyss, the Abyss stares back into you.
                                                                        --Friedrich Nietzsche, 1882

I believe that the existence of the classical "path" can be pregnantly formulated as follows: The "path" comes into existence only when we observe it.
                                                                        --Werner Heisenberg, 1927


The philosophy that underpins this course is Modernism, a term we commonly assign to an aesthetic and social “movement” extending, loosely, from the late 19^th century to the early 20^th century.  While our focus is primarily on Modernism in American literature and culture, this was an international movement.  As is often the historical case, America came late to the table of Modernist thinking—Europe led the way.  While we may have been late, in the end Modernism fomented what perhaps may be the greatest period of American literary history, and some of the greatest literature ever produced, period.  (Though keep in mind that this statement comes from an avowed Americanist.)

This all sounds lovely and meaningful, but we can’t really go anywhere with this until we understand fundamentally what Modernism is.  My goal here is modest: simply lay out some fundamental principles of Modernist thinking.  How Modernism came to be, and how it manifested itself in literature and culture, will be matters that we’ll deal with in the next few weeks.  For now, the question I want to answer is simply, what is Modernism?

We likely all understand that Modern refers to something more than a point in time.  While we may think of ourselves as thoroughly modern in the here-and-now, we also understand that 100 years ago many of those living in their here-and-now thought of themselves as modern.  So we understand the temporal relativity of “modern” (which means that you understand Heisenberg’s quote above perhaps better than you think).  We do tend to commonly associate the concept of “modern” with technology and technological advances—that is, “modern” is that which reflects the state-of-the-art advancement of human production and ingenuity.  Nevertheless, we still understand the relativity of this.  For example, the first electric washing machine was invented in the early 20^th century.  By our standards, we’d consider it primitive; however, we recognize that those living in the early 20^th century had legitimate reason to think of this machine as a “modern” convenience. 

First electric washing machine

This relativity is one of the central precepts of Modernist thinking.  You see, Modernist thinking generally rejects the notion of absolute truth and certainty.  While Truth may or may not be out there, the reality (to a Modernist) is that that truth is unavailable to us.  That’s why Modernism always stands in opposition—often hostile—to Traditional Values and Beliefs.  (In our context, the Modernism of the early 20^th century fundamentally scorned Victorian values that dominated the late 19^th century.)  At the core, Traditionalism believes in certain universal truths that are not contingent upon specific cultural values or beliefs.  And Modernists tend to think that’s a load of—well, whatever you see as a load of anything unpleasant. 


Let’s break this down with the quotes above.  First, Nietszche.  Nietzsche’s quote challenges those who believe they own the truth.  A consequence of believing that the truth belongs to you is that it commonly leads to demonizing those who believe differently (the “monsters” of which Nietzsche speaks).  And by virtue of that absoluteness, one risks turning into a monster oneself.  How?  Simple: the monsters you battle are looking at you from their own truth, and now see you as the monster.  Second, Heisenberg.  Heisenberg developed what’s called the Uncertainty Principle (a core principle to quantum mechanics).  (As you can probably guess, the Uncertainty Principle insists objective truth is not available to us.)  What exactly is Heisenberg’s “path,” and where it leads, is of secondary importance right now.  What signifies is the point of the second sentence: Reality (or, if you prefer, Truth) is a function of perception (and by implication, all the factors that go into shaping one’s perception.). 

It should come as no surprise, then, that Modernists resist and are often hostile to those institutions that supposedly embody Universal and Timeless Values: churches (and religion in general), governments, schools (note, for example, that John Dewey radicalized American education during the early 20^th century, rejecting Traditional American education), society. 


But why such hostility towards tradition?  And even though Modernism is a way of thinking not tied to any particular point in time, why does the word take root in the early 20^th century?  Well, that’s what’s next.  In the meantime, read the short piece by Nietzsche, and if you’re so inclined, listen to the sample from Stravinsky and take a look at the Duchamp painting.  I’ll address those as examples of Modernist thought later this week.  In the meantime, if you have comments or questions about anything in this post, you can post them in the Discussion section of our D2L course.