"When philosophy paints its grey in grey then has a shape of life grown old. By philosophy's grey in grey it cannot be rejuvenated but only understood. The owl of Minerva spreads its wings only with the falling of dusk." -- G.W.F. Hegel, 'Preface', Philosophy of Right.
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'Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainity and agitation distinquish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones ... All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned.' Marx
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Piccone, modernity, tradition
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May 23, 2008
In his article Combating Modernity: Piccone and the Role of Tradition in the Present Age in Telos Issue 131 (Summer 2005) David Goss conveniently spells out Piccone's argument about modernity and tradition. He says that Piccone's argument is this:
what had been occurring over the past several decades was a systematic assault not only on tradition as such, but on the social, cultural, and communal underpinnings of tradition. The cause and impetus of this assault was “modernity,” for according to Piccone it was the modern world that was waging a war on surviving pre-modern residues and sedimentations, treating them or the most part as “flawed incrustations.” It was likewise modernity that was eviscerating traditions, or where that was not possible, reducing them to a merely formal dimension stripped of meaningful content. And it was modernity that was degrading or destroying the basic social and cultural infrastructure needed for the sustenance of day-to-day life. In Piccone’s view, the long-range result of the unleashing of the “corrosive forces” of the modern age has been, not surprisingly, an increasing anomie on the personal level, and growing dysfunctionality on the social level
Piccone made his critique of modernity more specific by singling out the three leading forces or “shapers” of the modern world, and then focusing most of his attention on them. These three were the market, the state, and the so-called New Class intellectuals. The net effect of the Piccone argued was an undermining of tradition and traditional lifeworlds; an impoverishment of experience, leading to “social disintegration and widespread nihilism;” and the emergence of a “disintegrated aggregation of abstract individuals” who all too easily become “passive, dependent citizen[s]” instead of independent-minded agents or active shapers of their own democratic institution.
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| | Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at 10:40 PM | Permalink |
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