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--- modernity [2020/08/24 21:07] – Ryan Schram (admin)
+++ modernity [2022/07/19 17:45] (current) – [Reference] Ryan Schram (admin)
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 # Modernity #
-When many people discuss social change, they tend to use a particular language which sounds neutral, but actually has a lot of baggage. One example of this is the "TED talk" given by Steven Pinker and [[1002:2018:1.2#where_is_the_world_heading|discussed in the Wednesday lecture of Week 1]]. Pinker suggests that over history, human societies have become more peaceful. He assumes that all societies develop over time, which is true, but that this development always goes along the same route, and ends up at the same destination. Any kind of social change is thus somehow related to this inexorable movement forward to a better future. I call this kind of fallacy "the trap of modernism" because it assumes that all societies are reaching toward the same thing, modernity.
+When many people discuss social change, they tend to use a particular language which sounds neutral, but actually has a lot of baggage. One example of this is the "TED talk" given by Steven Pinker and [[1002:2018:1.2#where_is_the_world_heading|discussed in the Wednesday lecture of Week 1 in ANTH 1002 (2018)]]. Pinker suggests that over history, human societies have become more peaceful. He assumes that all societies develop over time, which is true, but that this development always goes along the same route, and ends up at the same destination. Any kind of social change is thus somehow related to this inexorable movement forward to a better future. I call this kind of fallacy "the trap of modernism" because it assumes that all societies are reaching toward the same thing, modernity.
 In fact, they aren't. All societies change, but no two societies end up in the same place.
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 * **Modernity is like race.** Just as race does not exist biologically, modernity is not objective either. However, just as racial ideologies influence how people understand human differences, the Western narrative of progress also influences people's understanding of history. The ideology of modernity masks how societies really change, and it serves to make certain kinds of structural domination seem natural and permanent.
-* Social change is never just a **from-to story**, e.g. *from* tradition *to* modernity, *from* gift system *to* capitalism, *from* rural *to* urban, *from* isolated *to* connected, or *from* cultural diversity *to* monoculture, or *from* happy harmony *to* chaos and suffering.
+* Social change is never just a **from--to story**, e.g. *from* tradition *to* modernity, *from* gift system *to* capitalism, *from* rural *to* urban, *from* isolated *to* connected, or *from* cultural diversity *to* monoculture, or *from* happy harmony *to* chaos and suffering.
-* Social change is a **both-and story**, e.g. In contemporary societies, we see both gifts and commodities coexisting, and people simultaneously occupy many different kinds of systems at once which all depend on each other.
+* Social change is a **both--and story**, e.g. In contemporary societies, we see both gifts and commodities coexisting, and people simultaneously occupy many different kinds of systems at once which all depend on each other.
 ## Reference ##
 Chagnon, Napoleon A. 1983. Ya̦nomamö: The Fierce People. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
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+<WRAP box similar>~~SIMILAR~~</WRAP>