At the beginning of the modern period in the West, positive aspects of
modernity, such as freedom, welfare, industrialization, scientific progress and
technological advancements, were underlined, while the potential side effects
of the contemporary modernity were overlooked. When the side effects of
modernity started to emerge in the nineties, the Enlightenment thinkers
suggested that modernity could have no side effects and, even if it did, those
side effects could be eliminated through the means provided by modern life.
In the nineties, the restrictive, standardizing and binding side effects
of modernity, which consequently caused the alienation of men, began to make
their presence felt to an unignorable extent. The extreme standardization
imposed on people by capitalism, the production method of modern life, resulted
in the disappearance of individual differences by time and the appearance of
highly resembling individuals, which led to a kind of alienation in the sense
of growing distant from the varietal characteristics of human. Such a
self-alienated individual, the subject of whom is dead, has embarked on a
struggle for existence. However, the self-alienated individual struggles by
using the tools of capitalism and by remaining within the modern life, which
turns the struggle into a show, rather than a true struggle. In brief, the
individual’s reaction to the “as if” life imposed by the modern life appears as
an “as if” reaction.
This study focuses on the modern life’s process that involves creating
resembling individuals and killing the subject, and the consequential “as if”
life of the individual as a struggle for existence at the end of that process;
false appearance (exhibition).
Modern Modernity Modernization Alienation Becoming Common Death Of The Subject Manifestation Without Truth Exhibition
Primary Language | English |
---|---|
Subjects | Sociology |
Journal Section | Articles |
Authors | |
Publication Date | December 31, 2018 |
Published in Issue | Year 2018 |