It’s been fashionable for some time to knock modernity.
It is attacked for promoting blinkered technocracy; for oppressive rationalism; for liberal permissiveness; for pushing a Western-centric cultural imperialism; for materialistic obsessions; for male bias; for being disrespectful towards non-intellectual forms of communication; and to top it all, for needing to be disrupted and displaced by the ‘post-modern’.
Just about any societal change some people dislike or any aspect of status quo some others object to can seemingly be blamed on ‘modernity’. Somehow, this amorphous ‘Western’, Enlightenment-related, notion of ‘progress’ – advancing from the outmoded to the modern – is the culprit of everything that is wrong under the sun.
But instead of going along with ‘modernity’ as a label for whatever some disgruntled naysayer wants to lambast, let’s focus on the progressive ethos that actually informed the quest for modernity. We’re talking about the philosophy of improvement set out by Francis Bacon (Lord Verulam) in early 17thcentury, developed by John Locke’s empiricist critiques, David Hume’s and related Enlightenment arguments against dogmatic and irrational thinking, J. S. Mill’s utilitarian analysis of science and society, through to John Dewey’s pragmatist exposition of problem-solving in the 20th century.
The starting point is an abiding concern with making life better – reducing suffering, removing barriers to cooperation, tackling threats to wellbeing, opening up new opportunities for fulfilment. The measure is what people themselves experience as damaging or helpful, not what an arbitrary authority dictates as the ‘Good’ life. The improvement sought is not just for oneself or a few, but for as many people as possible.
In order to improve on things as they are, we need to understand what can change, how changes can be brought about, and what consequences may result. To do that, we need to carefully set aside dogmas and prejudices, and rely on the gathering of evidence, meticulous experimentation, impartial testimony and observation, to build up information and hypotheses which can be tested by objective means, and revisable in the light of new findings.
To facilitate the practice of critical empirical learning, we need to inculcate an ethos of cooperative enquiry. This calls for openness and civility in the exchange of ideas and findings, respectful deliberations, and the readiness to subject claims to test and investigation. For this to happen, along with educative development, we also need to keep at bay attempts to deceive, intimidate, coerce, bribe, and manipulate participants seeking to learn.
To sustain objective learning and connect it with improving people’s lives, progress requires institutional support and protection. On the one hand, it is essential to have a public authority that can enable the development and application of cooperative enquiry to proceed in the service of the people. On the other, such an authority must be democratically grounded so that it is accountable to the people in learning to undergo changes to improve.
The above elements encapsulate the progressive modernity that is at the heart of the philosophical ethos advanced by thinkers from Bacon to Dewey. It rejects both dogmatism and scepticism in favour of continuous learning, provisional guidance, and evidence-based revisability. It is inclusive and participatory, and supports neither technocracy nor luddism. It respects traditions of the past and of diverse cultures, but seeks to improve prevailing practices where they are found to be harmful, or when better outcomes can be secured in the light of cautious explorations. It is concerned with social and cultural development as well as material ones. It does not regard preservation or disruption of the status quo as an end in itself, but advocates change when it is likely to improve people’s lives sustainably.
In the 21st century, we should cast aside arbitrary rejections of modernity, and stay true to the course of Verulam’s Progress.
