| In Habermas's opinion,"If philosophy expect itself can transcend history context, philosophy must grasp'modernity'."[1]But in which sense could we grasp this"modernity"? Heidegger gave us a clue: facing the thing itself. Although that will help us to realize that we are surrounded by the thing of modernity, that doesn't mean we could tell what modernity is in an easy manner. As Wittgenstein saying,"If you don't try to speak that unspeakable thing, there would be nothing to lose. But the unspeakable thing will——speechlessly——be contained by what have been spoken."[2]Perhaps only when we did not assert anything, modernity would be spoken in a speechless way. Perhaps only when we keep silence about the essence of modernity, modernity would appear. In this sense, we agree in the opinion of Lyotard:"no matter when we lack for the criterion, no matter where we are, no matter we were in the age of Augustine, Aristotle, Pascal, we are all among modernity."[3] Only when we abandon the idea of pursuing the determinacy, the thought of modernity would begin. However, if we abandon the idea of pursuing the determinacy, how could we speak of modernity in speechless way? Habermas gave us a clue:"If the real philosophy……still want to obtain the validity outsides of history context, philosophy should permeate the turbulent'the moment', and conceptualize'the moment'.[4]"In other word, only when we conceptualize"the moment", modernity could emerge.That would be Weber's diagnosis of his time. In Weber's opinion, Modernity was not a vague sense, but a problem of rationality. When Weber found, rationality not only have interfered politics, economy, culture, but also disturb the daily life, here, modernity became a retardarce inwardly.This inward retardarce may have discovered the problem of modernity as rationality. Through questioning the"enlightment",we are trying to explore that"to what degree, ration is'modernistic'."[1]Perhaps just when the ration takes over everything about enlightenment, enlightenment would push ration into crisis. In the name of enlightenment, ration becomes rigid, and sinks to a tool eventually, which constitutes the"rational reality": rationality becomes"unreasonable", and people seem to be closed in the iron cage, which people can not escape from.No matter whether we can get free of the"iron cage", as far as Max Horkheimer was concerned, it is hardly find a road if we depend on ration too much."In Max Horkheimer's standpoint, only through focusing on the culture, can we create the new method……"It is in this sense that we should withdrew our eyes from ration for a while, and focus on the face of aesthetics.here,we could find,that modernity still could be explained in existential sense,which encourage people create themselves in cultural manner.just as David. Robinson said,"We do have to create ourselves. Who we are is decided by the choices we make and the acts we perform. And the process of creating ourselves may well be rather like that of the artist."[2] It seems there exists two kinds of modernity, rationality and culture. On the one hand, there is"rational"as rationality, on the other hand, there seems to be something trying to burst rationlity's restraint in cultural way. However, even though we abandon physical determinism, in a absolute cultural sense, we could still put forward the question as follows: an individual can really endow life with meaning in the name of him/herself?Through whom could we obtain interpretation, what if life does not belong to ourselves, but the part of the whole plan? Therefore,this is not a problem that how we resist the"rationality",which likely means that there is no material meaning when we mention"disruption".in other words, rationality and culture will partly adhere to each other with the glue named"market". That was the world"disenchanting"Weber named——being existed in"culture industry"society which Max Horkheimer and Adorno had described.In this world, the rational market has reorganized the mass culture into a member of culture industry. In that state, people can not refuse to consume,in other words,when we are among the pleasure which restricted by consuming,thinking becomes not essential thing. Coldness becomes a mental defense mechanism,which could help people to resist the material invasion of their daily lives. Coldness,as well as pleasure have identify all people's feelings.people have almost lost themselves if they could not think. Even work of art has lost its style.when indentity has taken the place of difference,it seems we have seen the shadow of ontology,and the ontology has found his refuge in culture industry. It is evident that either the wholeness which culture industry emphsis on, or the cultural rationality which culture industry had shown, has put emphasis on the idea of identity.However,everything has been brought into the standards in the name of modernity.Living in the modernity which be restricted anytime, we may be unable to escape from the"enjoyable"fate, then how is thought possible? In Adorno's view, Criticizing philosophy is necessary."Having broken its pledge to be as one with reality or at the point of realization, philosophy is obliged ruthlessly to criticize itself."[1]Adorno had been bearing the double burden: on the one hand, he needs to criticize philosophy relentlessly, on the other hand, he needs to remain the ideological power. This may also mean a millstone on modernity's shoulder. In his view, the"millstone"of modernity needs salvation by the power of aesthetic. Here, the art exist as resistance of identity.If"Only art can provide the prospect of through guiding the distressing social integrity to the harmonious road."[2] Could art really undertake a kind of modernity salvation? However, we still find that the"arts"are too conceptual, while,the saying that the salvation must completed through the life experience of the world,make the process very difficult in a single patterns, which seemed to imply that there is no overall"liberation". Here we have to face up to a world of losing integrity, in this sense, art of losing integrity's duty is not to save but to present modernity. In other words, if there does not exist an overall modernity, it is not a problem that who is going to rescue modernity, but a problem that in what way modernity present itself. As a matter of fact, modernity itself is a semantic loop of modern art, in this cycle, the phenomenon reached its intuition. Here, modernity as a pure phenomenon as well as its object——art,which is a kind of intuition of modernity, in this sense, if we do not understand art,we can not understand what modernity is. We can not think of modernity beyond art.We have entered the duplicate era, copy makes everything different. Large-scale works of art are copied, which means that more and more people have the opportunity to watch, listen to the arts, enjoying art, without worship.the pointing that value of arts could be judeged by the people without the aid of authority, which"point"and the art of"fantasy points"have combined, perhaps containing the most realistic aspect of modernity: modernity can not appear its integrity before an individual. If modernity is no longer integrated, the individual will be significant. The place Where modernity parts, is the place where significance of individuals lies. Conversely, if the individual is significant, it is very difficult for modernity to have a monolithic meaning.However, in an internal split sense, modernity can still regain its reputation, even though it has shown that modernity are unable to do anything with it. After the rational foundation was severed, modernity has no choice but found its own image in broken pieces of"rational the mirror". Fortunately, in the debris, what modernity has found is not nihility, not anything else, but modern people themselves. Art is no longer a standard here, because the standard is no longer determined. Where the imagination of art extend, everyone can make judgments according to their own wishes. In this sense, we have entered the era of experience."Modernity is a special experience in modern society, to which was not only be regarded as intrinsic response we made, but was judged the acceptance in our inner life. The external world has turned into part world of our hearts. Essential elements in outside world,has been reduced to never-ending flow, and the moment it fleeting, fragment and contradict has all been absorbed into our inner life."[1]Through this internal process perhaps we can see the original how the history was formed, if we agree,"The evaluation of epoch in history, is largely determined by the analysis through superficial trivial phenomenon, rather than depending on its own judgments to itself,"[2] In this sense, we will find, that modernity have been writing itself.
|
PDF Full Text Request