When was modernity born?

[rufuspollock]

@Asimong

That’s good … what “Hanzi” is pointing out is not just that different paradigms are alive at the same time (no doubt) but that paradigms emerge at different times in different areas of life. That goes beyond that formulation in the 2R course, and, I would say, significantly more helpful for orientation, particularly in trans-disciplinary contexts.

I agree and yes, of course, they (can) emerge in different sectors at different times, and possibly in a particular sequence - I discussed this with Emil at the hub when I shared the course materials with him back in Autumn 2023.

One of the things we discussed was whether they follow the exact sequencing suggested here - but it does seem plausible that “artists are there first” – hence the importance of art in the second renaissance efforts

Overall i think there is much potential for (more) rigorous empirical efforts here to trace the emergence of cultural paradigms like modernity, post-modernity etc. The crude graph i posted at the start was simply to indicate the non-linearity and “bumpiness” of this – and was inspired from discussions with Joe Henrich.

Overall I suspect that the emergence of a new cultural paradigm is not “equally distributed” in a variety ways: it is almost certainly not spatially homogenous, nor is it “profession homogenous” etc. The interesting question is what are the patterns of this variation.

[Asimong]

@rufuspollock

Overall I suspect that the emergence of a new cultural paradigm is not “equally distributed” in a variety ways: it is almost certainly not spatially homogenous, nor is it “profession homogenous” etc. The interesting question is what are the patterns of this variation.

Indeed, thank you Rufus. I foresee, let’s say, a certain amount of difficulty in reconciling different people’s senses of the patterns of cultural paradigms. Most of us have a general sense, whether it’s in line with Kegan, Wilber, “Hanzi” or some other player. Where it undoubtedly gets trickier is when trying to pin down how exactly to detect or classify the patterns of paradigms. I doubt we will get hard-and-fast “scientific” definitions that work, and if that is not going to happen, we’re back with trying to agree our subjective understandings. We could do that; but I haven’t seen any great enthusiasm here for trying to clarify and agree on cultural paradigms in music.

Two ways forward that I would be interested in…

1. Actually going through the process of trying to reach some kind of agreement around diagnosing the occurrence of the various paradigms in the different spheres of life.
2. Stepping back a little and asking ourselves, why are we trying to define “modernity” in any case?

To me, the second is more likely to be fruitful than the first. And the clearer we are on why we want to define any of the cultural paradigms that we perceive, the more likely I see us as being able to put together some kind of working agreements on how to diagnosing paradigms.

And then (perhaps only then) on to charting out the variable patterns of cultural paradigm shift.