I have imposed a blogging ban on myself until I defend my field exams so that I can move to China (for the record  kevin this is your fault!). But I am breaking the rule to share a quote that SO APTLY describes my feelings on grand meta-theories that claim we are now in super-modernity - or even still stuck in post-modernity.

Some unedited thoughts that come to my mind on when you social scientists who study technology make use of meta-narratives of X-modernity:

• anthropologists espouse these theories go into “non-modern” places - observe these “non-modern” people using oh so “modern” or “super-modern” technologies - their analysis unsurprisingly claims that people in developing, Non-Western places use technologies to realize their modern selves - they want to become modern so now they are also using these very digital tools that are advertised to them.  This is so freaking patronizing and Westercentric!
• It reenacts the very problem in seeing the West as developed and the rest of the world as undeveloped.
• These theories are not clear about their terms. For example, in discussions of super/hyper-modernity, supporters claim that we now have an acceleration of “meaningless event.” What is defined as meaningless? And who has the power to define it? What is meaningful? And what is an event?
• All knowledge and forms of seeing are situated. Our view of the world are limited based upon our position in the world - and that position is NEVER the center.
• theories of super-modernity fall into the problem of synecdoche, the subclass of metonymy (substitute cause for effect). Synecdoche is the the methodological problem of overgeneralizing based off of one or a few samples, to prioritize one view or process over other views.
• Most of all, these theories just reinforce the Western of seeing the world from their own position - and their position being the center. I think that super-modernity theorists are really just wrestling with their own identity issues around technologies and media - and then they create theories that essentially project and inflate their own anxieties. They experience information overload and have a hard time of making sense of all the events in their oh-so busy elite lives - and now supposedly the entirety of society also experiences this? Seems pretty narcissistic to me.

American philosopher and psychologist William James argued that philosophical theories “conceal, first of all, the philosopher’s own temperament: that pre-rational bundle of preferences that urges him to hop on whatever logic-train seems to be already heading in his general direction.” (Sam Anderson on James  in NY MAG’s One Argument Ayn Rand Couldn’t Win)

In Jame’s words, concealment creates:

 a certain insincerity in our philosophic discussions: the potentest of all our premises is never mentioned … What the system pretends to be is a picture of the great universe of God. What it is—and oh so flagrantly!—is the revelation of how intensely odd the personal flavor of some fellow creature is.

All theorists create theories that reflect and play out their own internal questions about the world. One of my favorite sociology theory professors, Rick Bernacki, in each seminar would introduce theorists to us through an auto-biographical exploration. We talked about the theorists first and foremost as human beings who had deep questions about society that originated from a young age. He talked to us about the theorists’ love lives,  marriage life, youth, parental relationships, and economic upbringing. We would try to piece together certain changes in theoretical directions in relation to life-events. Studying dead intellectual is SO MUCH more fun this way!

Rick Bernacki is the only professor who was open to my suggestion that Karl Marx was gay and totally in the closet. We had a one hour discussion if this was possible and whether or not Federick Engels was his lover and life partner. I have concluded that this is true. I can prove it. If you re-read Das Capital and The Communist Manifesto through this lens, it’s much more fun and actually makes more sense. That’s my proof. You get to essence of Marx by understanding him as a deeply conflicted being who wrestled with his body, labor, and his own value in a society where he struggled to realize himself. Marx was just frustrated that he couldn’t come out of the closet - this explains his annoyance for women and frustration that he couldn’t connect to life-species. DONE.

I also suggest reading Bruno Latours We Have Never Been Modern (1993). He dissects social science rational for making distinctions between modern, pre-modern, and post-modern. Good summary here.

I also love Raymond Williams essay, When was Modern? Reprinted in New Left REview here.