The Paradox of Modernism

Introduction

The study is related to the paradox of modernism which is being discussed in context of Marshall Berman and other works done by Albert Camus, John Stuart Mill, Sigmund Freud and Fyodor Dostoyevsky. The paradox of modernism covers the words modern, modernity, and even modern.

Discussion

All that is solid melts into air: the experience of modernity in Marshall Berman is without doubt one of the main theoretical books to be taken into account to understand modernity. In the introduction, Berman points out the importance of your company: “the modern environments and experiences cut across all boundaries of geography and ethnicity, class and nationality, religion and ideology can be said that that sense of modernity unites all humanity. “ And further: “to be modern is to be part of a world in which, as Marx said,” all that is solid melts into air “.” It is noteworthy that these are two of the keys that will help us understand the project of the New York critic: first, the fact that modernity is inevitably experienced by all, even by those who have never had heard of it, and in Second, that given their Marxist approach, the proposed analysis will become also a position on the world around us, that is, in effect (Camus, 1948).

One of the peculiarities of All that is solid melts into air is its interdisciplinary approach, a matter in which we delve below. To offer a definition of modernity, Berman uses both Nietzsche and Marx, as well as JJ Rousseau and Edmund Burke, the prose poems of Baudelaire and the architecture of Le Corbusier, the first works of Dostoevsky and mapping of New York . Similarly, Berman acknowledges that modernity is the result of very varied factors: scientific discoveries have occurred since the Renaissance, the industrialization process, networks and communication systems, socio-political movements, among others. And what Berman meant exactly by “modernity”? “To be modern is to live a series of paradoxes and contradictions. It is dominated by the intense bureaucratic organizations that have the power to control, and often destroy, communities, values, lives, and yet not falter in our determination to deal with such forces, to fight to change your world and change ours. “Shall be established only later that it will be the starting point for a thorough, lucid and critical about the rise of capitalism and, consequently, the arrival of modernity (Mill, 1863).

Now, all that is solid melts into air in five parts, which we aim to break down briefly. First, we have “Goethe's Faust: the tragedy of development”. This part of the study will propose a historical reading of Faust in which each of the falls or promotions of this will be a kind of mirror - why not say it - the pitfalls and triumphs of capitalism. Berman notes that there are three metamorphoses undergone by Goethe's Faust: the dreamer, the lover, and finally, that of developmental. It should be noted that Berman, like Marx, he does not notice the positive and imaginative ...