A “crisis of modernity”

Written on Thursday, May 22nd, 2008 at 10:29 am | by benign0

I read with interest hawaiianguy’s comment in MLQ3’s blog entry Numerology and politics.

MLQ3 cited Randy David’s view that the real issue is the “crisis of modernity” gripping our society; observing how Pinoy politicians now increasingly resort to voodoo and prayer as a means to ameliorate our society’s fortunes.

Mr. hawaiianguy provides a bit more clarity in his comment by asserting that:

[…] the crisis is brought about by the failure of society to keep up with the gains of modernity (aka “progress”) that is built on science and rationality […]

Thus society, in an apparent failure to cope with progress built on advances in science, technology, and Western Philosophy, is reverting to mystical approaches to make sense of the rationality that underpins this progress.

I don’t know if this will result in a debate on whether our march to “modernity” on the back of science technology is sustainable. Maybe the collective intellect is already creaking under the weight of the increasing complexity being created by this progress. If global thermonuclear war won’t do the job (as was the thinking during the Cold War), maybe it is this more insiduous complexity creep that will eventually do us in — bomb our minds back to the stoneage.

Rich media is already doing that — making information so seductively visual (and the content riding on it so shallow) as to atrophy an entire generation’s ability to assimilate rich knowledge the hard way — through back-to-basics reading and comprehension of text. Until the technology to download knowledge straight into the brain is developed (a la The Matrix), the only way to acquire rich knowledge is through reading and low-tech learning (i.e. practice and concentration). Anyone who’s read a book and seen the movie version of said book will catch my drift. Watching a podcast or taking in The Discovery Channel (while made out — through clever marketing — to be the killer knowledge-sharing apps of our age) is no substitute for reading text, say in a newspaper or a good book (or a good blog).

So it seems that the irony that is often glossed over is that the technology that underpins the “Knowledge and Information” Age is actually dumbing down the children of this age — propagating lazy, vacuous, right-here-right-now, attention-deficited attitudes and minds that are now being highlighted by the growing Gen-Y Bashing movement. In fact a new elite is being created — one that is immune to the descent to mysticism and shallowness afflicting the ordinary schmoe. This emerging elite possesses the intellectual horsepower to understand (and I mean really understand) the science, technology, and rationality that underpins the sleek gloss that the merely savvy see and consume.

As the common wisdom goes, technology made advanced enough can be pitched as magic to the ignorant. It is already happening. A new elite churning out the technology and an old elite joining the ranks of those constants-of-human-history — the ignorant masses — to consume and gawk at the magic.

Whereas computer savvy once meant being able to code one’s own games and apps, now it means merely being able to download music from iTunes and cobble together a Facebook profile. Whilst one needed to be a true geek to use a computer back in the 80’s, today any moron can lay claim to the label “computer literate”. The now widely-held belief that we are an information and knowledge generation is a triumph of shrewd marketing. An increase in access to technology was not, as we are led to believe, accompanied by any real information savviness today any more than an increase in the number of cars on the road did not increase the proportion of motorists who know how to build or service a car with their own hands. Cars today are in fact vastly less home-serviceable than a 1980’s Toyota Corolla, just as a crashed PC today renders its data utterly inaccessible to most ordinary users.

An increase in functionality is accompanied by an increase in the complexity of the entities that deliver this functionality. As more people understand the complexity less, the more their regard for the functionality takes on a mystical approach. while I use technology to illustrate this trend, I believe the principle applies to society at large.

If we lack the intellectual breadth to manage the complexity, it turns into a monster.

Such is the problem of humanity’s dependence on fossil fuels. Progress in the last two centuries was built on the back of labour saving devices that were powered by fossil fuels. The economics and finance devised to track and manage the productivity gains delivered by these technologies failed to take into account the cost to the environment.

Those fossil fuels represent billions of tonnes of carbon compounds and billions of joules of solar energy progressively stored over geological timescales (hundreds of millions of years). All of that is being burned and released within human timescales (mere hundreds of years). One split-second revolution of a Hummer’s engine probably releases a quantity of energy that took Nature thousands of years to capture and store in the form of oil. The scenario that we might see the Earth’s atmosphere reverting back to pre-Cambrian (or worse) compositions within the next several hundred years is quite possible.

If nature does not punish us for this, our flawed economics will. As “jude” points out in his comment bringing the whole discussion back to the ground. Stagflation may be the optimistic scenario in this case. We don’t know yet if there is a sudden implosion still lurking underneath the unfathomable complexity and convolusion of the world market.

Rich societies with highly-educated populations struggle with modernity. I do wonder how a relatively ignorant, primitive, shortsighted, and inward-looking society such as ours will.

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About The Author: benign0 is the Webmaster of GetRealPhilippines.COM and has once been described as "one of the most enthusiastic hecklers of the politically-passionate" by a respected journalist.

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23 Responses to “A “crisis of modernity””

  1. Jon Limjap on May 22nd, 2008 11:39 am

    I have long held the impression that cultures that heavily rely on superstition (such as the Chinese) need anything and everything to make them believe that they are lucky to compensate for the immense amounts of risk that they take in their business-oriented societies.

    Of course that’s merely speculation.

    Rich societies with highly-educated populations struggle with modernity. I do wonder how a relatively ignorant, primitive, shortsighted, and inward-looking society such as ours will.

    And of course, coming from you, always expect a cheap potshot at how “incapable” Filipinos are of any and every form of progress imaginable.

  2. benign0 on May 22nd, 2008 12:06 pm

    And of course, coming from you, always expect a cheap potshot at how “incapable” Filipinos are of any and every form of progress imaginable.

    Jon, one thing I promised Nick when I signed up for this is that I’d remain consistent to my form. ;)

  3. Marck on May 22nd, 2008 12:23 pm

    Hmmm… I don’t want to sound disrespectful or anything…

    We should be more aware of terms like “crisis of modernity” as something more than just catchphrases. What exactly do you mean by “crisis of modernity?” Do you employ this in its proper sense in social inquiry, or do you use it as a catch-all phrase?

    Giddens? Habermas? Derrida? Luhmann, anyone?

    It’s not sci-fi, or mushrooms springing out from the void. I think you can benefit from reading texts first before making a take on it…

  4. benign0 on May 22nd, 2008 12:47 pm

    I just used the phrase as a title but found more meaning/insight in what’s been expounded around it. As we do keep reminding one another, it’s not about labelling, it’s about understanding the nature of what is being labelled by these proliferating catchphrases.

  5. Marck on May 22nd, 2008 1:09 pm

    Ah, okay. :) Still, the “crisis of modernity” refers more towards knowledge problems (systems, so to speak) we confront. Like discrete mathematics vs. ethnomathematics (see Alan Bishop’s essay on mathematics as imperialism), or Foucault would be a good start (power constructs).

    I have to disagree with you on one point: it is precisely the Philippines that suffers from a “crisis of modernity,” and that we are (and i am very tentative with this comment) at the threshhold of “postmodernity.” We are a very complex nation with many differences and many voices to be heard. Hegemony and power constructs are everywhere.

    Could we benefit from the postmodern perspective of a multiplicity of voices, a differentiation? Hmmm…

  6. cvj on May 22nd, 2008 1:47 pm

    benign0 (at 12:47 pm), so you hijacked the term ‘crisis of modernity’ just like you did previously with the Fallow’s ‘damaged culture’ terminology.

  7. benign0 on May 22nd, 2008 2:33 pm

    Yes, I did, Mr. cvj; that is, if you consider enclosing the phrase in quotes and citing its originator’s name in the body of the article to be hi-jacking. Nice to see somebody else here is being consistent with their usual form.

    Marck, I can’t say I am familiar with the literature behind post-modernism. I just articulate whatever stock knowledge I internally piece together in my mind. But in regard to what you say — that the Philippines is a complex society, might I propose that there may be a bit of confusion on your part with regard to the concept of complexity and the concept of chaos.

    I believe complexity whilst being, well, complex, has an underlying structure, whereas chaos has a more random underpinning (although the field of chaos theory attempts to find an underlying structure to chaos but using a different mathematical approach to the one used to describe complexity).

    So having “many differences and many voices to be heard” does not necessarily make a society complex. The number of elements in a system does not determine its complexity. It is the number of permutations/combinations of relationships between the elements that does. For example, the liver may have as many cells as the brain does. But the brain is more complex because the relationships of its cells follow a complex structure compared to that of the liver.

    As such, you might want to consider whether the word chaotic describes Philippine society a bit more accurately than the word complex…

  8. cvj on May 22nd, 2008 3:02 pm

    Benign0, that’s not what i meant by ‘hijacking’. What i mean by hijacking is (1) taking the name of a given idea, (2) discarding the originator’s content and (3) substituting your own Filipino bashing message.

  9. Pochero on May 22nd, 2008 4:55 pm

    I think that another part of this “crisis of modernity” is our society’s struggle to transform itself from a basically feudal society to a modern democracy. Sadly, however, I feel that this is possible only if it goes hand-in-hand with broad-based (even modest) prosperity.

  10. cvj on May 22nd, 2008 5:32 pm

    Pochero, with our neighbors (both the Communists and Capitalists countries) it happened the other way around. They dismantled their feudal system first which then enabled their economies to eventually take off. No more landed oligarchs/rent-seekers to get in the way.

  11. Ben on May 22nd, 2008 9:51 pm

    More outside help is needed for the Filipino people. By outside help I am refering to places like the USA and the other rich countries.

  12. [splice] on May 23rd, 2008 5:48 am

    @Ben

    “Outside help” as in? Foreign lending? Ah, but we can’t even pay our foreign loans.

  13. benign0 on May 23rd, 2008 8:30 am

    Cocoy once suggested that we outsource our Government which I agree with.

    Note how Pinoys are STILL more inclined to follow rules within Subic than anywhere else in the islands. Goes to show the kind of brand power that America is able to exert over Pinoy minds.

    But the outsourcing we should be doing is different from conventional outsourcing. Whereas other countries outsource low-thinking-applied tasks to the Third World, what is needed in our case is to outsource the high-thinking-applied component of Government and leave the mindless tasks within the islands.

  14. Pochero on May 23rd, 2008 9:27 am

    cvj, yes you are right. However, I think our neighbors dismantled the feudal system through force when they had strongman/dictator governments and then gradually became more democratic and prosperous (like South Korea and Taiwan). It’s probably more difficult to do this in a fully democratic set-up such as in our country. Sayang, Marcos had the opportunity but squandered it. Just one of the multitude of squandered opportunities in our history.

  15. chuck on May 23rd, 2008 9:51 am

    Pochero, i agree. Last year, i blogged that the only worthwhile reason to be under a dictatorship would be for the purpose of addressing the problem of inequality.

    http://cvjugo.blogspot.com/2007/04/authoritarianism-what-is-it-good-for.html

    The problem is that the elitists would want a dictatorship to preserve the existing power arrangements which is the worst possible combination.

    Benign0, i’ve worked in an outsourced environment for a couple of years already so i have some awareness of what it can and cannot do. The feasibility of that suggestion would depend on what functions of the government you plan to outsource.

  16. Jon Limjap on May 23rd, 2008 11:34 am

    In my visit to Puerto Princesa last year, my chain-smoking barkada found out the hard way that even the most benign-looking vendor would scold him for flicking off his cigarette butt to anywhere other than the garbage cans which can be found everywhere in the urban areas of the city and in front of sari-stari stores and the like in the more remote parts.

    The community is also very vocal against mining operations in their city, an issue heeded by their local government recently in finally disallowing all new mining activity in Puerto Princesa.

    And this is clearly because the people there are convinced of their leaders’ vision of their city as being a premier international eco-tourism destination.

    This is also exhibited in the small town of Donsol in the Bicol region where, once they were the main butchers of whale sharks, its people are now the main protectors of the marine environs therein. In both Donsol and Puerto Princesa, farmers/fishermen double as tour/snorkel guides, beach clearners, etc. Many of them have been trained by the local government and DOT (thankfully there are *some* functional parts of this government) in snorkeling, diving safety, first aid, basic marine biology and environmental care and awareness.

    That the mayor of Puerto Princesa is, similar to the dynastic leaders of Subic-Olongapo, of American descent might be a coincidence (which I do not believe in), but setting racial prejudices aside it is clear that denizens of both areas benefit from a clear vision of who they are and want to be, guided by leaders who have a clear idea on the how part of getting there.

    And thus is a restatement of a fundamental problem faced by imperial Manila and most of the cities and provinces in the islands; they, or more accurately, WE do not know what they want to be, and WE are not exerting enough effort to find out.

    And this is exacerbated by mundane political concerns like the never ending “what is wrong with the government and what is wrong with the Filipino” question.

    I think “what do we want to be” makes for a more sensible, and solvable, question, although among the two, this is the harder question to answer, really.

  17. benign0 on May 23rd, 2008 12:16 pm

    Our need to find out what we want to be seems to be a subset of what we discussed here, where I ended with:

    We need to have a collective opinion rather than a mere collective chatter about people and events, year after year, after year. We cannot fault our political parties for their inability to stand for SOMETHING because they merely reflect how we as a people apparently stand for NOTHING.

    We need a framework to tie everything together and provide context to our efforts to corral all these disparate snippets or voices of insight together into a coherent force.

  18. cvj on May 26th, 2008 12:54 am

    [Great i’m no longer on the spam list… :-) ]

    Pochero, (at May 23rd, 2008 9:27 am) i agree. Last year, i blogged that the only worthwhile reason to be under a dictatorship would be for the purpose of addressing the problem of inequality.

    http://cvjugo.blogspot.com/2007/04/authoritarianism-what-is-it-good-for.html

    The problem is that the elitists would want a dictatorship to preserve the existing power arrangements which is the worst possible combination.

    Benign0 (at May 23rd, 2008 12:16 pm), i’ve worked in an outsourced environment for a couple of years already so i have some awareness of what it can and cannot do. The feasibility of that suggestion would depend on what functions of the government you plan to outsource.

  19. benign0 on May 27th, 2008 2:29 pm

    cvj, naman, of course everything “depends” on something, and in this specific instances, of course it “depends” on what functions of government we plan to outsource.

    If we want to outsource the Office of the President, then there are specific solution options that can be explored to support that goal. If we want to outsource the Senate, there are specific solution options that can be explored to support that goal as well. Depende nga talaga.

    My point is, what exactly was your objective in making that comment you made above? To tell us it depens? Mahirap i-sigang ang bakuran, dude.

    Sayang naman ang “awareness of what it can and cannot do” if all you can come up with is it depens.

  20. cvj on May 27th, 2008 6:32 pm

    Benign0, from my experience with outsourcing, i can tell you that outsourcing the wrong activities or missing out on certain elements will make the problem worse. That’s why we have to go beyond generalities.

  21. A crisis of priorities | Filipino Voices on May 30th, 2008 10:15 am

    […] seems there is not only a crisis of modernity in our little basketcase country, but also a crisis of […]

  22. A thought on BenignOism and FilipinoVoices telos | Filipino Voices on June 7th, 2008 5:48 am

    […] foregoing is essentially humanist Marxian. Now, is our collegue BenignO, despite bewailing about “the crisis of modernity” in the Philippines, in fact an apostate who has yet to come out of the closet? ( Or, bluntly, is […]

  23. Marcelo on June 24th, 2008 4:34 pm

    Hi!

    Such incredible, over-intellectualized, navel-gazing! I wonder if one in a thousand of our Fellow Pinoys would have the slightest interest in these exchanges.

    Don’t get me wrong. I enjoy reading every line, heh heh.

    Anyway, I only wanted to take exception to those who keep on calling our beloved Motherland a basket case. Being a basket case, you see, is relative. It all depends on the comparisons being made.

    Going by the totality of nations in this sorry world of ours (from the Lone Superpower, through the myriad Peanut Republics, and on down to the Last Failed and Imploded State), our country is not doing that bad…relatively speaking.

    This sage observation, of course, does nothing to ease the pain here at home of higher food and fuel prices, of massive corruption, of risking one’s life in our traffic and the pollution it causes, and of wanting with all of one’s heart to see our Fellow Pinoys learn to form orderly lines, including in the Men’s Room (well, maybe Pinays are more orderly in their little private place, but I would not know).

    But all these acknowledged travails do not make the Philippines a basket case…at least not yet!

    Some other useful comparisons (relevant or not, here they are):

    (1) Many States that fragmented, broke apart violently or peacefully self-separated had higher per capita incomes than the Philippines.

    (2) Virtually all the “successful” dictatorships have higher per capita incomes than the Philippines (but, then, their happy citizens do not enjoy the services of anything like the Philippine Daily Inquirer, etc.)

    (3) Most morally upright regimes, like the one ruling Iran, control nations that have higher per capita incomes than the Philippines — but then again, see note (2) above

    (4) The outright cowboy capitalist neither-democracy-nor-dictatorship new Russia has a higher per capita income than the Philippines.

    And so forth,….

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