“Modernity is characterized by the questioning of everything, of all that we once held dear and inviolable. It opens the way to plurality and diversity, but it can also be seen as a challenge to the worldview of the past.” (AbdolKarim Soroush)
I wish there were some truth in this definition - if there truly were a questioning then we could move towards some cohesive answers. Modernity does not necessarily question or seek answers in any especially meaningful way. And it cannot escape from the flaws that have afflicted all ages and all attempts at reviewing past systems and then constructing new outlooks and worldviews. It is as fraught as were past ages with giving ear to special pleadings, special interests, to allying with power, and seeking justification for specific viewpoints and activities through revisionist interpretations of history and texts (sacred or historical) - of reading current trends and values backwards into the past. If modernity seeks to explore all the latent social and philosophical possibilities open to human beings, it often seeks to justify and defend the results of this exploration through an “imaginative” re-interpretation (or sometimes outright dismissal or mockery) of sacred texts and of the past in general - an abrasive internecine approach. In doing so it elevates this present time and this present mindset above all past generations, making it the decider of the “true meaning” and “worth” of the entirety of past thought and history. To the extent that a process with this type of complexion occurs, it is a flawed process.
Like water poured out on the ground that flows outward and sinks into every nook, cranny, and crevasse until it’s flow is exhausted and it has settled into the lowest available basin, such a methodology will seek out and justify (under the demeanor of an appeal to plurality and diversity) all the mental and behavioral crevasses that the present age opens up.
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I agree. Modernity isnt characterized by the questioning of everything, but rather with the questioning of some things and not others. Few are aware of the assumptions that underlie their beliefs and values, regardless of context, epoch or era. This is human nature, or the nature of human societies, in my opinion. In our era, we question religion, we question authority, we question destiny. We don’t question social values like freedom of expression, human rights, democracy or sexual permissiveness. We dont question the epistemology of science. We don’t question the absurd condescencion that we hold towards our predecessors, or to those “unenlightened” by Western culture. The list could could continue of course, but I’ll stop here.
What I find fascinating is the claim made by many that modernity is the grand and of course exclusive path towards plurarlity and diversity. One of the greatest ironies of modernity is that for all its rhetoric of plurarlism, it has in practice been utterly homogenizing. I live in Los Angeles and there is starbucks, I go to China and there is starbucks, I go to Mecca and there is starbucks. Modernity, it seems, allows for superficial difference; I drink Coke and you Pepsi. But in an era no longer guided by the pursuit of truth, one can’t really expect meaningful difference. This, it seems to me, is the malaise of modernity.
On a somewhat different note, I find it discouraging that a figure, the likes of Abdulkarim Soroush, paraded in the West as the “Martin Luther of Islam” and the “most important Islamic reformer,” might yield such a superficial understanding of modernity. To the many seeking to reform Islam, I wonder how they imagine reformed Islam might avoid the pitfalls to which modernity has succumb. Of course, this is the last concern of the West, who in their lavish appelations are motivated almost entirely by an attempt to empty Islam of any metaphysical content, such that Islam is defined simply as the evolving spectrum of beliefs to which Muslims adhere.
Mohammed, thanks for your comment, which expands nicely upon points I only briefly touched on in my post. I think one of the positive aspects we might take from a “reformer” like Soroush is that he very extensively lays out the impact of modernity upon Muslim societies and describes in detail the dilemma which modernity has created for traditional societies. The solutions he proposes, however (if I’ve read him correctly), are based heavily upon a rejection of traditional foundations of Islam and giving precedence and philosophical authority to an (I believe, largely fictional) community of “dynamic” modern Muslim intellectuals.
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