What Is Modernity? – Folha de S. Paulo, February 3, 1974
by Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira
What does it mean to be modern? I would like someone to define it for me, because the confusion surrounding it is growing as “modernity” engenders, with increasing frenzy, paradoxes and contradictions.
For example, adopting structuralist philosophy is, from some perspectives, riding the crest of modernity. Now, structuralism—with the famous Levi-Strauss at the forefront—seriously advocates a return to the cultural and social forms of the pre-Neolithic period as a solution to today’s problems.
But if this is what it means to be modern, then the most recent—and therefore most “modern”—concept of modernity is to move backward rather than forward. And a modern man is one who turns his back on progress and walks resolutely toward prehistory.
In this case, it is incomprehensible why a “toad,” content with all the extravagances of today’s world, feels compelled to rail against tradition, especially that which comes to us from the Middle Ages, to feel genuinely modern.
If the course of modernity is a return to the most remote past, then love of tradition and the past would be signs of modernity. This regression to the Stone Age would have to pass through the Middle Ages.
I ask any “modern” reader who reviles the TFP for its alleged “medievalist” character to explain what is wrong with this reasoning.
We at the TFP certainly admire the perennial values that flourished in medieval civilization more than in any other historical period. This does not mean advocating the restoration of what was contingent and transient.
That a “modern” reader would censure us for this five years ago was understandable, since even error has its own logic.
What is not understandable, however, is that today’s “modern man” acclaims restorers of prehistory as super-modern and accuses those who wish to preserve and develop the perennial traditions inherited from the past, especially from the Middle Ages, of being antiquated.
* * *
These reflections came to me in connection with a clipping from the Jornal do Brasil dated October 9 of last year. It is a bit old (but what is “old” in these bewildering perspectives?). I transcribe it: “They accept the veneration of the King with enthusiasm and fervor, even in their daily lives. People’s respect for institutions is absolute. They are like children, capable of doing whatever the government orders. … They sing and dance in honor of the monarch.”
I wonder whether the society described above follows an ancient or a modern model. Readers most concerned about their modernity will laugh out loud. “Of course,” they will exclaim, “it is an archaic model. Perfectly medieval.”
For my part, I think that only with restrictions could this description fit into a general picture of the Middle Ages.
But what will those readers, who certainly consider communism modern, say if I tell them this model is precisely that of communism, specifically the Chinese variant many consider more modern?
* * *
Yet this is the reality. Replace the name “Mao” with the word “King,” which I introduced for testing purposes, and you will have before you an enthusiastic description of contemporary Chinese society in Michelangelo Antonioni’s documentary Chung Kuo – China, which was screened in Paris cinemas.
So, modern reader, what do you understand by “modern man”? What does “modernity” entail?
