Modernisms and Authorities
1 MODERNISMS AND AUTHORITIES After a short introit framing his theme, Clement Greenberg begins rolling out the his- torical logic of modernism with what sounds like a general reference to life under moder- nity: “A society, as it becomes less and less able, in the course of its development, to justify the inevitability of its particular forms, breaks up the accepted notions upon which artists and writers must depend in large part for communication with their audiences. It becomes difficult to assume anything. All the verities involved by religion, authority, tradition, style, are thrown into question, and the writer or artist is no longer able to estimate the response of his audience to the symbols and references with which he works.”1 Despite my general reservations about Greenberg’s account of modernism (both the theoretical and the historical sides of it), I cite it to show how deeply embedded in it is the notion that modernism means losing touch with “the verities involved by religion [and] authority.” To put it plainly, in what follows, I argue that he is more or less right about that, even if I might put the matter in a more nuanced way.2 Let’s say he is recog- nizing modern art’s perspective on the problems Arendt described. As a more nuanced account of modernism, consider a similar passage from Stanley Cavell, explaining how and why, under modernity, “the writing of philosophy is difficult in a new way” (emphasis in the original). It is the difficulty modern philosophy shares with the modern arts (and, for that matter, with modern theology; and, for all I know, with modern physics), a difficulty broached, or 15 Palermo - 9780520282469.indd 15 15/06/15 5:02 PM reflected, in the nineteenth-century’s radical breaking of tradition within the several arts; a moment epitomized in Marx’s remark that “.
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