Historia Crítica ISSN: 0121-1617 [email protected] Universidad de Los Andes Colombia Hunt, Lynn Modernity: Are Modern Times Different? Historia Crítica, núm. 54, septiembre-diciembre, 2014, pp. 107-124 Universidad de Los Andes Bogotá, Colombia Available in: http://www.redalyc.org/articulo.oa?id=81132437007 How to cite Complete issue Scientific Information System More information about this article Network of Scientific Journals from Latin America, the Caribbean, Spain and Portugal Journal's homepage in redalyc.org Non-profit academic project, developed under the open access initiative 107 Modernity: Are Modern Times Different? Ï Profesora de Historia Moderna de Europa en la Universidad de California en Los Ángeles (UCLA). Es doctora en Historia por la Universidad de Standford (Estados Unidos). Sus intereses académicos giran en torno a la revolución Lynn Hunt francesa, la historia del género y la historia cultural. Entre sus publicacio- nes recientes se encuentran: con Jaques Revel, “Historia: pasado, presente y futuro”, Pasajes 41 (2013): 70-95; y el libro La invención de los derechos humanos (Barcelona: Tusquets, 2010). [email protected] Artículo recibido: 11 de diciembre de 2013 Aprobado: 28 de marzo de 2014 Modificado: 19 de junio de 2014 DOI: dx.doi.org/10.7440/histcrit54.2014.06 Ï Esta investigación contó con la financiación de la catedra Eugen Webwer en Historia Moderna Europea de la Universidad de California en Los Ángeles (UCLA). Hist. Crit. No. 54, Bogotá, septiembre - diciembre 2014, 264 pp. ISSN 0121-1617 pp 107-124 108 Modernity: Are Modern Times Different? Modernidad: ¿Son distintos los tiempos modernos? Resumen: En años recientes, la “modernidad” ha sido objeto de considerable debate entre los historiadores. Este artículo evalúa algunos de esos debates y argumenta que la modernidad es un concepto problemático porque implica una completa ruptura con los modos de vida “tradicionales”. El artículo realiza un estudio de términos clave apoyado en Ngrams de Google, que indican que los términos “modernidad,” “tiempos modernos” y “tradicional” —en inglés y otros idiomas— tienen una historia propia. Un breve análisis de la transición desde la auto-orientación al equilibrio hacia la auto-orientación a la estimulación demuestra que la modernidad no es necesaria para el análisis histórico. Palabras clave: modernidad, tiempos modernos, tradicional, historia del yo. Modernity: Are Modern Times Different? Abstract: “Modernity” has recently been the subject of considerable discussion among historians. This article reviews some of the debates and argues that modernity is a problematic concept because it implies a complete rupture with “traditional” ways of life. Studies of key terms are undertaken with the aid of Google Ngrams. These show that “modernity,” “modern times,” and “traditional” —in English and other languages— have a history of their own. A brief analysis of the shift from a self oriented toward equilibrium to a self oriented toward stimulation demonstrates that modernity is not necessary to historical analysis. Keywords: modernity, modern times, traditional, history of the self. Modernidade: Os Tempos Modernos são Diferentes? Resumo: Recentemente a “modernidade” tem sido objeto de discussão substancial entre os historiadores. Este artigo analisa alguns desses debates e argumenta que modernidade é um conceito problemático porque implica uma ruptura completa com as formas “tradicionais” de vida. Estudos de termos-chave realizados com a ajuda da ferramenta linguística Google Ngrams mostram que os termos “modernidade”, “tempos modernos” e “tradicional”, —tanto em inglês quanto em outras línguas—, têm uma história própria. Uma breve análise da mudança de um tipo eu voltado ao equilíbrio para um outro voltado à estimulação demonstra que a modernidade não é imprescindível para uma análise histórica. Palavras-chave: modernidade, tempos modernos, tradicionais, história do eu. Historia Critica No. 54, Bogotá, septiembre - diciembre 2014, 264 pp. ISSN 0121-1617 pp 107-124 Lynn Hunt 109 Modernity: Are Modern Times Different? odernity” as a concept has close links to the development of his- tory as a university discipline in the Western world. In recent years, scholars have drawn attention to the ways in which the narrative “Mof modernity has distorted historical writing, especially of the places outside of Europe. As South Asian historian Dipesh Chakrabarty famously maintained, “There is a peculiar way in which all these other histories tend to become variations on a master narrative that could be called ‘the history of Europe.’”1 Europe sets the template of modernity; all other places are compared to it and almost always found lacking, that is, behind in terms of historical development. Sebastian Conrad has shown how post-World War II Japanese historians fol- lowed the European model of periodization: “The concepts and terminology of historical understanding —development, progress, and modernity— owed their explanatory sub- stance to the European experience.”2 In short, the western concept of modernity has come to define the discipline of history for everyone in the world. The problems created by the concept of modernity are not limited to the non-West. As Frederick Cooper, a historian of Africa, argues, the notion of modernity tends to flatten time and therefore discourage analysis of the conflicts within presumably modern socie- ties in the last two hundred years while simultaneously ignoring much of what went on before, in Europe and elsewhere in the world. It confuses certain processes of undeniable significance (urbanization, for example, or secularization) with a particular time period, not to mention a particular place, the West. Modernity also tends to proliferate even among its critics with alternative modernities, colonial modernity, Japanese modernity, Indian modernity, etc. Cooper sums up the result: “The concept of modernity, multiplied, therefore runs the gamut, from a singular narrative of capitalism, the nation-state, and individualism —with multiple effects and responses— to a word for everything that has happened in the last five hundred years.”3 1 Dipesh Chakrabarty, “Postcoloniality and the Artifice of History: Who Speaks for ‘Indian’ Pasts?,” Representa- tions 37 (1992): 1. 2 Sebastian Conrad, “What Time Is Japan? Problems of Comparative (Intercultural) Historiography,” History and Theory 38: 1 (1999): 67–83. 3 Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 127. Hist. Crit. No. 54, Bogotá, septiembre - diciembre 2014, 264 pp. ISSN 0121-1617 pp 107-124 110 Modernity: Are Modern Times Different? Yet, for all his criticisms, Cooper stops short of jettisoning the concept altogether. “My purpose,” he maintains, “has not been to purge the word modernity and certainly not to cast aside the issues that concern those who use the word.”4 Similarly, in the book that develops his critique of Eurocentrism, Provincializing Europe, Chakrabarty repeatedly uses the term, whether as global modernity, colonial modernity, Indian modernity, or political modernity.5 He contests European domination of the concept but not its use in general. In a more recent considera- tion of “The Muddle of Modernity,” he insists that “Historians have to take responsibility for the normative freight that the word ‘modernity’ ... has carried globally,” but nowhere does he suggest that they dispense with it.6 Writing history without modernity as a concept turns out to be nearly impossible. In one of my own books, I used the term in a title, The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity, so I can hardly claim to have solved this rid- dle myself.7 Moreover, I have worked all my scholarly life on the French Revolution precisely because I considered it a foundational event for modern times. Is there any way to sort through this “muddle,” as Chakrabarty calls it? We can start by developing a history of the term itself, an endeavor that can only be sketched out here in a preliminary way. Although modernity can be traced as far back as 1635 in English according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the digital resource Eighteenth Century Collections Online yields only two references, and only one in English for the entire eighteenth century. The novelist Honoré de Balzac used the French term modernité a few times in the first half of the nineteenth century, but in the 1870s Littré’s famous Dictionnaire de la langue française could still refer to it as a neologism.8 A series of Google Ngrams can bring greater specificity to this question. Figure 1 seems to show that “modernity” as a term really only takes off in English after 1960 and even after 1980. But appearances can be deceiving especially when it comes to the visual representation of big data. If we ask about modernity in English between 1800 and 1900 (Figure 2) we see a distinct take off between 1890 and 1900, and if we query about 1890-1960 (Figure 3), we get 4 Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question, 149. 5 See: Dipesh Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009). 6 Dipesh Chakrabarty, “The Muddle of Modernity,” The American Historical Review 116: 3 (2011): 674. 7 Lynn Hunt, ed. The Invention of Pornography: Obscenity and the Origins of Modernity (New York: Zone Book, 1993). 8 None of the previous dictionaries available at ARTFL, an online data resource for French literature, include modernité. See: “Dictionnaires d’autrefois: Émile Littré. Dictionnaire de la langue française (1872-77),” The ARTFL Project, <http://artflsrv02.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/dicos/pubdico1look.pl?strippedhw=modernitE>, paragraph “Modernité.” Historia Critica No. 54, Bogotá, septiembre - diciembre 2014, 264 pp. ISSN 0121-1617 pp 107-124 Lynn Hunt 111 a more nuanced picture of the twentieth century, one of continuing increase in the use of the term between 1890 and the 1930s, then stagnation and even decline until the mid-1950s (for reasons that may be obvious or may not be — is this due to the shock of World War II?), and then a huge increase thereafter, perhaps because of the influence of modernization theory.