Where would we be without the Modern Era?
When you think of the Modern Era, what are the first words that come to mind? Enlightenment? Modern medicine? Technology? Hierarchy? All of those words connect with the modern era, but what is the actual definition? Without the Modern Era, we would not be where we are today.
Starting from the beginning, all we had was the printing press in order to communicate. Who would have thought that printing ink on a piece of paper would lead us to newspapers and later on being able to make copies of a poster in seconds. This helped us communicate more than just down the street but also the town next to us, halfway across the world, and eventually worldwide. According to Joshua Meyrowitz, “ By allowing easy access to social information apart from face-to-face interaction, printing encourages retreat from the surrounding oral community and from extended kinship ties and greater isolation of the nuclear family” (Meyrowitz page 58). Being able to communicate to each other, not by speaking, helps others get away from only speaking to their family and actually getting out there to know more people. It has helped us as a society to socialize more which then lead to cities being built, families moving to the better societies and in increase economically.
Reading Technology & Social Change: Four Major Eras, Michael Soha talks about the dominant form of social organizations: the institution which is the start and formation of the social, political, and economic institutions. “Institutions, standing on the foundation of modern-era science and technology, attempt to “create order out of chaos” and literally “modernize” society through regiment programs of hygiene, education, news, and information, and at times, outride propaganda” (Soha page 13). This institutions were able to give people an education, spread news rapidly from either listening to it on the radio or from a television screen, and give a little structure to the cities (buildings, factories, etc.). We needed to continue to grow by increasing our economic status and creating more jobs, more businesses, more structure to the society. Government systems come into play and laws are created to keep everyone safe.
Towards the 17th and 18th century brings in the enlightenment period. This brings everything that we used to know, religiously, into scientific explanations. According to Michael Soha, “The notion that society could be observed, categorized, planned, and most importantly — improved through science was fundamental to the logic of modernity” (Soha page 18). We looked at the world scientifically and believed that everything happened for a reason. This also led us to believe that we could change the way science is, which then lead to eugenics. Eugenics was seen as fixing the society now, so it would be better in the future. This is seen in extreme cases during the time, causing people to become infertile or death. This was against the mentally ill, the physically disabled, people of color, or homosexuals. The government took over and started creating eugenic laws, and sadly they also had no choice in whether or not they wanted to reproduce. Society has changed drastically since then, for the better, but would life still be like that now if we never went through the enlightenment period?
Everything happens for a reason, and it all worked out in the end. We are continuing to work on our society by creating more technology and having access to more resources. There are many different aspects that effect the modern era, and without those we would not of gotten to the Postmodern era which brings us closer to where we are today.
