Modernism--A
Working Definition
by
Professor Catherine Lavender-
Modernism
is a cultural movement which rebelled against Victorian mores.
As we have discussed in class, Victorian culture emphasized nationalism
and cultural absolutism. Victorians placed humans over and outside
of nature. They believed in a single way of looking at the world,
and in absolute and clear-cut dichotomies between right and wrong,
good and bad, and hero and villain. Further, they saw the world
as being governed by God's will, and that each person and thing
in this world had a specific use. Finally, they saw the world
as neatly divided between "civilized" and "savage"
peoples. According to Victorians, the "civilized" were
those from industrialized nations, cash-based economies, Protestant
Christian traditions, and patriarchal societies; the "savage"
were those from agrarian or hunter-gatherer tribes, barter-based
economies, "pagan" or "totemistic" traditions,
and matriarchal (or at least "unmanly" societies).
In contrast, Modernists rebelled against Victorian ideals. Blaming
Victorianism for such evils as slavery, racism, and imperialism--and
later for World War I--Modernists emphasized humanism over nationalism,
and argued for cultural relativism. Modernists emphasized the
ways in which humans were part of and responsible to nature. They
argued for multiple ways of looking at the world, and blurred
the Victorian dichotomies by presenting antiheroes, uncategorizable
persons, and anti-art movements like Dada. Further, they challenged
the idea that God played an active role in the world, which led
them to challenge the Victorian assumption that there was meaning
and purpose behind world events. Instead, Modernists argued that
no thing or person was born for a specific use; instead, they
found or made their own meaning in the world. Challenging the
Victorian dichotomy between "civilized" and "savage,"
Modernists reversed the values associated with each kind of culture.
Modernists
presented the Victorian "civilized" as greedy and warmongering
(instead of being industrialized nations and cash-based economies),
as hypocrites (rather than Christians), and as enemies of freedom
and self-realization (instead of good patriarchs). Those that
the Victorians had dismissed (and subjugated) as "savages"
the Modernists saw as being the truly civilized--responsible users
of their environments, unselfish and family-oriented, generous,
creative, mystical and full of wonder, and egalitarian. These
"savages," post-WWI Modernists pointed out, did not
kill millions with mustard gas, machine-guns, barbed wire, and
genocidal starvation.
by
Christopher L. C. E. Witcombe
