What "Modern"?

Science, Art, Politics, Economy, all are interconnected. We can look to the different lines of that issues with a “polarized” eye, or we can use “complex thinking” and have “open windows” to new data and new paradigms, trying to use some “reasonable” criteria. When we talk like this maybe we can remember Paul Feyerabend and his “Against Method” and the point of view that the scientists are “not too much scientific”, or that the rigour of scientific method is questionable. Anyway, we can use the criticism of Feyerabend to don’t forget the scientific knowledge is transitory. At this point we can use the notion of paradigm of Thomas Kuhn and stay conscious that at each moment we have to be under some paradigm with its language and limitations.

So, let’s go beack to the “XIXth’s century modern”. Some say that the “modern pre-postmodern” started with that century. The Modern of XIXth century partially walked side by side with Romantism and a certain kind of Nationalism.

Romantism actually started “before Romantism”; as a matter of fact, maybe almost anything in History starts before the “official” beginning.

Romantism was a kind of artistic reaction to the racionalism of Enlightenment.

“Modern” Science walked together with Racionalism.

The reaction of Romantism started with a kind of return to the origins of differente european communities. As said Norbert Elias, the “Sturm und Drang” movement of Goethe and Schiller was a revival and valorization of the German language in the scholar environment that was then influenced by the French Culture. That comeback had a kind of “nationalistic” spirit still before the rise of the nations in XIXth century after Napoleon and at the same step of American Revolution.

Romantism in France in XIXth century was also a rediscovering of Middle Age’s Art. The beauty of that art was forgotten since XV-XVIth centuries. The rediscovering of that Art was also a comeback to the origins of France walking together with the nationalism of XIXth century.

In the middle of that, Baudelaire created the word “modernité” as the state of “the momentary”...

So, what was the “modern” of that days?

The “modern” of Baudelaire, the “modern” of Mary Shelley that we already talked about, the “modern” of the “new Nations”, the “modern” of Industrial Revolution, the “modern” of Science... or maybe was the “modern” of all that...