Habermas

For tomorrow’s class we were asked to read, “Modernity-An Incomplete Project”, by Jurgen Habermas. To be honest, this reading was very confusing for me, but I tried my best to understand what I could. Habermas is widely seen as a critic of postmodernism and he is known to debate with Lyotard’s views. It is impossible to say when modernity occurred, but the word modern was said for the first time in the 5^th century and it meant “new”. According to Habermas, he says ‘modernity’ is the condition of the new, which is constantly changing- his definitely is influence by Walter Benjamin.

I thought this quote was interesting: “Of course, whatever can survive time has always been considered to be classic” (99). When you go to a museum and look at “classical” pieces of art you never really think about the history or the exact date it was created, but you just assume that because they appear to look older, than they must be classical works of art-the relationship between modern and classic no longer have anything to do with history. According to many people’s views in the modern world, art has to look a certain way to look ‘modernized’, but some artists have gotten to the point where their pieces are extremely hard to comprehend its message, so hard, that it has lost the ability to have any connection with the audience, which I think, defeats the whole purpose of art.

The whole project of Modernity was formed with the goal that it would create organization for people’s everyday life. Habermas wants us to know the importance of having faith and not getting rid of this idea of ‘modernity’ because it will soon bring many positives. Habermas also says that this ‘modern project’ has yet to be fulfilled (hence of the name of the essay’s title) but he argues that someday it will and getting rid of the idea of modernism would not be a good idea, which is where he and Lyotard differ in opinions.

“On my honor I have not given, nor received, nor witnessed any unauthorized assistance on this work”