Pre Class: Habermas

I felt that Jurgen Habermas' essay Modernity- An Incomplete Project was a difficult read. I'm hoping that after class today I will have a further understanding of Habermas' theories. As of right now, this is how I understand Habermas. I interpret his quote "With varying content, the term 'modern' again and again expresses the consciousness of an epoch that relates itself to the past of antiquity, in order to view itself as the result of a transition from the old to the new" as the modern constantly trying to relate to the past, and in doing so it attempts to recreate the past, such as "antiques made to order." This quote also relates to his other quote stating that "a modern work becomes a classic because it has once been authentically modern" which I interpret to mean that the modern products that consider themselves to be "modern" are not authentic because they are copying products and designs that have been created in the past, which connects the past and the future, but there is no authenticity anymore. His quote "Aesthetic modernity is characterized by attitudes which find a common focus in a changed consciousness of time" also relates to the two quote above, that as different as modernism and post-modernism are, they are still related in the past, and they were both spurred on by a shocking event in history. History plays a part in every aspect of society.