Culture and Globalization :: Outsourcing, Offshoring, Free Trade

"All that is solid melts into air." This quote by Karl Marx is important in understanding the relationship of modernity, postmodernity, and globalization because the one thing all three terms have in common is that they are ever-changing. The ideas of modernity and postmodernity are always changing along with time, as are the flows of globalization. I think the three terms are ever-changing because they are affected by the world we live in, which is always changing. Since the world is always changing, what is considered "modern" will never stay the same. Everyday new ideas are being thought, knowledge is being created, and new relationships are formed. As long as time keeps changing, the three terms will too. Going back to the quote before, nothing lasts forever. No one really agrees as to what modernity, postmodernity, and globalization really mean. There are various opinions on each term. The only thing people manage to agree on is that postmodernity is a reaction to modernity and that globalization connects everybody in the world in some way. In the article, "Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies," it defines modernity with four characteristics. In order for a time period to be considered "modern", it must have a dominance of secular forms of political power and authority, a monetarized exchange economy, a decline of the traditional social order, and a decline of the religious world-view. Each characteristic has to do with a change in what came before it. In order for a society to be considered "modern", it must change completely from the prior society. The ideas of Modernity can be traced back to the Enlightenment period. On page 25 in the article, "Modernity: An Introduction to Modern Societies," it describes the Enlightenment as "the creation of a new framework of ideas about man, society, and nature, which challenged existing conceptions rooted in a traditional world-view, dominated by Christianity." Before that time period, the only thing people were allowed to believe was what the Church told them. During the Enlightenment, people began to think rationally and have their own beliefs. The Enlightenment period began the times of progress we would enjoy to the present time. In the book, "Cosmopolis," on page 14 it says, "We were taught that this 17th century insistence on the power of rationality, along with the rejection of tradition and superstition reshaped European life and society generally.