Introduction: Modernity, Postmodernity, and Postmodernism

In the following three chapters, we will discuss a number of topics that have thus far remained largely implicit. Much humanities research makes substantial but often tacit assumptions about *modernity, about relations between men and women, and about the relation of Europe or the West to the rest of the world. When these assumptions are made explicit, they can also be subjected to a more systematic critique, as is done in a number of contemporary currents in the humanities.

The scientific revolution and the Enlightenment are widely seen as specifically modern and uniquely European achievements. Max Weber summarized these ideas in his thesis that, ‘as we like to believe’, Western *rationalism embodies a worldview and a number of forms of social action that, even though they have emerged in a restricted period in time and in a relatively small number of countries, have a universal application and significance. He sees this worldview and these forms of action as manifested in such things as the modern natural sciences, modern jurisprudence, bureaucracy, capitalism, and in the personality of the professional, who has learned to separate work-related and personal matters. He also sees Western classical music, characterized by systematic counterpoint as developed by Johann Sebastian Bach and later composers, as a specifically modern and uniquely Western form of rationalized music (cf. § 7.5). Furthermore, Weber and others also consider *secularization – that is, the disappearance of religious convictions from public and/or private life and the receding of the societal power of the Church – to be an equally logically and inevitable consequence of this ongoing rationalization in the Western world.

The idea of a specifically European or Western modernity is present in virtually all authors and currents discussed above. Hence, they may be called *modernist in so far as they implicitly or explicitly accept this idea, whatever their doubts and reservations. Despite their acknowledgement of the horrors of the twentieth century, they continue to cherish the thought that scientific, cultural, and societal progress is at least possible and that science and art play an important role in its realization. Many of them, moreover, are staunch *secularists who not only are convinced that there is a factual process of secularization but also normatively welcome this process.