The Concepts and Myths of the Modern World - Literature review Example

The Concepts and Myths of the Modern World Originating in Thomas Moore’s 1516 Utopia, a concept explored by feudal Rationalists pursued a of industrial commoner through application of the enlightened sciences. ‘Enlightenment’ is a state wherein discovering and adhering to natural laws creates an equitable society (Adapted from the Radical Academy, 2003). ‘Dystopia’ is a fore-warning as illustrated in Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ and Orwell’s ‘Nineteen Eighty-Four’. Degeneration and Regeneration operate on an assumed mutual-understanding of order and chaos and are associated to the ethical realm of norms and values. The spatial transgression of boundaries often symbolizes a transgression of conventional gender norms. (Buchholz et al, 2002). Modern Conditioning in Relation to Geographies In some civilizations, the juridico-discursive power belongs to a ‘sovereign authority who exercised absolute control’ (Foucault, 1978). Bentham’s ‘Panoticon’ transfers this authority to Surveillance buildings, particularly “Penitentiary-Houses, Prisons, Hospitals, Schools, … and Mad-houses” (Bentham, 1787). Surveillance becomes contour mapping, including people; an example being “the cadastral map, which records land ownership and resource characteristics” (Goss, Jon. 1995). Constant surveillance internalized, as in “disciplining the body, takes hold of the mind …” (Foucault 1977) becomes a power used collectively to control groups as discussed in Foucault’s Body, Power and the Sexuality; Subjectivity, identity and resistance; and Freedom, power and Politics (Armstrong,2005). Speed: Relationship between new technologies, spaces and new identities Speed is inversely proportional to the time within which a work is done and was introduced with the technical revolution. Asger Jorn (1958) defines automation as something that “adds more than it replaces or suppresses.” The invention of the bi-cycle eventually led to the railroad system, fascinating man with the degeneration of distances and connecting the ride with the sublime experience (Nye, 1994). Railway would stimulate the commerce; petroleum and electricity empowered many vehicles to move products/people. While the natural sublime emphasizes humankind’s smallness, the technological sublime demonstrates a means of conquering it through technology. Communication: from the Telegraph to the Internet The Age of Information began around 1844 with the telegraph, making information transfer independent of human travel. Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone, followed by mobile phones, revolutionized communication systems. The invention of computer networking has transcended time and distance. ‘Annihilation of distance, coined by Frances Cairncross, suggests that distance need not limit peoples ability to communicate. The Business Week describes the Internet as “a revolution that impacts each of our lives.” The development of e-business and e-commerce, the control of e-stocks, and rise and fall of financial empires, technology certainly adds a new dimension in the spatial geography (Robinson, 2001). The Modern Metropolis Cultural development is the “objective spirit" over the "subjective” spirit, affecting modern cities through mobility, economy, technology and infrastructure. The objective culture refers to things created while the subjective culture is what has been integrated. Metropolitan life values impersonal time schedules with direct dissociation in reality (i.e. socialism) (Simmel, 1908), rather than the small circle where individuality produces warmer behavior. Le Bon’s psychology of crowds linked the conditions of the metropolis and Sinnett’s urban dweller’s psychological state. Blavatskys concept indicates an active period promulgates an inward and outward expansion while the passive condition is a contraction of this “Divine essence”. The Relevance of Psycho-geography in Modern Geography Psychogeography, developed by Lettrist International, is "the study of specific effects of the geographical environment … on the emotions and behaviour of individuals"(Situationniste Internationale, 1958) that “realizes the conflict between our idealized role as citizens and our subjectivity arising from the material conditions of our life”(Psycho geography, 2005). Walter Benjamin’s interpretations remove “the distortions we have grown accustomed to and substitutes these for new distortions… to develop fresh strategies” (Voorthuis, 1999). ‘Phantasmagorical’ is explained as ‘fantastic sequence of haphazardly associative imagery’ in dreams or art (Farlex, 2005). A small band of avant-garde artists and intellectuals influenced by Dada, Surrealism and Letterism began the “Situationists movement”. Woman & Departmental Store in the Modern World By the late nineteenth century, shopping replaced the church as an acceptable activity for women; “the rise of the department store … providing a highly legitimate, if limited, participation in the public sphere.”(Wolff, 1990). This liberalism gave rise to sensual identification and increased sexuality in women. “The high point of the nineteenth-century shopping revolution was the creation of the department store. … this was an environment half-public, half-private, and it was a space that women were able to inhabit comfortably” (Wilson, 1992). Sex, and sexuality became a marketed commodity, something to be bought and sold in the modern city. The Female Gender and the Metropolis The birth of the Metropolis offered an abundance of “public places of pleasure and interest” for women to “wander, watch and browse” (Wilson, 1992) or for working women (grisettes), “who have few opportunities for strolling and gazing at shop windows during the week... gazing their fill on Sundays” (Wilson, 1992). While prostitutes are viewed as a “metaphor for disorder”, other female workers are seen as interesting. ‘The special provisions to ensure that women felt comfortable’ spread rapidly, with the opening of “establishments, such as the Criterion (1874), which specifically catered for women”(Wilson. 1992). Making the modern: World Fairs and Exhibitions 1939 NYWF exhibitions showed “that there are moments where you can see the world turning from what it is into what it will be” (Crowley) in art and science. Le Bon celebrates the disciplinary tool; “to know the art of impressing the imagination of crowds is to know … the art of governing them.”(Le Bon, 1896). Experiences included the Parachute Jump (1939 WF) and “the 10,000,000 volt lightning display”. Lewis Mumford said, “to think of the world at large, we may lay the foundation for a pattern of life which would have an enormous impact in times to come”.(1937) The "Picture-house" as a Modern place Films became an art and literary form in the 1910s (Yahnke, 1996) as powerful reflections of societal institutions and political power struggles of the Metropolis. Walter Benjamin argues "the presence of the original [was] the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity” while in Cinema, “the work of art reproduced becomes the work of art designed for reproducibility” (1969). Film is consumed without a material trace. (Keller, 1991) They also provided an acceptable space for women in the public sphere. Fire Over England (1937) and The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) are early British movies screened for the public. Space and Time within the Modern Factory Part of capitalism is the capacity to impose a work discipline, eliminating self-organizing.(Thompson, 1967). “Factories” use manufactories and mills. As Benjamin quotes Engels, “colossal centralization, this agglomeration of three and a half million people on a single spot has multiplied the strength of these … inhabitants a hundredfold” (Benjamin, 1987). Surveillance was possible to negotiate wages. Factories lowered prices, forcing cottage industries to close. Refined techniques divided the labor force. “The nineteenth century demanded the functional specialization of man and his work; … this specialization makes each man the more directly dependent upon the supplementary activities of all others”(Simmel, 1903). Modernity and the Holocaust With the outbreak of war (1914), the first Fascist groups united in hatred culminating in the Wannsee-conference, “where the formal foundations of what we call the Holocaust were laid.” (Eriksson). The Nazis oppressed the Jewish population by confiscating Jewish property and issuing identity cards. Zygmunt Bauman (1991) explains the Jewish population was often forced into inescapable ghettos and shot along with Communists and Gypsies. Camps looked like factories wherein, they were and viewed as raw material for experiments. About six million Jews were killed simply because they were Jews. The Schindler’s List, haunts the human psyche, even today. The Construction of the Bomb as a modern event. Many important technologies were developed during the WWII Allied effort against the Axis. Operating from three main sites and employing as many as 125,000 people, the American Manhattan Project was executed to manufacture the most destructive weapon in history. Various language techniques were used for secrecy, creating a cultural landscape with a single goal in mind (Atomic Spaces, 1996). The physical landscapes manufactured blended corporate capitalism, government social management, and military codes of coercion into an alternative culture (Atomic Spaces, 1996). “The Little Boy” and the “Fat Man” were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, each killing thousands of civilians. Theme Parks in the Modern Urban Space Walter Benjamin (1935) devoted detailed articles on the famous Mickey Mouse. Esther Walter Elias Disney succeeded in creating an ideal small world; a sort of "symbolic American utopia" Henry A. Giroux puts it "Disneys power lies … in its ability to tap into the lost hopes, abortive dreams, and utopian potential of popular culture". For a democracy to flourish there must be sufficient energy-filled spaces, where groups/individuals exchange their point of view, which is what Disney tried to convey in the various exhibits; fulfilling serious business interests while offering invaluable entertainment to the public. (Villmoare & Stillman, 2002) Global Telematic systems GIS (Geographic Information Systems) is a modern telematic, particularly useful for transparent mapping systems using spatially-oriented computer systems. GIS makes use of computer software for translating information into a format that can be overlaid onto maps (Rick Jonasse, 1995) and enables the same set of information to be presented in any way required by the end user. Telecommunications is thus a powerful tool to restructure internal processes and customer service routines; however, the same can be used as tools of intrusion and the possibility of “balkanization and an overemphasis on individual interest articulation at the expense of interest aggregation” (Niles , 1998) exists. Read More