brookes77, 2/12/09

In class today it helped a great deal talking about Habermas versus Lyotard. It was intriguing when we discussed from the Habermas reading, the modernist view versus the anti modernist view. The modernist view is “the idea of modern changing with the belief, inspired by modern science, in the infinite progress of knowledge”. The idea that some day we will have all the answers and science is good and we should keep progressing. The Anti modernist point of view is that “one day we know for sure is that every day we know less then we did yesterday”. Although I believe that modernity necessary in some aspects of life, I really thought hard about the anti modernist point of view. The notion that every day we progress in science, beauty, art, etc, we lose a little bit of what is classic, traditionalism to us makes sense. I believe that this is true, that we are becoming addicted to being in the know about everything and forgetting how we have got where we are and that we have forgotten the simple beautiful parts of life. In a way having more questions to answer, and not knowing all gives us more of a reason to live. My view swings back and forth between these two opinions, yet it is a great controversial thought.
“The cult of the new” versus “The cult of tradition”, was another discussion that stuck out to me in class. When showed a picture of the “on sale NEW pepper spray” I did not even think about why there was new pepper spray, what is wrong with the old one? But I probably would have bought it if I was going to the store for pepper spray, because as we discussed in class, it is new therefore there is more of a demand for it. This is completely unintentional, but I find that I do this a lot, that my mind has been programmed to want the new products rather then the old. Our society believes new equals better. Yesterday I was at CVS buying a razor, they are always coming out with new “Venus” razors and i always buy the new Venus razor. It might not be better, but if I don’t think about it, I automatically follow the notion of “the cult of the new”. I feel that my parents who are in their 60’s are on the other side of extreme, “the cult of tradition”. This means it worked then it will work now. My dad and grandfather always say, “if its not broken why fix it”. This can be said about products, art, laws, anything. It was the way they had grown up. It makes me feel as though they were more satisfied with what they had, the traditions worked for them; yet in my generation I feel as though we are always on the go looking for the next best thing, the newest thing.