Dot, Habermas

It is obvious that Habermas is a very intelligent man and that he definitely believed in and was very passionate about what he was writing about. When reading his work it seems apparent that he wanted everyone to know of his intelligence and demonstrated it with intricate ideas and complex sentences, something that made his piece very hard to understand. However, I was struck by what I did comprehend and found it to be very insightful.

He states that "whatever can survive time has always been considered to be a classic", but goes on to say that in this day and age, this is not the characteristic something must have to be deemed a classic (99). Modern things, in this sense meaning something newly created, can be thought of as classic if "it has once been authentically modern". For example, we all know what classical music is. If I have recently composed a piece of music that fits into the classical genre, it is still considered to be classical because of the style it is done in, not the time period. We can also look at cars. Although a car may have been made in the year 2009 to resemble those of the 20's, we  call it a classic even though it is actually modern because of its looks. We would not call the car modern, modern cars are something more "new age". 

Habermas later says that "the relation between 'modern' and 'classical' has definitely lost a fixed historical reference". I agree with what he is saying and I do not believe I would have realized this or its significance without Habermas pointing it out. How do we know what is a true classic if we are recreating classics everyday? Shouldn't there be another word to describe the modern works turned classic so that we may cherish the real classics that we still have? What will future generations hold as classic or important if we are reinventing it all?