Trapnest, Habermas

“The word ‘modern’ in its Latin form ‘modernus’ was used for the first time in the late fifteh century in order to distinguish the present, which had become officially Christian, from the Roman and pagan past.” - Habermas

While in the grand scheme of the work this may seem slightly insignificant, I think that this statement represents an important part of the overarching theme of what Habermas is attempting to explain: That nothing is really ever ‘modern.’ What may be modern at one point by our standards soon becomes a fragment of the past, associated with the old ways of doing things. We once wore neon colors, legwarmers and stockings, at once (The TV show ‘Jem’ anyone?) to be modern, unlike the once-modern poodle-skirts before that. Now it’s blue jeans, t-shirts, and sun dresses.

All of this makes me think of Lyotard’s work. Granted, he was arguing the nature of postmodernism, but I believe he made a specific connection of postmodern to modernism. He argued that nothing could be postmodern because there would always be someone waiting to commodify it. I feel that this also stands true for modernism. How can something remain modern if people are constantly attempting to create a formal for it and reproduce multiple copies?

Habermas discusses how things are tired to the classic, not from drawing from old works, but in a sense being so original that the modern works instantly become classics themselves. But, this also seems self defeating to me, because once something is a classic isn’t it inherently not-modern? In art you study works against the classics, what has come before and withstood time, but these are always not considered modern works.