Re: [-empyre-] forward from Christiane Paul: Is Modernity our Antiquity? - introductory comments

["Lucio Agra" <lucioagra@gmail.com>]

I think that there is something more to consider in it - I found these
considerations very stimulating, by the way.
The idea that we now would have reached achievements not imagined
before only sustains itself if the idea of evolution - embedded in the
first one - pressuposes a growth of complexity...
Because if not, I mean, if we considerar we are far away in a
linear-progressive-point-of-view, I think this is precisely one of the
things that was deconstructed by contemporaneity...
Perhaps we are in a Quarrel like that one but obviously the conditions
are other, better described, maybe, with the idea of conflict between
fields of interest, I don't know...
At least, I think that the achievments of any epochs corresponds to
this epochs goals and desires... A catapult had a function in Middle
Ages that made it perhaps one of the most feared war machines of the
time... And parts of its structure now are used in oil fields
(something that can be frightening, but in another sense...)
I mentioned Middle Ages also because I remembered the idea developed
by Eco and his mates, in Bologna, several years ago, about a "New
Middle Age". Such idea seemed plausible for a while for several
serious people (maybe even today). But, what now?
Thayer proposed some fundamental questions here...
best
Lucio BR

On 3/2/06, Pall Thayer <palli@pallit.lhi.is> wrote:
> Hi Empyre,
>
> I just want to throw something into the pot here. Something that I
> think sort of turns things around and twists them up a bit (which is
> always fun). The first thing that came to my mind when I read the
> question, was the so-called "Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns"
> and whether we are perhaps going through a similar situation but
> without the quarrel. The question then becomes, did Modernity reach
> such cultural heights that we constantly strive to equal their
> achievements (without ever doing so) or do our contemporary
> achievements already surpass the achievements of Modernity because we
> know things that they didn't? In other words, are we nearing a
> potential "Quarrel of the Moderns and the Post-post-moderns/
> Hypermoderns/Contemporary-moderns/whateveryoucallit"? In other other
> words, are the achievements of contemporary culture more significant
> than the achievements of Modernity?
>
> Pall Thayer
>
> --
> Pall Thayer
> palli@pallit.lhi.is
> http://www.this.is/pallit
>
>
>
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