Richhiggins - Harvey

       The idea of "modernity" is extremely broad as well complex. However, what makes modernity so interesting to those studying in the field is how "alive"and "ever-changing" it is. One could say that it is a living organism in some way. Harvey pretty much introduces us to modernism in a dramatic fashion that can best be described as, everything we have experienced in the past and everything will come to experience in future. "To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth transformation of ourselves and the world-and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.(Harvey 15)" In the reading, I noticed that key words/concepts kept reappearing over and over again, such as science, technology, industrialization, politics and theory of recreating ourselves for the better. All of which dramatically contribute to the evolution of modernism.
        What makes these ideas evolve though, why are people becoming more and more advanced in so many areas of life? Because people for the most part enjoy change and should continue enjoy all the change that will happen in society. Nietzsche emphasizes this ideology, " embrace them all with joy: we moderns we half-barbarians. We are in the midst of our bliss only when we are most in danger. The only stimulus that tickles us is the infinite, the immeasurable.(Nietzsche 23)" Think how far people have come from the era where communication was only conceived to be one using ink to paper and then have to wait months for a response. Where as today we can get in touch with as many people we want in as fast we want. As time continues people will continue to "critique" everything that we know and are accustomed to. It's the way of life, the rate of modernism is affected by how big the aspirations of the human race are. Harvey stated in the closing of his piece, "to appropriate the modernities of yesterday can be at once a critique of the modernities of today and an act of faith in the modernities-and in the modern men and woman-of tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.(Harvey 36)" It's impossible to estimate the rate in which modernism advances but the best way to do so is simply remember the past.