Thoughts on modernity: a critique

Recently I have been reading about modernity. I cannot say I fully understand it; after all, this is not my field. My thoughts have simply been a mess. When an idea about modernity happened to drift through my mind, it struck a deep chord, so I am writing it down.

From ancient times to the present, everyone has faced a question: “What is the meaning of life?” In discussions of modernity, this question becomes exceptionally important. On the one hand, the rise of individualism turns everyone’s focus toward themselves. When everyone becomes conscious in this way, simple collectivism and grand narratives fall apart. The meaning of life consequently becomes a deeply private matter; the world outside the individual no longer has a power that can give everyone meaning. In past collectivist practices, people would say things like “My life is for the motherland.” But as the smoke of battle cleared, people discovered that the vast majority had not been sincere. Self-interest seems to be a tendency inscribed in our genes. Civilized society gives people some slight awareness of altruism, but at least at this stage, very few can escape that instinct. Even when individual behavior appears altruistic, it remains self-interested to some degree. It is worth observing that no modern person who has seriously thought about life’s meaning can escape its connection to the self. In fact, every serious experience in life relates only to oneself.

On the other hand, deconstruction has become a weapon of critique, while also eroding the foundations of thought. When people grow accustomed to deconstructing and turn that weapon on life itself, they are surprised to find that life’s point of support has also disappeared. That is, as deconstruction goes deeper, life itself can no longer bear it. It is like a river wearing away a bridge: after being scoured day after day, an unstable bridge collapses with a crash. Once life’s point of support disappears, its seriousness dissolves as well. (This is in fact also closely connected to the decline of collectivism.) This is really a process that works in both directions. For those who seek seriousness in life, it demands a continuing search for meaning until that meaning is so solid that it cannot be destroyed. At the same time, in the intervals of that search, the dissolution of meaning can leave people mired in the void. Camus said, “There is only one serious philosophical question in life, and that is suicide.” This is the ultimate commentary on the meaning of life.

At the level of concrete practice, how to face this dissolution of life’s meaning is an enormous philosophical problem. If someone persuades themselves to devote their life to a very grand goal, such as physics, they must accept the self-examination that comes with the exhaustion or frustration of everyday experiments. Every such moment of self-examination will interrogate and dissolve that grand goal. The question is: how long can a goal like that last?

One fairly satisfying idea is the existentialists’ position: they treat the existence of life itself as fundamental, something whose very existence cannot be questioned. People must then go on like the suffering Sisyphus, always in pain, yet unable to die. When life’s anchor lies within life itself, at least the collapse of life’s meaning is avoided. Although this may not be especially uplifting in a worldly sense, it does establish an unbreakable bottom line.

If my life were a house, I would settle life itself safely inside. When I was happy, I would invite everything to a feast and rejoice with heaven and earth. When I truly began to think seriously, I would take out a sign that had long been gathering dust: “Meaning may not enter.”