Modernity, Now What? (part one)
The Modern Age
Are we still modern, post-modern, hyper-modern, or is it meta-modern? What is Modern anyway? Is postmodernism actually real, is it really a separate mode and style from Modernity? Are these terms even useful? Is there anything useful in this debate?
I began thinking about this in 1997 while in college, probably sitting in a class on DADA with a not particularly DADA professor, or maybe it was Modern Art History, either way I thought calling anything Postmodern was just dumb, and that Postmodernism was a confused and unnecessary term. I still do, but then we are, I feel, confused about what is Modern, so go figure.
In the essays to come I will set out to establish the following points divided over four papers:
Part One — the Modern Age: globalization, urbanization, colonization, and technological development.
Part Two — Modernity: the ‘high culture’ of Imperial and later Bourgeois society.
Part Three — Dialectics: Modern Progress, Revolutionary Critique, & Pop — have we always been Postmodern
Part Four — Negation and Negation: Contemporary Modernity (after the A-Bomb), the Hyper-Modern New World Order of extremes operating on a Planetary scale.
Part One: The Modern Age
From an “Imperial World Order” to a “New World Order.”
Before I discuss Modernity we must define and lay out what the Modern Age is. Here I will define it, the Imperial World Order, as being the Globalization of a developing, urbanizing, multi-polar world, of regional empires (Multi-Ethnic Nation States), beginning with Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe from 1519 to 1522, and continuing into the development of a Post Cold War, Post A-Bomb, Planetary, interconnected “New World Order” of the 21st Century.
This period (500 years) is dominated by several Global trends:
— Empires: the Ming, Mughal, Safavid, Ottoman, Ethiopian, Malian, Benin, Inca, and Aztec; followed by the rise of Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Belgium, Russia, Great Britain, and France; and later Japan, USA, Germany, and Italy.
— Globalization and Trade Networks bringing goods, technology, and knowledge from China and India to Europe; which shifts from the Silk Road, controlled by China and the Ottoman Empire, to the European controlled Maritime network, transformed first by the Marine Clock, and then by the Steam Engine. This shift culminates in the forced opening of China, and Japan in the mid 19th century; and the complete take over of India, and the transfer of its wealth to Great Britain.
— The rejection of the West (culture, religion, and philosophy) by China and Japan, and their Isolationism as the west was seen as uncivilized “barbarians” with nothing to contribute to these great civilizations. (Also the very important critique by Native American Nations; but I will not elaborate beyond its importance in establishing freedom and equality as progressive pillars of Liberalization.)
— The European powers fighting for dominance, culminating in two World Wars; and the attempt to resolve this problem through the creation of the United Nations.
— Technological Development, begun in the East with the “Four Great Inventions of China” (the Compass, Paper, the Printing Press, and Gun Powder), and extended into the West with the Industrial Revolution.
— The “modernization” of the West, between 1400 to 1800, with the control of maritime trade networks leading to the development of military power (canon), and the knowledge to economically compete with, and then dominate Asian Trade.
— Urbanization and the shift of the populous from the country to the city (world population reached a majority urban in 2007), first in Asia, then Europe, and finally the Americas and Africa.
— The Development of “classical” Arts and Entertainment of the Imperial and Urban societies.
— The Atlantic Slave Trade transferring millions of Africans to the Americas and the death of similar numbers during the middle passage; and the Arab Slave Trade which transferred equal numbers of Sub-Saharan Africans into slavery and sex trade of North Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian Ocean.
— The destruction of numerous regional powers in Africa and the Americas, who’s riches are plundered through western colonization.
— The Genocide of Indigenous peoples of the Americas, New Zealand, and Australia.
— The likely permanent colonization of the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Hawaii, the Russian Far-East, and the Chinese border regions.
— The ever increasing Global Connectivity and Reliance of all peoples on the good actions of those in Power who hold Nuclear Weapons.
The Imperial World Order
So let us now go back to the time prior to the rise of the West in the 19th century, and look at the World as it was at the beginning of Globalization; taking a closer look at the different regional empires.
Imperial China had developed over 1700 years from its beginnings in the Qin (221 BCE) and Han dynasties fueled by vast resources and the Silk Road trade, on into its two Golden Ages of the Tang Dynasty (618–907 CE), and the later proto-industrialized Song Dynasty (960–1279 CE), both of which saw great advances in technology, philosophy, and the arts. China continued to develop despite the Mongol invasion and a 100 year step backwards during the Yuang Dynasty (1271–1368 CE), when the Venetian, Marco Polo, visited.
The Ming Dynasty (1368–1644 CE) would rebuild its traditional power base in the Han homeland while expanding its trade network beyond that of the Silk Road trade with the West over land, extending across the ocean from the East China Sea all the way to the Middle East and Africa. The great Ming Treasure Fleet of Zheng He (1405–1433 CE) is known to have traveled as far as East Africa and perhaps beyond with the largest ships of the world until the early 20th century. In 1522 China was by far the dominant power in all of the East, with a vast Tribute-Trade network. The massive ships of the early 15th century, however, were ordered destroyed by the Mandarins in charge of the government, as the great cost outweighed the Imports acquired. From then on Maritime trade was greatly restricted, despite Merchant smuggling. Among the other reasons was the perceived supremacy of Chinese “civilization” and the dangerous influence of perceived “barbarians,” both those on its borders and overseas. Both shipping and gunpowder supremacy were ceded to a modernizing West over the course of 400 years, as Chinese wealth and “civilized” arrogance fostered some amount of stagnation, which would have disastrous reversal of fortunes in the 19th century
China by 1522 had developed (list of Chinese Inventions) an advanced university system & bureaucracy, civil service exams, advanced medical system, Acupuncture and Martial Arts, variolation (a type of inoculation against Small Pox as early as 1000 CE, but widely used by 1700 CE), highly developed philosophy, classical arts, Confucianism & Taoism, advanced sciences, astronomy, geology, the largest urban cities in the world, the largest naval ships, gun powder, canals and locks, grand palaces, advanced agriculture technology, industrial porcelain, paper and silk manufacture, the compass, advanced map making, movable type printing press, banking system, paper money, color printing, drill-rigs (for salt & natural gas), coal, natural gas, and oil energy production, rockets, mines and other explosives, aerodynamic surfaces, and more while the monarchies of the Holy Roman Empire and Europe were still coming out of the “Dark Ages,” with the Quattrocento and their “Age of Discovery” of the 15th and 16th centuries respectively.
Vijayanagar and Calcutta in South India, and later Dakha in West Bengal, were major trade centers and two of the largest cities in the world. North and Central India were colonized under Mughal (Islamic, and formerly Timurid Empire) rule, but for much of the time they too were at different times major trade centers and exporters. While it was not such a vast military and trade power as China, South Asia was equally rich, influential, and productive. By 1700 Mughal India would become the largest economy in the world surpassing China, producing 25% of world GDP. During this time Mughal India would be 18% urban.
Like China, proto-industrial India possessed a vast history, advanced philosophy, developed technology, science, medicine, and royal arts would remain one of the largest economic powers and trading centers in the world until the Industrial Revolution and the advances that would transform the smaller European powers with their Age of Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution, urban development, and ‘modernization’ of the 18th & 19th centuries. South Asia would however continue to be a colonized entity as the Mughal Empire would fall to the British Empire in the middle of the 19th century, and its great riches plundered to the benefit of the British Raj.
Imperial Japan was not as economically powerful, as either China or the Indian empires, but it had its own “classical” era of development in technology and arts. Following civil war and a 100 year period of contact with the west, it would expel all westerners after the spread of Christianity on the island brought rebellion, and was deemed culturally destructive. The government would reform under the Tokugawa shogunate who would prop up its feudal monarchy and proceed to undergo modernization and 250 years of peace and prosperity from 1600 to 1854. It developed an urban middle class, and royal arts and sciences: Samurai, geisha, Shinto state religion, literature & philosophy, architecture, ornamental gardens, Noh theater, Kabuki theater, silk painting, haiku, banzai, porcelain, tea ceremony, urban sake houses and restaurants, among other aspects now seen as being typically Japanese.
The Ottoman Empire, which at its greatest extent encompassed a majority of the Mediterranean coast, can be seen in a similar light as the other non-western empires at the beginning of the Modern Age. The source of its power being the Control of the Silk Road trade coming into Europe and the Mediterranean by way of Istanbul and Cairo (formerly of the Malmuk Sultanate), two of the largest and richest cities in the early modern period.
The Islamic Empires (including those of Persia, the Timurid Empire, established by the Mongol Empire but in the 15th century was falling apart and would eventually dissolve becoming the Mughal and Safavid Empires) possessed arts, sciences, and philosophy at an advanced state like the other Great Powers; and while it was no longer a direct military challenge to the European powers it held a hegemony over trade up until the enlightenment, and dominated much of Africa up until the 19th century. A great distinction from the other eastern powers being the Muslim nations push to convert the world to Islam. Since 711 CE with the invasion of Hispania, by the Umayyad Dynasty, Muslim powers in the Middle East would invade North Africa, south and central Asia, and repeatedly invade Europe taking many islands in the Mediterranean and southern Europe where they would remain for many centuries until the Reconquista in 1492 and the following Inquisition and pirate wars in the Mediterranean.
In the 14th and early 15th century in Sub Saharan Africa among the largest and most wealthy empires in the world was the Islamic Empire of Mali under the worlds richest man ever, Mansa Musa. There was also the Benin Empire of the Niger delta region, and the Bantu (former Great Zimbabwe) trade networks linked to the Indian Ocean maritime trade routes. Like the others Ethiopian Empire was not the economic or military power, as the Eastern Empires previously spoken of, but they would remain free of western domination until the 20th century. So to with Morocco and the other west African nations who would develop through commerce with the Islamic world.
In the Americas, the “New World,” much of the land was controlled by local chiefdom’s and confederations but they were not in the state of poverty and savagery that the Colonizers would project upon them, and there were also two powerful and sophisticated Empires in the north (Aztec) and in the south (Inca). In the process of colonization 90% of the populations is projected to have been killed by Smallpox alone; this would be followed by 450 years of genocidal actions by the Colonial Empires, in particular the clearing of North America of ‘savages’ for ‘civilized’ colonists.
In the north there were great fishing societies of the pacific northwest. The Hopi in the south-west had a well developed culture and irrigation farming. The south-east and mid-west Effigy and Mississippian Mound Builder cultures had large cities, Temple Mounds, advanced farming, maritime trade along the rivers into Mesoamerica and the Caribbean, and advanced astronomical achievements. In the north-east the Woodland Farmers had advanced political thinking, philosophy, and farming practices; there was also the deep sea fisherman of the eastern coastal waters.
In Mesoamerica the Aztec and Maya built among the Largest Pyramids ever to be constructed, created the most accurate calendar, had advanced philosophy, literature, and arts, irrigation farming, and an equally long history as the rest of the Civilizations of the world with farming and pyramid building starting around the same time as the Fertile Crescent. The floating city of Tenochtitlan, the Capital of the Aztec Empire, was perhaps between 200–400k in population making it one of the largest cities in the world leaving the Spanish invaders in awe.
In South America the Inca were a massive empire compared to the European kingdoms, and fabulously rich; Inca silver would fuel Spanish trade with China for three hundred years. The Andean civilizations also had advanced astronomy, temple building, arts, philosophy, quipu accounting and writing system, and deep sea balsa rafts that used currents and sails to travel up and down the Pacific coast, and across the Pacific as far as Micronesia. Also in the Amazon there was a massive society built around raised bed farming, canals, pen fishing, forest control, plant management and cultivation.
In the West, during the Middle Ages, Europe, or rather Christendom, would face years of feudal wars, the Crusades, attacks and colonization by Muslim powers, invasion by the Mongols, and the death of a third to sixty percent of the population do to the Black Death (Plague). However by the 14th century the tide would begin to turn and some stability rise as the Feudal Kingdoms began to establish national identities, colleges, and reestablish trade networks with the East. Venice, Genoa, and Naples would become the import hubs of Silk Road trade into Europe, and those riches would fuel the developments in the arts, sciences, and culture of the Quattrocento; and Paris would become the largest city and eventually the cultural capital of Europe.
In the world of trade, they were the purchasers not the sellers and beholden to the Islamic world and their trade routes to acquire what were then the riches of the world: silk, porcelain, tea, spices, as well as Eastern technology and philosophy.
Despite the common ignorance of the true geography of the world, and the existence of two continents prior to Columbus, the Vikings would sail possibly as far as Maine establishing colonies in the North Atlantic and Newfoundland, but they would not stay in the Americas for long though their explorations, as well as those of the Islamic Mali Empire, would provide the maps and knowledge necessary for the voyages of Columbus in 1492.
In the course of a 150 years the map of the World Powers would change dramatically as Spain, Portugal, Great Britain, France, and Russia would take vast colonial territories as seen below.
Urbanization, Demographic Changes Over 500 Years
The distribution of population centers in 1500: #1 Beijing 672,000; #2 Vijayanagar (destroyed), 500,000; #3 Cairo, 400,000; #4 Hangzhou, 250,000; #5 Tabriz, 250,000; #6 Gauda, 200,000; #7 Istanbul, 200,000; #8 Paris, 185,000; #9 Guangzhou, 150,000; #10 Nanjing, 147,000
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-most-populous-cities-500-years-history/
Ranking the World’s Most Populous Cities, Over 500 Years of History
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48OGOCitAb8
Largest Cities in Asia from 1500 to 2100
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/worlds-most-populous-cities-500-years-history/
The Largest Cities in Europe by Population From 1500 to 2035
If you look at the Demographic charts above (or click the link for the article) one sees a series of changes that explain much of the transformation over the last 500 years starting with the supremacy of China in 1500. Asia in general is far more heavily populated and more urbanized than Europe, and this will remain so until the early 19th century.
The first major change comes the rise of the Ottoman Empire in 1600 as Istanbul, one of two final destinations on the Silk Road, surpasses Beijing as the largest city; we also see the rise of European centers other than Paris, and the appearance of Japan on the list. Istanbul would remain the largest city until 1700 when Tokyo and then Beijing would retake the top spot; and will be the first city to reach a population of 1 Million people in 1775. The rise of Istanbul through this trade network was fueled by the Silver and Gold being mined in the Americas among other goods acquired through this colonization. It would fall into decline however as Silk Road Trade would decrease in the 18th century, as European trade with the Far East and South Asia would move to maritime routes controlled by the Western Merchant Shipping (Mercantilism, the dominant economic policy in Europe between the 15th & 18th centuries).
The next major change would begin in 1800 as the Industrial Revolution takes off in Great Britain. In 1826 London would become the largest urban center with 1.4 million people. At this time China is in economic decline following the era of the High Qing of the 18th century, and Japan had still not opened its markets remaining in isolation. Britain and the other European kingdoms having spent 400 years developing in the arts, and sciences would transform radically, and quickly, following the Enlightenment. Mid 19th century Europe and America would seek to force the opening of these two empires through Military Might; shifting from a reliance on soft Mercantilism to hard Military Hegemony. The forced opening of Japan, unlike China, would spur a massive outward move, with the Japanese Empire beginning a period of Military, Naval, and Technological modernization which would fuel Colonial ambitions leading to the invasion of Korea, China, Taiwan, and South East Asia.
By the middle of the 19th century the Industrial Revolution would push the people from the land to the cities as London, Paris, and New York would all become at least twice the size of any other city in the world, with most other population center on the decline at this time. In 1900 eight of the top ten cities in the world were in the West with the other two cities being Tokyo and Kolkatta. By 1926 New York would take the top spot with a population of 7.8 million people.
By 1954 four of the top 10 cities in the world would be in the Americas, and Tokyo would become the largest city in the world, with 13 million people. This trend would continue as three of the largest cities on the list would be in Latin America, and Tokyo (32 million) in 1990 would have twice the population of New York (16 million). By 2018 Tokyo, Delhi, Shanghai and Beijing would dominate this list while New York, the presumed Leader of the “Free World”, will have fallen to tenth in the ranking (though UN population estimates show it at 11th). In 2007 the World would become a majority Urban population for the first time in history.
Over the course of this 500 year period there are three main cycles of development: that period from 1500 to 1700 dominated by and already Urbanized Asia; the period from 1700 to 1850 with the Urbanization of the Europe catching up and surpassing Asia; the period from 1850 to 1950 which sees the rise of both North America and Japan; and the post war years, after 1950 which sees the return of Asia, the decline of the West, and the rise of Latin America. This transformation would also include the emigration of many different peoples, from around the world, to far distant locals, for many different reasons, making this world even closer than just through trade and media.
Asian Isolation vs Western/Christian Colonial Expansion
As discussed before, the Globalization of World Trade during the 16th and 17th centuries was followed by a shift in economic power from the East to the West during the 18th and 19th centuries. This came as the development of safer, more accurate, and faster maritime travel developed in Great Britain, with the Marine Chronometer. This new naval prowess would bring an expanded colonization of Africa, Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand by the West; particularly with the rise of the British, US, Russian, and Japanese Colonial Empires.
The importation of goods and knowledge would drive western powers to find a way around the Ottoman controlled Silk Road and while it was believed that they were heading for India, not the “New World,” this discovery would transform the power dynamics of the world. The four largest Christen powers would seek to expand their empires and finances through the colonization and domination of these ‘new’ lands, and the extermination of its peoples who were deemed as savages. By 1898, 400 years after Columbus, the colonial map would be transformed with the Industrial Revolution, and the political Revolutions in Europe and the Americas. Latin America would no longer be in the hands of the Spanish or Portuguese crowns, and the United States, no longer a British colony, will have risen to world power status as would Russia, both of whom will carry out their own Colonial expansions.
In 1793 Bengal would be annexed into the British colonial empire bringing the de-industrialization of Bengal and its ship manufacturing ports. In 1884 the European Powers would seek a “New Imperialism” with the “Scramble For Africa”. Great Britain would expand into large areas of Africa and Asia as well with the British Raj in South Asia and the taking of Australia and New Zealand.
This globalization rises to new levels in three stages with the (Enlightenment) maritime clock and steam engine, (Industrial Revolution) teletype and radio, and then again to an even more complete level (Digital Revolution) with Space Travel, Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles, and the World Wide Web’s instantaneous global Connectivity. With this, Isolationism has been replaced with Globalism, Empires are now Nation States, and Colonialism has become Hegemony over Client States and Trading Blocks. This globalization has also become the capacity to destroy the World with nuclear weapons in particular, and technology in general.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xb5zYKYF3Xo
Imperial China was by far the greatest empire of the day when the Modern Age began, and would continue to be a great power even with the end of its Treasure Fleet and its turn inward, concentrating on what it perceived to be its political sphere of influence on land, not on costly maritime adventurism with limited economic benefit. Though the Manchu invasion and conquest in 1644 would greatly weaken it for a short period, it would reach its height in the 18th and early 19th centuries.
In the early 19th century the British Empire had lost half of its colonial holding in North America, and with the end of the Napoleonic Wars at the Congress of Vienna (1815) now had its military free; at the same time as Nationalist and Liberal philosophies of Free-Trade, and the “Open Sees” were rising. Trade with China had for centuries been dictated by Chinese perception of the inherent Superiority of Chinese “civilization” and its “Mandate of Heaven”. Outside influences of a ‘destabilizing’ Christianity, the degenerate customs of foreigners was seen as reason to severely restrict Foreign Trade Missions.
The Canton System, initiated in 1757, to curb against undo influence of foreign trade in China, restricted all Trade Missions to reside in Canton only. At the beginning of the 19th century both countries were experiencing difficulties that would bring the end to this policy. The Qing Emperor carried out disastrous internal policies bringing the collapse of countless institutions and regulations that had fueled its height throughout the 18th century; while Britain was facing a massive trade deficit with China as there was nothing that China wanted or needed (cotton was no longer needed as Chinese began their own cultivation) other than Silver in payment for its goods. The British found the answer in allowing the transfer of Opium from India to China which was banned.
As the Qing campaigned against the sale of opium by foreign merchants in China, the British would wage two wars, the Opium Wars of 1839–42, to force the opening of the Chinese economy. The Treaty of Nanjing and the subsequent Treaty of the Bogue forced the opening of the five largest ports, grant favorable treaties dictated by Britain, seed the sovereignty of Hong Kong to the British, grant Extraterritoriality, and Most Favored Nation status to Britain. The continued import of Opium (10% of the population were addicted, particularly the Military and Intelligentsia), and these trade rules would eventually bring the final collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1912.
From the Chinese perspective this is “100 years of shame” under western domination. It sees Tibet, Xinxiang, Mongolia, Manchuria, and Taiwan as all being its legitimate ruling sphere with all other neighbors as clients; just as it had been at the height of its previous imperial might. The rise of Communist China as and economic, cultural, and military power can be seen from their perspective to be simply a return to its proper place within the Modern Age. For China, its decline in the 19th century, and the fall of the Qing Empire, and the end of 2100 years of Imperial rule was a major shock. After 100 years under European and Japanese Imperialism China would seek to regain its former glory, and Asian Hegemony.
Imperial Japan, again, much of the Modern Age was a very different reality for Japan. While it traded with China and Korea it would remain mostly isolated from the western world, other than a single restricted island. With the Perry Expedition of 1853–54 the US Navy would demand the opening of Japanese ports to western ships attacking the port of Edo as a demonstration of power. Conflict would continue both with foreign powers and within Japan; with a combination of earthquakes, economic collapse, and political upheaval would lead to the fall of the Tokugawa shogunate in 1868. The Meiji Restoration would return Japan to Imperial rule and bring modernization, acquiring western military technology fueling the rise of the Japanese Empire. This would come with its own colonial expansion across the Western Pacific colonizing Korea and Taiwan and occupying much of China and Southeast Asia until its fall with defeat during WWII in 1945.
Again, the Islamic World, as with China, Japan, and India, would fall to the Christian Western empires and republics. This shift would begin in the early 18th century and continue until the Ottoman defeat in WWI. As with the others many Islamic States would find themselves militarily and economically dominated and subservient, and during the Cold War would experience wars, coups, terrorism, and poverty. Like the rest of the non-western world the 20th century brought distress but Oil would eventually bring wealth and power to those willing to be subservient to Western hegemony.
In 1858, India would come under the complete control of the new British Raj. The new colonial power would institute much more of a rape and plundering than the former Mughal integration into Hindu and Tamil culture. It would not be until Partition in 1948 that South Asia would find a path to returning to its rightful place as one of many regional world powers and intellectual, economic, trade, and arts producers.
The “New World”, with Christian Colonial Expansion, would fall not do to a lack of culture but a the lack of gun powder, naval armadas, the horse, and the lack of adaptation to western diseases such as Small Pox. With this they would fall to the Christian empires and be permanently colonized, experiencing genocide, enslavement, the theft of its wealth, and the destruction of its many cultures.
This would be the same fate for the indigenous peoples of Australia and New Zealand, though they would not fall to colonization until the Colonial expansion that followed the Industrial Revolution. Unlike the rest of the world the Americas and Australia would experience Modernity as outsiders in their own land now completely dominated by predominately racist Western societies.
The New World Order
The Modern world that we know today came about through these aforementioned technological, political, economic, and demographic transformations, over the course of 300 years of western Modernization. The transformations of the old Imperial World Order in the 19th century, however, were only partial. The British takeover of Dhaka in 1773 initiates the expansion of the British Empire into Asia, which would culminate in the transfer of India from one Empire to another; and be followed by new colonies across Africa and South Asia. Latin America would become Nation States as would the USA, but the United States itself would become an Empire with colonial holdings, and its own genocides and depredations. The end of the Napoleonic Wars would lead to the revolts in Europe of 1848, as Liberalism spread the idea of the Nation State and political self determination. Despite this there would be the Scramble for Africa and New Imperialism. The 18th century would see the expansion and solidification of the Russian Empire and its colonization of the far east and central Asia, and its attempt to take both Persia and Afghanistan. The opening of Japan would bring its own Colonial Empire; following the forced opening of its ports, Japan would take Korea, Taiwan, the Western Pacific, and leading up to WWII large parts of northern China.
Colonization, World Wars, and the formation of Nation States would gradually transform the map of the world, culminating in the end of the Imperial World Order and the creation of a New World Order. The Socialist Revolutions and WWI would see the fall of the Russian, Chinese, Persian, and the Ottoman Empires; and WWII would would bring an end to the Japanese Empire. The post war era, however, would not be the end to the Colonial Empires who won these wars. It would take the second half of the 20th century for European Colonial holding in Asia and Africa to achieve independence, with the Algerian and Vietnamese wars against France the most notable. The Cold War that followed WWII would look similar to the Regional Multi-Polar World of 1522–1850, than 1850–1950, as the Nations the came out of the war sought to carve out their own spheres of power. The emerging European Union with its former colonies, and inclusive of Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, Korea, Taiwan, and Japan would form there own block; Russia and the Eastern Block would form the Warsaw Pact; China would align with other Socialist countries; and a non-aligned block headed by India would emerge.
Colonization, wealth extraction, and the Atlantic slave trade would fuel 450 years of warfare between these competing powers culminating in the Great War and World War II, and ultimately in the creation of the United Nations as an attempt to head off further imperial wars. It would not be until the end of the Cold War that a New World Order would emerge.
The New World Order: the United States of America, the British Commonwealth, the European Union, the Russian Federation, the Republic of China, the Republic of India, Islamic Republic of Iran, and Japan; and the newly independent States formed from the dissolution of former Colonial Empires in the Americas, Africa, and Asia.
G7 Powers: Canada (colony), France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, United States (colony), & including the European Union.
G20 Powers: Argentina (colony), Australia (colony), Brazil (colony), Canada (colony), China (and colonies), France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Mexico (colony), Japan, Russia (and colonies), United Kingdom, United States (colony), Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Turkey, & including the European Union.
Planetary Hyper-Modernity
We can also see the Modern Age as being composed of multiple shifts which define three major periods of two parts each, Early (Imperial & Bourgeois), Classical (Academic & Critique), and Advanced (Hyper & NWO) within this Age (in general agreement with canon but rejecting ‘post-modernity’ as a period or paradigm, separate or following Modernity):
— First, the order of (Early) Imperial Modernity (16th & 17th c.) with developing/modernizing European Feudal Monarchies and established Asian Empires, defined by the inclusion of the Americas in the new Global Maritime Trade Network, Urbanized Asia, and the spread of Chinese inventions such as (just to name just a few): gun powder, paper money, banking, capitalism, industrial processes, the printing press, the compass, coal coke and gas energy, state development projects, agricultural revolution, public schools, and scholar bureaucrats.
— and the joining of (Early) Bourgeois Modernity (18th c.) in the West, seen as the formalization of Neoclassicism in Europe, the rise of the Bourgeois/Middle Class, the Urbanization of Europe, the rise of Imperial Russia, the Enlightenment and the rise of Freemasonry, Parliament, Empirical Science, Secularism, Constitutional Law, Liberal Democracy, Capitalist Oligarchs, the steam engine and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
— Third, the order of (Classical) Modernity (19th to mid 20th c.) with expanded colonization by Europe into Asia and Africa, the urbanization of the Americas and other former Colonies, the rise of Colonial Japan, the rise of the United States of America and Manifest Destiny, and increasing technology development — commercialization, programming, electricity, photography, communication systems, machinery, and air travel.
— and the critique of (Classical) Modernity (19th to 21st c.) seen as Critique, Hegelian Dialectics, popular revolutions, Anti-colonialism, Freedom Movements, Marxism, Socialism, Workers Rights, Abolition of Slavery, Universal Suffrage & Women’s Rights, Civil Rights, LGTBQ Rights; Bohemianism and the Counterculture, Nihilism, Nietzsche, and “the death of god”; the Avant-Garde, Modern Art, the creation of Western Popular Arts & Entertainment, and creation of Country/Western & Black Culture in the USA.
— Fifth, the order of Advanced or Hyper Modernity (late 20th to 21st c.) with the ending of Colonial Empires (though many colonies would remain or become Nations), Nuclear Weapons, the Cold War, the United Nations, the European Union, Communist China, the Partition of India, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the Bretton Woods Agreements (International Monetary Fund, and World Bank), the International Court of Justice, the Digital Revolution, Space Travel, Transnational Corporations.
— and the joining of “New World Order,” (21st c.) with Gene Technology, the World Wide Web, Neoliberalism, Bitcoin, Digital Ubiquity, Crisper, Ubiquitous Surveillance, Space Tourism & Colonization, and the rise of China as a Super-Power.
EARLY (1520) → CLASSICAL (1789) → HYPER (1948)
Globalization → Telegraph → Radio → Television → World Wide Web
Genocide → Genocide → Mutually Assured Destruction
Colonialism → Neo-Colonialism → Client States → NWO (1989)
Peasant/Slavery → Worker → Robots & A.I.
Church Monarchy → Secular Oligarchy Fascism Communism → Neoliberalism
God → Gold → Dollar → Bitcoin
Academic Art → Avant-Garde → Pop
Agrarian → Industrial → Digital
Rural → Urban → Suburban → Work From Home
Feudalism → Nation State → United Nations
Military Power → Naval Power → Air Power → Nuclear Power → Terrorism
Planetary Hyper-Modernity is the culmination, and heightening of the trends put forward at the beginning of this essay: Empire, Hegemony, Western Culture (from rejection to domination, and now the rise of a new rejection), Materialism, Consumerism, Globalization, Modernization, Urbanization, Connectivity, and the lasting effects of Slavery, Genocide, Colonization, and Wealth Extraction.
It is a Multi-Polar World of Regional Powers and their ongoing struggle for Superiority, Control, and Regional Hegemony. In 1522 there was no singularly dominate world power, or Super Power, only regional powers largely disconnected and isolated by geographical barriers, whether they be mountains, deserts, oceans, or great distances. China, however, was technologically superior in most ways, and (other than the Indian spice trade) dominated world trade. These products and ideas would support the modernization of Europe, and the Americas, and spur their pursuit of maritime superiority which would transform the world, as the West sought to replace dependence on the Ottoman Empire controlled trade routes to the East.
This would lead to a long term struggle for domination in Europe and Worldwide Hegemony, and thus the World Wars of the 20th century. And despite the creation of a League of Nations, and then a United Nations, the Cold War between the capitalist and communist World Orders would dominate the the post World War era.
Even with the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Block, which was thought to bring forth a “New World Order” of peace and prosperity, we are still engulfed in a battle for Hegemony between competing “Super Powers”. The digital world, the internet, air and space travel, Ballistic Nuclear Weapons and Biological Weapons, and world wide pandemics bring forth the prospect of a “Planetary Civilization” and “Planetary Extinction.”
So what is the Modern Age? It can be defined as a period of Urbanization, the development of Arts and Entertainment for the Imperial & Gentry Elite and the new Urban working class, Technological Development, Commercialization, and the Domination over Nature (‘progress’); of Racism, Xenophobia, Sexism, Colonization, and Genocide (patriarchy); of Isolationism transformed by Globalization, and Sovereignty imperiled by Colonialism, and dominated by Empires and their fight for Hegemony.
The ruling elite and their high culture will remain, the level and nature of connectivity will increase and change, Empires are now Nation States, Colonialism has become Hegemony over Client States, Globalization has become the capacity to destroy the World with Nuclear Weapons in particular, and unregulated technology in general.
However the most important result of these 500 years would be the death of many Millions of people through Slavery, War, and Genocide, and the likely permanent colonization of Siberia, Tibet, Xinxian, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria, Taiwan, Australia, New Zealand, and the Americas. The world may be post-imperial but it is not post-colonial.
