Modernism

Modernism and the quest for social justice

Modernity gave birth to a movement called ‘modernism’, which was revo-

lutionary in its impact. It was a disparate movement, in which emancipa-

tory politics intersected with avant garde literature and art. Modernism

was a gamble with history and consciousness that was borne of outrage

at the state of human affairs. The activities of artists and writers geared to

transform human consciousness by an appeal to sensation found its echo

among political agitators and social reformers. The publication on the eve

of European revolution in 1848 of Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto

epitomized the impact of modernist ideas on politics. But while modernism

sought to transform the world in the direction of greater equality and

liberty, it found its mirror image in anti-modernism. The latter sought to

pursue a counter-transformation back to earlier social and cultural forms,

which are represented in an iconography of idyllic family and communal

life. In other words, modernism epitomized by the big city, with its

dangers of revolution, violence and permissiveness, is contrasted with the

rural bucolic life of certainty and stability, where the seigniorial presence

of God provides an anchor for enduring authority.

Modern protest movements have been very much an urban phenomenon.

The relationship they engendered between ideas and action is a complex

one. Socialists, trade unionists and feminists provided the intellectual

impetus behind urban protest, but at popular levels the issues were not

ideological. Rather, they were about wages, unemployment, tenants’

rights and slum housing conditions; free school meals, poor relief and

other practical issues that reflected the daily concerns of people living in

poor communities. While the leadership hoped that their Left-wing ideo-

logical perspectives would filter down, compromise was the political and

social reality. The intellectual leadership sought to impose discipline, as

well as ideology, upon a natural sense of injustice felt by poor people.

Despite this dissonance between the leadership and the communities of

protest, they shared a common belief in human progress. They both

firmly believed that society could improve whether they could influence

the state in the direction of social justice. Their modernist position stood

in marked contrast to pre-modern protest movements. The latter were

often about agrarian use rights or religious in character and rooted in a

belief that there had been a decline in the standards of the past, standards

that needed to be restored. Also, while sharing the context of capitalism,

there is also a noticeable difference between modernist protest movements

and post-materialist movements of late modernity – the student rebellions

of the 1960s, the environmental movement, the anti-nuclear movement and

the contemporary anti-capitalist movement – all of which question the

moral basis of progress in terms of its consequences for humankind.