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Modernity: A Sociological Analysis

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The concept of modernity is often framed in such a way as to inherit certain teleological characteristics. These teleological characteristics suggest that modernity is a progressive evolution of society and gives rise to the notion that modern civilization can be perfected. However, a problem arises when this idea of utopia is combined with the sociological phenomena of race and nationalism. These two concepts coincided with the advent of modernity and have yielded a concoction of violence and prejudice that has not only lead to the two most deadly conflicts in history but have also bred genocide. These ideologies contribute to genocide in a dual way that creates both division and hierarchy and thus effectively limits who can properly be considered …show more content…

To sum, the notion of the self and the other is the idea that there are people (the self) who can be included in a social group due to similar heritage, language, race, or other identity markers and that there are people (the others) who are excluded from a social group due to lacking one of the identity markers that are characteristic of the self-group. The self and the other is problematic in that it creates a conceptual outlet where the negative aspects of one’s societies and indeed its very failures can be neatly pinned on an outside group. This idea of difference can swiftly breed violence, which of itself is not necessarily a new evil to the modern world. What was an invention of the modern world that added new dimensions to the idea of the self and the other were the two ideologies of race and nationalism. These ideologies were dangerous insofar that they added new identities to the cataloging of peoples. The pinning of one’s identity based on social class, nativity, and familial heritage were overwhelmed by these new identities that sought to create groupings of people based on either their race or …show more content…

However, modernity has also bred conflict due to two ideologies that have coincided with it. The ideologies of race and nationalism are rooted in modernity, their very conception is a product of post-Enlightenment European ideology on how to best organize societies. This organization of society has been a double-edged sword insofar that race and nationalism have created new markers of identities and new arenas of conflict. When these two ideologies are accompanied by social upheaval and/or war, the result is often genocide as evident in both the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide. The ideologies of race and nationalism are what makes genocide a modern phenomenon and wherever one finds a fervor enchantment of one of these ideologies then a precursor to genocide can then be

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