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Modernity does not, of course, merely
denote a set of particular constellations char-
acteristic of the material world. In addition to
such historically contingent interpretations of
modernity (or interpretations of the world
through the lenses crafted by ‘modernity’), a
number of critiques of modernity have been
formulated withinphilosophyand the social
sciences, themselves a direct product of mod-
ernizing tendencies within society at large.
Perhaps chief amongst these is the recognition
that the quest for order inherent in many mod-
ern tendencies embodies an element of sys-
temic control that has been used historically
to suppress progressive movements. Examples
include the rationalization of urban space in
Haussmann’s Paris, seen by contemporaries as
the very ‘capital of modernity’ (Harvey, 2003b),
thebiopoliticsand the central function of
marketsunderneo-liberalism. Returning to
the four main definitions of modernity pre-
sented above, we may thus infer a formative
tension, not to say contradiction, between
modernity as scientific progress and modern-
ity as an emancipatory project. Even so, to
state matters in this way may well imply an
all too overt reliance on modern ways of
seeing. As Bruno Latour has insisted, most
attempts to infuse a clear sense of ‘order’
have always been implicated in non-ordered,
hybridand networked social practices (cf.
Swyngedouw, 1999).
Another critique that has gained wide cur-
rency in the geographical literature is that
modernity is inherentlyreductionistin its
insistence on the primacy of the ‘eye’ over
other sensual modes of connecting to the
world (see alsovisionandvisuality). Chiefly
building on the work of Walter Benjamin and
the writings of Guy Debord and thesitu-
ationists, this strand of critique centres on
the importance of optical metaphors and
instruments in modern environments (Crary,
1990a).From Rene ́ Descartes’ early-seven-
teenth-century insistence on the importance
of evidential modes of reasoning to telescopes,
microscopes and cameras, through the optic-
ally structured spaces of modernity such as the
arcades, boulevards and parks (Ogborn, 1998;
Strohmayer, 2006), to ‘ocular’ writing in
general with its focus onlandscapesand the
mappable nature of events (Guarrasi, 2001;
Dubbini, 2002: see alsocartographic rea-
son), modernity is characterized as a mode of
engaging with the world that favours visual
relations over and against other modes of con-
necting with and being in the world. As before,
this critique has a double edge: it attaches to a‘modern’ world that has become increasingly
reliant on visual modes of communication,
while also being critical of modes of under-
standing the modern world that in turn rely
on visual technologies, rhetoric and categories.
The ensuing dual practice of deploying the
visual both as a structuring principle inform-
ing modern spaces and as a mode of under-
standing such spaces has perhaps best been
characterized in the notion of thespectacle,
as critically developed by Debord (1994).
Central to this critique is the reliance common
among critical social scientist and geographers
alike on that which arguably requires critique
itself: visual modes of existence. We ‘shed
light’, we ‘illuminate’, we ‘enlighten’ – all the
while the world we live in has become satur-
ated with visual forms of commerce, informa-
tion and entertainment. In other words: the
critique of modernity all too often relies on
modern modes of communication and exch-
ange, rendering it vulnerable to the charge of
being but another mode of consumption and
distraction. Theodor Adorno and Max
Horkheimer’s earlier disenchantment with an
Enlightenment, and their claims that modern-
ity had surrendered its better impulses to an
‘entertainment industry’ are akin to this critique.
In all of this it is important to remember
that such dis-enchantment, especially in the
context of the twentieth century, was often
brought about by real and often life-threaten-
ingcrisisexperiences. Nazism in particular
and its thoroughly rational implementation of
theholocaust, but also the Stalinist experim-
ents, Hiroshima and the constant development
ofunderdevelopmentstructurally endemic
to modern capitalism have all contributed
(see alsowar). So too have those politico-
legal responses to modern crises that have
worked to produce an ‘outside’ to the modern,
a heterogeneous and dispersed space ofexcep-
tionwhereparticulargroupsof people are ex-
pelled from the privileges and protections of
the modern even as they are made subject to its
disciplines and punishments (Minca, 2007a).
For some commentators, this disenchant-
ment inspired the development of the concept
of ‘postmodernity’. Others have seen fit to
speak of asecond modernity(e.g. Beck, 1992) or
ofhypermodernity(e.g. Pred and Watts, 1992).
More interesting still, given the complexities
surrounding the term and its thoroughlyeuro-
centricorigins, are recent developments that
attempt to broaden the linguistic field surro-
unding ‘modernity’ (Gilroy, 1993; Appadurai,
1996; Gaonkar, 2001; Venn and Featherstone,
2006: see also Martins and Abreu, 1996;Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_M Final Proof page 473 1.4.2009 3:19pmMODERNITY