This article analyzes historical changes from the early 20th century to the present, exploring the impact of the legacies of totalitarianism and capitalism on modern societies and raising uncertainties about the future.
As a unit of historical time, the modern era usually refers to the period from World War I and the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917 to the present day. The trends of social change and the major events that unfolded during this period are distinctly different from those of previous eras. Economic, political, and social factors were intertwined in the background of these changes, and this complex of factors played an important role in shaping modern society. In its features, we can find the status and meaning of modernity.
First of all, this period saw the rise of fascism and Nazism. These ideas were not just political ideologies, but combined with cultural and economic factors to become more powerful. They demonstrated that huge bureaucracies and powerful state systems could control the autonomy of individuals and social groups, manipulate the masses, and impose their will on them. The rise of fascism and Nazism reminded people at the time how fragile the values of freedom and democracy could be, making the protection of freedoms and rights even more important in the modern world. The negative legacy of totalitarian regimes did not stop there, but continued to spread to other countries around the world in slightly different forms. In a sense, modern sociology grew out of the need to relate the causes and social consequences of these totalitarian regimes to the emergence of mass societies.
After World War II, the capitalist system enjoyed relative stability and prosperity, thanks to the phenomenal development of science and technology and the increase in productive forces. In the advanced capitalist countries, the advent of post-industrial societies, which have gone far beyond the stage of industrialization, also marked the end of the ideology. Socialist countries sought to overcome the contradictions of capitalism and realize an egalitarian society through centrally planned economies and nationalization of the means of production. Countries in the Third World have also struggled to achieve political democratization and social system transformation using economic development as a springboard, and the last half-century of world history has been a panorama of symbiosis and conflict between these worlds.
However, if we look back at the state of modern society from today’s perspective, capitalist societies are still plagued by wealth, inequality, and monopoly. These problems do not only stem from economic imbalances, but also from a combination of social and cultural discrimination and oppression. The great experiment of socialism in the socialist world eventually led to the rapid collapse of the Eastern Bloc socialist systems in recent years due to imbalances and contradictions between political, economic, and social strata. This represents not only an ideological failure, but also a failure of the practical political and economic experiment. The future of the Third World’s struggle to break free from dependency and achieve national independence is not promising. And in every region, the loss of human agency and the alienation of people are becoming the main characteristics of modern society amid the wave of bureaucratization and massification.
Under these circumstances, the explanatory and predictive power of grand theories, whether structural functionalism or Marxism, pale in comparison. Therefore, in recent years, the slogan of postmodernism has been raised to escape from the straits that modernity has imposed on humanity. The signs of intellectual and ideological wandering seem to be prominent. One cannot but agree with the diagnosis of a total crisis of modernity.
So where is the path and goal for modern man? Are we literally stuck in the twilight of the 20th century in an atmosphere of end-of-century gloom and despair? In other words, are the future prospects of modern society truly closed?
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