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Reflecting on the modern experience
Marshall Berman, in his 1982 book All That is Solid Melts into Air, talks about the roots of modernity and explains the contradictions in a modern society. He traces modernism in literature and arts and modernization in politics and economics in a single historical plane. Karl Marx, perhaps for the first time, has been regarded as an enlightening thinker on modernity.
According to Berman, the modern experience is one of chaos, of disorder dressed in order, of impermance and volatility. Brought by the constant revolutionizing of productive forces, social relations in a capitalist society are in a constant agitation. Simply put, there is no permanent social role in the modern society.
Everyone dances with the swirling and shifting trends, of the impermanence of material objects, which consequently lead to insatiable tastes and preferences. Even romantic relationships go with the turbulent flow of history, coming into a breaking point and then consolidating itself again in another time and space.
Which puts forward the question: Is there a permanent relationship at this historical point? The answer is that such permanence of relationship can only be achieved by paradoxically going against the turbulent flow.
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