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focus on modernity as having a non-Anglo-American character, where
the democratic ethic is less pronounced as a feature of advancing
capitalism, where the question of democracy has been thwarted, then
modernity does not look guite as attractive. For example, in its
Germanic form under Nazism, in a system of military politics that was
responsible for millions of arbitrary deaths, the spread of industrial life
hardly appears appetizing, especially in retrospect. Nor does the situation
look brighter in its industrial socialist form, in its Soviet form. Marxism–
Leninism is after all a postmodernist heresy; its genocides were responsible
for an even greater number of deaths than those caused by the Nazis. It
is but small consolation that the Soviets had a much longer time span to
work their postmodernist miracles.
There is a Continental frame of reference for modernity which
strikes me as less attractive than the Anglo-American framework utilized
by Veliz. I do not agree with Zygmunt Baumann in thinking that
modernity is at the heart of the genocide of the Holocaust. On the
other hand, it is hard to deny that huge misery has resulted because of a
realized technified type of modernity. The emergence of advanced
economies make possible advanced technologies. These in turn permit
incredible damage
to
be inflicted on ordinary lives and ordinary
institutions. Just how one disengages the positive values of modernity
from the negative potentials of modernity is a problem that needs to be
addressed with far more detail and skill than one finds in Claudio's
book. Further, the reader is never entirely sure of when Claudio is
talking about
modem
values and when he is talking about
democratic
values. Modernity and democracy are not necessarily isomorphic every
step of the historical road from barbarism into the brave new world.
Indeed, new forms of barbarism should occasion some pause on the great
road into the future.
Let me illustrate this point in individual, admittedly hypothetical
terms. Let us pretend that we are sitting in a railway station in 1938, and
we have a choice of a ticket to Rome, to Moscow, or to Berlin. You
have a fascist regime, a Communist regime, and a Nazi regime to choose
among. Let us also presume - a big presumption to be sure - that we
have sufficient foreknowledge of the outcomes of these three regimes to
make an intelligent decision. We have to select among two more or less
modern versions of totalitarianism, and one Latin or traditional version.
Your decision is further influenced by the fact you have a wife and
family. Where do you go? Unless one is a hidebound and foolish social
or political scientist, or for that matter, fanatic ideologue, you take your
family and go directly to Rome. One does not elect to go to the most
