Against Modernity
'Modernity refers to both the historical era and the cultural, social, and intellectual conditions that emerged in Western society following the Enlightenment. Broadly defined, it is a state of society characterized by a deliberate rejection of tradition in favor of scientific rationalism, technological innovation, industrialization, and individual freedom'.
The Scientific Method was a mistake, too.
What the fuck? Native Americans didn't shove people into gas chambers, sure, massacred each other left and right, some did, some didn't. The Hawaiins, a haole told me, did all sorts of fucked up sacrifices and savage shit, until the whites straightend them out, and they never forgave them for importing Asians, and letting them take over the place from the whites. I don't know, Hawaii came off as pretty harmonious on the surface. Moreso than Yugoslavia anyway, and they're all white niggers, there, if you ask around western Europe. Ask an aristocratic reactionary Englishwoman about the Irish and their ongoing ways.
None of this has a thing to do with modernity, it has do with the Greatest Apes, who traipse around espousing religion, philosophy and worst of all, the smartiest of smarty pants, the avatars of Modernity. I'm sorry to subject normal people to this stuff, but is was once part of my stock in trade. Not professionally. Never That. Dropped out of graduate school. Tried and failed to be a quasi-technical bureaucrat pertaining to something practical: public transit policy in the belly of the whore.
'My only thought was goin' up in uh'. Quite possibly superior to Beethoven. Hilarious.
The data centers the slime outsource to Pennsylvania's coal region – signs everywhere: NOT IN MY HOMETOWN – not in Pacific Heights, not in Los Gatos, FUCK NO NOT IN MY PARADISE. Eat the shit, commoner. Tastes good. This will help 'the greater good'. Yeah, it's google+. I find the best diner, the best antique shop. i cut and past it's mediocre bullshit. autocorrect+. it sucks.
It will decisively kill the earth. Not due to magic robots. Just boiling lakes. boring.
I kid San Franciscans, really I do. Some of the very best people I know live around there (pushed out by tha pigz or chose to leave to more civilised suburbs). I thought one of my friends had become a reactionary producerist when he denounced leaches at the bottom and leaches at the top, or some such, when he got ripped off one too many times by some homeless motherfucker, then his landlord or some other minor overlord. We never see the rulers. They pay for the Board of Supervisors now (always did). I heard from a little birdy that it's good that the billionaires hurled the loony leftists off the Education Board. That's what I thought when I caught wind of it a couple years back. Something about having the children hang Columbus in effigy as a mandatory project annually, after their daily struggle sessions, and all of the rest of it. Look, I hate the billionaires that fuck kids just like everybody else. But let's be real, the over under on the percentage of those has got to be somewhere under 32% of 'em, which is pretty good, for Christians.
Rather than rehash it, for whatever readers need a primer, this is what AI sez about modernity. It is laughably inadequate, but it brings it forward to the late 19th Century or so, which is an absurd ommission. Sieg Heil!
II
So, AI...
Because "modernity" is a broad historical concept encompassing the rise of industrialization, capitalism, science, globalization, and secular individualism, there is no single group that fought it "the most." Instead, different movements have fought distinct aspects of modernity—technological, political, philosophical, and religious—with varying degrees of intensity.
The primary groups historically recognized for fighting modernity can be categorized by the specific elements they opposed:
- The Technological & Industrial Opponents: The Luddites
If you define modernity as industrialization, mechanization, and technology, the Luddites are the most famous historical group to fight it.
Who they were: 19th-century English textile workers and weavers led by the folklore figure "Ned Ludd."
How they fought: Between 1811 and 1816, they physically smashed industrial machinery and burned factories. They did not hate technology itself, but rather how the modern factory system destroyed their traditional livelihoods, degraded their working conditions, and bypassed labor standards. Their name remains a universal term for anyone resisting technological progress.
- The Religious Opponents: Christian Fundamentalists & Traditionalists
If you define modernity as secularization, pluralism, and the scientific displacement of religious authority, religious traditionalists have fought it most fiercely.
The Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy: In the early 20th century, a massive rift formed within global religion (most famously within American Protestantism). Fundamentalists organized explicitly to fight Modernists, who wanted to adapt faith to fit modern evolution and science. This battle culminated in events like the 1925 Scopes Monkey Trial.
The Roman Catholic Anti-Modernists: In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Catholic Church aggressively fought modern philosophy. Pope Pius IX issued the Syllabus of Errors (1864), condemning modern concepts like liberalism, freedom of speech, and the separation of church and state. Pope Pius X later mandated an "Anti-Modernist Oath" for all Catholic clergy to combat theological modernism.
- The Political & Philosophical Opponents: Counter-Enlightenment & Reactionaries
If you define modernity as the Enlightenment ideals of liberal democracy, individual rights, and the destruction of monarchy, the Counter-Enlightenment thinkers and Monarchist Reactionaries fought it the most.
Who they were: Philosophers and statesmen like Joseph de Maistre and Edmund Burke.
How they fought: Following the French Revolution, these groups fought to restore the pre-modern social hierarchy, royal dynasties, and feudal religious stability. They argued that modern individualism would detach people from their communities and lead to moral decay and social chaos.
- The Global Cultural Opponents: Indigenism & Agrarian Movements
Across the globe, various traditional, agrarian, and Indigenous societies fought modern colonization and globalization.
The Boxers (Yiguandao/Militia United in Righteousness): In 1900, this Chinese movement fought against Western colonial, technological, and religious expansion (which they viewed as a corrupting modern influence), violently attacking railroads, telegraph lines, and foreigners.
Agrarian Populists & Romanticists: Movements like the Russian Narodniki or the American Southern Agrarians rejected modern urbanization and the shift toward heavy cities. They championed a return to the soil, traditional farming villages, and pre-industrial community structures.
III
The reason I'm still sort of ok with modernity is because the Nazis were the most convulsive attack on modernity. The stoopid computer doesn't know that. I hate this shit. Sure, the above description is more or less adequate, but it missed the point entirely, at least the one I meant to make. No, fuck you computer, new prompt.
So, AI: What did the Nazis have against modernity? (Hint: bs answer, incomplete)
The Nazi regime’s hostility toward modernity—most famously captured in their war on "degenerate art" (Entartete Kunst)—stemmed from a desire to control public consciousness and enforce a strict, racially pure, and authoritarian society.
However, their relationship with the modern world was deeply hypocritical. While they fiercely rejected the cultural and political aspects of modernity, they enthusiastically embraced its technological and industrial power to achieve their goals.
The Nazi grievances against cultural and political modernity, along with their selective adoption of modern tools, are detailed below.
- The Threat of Individual Freedom and Pluralism
Modernity inherently celebrates individualism, free expression, and intellectual diversity. The Nazis viewed this pluralism as a direct threat to their totalitarian goal of Gleichschaltung (the forced synchronization of all society).
Fragmentation vs. Totality: Modern art and literature often used fragmentation, abstraction, and surrealism to reflect the chaotic, complex reality of 20th-century life. The Nazis demanded absolute ideological clarity and submission; they could not tolerate art that encouraged independent interpretation or questioned authority.
Democratic Memory: The vibrant avant-garde movements of the Weimar Republic were deeply intertwined with Germany's brief experiment with democracy. Erasing modern culture was a way to erase the memory of political freedom. - The Weaponization of "Purity" and Race
Nazi ideology was anchored in a romanticized, pseudo-scientific myth of "Blood and Soil" (Blut und Boden). They viewed the modern, urbanized world as a breeding ground for physical and moral decay.
The "Degeneracy" Myth: Using pseudo-sciences like physiognomy, Nazi activists argued that abstract and expressionist art styles mirrored mental and physical disabilities. They claimed that a "racially pure" society would naturally produce classical, idealized forms (inspired by ancient Greece and Rome), while modern art was a genetic deformity.
Anti-Semitic Scapegoating: The regime labeled internationalism, cosmopolitanism, and modern cultural movements as "Jewish-Bolshevik" conspiracies designed to weaken the moral fabric of the German Volk. - Rejection of Pacifism and Realism
Modern artists like George Grosz and Otto Dix frequently used their work to highlight the grim, horrific realities of World War I, poverty, and social inequality. Because Hitler was actively preparing the nation for a new, aggressive total war, the regime banned these realistic depictions. They demanded an idealized aesthetic that featured heroic, hyper-masculine soldiers and compliant, fertile women to foster a culture of militarism.
Ok, yes, cultural vs. technological modernity. They wanted a civilization of Wehrbauer all over the earth. Technology was a means to the end of gentleman Aryan farmers, like 40 acres and a mule for the Master Race. Sure, Berlin would a the Welthauptstadt, these gaudy fucking Neoclassical pompous buildings this Bohemian Corporal came up with. Fuck me. In the Wartheland they started gassing mental patients, right away in late 1939. Walther Greiser, I think, was the Gauleiter. Well, they'da gassed me too, don't cha know? I'll say what the fuck I want about these motherfuckers. Asocial elements, don't cha know?
Ayup. I think of giving up writing. Often. For reasons not so different from his.
Nah. It only takes up an hour or two of my day. I've got 12 years of revulsion to puke out, with occasional jokes, songs, comedy skits, so no. Plus a back catalogue on unread rational nice things, before my heart was blackened. Then killed off entirely. Ausgerottet.
I join Gabor Mate in saying I don't want to hear another thing about the Holocaust from anyone who doesn't denounce Israel in precise measure to the Nazis. Fuck you. And I care about this much about it, too. Here's a clip from Cumtown.
