Modernity and post-modernity are concepts that we use especially in the human and social sciences and that have helped us to understand some characteristics of our societies as well as the transformations that we have gone through.

Often these are concepts that are used as opposites or as a way of explaining the passage from one historical period to another. However, modernity and post-modernity refer to elements that coexist, which are very complex and cannot be understood separately.

Taking this into consideration we will explain in very broad terms some relations and differences between modernity and post-modernity .

A change of era?

In very general terms, modernity is the period that begins between the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries in Western societies, from social, scientific, economic and political transformations .

For its part, post-modernity refers to the second half of the 20th century, and is also known as “late modernity”, “post-modern era” or even “post-modern-in-modernity”, precisely because the temporal limits between one and the other are neither fixed nor determined.

The term post-modernity is not synonymous with an anti-modernity, and the prefix “post” does not only refer to something that comes “after”, but is a concept that has served to unveil theoretical and political movements that had begun in modernity.

That is why one of the great theoreticians of post-modernity, Jean-François Lyotard, defines it as a “rewriting of modernity”. In other words, post-modernity is not so much a new era, as the development and updating of the projects that modernity had begun.

6 differences between modernity and post-modernity

Modernity and post-modernity are stages that cannot be understood as independent or opposed, but as a set of social, political, economic and scientific events.

This means that the differences that we will see next do not mean that it has been completely passed from one paradigm to another , but that constant transformations have occurred in different scopes of social life.

1. The scientific paradigm and the question of the subject

During modern times, man was constituted as a subject . That is, everything is understood with reference to him, including nature and human activity in general. Therefore, the basic question for modern philosophical and scientific knowledge is what is being?

On the other hand, post-modernity is characterized by “the death of the subject”, because knowledge is no longer centered on the human being, and truth is no longer considered a universal reality , but a constant unveiling. Thus, the basic question for philosophy and science is no longer what is being, but how can I know it?

Science in post-modernity is done in a transdisciplinary way, rejecting deterministic materialism , and it is integrated into society through the development of technology. Likewise, it tries to get out of the opposites as mind-body, man-woman.

2. Getting sick is not so bad

During modernity the body is understood as an isolated object, separated from the mind and integrated mainly of atoms and molecules, with which diseases are understood as the malfunction of these molecules, and its cure depends exclusively on the doctor and drugs.

In post-modernity, the body is no longer understood as an isolated object , but in connection with the mind and the context, so that health is not only the absence of illness but a balance that depends largely on each individual. Illness is then a language of the body and has certain purposes, that is, a more positive meaning is attributed to it.

3. From rigidity to educational flexibility

In the field of formal education, the most representative paradigm shift is that the educational task is no longer centred on the activities of the educator , but rather the learner is given a more active role and collaborative work is reinforced.

Education stops promoting rigid rules and commits itself to the goal of forming people who are integral and united with both nature and the community. It moves from being completely rational to being rational and intuitive, as well as from rigidity to flexibility and from hierarchy to participation.

This also has implications for parenting styles, as parents move from authoritarian to more flexible, open to negotiation and sometimes very permissive.

4. The failure of authoritarian systems

The political arena is characterized by promoting a shift from the authoritarian and institutional system to a system of consensus and non-governmental networks . Thus, the political power that was previously centralized becomes decentralized and develops ideals of social cooperation.

For example, NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) emerge and new political values are sought. Likewise, politics is strongly marked by globalization, a paradigm that promotes global thinking with local actions and that tries to reduce the borders between nations. However, globalization also becomes an updating of the inequalities promoted by modern colonialism.

5. The Global Economy

In relation to the above, the economy is changing from being local to being global. However, although in post-modernity the great economic spaces are sought, societies reinforce regionalism and tend to return to small forms of economic and political organization.

There is a shift from the dominance of capital that promotes consumerist lifestyles, to promoting a quality of responsible consumption. Likewise, work is no longer only linked to obligation but begins to be linked to personal development.

It reveals the masculinization of the labor sector and promotes collective responsibilities that build team relationships and not simply labor relations. The development of technology is one of the protagonists of the ideals of progress. It is about giving the economy a humanist transformation that allows other types of coexistence.

6. The community and diverse families

Socially there is an exaltation of ecological values that were previously purely material . If in modernity the ties were rather contractual, in post-modernity the creation of community ties is reinforced.

The same is true in the area of customs and traditions, which used to be rigid and are now becoming very flexible. It is a matter of integrating thought with feeling, a matter that had been separated during modernity.

On the other hand, family values are promoted that go from encouraging large families to insisting on birth control. There is greater flexibility in couples , who no longer focus on establishing a relationship with a person for life. Likewise, the traditional family is transformed, no longer focused on relationships of two, nor only between heterosexual people.

Bibliographic references

  • Zeraoui, Z. (2000). Modernity and post-modernity: the crisis of paradigms and values. Noriega: Mexico City.
  • Amengual, G. (1998). Modernity and crisis of the subject. Caparrós: Madrid.
  • Roa, A. (1995). Modernity and post-modernity: coincidences and fundamental differences. Editorial Andrés Bello: Santiago de Chile.