Playing with Modernity

Abstract

Modernity has not been sufficiently delved into or amply understood by our generation—despite its widening historical distance, its place in history and its becoming passé with the passage of time. Yet, it is still present, often unrecognized, popping in and out of our lives. To a certain extent, we continue to live in modernity. In the last hundred years, we have paid a high price for the debts of the 19th century. Ideas of enlightenment and romanticism had turned into monsters, defining the destiny of Europe, doomed to be shattered by Nazism and Bolshevism. The fall of empires and creation of nation states has led to the bloodshed of two world wars (providing a breeding ground for future military conflicts) and ended where it began—in the Balkans. Modernity was not an easy game. But the unavoidable fate was slow to reach Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, Serbs, Slovenians, Ukrainians and other nations, who entangled in unrealistic objectives often forced upon them, tried to skip a stage of the historic development known as “nation building”. These nations were like bad students, who had to repeat a grade, left behind to pass an exam while others happily graduated. They did it grudgingly, but they could not avoid taking the test. Although we now know that it is impossible to escape history, we still make the same mistakes; repeating, on a daily basis, words and phrases, which have long since lost all meaning. Zygmont Bauman once noted that the Nazis tried to accomplish pre-modern tasks using modern means.