英语论文网

According to Matei Calinescu(1987:13-14),the late Latin adjective and noun“modernus”,from which“modern”derives,was coined from Latin adverb“modo”(meaning just now)during the Middle Ages to distinguish the Christian Middle Agesand the world of pagan antiquity.

The word“modern”first appeared in the writings of humanism in theRenaissance,marking the starting point of modern era,so the 16th century is viewedas the beginning of modernization in Europe(Yuan 2003:170).The process ofmodernization involves economic,political,social and cultural and many otheraspects.As Liu Qing(2021:17)points out,modernization brings forth a modernworld which is different from the traditional society:in economics,the rise ofmodern industry,commerce and cities;in politics,the formation of national countryand the development of constitutional government;in society,the large-scalepopulation mobility between regions and among classes;in culture,thepredominance of rationalism and the prevalence of the consciousness of liberty,equality and individual rights.Liu(2021:18)maintains that the outcomes of modernization shape modern world with many characteristics different fromtraditional society and modernity is the term to describe these characteristics.Similarly,Wang Min’an(2012:3)holds that the characteristics of modern societywhich are different from the Middle Ages in political,economic and cultural andmany other aspects constitute the main content of modernity.

The term“modernity”which means present times,was included in the OxfordEnglish Dictionary in 1627(Calinescu 1987:42).However,it is an“intriguing butrather vague term”(Tallack 1991:2).It is not only hard to define its starting time butalso difficult to give it a definition.Moreover,with the development of the times,modernity shows it complex facets and becomes a coverall concept.

1.2 The Cultural Context under Modernity

The Enlightenment in the 17th century in Europe upholds rationality of scienceand technology to assess and understand the world so as to save human beings fromthe fetters of ignorance imposed by medieval religion.With the help of theEnlightenment,human did make significant achievements in many aspects,like theemancipation of people’s minds and the rapid development in economy.However,with the development of modernization,the power of rationality continues to expandand begins to enslave human beings.In the 20th century in America,rationalityprevailed and even ran rampant,showing more and more negative facets.

Given this fact,Max Weber(1997:56)claims that rationality can be dividedinto two distinct types:instrumental rationality and value rationality.Instrumentalrationality is to choose the most effective way to achieve one’s goals throughaccurately calculating the profits and costs but without considering the value of thegoals.By contrast,value rationality is to use rationality to judge whether the goalitself is valuable,the judgement of which is varied from person to person as it is based on subjective factors,like one’s sense of responsibility,his sense of honor orhis interest.Therefore,there is no fixed standard to follow under the influence ofvalue rationality compared wi本论文由英语论文网提供整理，提供论文代写，英语论文代写，代写论文，代写英语论文，代写留学生论文，代写英文论文，留学生论文代写相关核心关键词搜索。