《现代性及其不满》读后感精选( 九 ) modernity|modern|debate|book|M

If we accept the assumption that these authors are in the same arena of modernity, whether they are precursors, pillars, critics or “discontents,” there should be the possible dialogue or the debate between their opinions. But since the argument of the author is primarily based on detailed text analysis, few concentration have been paid to this aspect. Look at the theme of the first three chapters of Part two. These three chapters dealt with three important figures in the modernity project, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and Descartes. The analyses of their arguments are isolated with each other in some sense: after the analysis of Machiavelli on the virtue of the women and the family, the book turns to the Hobbesian critique on religion, and later the moral implication of Descartes’ ego and the characteristic of Discourse on Method as an autobiography. The modern moral standard, religious critique, and the self-identity, of course, are three important issues for the modernity, while we can see few connections between them except the idea of the modernity in author’s analysis. We can agree that the modernity is complex and presents itself in many aspects, but the author did not provide summaries to them. After all, the book is titled with “modernity” and thus is expected to present the modernity as a whole, but not mere a represent of opinions on modernity.
The selection of the texts results in the discontinuity of the story. A traditional story of the modernity will also begin with Machiavelli, not focus on his Mandragola but his The Prince and Discourse and the discussion of his political thought; and following the discussion of Hobbes will focus on his social contract but not his religious critique. It sounds like a kind of cliché, but this kind of writing provides the continuity of the story. While Smith’s selection of authors and texts are untraditional which includes figures and works not central in traditional history. This kind of arrangement is helpful to broaden the landscape of modernity but results in the fragmentation of the story.
The gap is most obvious when Smith finishes his discussion of part 2 and turn to the part 3, finishing the discussion of modernity and turn to its discontents. After analysis of Hegel, the book abruptly turned to Rousseau who was earlier than Hegel. Smith could reason that they belong to the different side and it is reasonable to put Rousseau after Hegel because modernity reached its peak in Hegel and Rousseau is the first who gave the counter-enlightenment its voice. But Smith did not provide detailed information about the context for Rousseau, then we cannot know what exactly Rousseau is discontent for, and the reason why he is discontent.
Smith’s book is a Straussian reading of the question of modernity, and he succeeds in presenting opinions of figures he selected by detailed analyses of the text. But it is doubtful if he has reinitiated the debate because the debate needs the comparison and the contrast of the argument from each side, which is seldom shown in the book. Moreover, to understanding a debate means not only the issue and the argument but also its cause, i.e., why to debate. To say how modernity originates from the ancient-modern quarrel and to explain why modernity would originate from the quarrel are two different things. They are also two different things to analyzing the reasoning of the argument itself and the analyses of why the author would postulate in such way.