modernity as uniting or dislodging?

By Kelly Moody
I am currently writing an essay on a book i have had to read for my Women, Gender and Culture class entitled "Thai Women in the Global Labor Force". (anyone else in that class?) In the beginning it addresses the meaning of modernity for the traditional Thai way of life. I find this significant for our class because modernization affects a group of peoples' foundation for reality, whether it be traditional culture, gender norms, religious beliefs etc. Though i have previously considered this 'dislodging' a bad thing, i wonder now, once dislodged, what happens? conglomeration? syncreticism? unionization? Is traditional dislodging a way to bring people together? It's such an intricate thing to think about, you have to understand the benefits of tradition for a group of people in a particular place(and the system of a 'place' is loaded with dynamics in itself), and bringing people together somehow in a global culture or global religion is unionizing yes, but does it degrade as it unionizes? Part of the quote that caught my attention as i was going back through the book:

"To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world--and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are. Modern environments and experiences cut across all boundaries of geography and ethnicity, of class and nationality, of religion and ideology: in this sense, modernity can be said to unite all mankind. But it is a paradoxical unity, a unity of disunity: it pours us all into a maelstrom of perpetual disintegration and renewal, a struggle and contradiction, of ambiguity and anguish. To be modern is to be part of a universe in which, as Marx said, "all that is solid melts into air." (Mills quoting Marshall Berman)

Is this unification a way to make us all the same mechanisms in a bigger systematic whole? Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Is Marx right--are we being transformed into mere tools--eat to work, work to eat, at the expense of tradition, religious individuality and culture? Our are we progressing, transcending what previously separated us, grounding tradition, religion and culture, to come together? This is very relevant to our class given what it means. We are studying a kind of culture, primal/oral/traditional culture that is diminishing because of this entropy, because of this unification involved in modernization. So is the knowledge they have valuable? More valuable than the unification? More valuable than the ideals and motives behind the force that is modernization?



cited:
Mills, Mary Beth. Thai Women in the Global Labor Force. Rutgers University Press. Piscataway, NJ: 1999. pg 13.