Modernity, Contingency, Dissonance: Luhmann contra Adorno, Adorno contra Luhmann

Abstract

In metaphorical terms, modernity can be viewed as a New World through which under-standings of what it means to be modern can be continually re-thought in both temporal and spatial terms. The temporal horizon of modernity can shift from one usually conceptualised in terms of an originary moment emerging in the eighteenth century, which is supplanted by a post-modern condition in the late twentieth century, to a longer-term one beginning in the fifteenth century that is fractured by a series of variegated distinctions, or a plurality of temporal horizons and possibilities (pasts, presents, and futures). The spatial horizon also shifts from a modernity conceived as a social form with a single defining centre (usually Western Europe) to one that has multiple centres and multiple geographical locations. The spatial dimension, though, not only refers to multiple centres and geographies, but also to the multiple spaces in which modern subjects co-habit — spaces that they create but which also constrain them. The tension between the creation of spaces and the constraints that they impose creates a dissonance that emits its own sounds of contingency and possibility.