Genealogy, Modernity, and Christianity Talk

This article is the first in a series of responses to Episode 2.3 of the Genealogies of Modernity podcast.

In Episode 2.3 of the new Genealogies of Modernity podcast, genealogy functions as a powerful way to uncover and illuminate continuities and connections with earlier moments. Nietzschean genealogy, however, is just as much about revealing discontinuities and ruptures concealed within apparent continuities.

Thinking about ancestry, the many surprises—such as unknown siblings and unexpected revelations about who someone’s biological father is—that have resulted from 23andMe tests highlight that genealogy is often highly disruptive.

That is no less true in the case of literal genealogies than in the case of more analogical uses of the term. Like Foucault, Nietzsche exposes hidden origins and concealed shifts in the meaning and operations of concepts. Occlusions and subterfuge are pervasive; they are frequently vital to the operations of the terms, not just accidental. Nietzsche’s tracing of the genealogy of “good” intends to show how its meaning has been inverted even amidst claims to continuity and consistency. As in the case of DNA tests, the genealogist’s efforts to illuminate what is being hidden has the potential to be disruptive.

As a mini-exercise in genealogy, I want to trace briefly the conceptualization of the terms “modern” and “modernity” as they have appeared to this point in the series. These terms have already been used in a wide range of ways:

·      The “modern age” as a time period “roughly since the eighteenth century” is one example from the first episode

·      At other moments, it is understood in terms of major social, historical events: “the Scientific Revolution and the establishment of colonial powers in the New World” or the Industrial Revolution (also in the first episode)

·      In other instants, we hear references to particular philosophical conceptions—about the nature of the individual, for instance, or humanity’s relationship to nature

Conceptions of the modern and modernity along one (or more) of these lines—as a time period; major social, historical developments; and/or philosophical conceptions—are common enough.

Yet the series goes on to focus our attention principally in other ways. Already in the first episode, we were introduced to a notion of “modernity talk” that is conceived simply in terms of things being very different from before: “In a stronger sense, ‘modern’ can indicate a world-altering rupture from the past.” It’s important to appreciate the leap that is made here: to use “modernity talk” to refer to claims about any change of sufficient magnitude makes it a formal claim about the magnitude of change, regardless of the content—whether it involves greater focus on the individual or less; industrialization or deindustrialization.

Viewed in this way, surely one of the paradigmatic examples of “modernity talk” is the distinction between BC and AD—particularly if we pair it with the notion of a New Testament and an Old Testament. And if that is one of the paradigmatic examples, we should consider two points: first, we need to appreciate “modern” is functioning very differently here than it does in most instances of the term. Second, if this is the kind of shift we want to focus on, we should perhaps be focusing on “Christianity talk,” rather than “modernity talk.”

To return to conceptions of modernity, there are important points in the first episode where this more formal account is linked with particular content, but the more formal notion continues to do important work by setting up “two ways of dealing with the past that…[are] quintessentially modern:”  

One model…is the claim that everything that existed before, I'm going to reject. I am greater than the past, everything that existed before is lesser, and indeed really should be destroyed. The second form of modernity that we have seen is not a rejection of the past, but rather a statement that we totally and completely control the past, and we can build a single narrative genealogy that explains everything precisely by giving everything that happened in the past its proper place, subordinate to us, and, when it was a good thing in the past, leading to us. (Episode 3)

Note that we are again dealing with formal notions of modernity, rather than with conceptions linked to a particular time period, set of historical events, or philosophical ideas. Through this transmutation, however, something else has happened: two kinds of moves—moves which, as Michael Puett highlights, are not unique or specific to the time, events, or ideas most people might associate with the term “modernity”—are taken to be prominent notions or conceptions of modernity. Moreover—as I read and hear it (though I would be interested in whether others read it differently)—it sets up “modernity” as something about which we probably ought to be pretty worried: if “modernity talk” is so nefarious, perhaps we ought to somehow be against this thing, “modernity.” At the same time, if we pause to reflect on the range of intellectual cultural productions of the last 250 years or topics taught in university classes, we cannot see these two notions as providing an even vaguely encompassing account of what we could refer to as modernity. Just note the contrast between most of the students we hear in this podcast and these two conceptions.

Nonetheless, this description is followed by the repetition of the claim in Episode 3 that “genealogy inherently challenges modernity thinking.” That claim only avoids being clearly false if we have previously defined “modernity thinking” so narrowly that it excludes much of the thinking that might plausibly be associated with “modernity” according to several of the other conceptions of modernity already set out (though seemingly cast aside) in this podcast.

Now, insofar as the conclusion is to value identifying ideas, currents, materials, and other resources from prior to 1500 or 1800 (or you pick the date) and to demonstrate their contemporary relevance, I am completely on board. I think that’s an important part of what happens in the modern university, and I support it.

However, insofar as that valuable work is coupled with overly narrow accounts of modernity, we have to call out the ways that it is not simply inadequate genealogy, but also directs us away from the many ideas, currents, materials, and other resources from the last 250 years that may still have much to contribute today. Learning from genealogists—among others— we also need to interrogate the function of the slippage between these different conceptions of modern and modernity. Whose interests are served? What political movements are served if “modernity” is cast in such bleak terms?

Thomas A. Lewis is Professor of Religious Studies and Dean of the Graduate School at Brown University. He is the author of Why Philosophy Matters for the Study of Religion—and Vice Versa (Oxford University Press, 2015) and Religion, Modernity, and Politics in Hegel (Oxford University Press, 2011), among other works.