Thinking Modernity.

What is "modernity"? What constitutes a modern experience, given that "experience" refers to the historically specific relation between forms of subjectivity, structures of objectivity, and principles of social conformity? And how can one conceive of modernity?—These questions define the analytical framework within which the texts on these pages form the elements of a theory of modernity.

These are texts on contingency, its cultural positivity, and its social normalization—on the relationship between modernity, postmodernity, and classical modernity—on architectures of organized socialization, spaces of institutionalized self-unfolding, and the political logic of totalitarian infrastructures—on urban revolts, metropolitan ways of life, and the sense of possibility as a mode of existence—on discourses of crisis, experiences of crisis, hopes, and the ambivalence of mobility—on the middle class, mass culture, and the aestheticization of the social—on the border, the horizon, the sea, the Hansaviertel, and Potsdamer Platz—on Romanticism, the avant-garde, modern literature, and abstract painting—on progress, competition, rivalry, and the social compulsion toward permanent optimization.

The theory of modernity unfolded in these texts conceives of modernity as a culture of contingency—that is, as a specific relationship to the self and the world in which what is could also be otherwise. In this culture, orders are changeable, all reality is perspectival within it, and self-relationships are reflexive. Contingency is therefore not merely a negative byproduct of modernity, but above all its positive prerequisite. Nevertheless, this theory does not elevate contingency itself to an ontological principle. Rather, it analyzes contingency as the general modal structure of a historical relationship to the self and the world. This distinguishes it from the melancholic theories of modernity, which conceive of modernity as a loss of meaning, significance, substance, or a concrete totality of experience. This theory of modernity does not share such interpretations. Rather, its methodological stance is one of deliberate distance from culturally critical diagnoses and socially critical problematizations that define modernity primarily in terms of lack. Therefore, in this theory of modernity, contingency is neither a deficit nor a curse; it does not signify meaninglessness, nor does it manifest itself solely as insecurity, uncertainty, or a lack of orientation. Here, contingency is first and foremost an openness to possibility. It takes concrete form in the plurality of contemporary ways of life and abstract form in the potentiality of their future alternatives. And "modernity" is the name for the cultural form in which this openness to possibility is institutionalized. It stands for the particular relationship to the self and the world of a society that constitutes itself in organized indeterminacy.

All of the texts on these pages have already been published elsewhere and are brought together here in digital form. Their shared theoretical foundation is outlined in a systematic overview. In addition, most of the articles, essays, and studies are summarized in detailed, chronologically arranged abstracts. The images, photographs, and objects on these pages, however, are not elements of this theory. Rather, they represent the "other" of the theory—that is, they simply stand for themselves.