“Shanghai is modern.”
“Canada is developed.”
“China is developing.”
“Africa is undeveloped.”
Many of you, I’m sure, have heard these sorts of statements before. Pick up a newspaper, read the internet or spend approximately three seconds in China, and chances are you will be treated to heavy use of the words ‘modern’, ‘developed’, ‘undeveloped’ and ‘developing’. Countries, regions and cities are known as much for their supposed rank in the hierarchy of ‘modernity’ as any other national trait.
Spend enough time immersed in this language and, soon, you too will be spouting such gems as, “This street is modern!” or, “That restaurant is not very developed!”. I myself fell into this trap, and by the time I left China I had somehow been brainwashed into categorizing the world into neat little levels of development. Recently, however, I was thinking (yes, it happens) about the use of these words and had a sudden moment of existential panic: what the fuck are we all talking about?
This confusion saw its beginnings last year. In my freshman English class out on the urban fringe of Hangzhou (which, I’m told, is very modern and developed), my students had a habit of throwing around the suspect words to an extent I would almost call dangerous. They sure loved modernity and development considering they could never explain to me what these terms even meant to them. And they weren’t the only ones: my favourite words often turned up in the strangest of places, put to questionable use.
My fun with development and modernity continues unabated this year, not very surprising since I’m studying urbanization and development. For the past few months I’ve been immersed in analysis of development theory and competing understandings of modernity, specifically as they relate to urban processes. So, I think it would be fair to say that my mind in now thoroughly modernized, although still developing.
So, what has come of all this? A personal distaste for the terms ‘modern’ and ‘development’ and all that they imply in their common, everyday use. When a city, let’s say Dalian, is described as ‘modern’, just what exactly are we saying? If we say Qinghai is ‘undeveloped’, what value judgments are we making?
This is where we get to modernization theory. It works on the assumption that all human societies are located somewhere along a single line, a “path of development”, with some far back in the traditional stage (ie backwards), while others are far ahead in the modern stage (ie advanced). The goal, and fate, of all societies is to move themselves along this line, experiencing something wonderful called progress (of course, there has been a ridiculous amount of debate as to just how societies move along this line towards modernity).
In China, I would dare say that this model is accepted rather uncritically (and, I should add, it is far from the only place where this is done). Development is a universal, objective process; one in which humanity experiences politically neutral, inevitable progress. In modernization theory, moving along the line is inherently good, because a society is becoming more modern and advanced. Not moving along the line is inherently bad, because being traditional is backwards and thus inferior. Modernity thus becomes good in itself, as that’s what we are supposed to be chasing.
Of course, this begs a serious question: if societies are placed on a scale from traditional to modern, what criteria are being used to judge what is traditional (and bad) or what is modern (and good)? I would like to say that the world got together for a huge meeting to decide what being ‘modern’ meant, but I’m afraid that role was left to the usual culprit: the West. Now, don’t think I’m attacking the United States here: this dates back to before they were the biggest kid on the block. Yes, European colonialism, I’m looking your way. The original West did such a good job of ‘civilizing the savages’ that Western ideals are now largely, and uncritically, understood as objective, universal goods (well, at least the ones that don’t involve human rights). Whether that is a good thing or not is a whole other debate, but I’m constantly amazed at how few people (outside of the ivory tower, obviously) pick this up.
It is thus that places that are described as ‘modern’ are inevitably the ones which are the most Westernized. Modern form means an industrialized space, while modern institutions mean rationality, efficiency and rule of law. So, is modernity really that objective and culturally neutral? It sounds strangely Western to me.
So, another question arises: why has Western-style industrialization come to be the benchmark by which societies are judged as ‘backward’ or ‘advanced’? Because the West designed the whole game, that’s why. What about Religion? Corruption? Family ties? Culinary abilities? Imagine if societies were judged by how good their food was- the list of ‘developed’ places would look quite different. China might be one of the most developed places on earth.
As an Anglo-Saxon Westerner, I’m aware that the game continues to this day. Fresh-faced tourists show up in Shanghai, amazed at “how modern!” the city appears. But our idea of modern is so rooted in our own notions of success and progress that what these people are really saying is “Look how Western this city is! Isn’t it great?”. Modernity and all its guises are taken as value neutral, and yet I find the whole concept deeply rooted in a specific set of cultural and political processes.
It’s not hard to see how this happened. If you (or Europe) somehow reach a point where you can define your interests as the rules of the game that everyone else accepts as objective, then you will. Gradually, your ideas of success become interpreted as universal measures of success, and then eventually people forget where the standards even came from in the first place. Industrialization becomes modernity becomes inherent good. End of story. Let’s go for a drink.
So, perhaps this little rant explains (I hope) why the usage of the terms modern and development increasingly get on my nerves. When Western China is called ‘undeveloped’ and Eastern China is called ‘developed’ (at least they say), what value judgments are being made? Well, obviously, that the latter is superior to the former. But why? Because it is more industrialized? I’m not comfortable with judging one place as superior to the other, because no standard of measurement can be ever be objective or neutral.
I’m sure some of you are thinking, “C’mon, this rambling theoretical mess is getting way out of hand, ‘modern’ just means new while ‘traditional’ means old”. To you I say: why do we consider Shanghai to be a symbol of the new, while a little village in Hunan is considered representative of the old? Both exist in our present, 2005. You could say that a poor farmer is as equally representative of our ‘modern age’ as a glittering skyscraper surrounded by freeways.
Modernity and its development theory judge societies based on their level of Western-style industrialization, and attributes various stages of ‘development’ to certain time periods through its obsession with progress. It’s, honestly, not much more than an euro-centric attempt to classify societies through very subjective criteria. And, frankly, I think it has been quite successful.
But take this industrialization ranking out of the picture, and a much more confusing, ill-defined and ultimately interesting place emerges. We aren’t developed or undeveloped, traditional or modern; we just are. The developing world/developed world dichotomy becomes, quite simply, absurd. The idea of progress becomes meaningless. Long live post-modernism!
So, the next time you visit a place, feel free to call it huge, tall, nice, ugly, vibrant, clean, organized, chaotic, industrious, dirty, wild, boring or fascinating. But, for the love of whatever God you may believe in, please don’t call it modern. :)