Does The Modern Age Offer Freedom To Every Individual?

Bismi-Llah, Al-Rahmani, Al-Rahim. Allahumma salli 'ala Muhammadin wa Aali Muhammad. As-salamu alaykum to everyone who may be tuning in to this short video, and anyone who may be passing by wanting to listen in as well. In this video, I am going to be continuing to talk about the subject of modernity, and I am going to be doing a little bit of a commentary on Marshall Berman's book: "All That is Solid Melts Into Air". It's an excellent book. He was pro-modernist, and it gives you an idea of the kind of idealism that existed pre-1960s, which gave rise to quite a lot of hideous architecture globally.

So I am just going to go over some more points that he makes in his book. Well, one of the reasons is that when people talk about their conversion to Islam, a lot of the time they don't talk about the historical environment, the historical context in which they were raised. There are many global trends that have taken place over the last century which a lot of people don't understand. We have been influenced by certain personalities in our history, certain architects of the society that we are living in now. And a lot of the time, we don't know who those architects are, and we don't know what their philosophies are, and we don't know how they have shaped the world in which we are living today.

Sometimes conversion to Islam can be a instinctive reaction to things that you see are wrong in your society, or things that you feel, but you may not be able to exactly pinpoint or articulate what those problems are. And so it helps to read into who are the main thinkers of the last few centuries in order for us to better understand the situation that we are in, and of course, then understand what we need to do in response to the problems that we are facing.

Marshall Berman says that... he is a dedicated, or he was because he has passed away, and he was a dedicated modernist, and he chose to remain a modernist all through the new postmodern movement. So we haven't really talked about what postmodernism is, and maybe we will touch upon that in future. I hope I have covered some of the other topics in future videos as well. So page nine of Marshall Berman's book, he says that: Some readers may think that I give short shrift to the vast accumulation of contemporary discourse around the idea of postmodernity. This discourse began to emanate from France in the late 70s, largely from the disillusioned rebels of 1968, moving in the orbit of post-structuralism. Roland Bartholomew, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Jean-François Liotard and Jean Bodria and their legions of followers. In the late 1980s, postmodernism became a staple of aesthetic and literary discussion in the USA.

We can at some point try to understand more what postmodernism is. Marshall Berman says that postmodernists may be said to have developed a paradigm that clashes sharply with the one in this book, meaning his book. I have argued that modern life and art and thought have the capacity for perpetual self-critique and self-renewal. Postmodernists maintain that the horizon of modernity is closed, its energies exhausted in effect, that modernity is passé. Postmodernist social thought pours scorn on all the collective hopes for moral and social progress, for personal freedom and public happiness that were bequeathed to us by the modernists of the 18th century, enlightenment. These hopes, postmodern say, have been shown to be bankrupt, at best, vain and futile. He says, There is one modern sentiment that I regret not exploring in greater depth. I am talking about the widespread and often desperate fear of freedom that modernity opens up for every individual.

I really question that modernity opens up freedom for every individual. I mean, does he literally mean every individual on the planet? So in my previous videos, I have shown that due to economic corruption and what is now known as modern-day slavery, modernity does not open up freedom for every individual, maybe individuals in the North. And actually now even in the north, we have quite widespread modern-day slavery, so to speak. I don't know who he is thinking of when he says that modernity opens up freedom for every individual.

He talks about the desire to escape from freedom by any means possible. This distinctively modern darkness was first mapped by Dostoyevsky in his parable of the Grand Inquisitor in the brothers Karamazov in 1881. Man prefers peace, the Inquisitor says, and even death to freedom of choice in the knowledge of good and evil. There is nothing more seductive for man than his freedom of conscience, but nothing that is a greater cause of suffering. Then Berman says, So many demagogues and demographic movements have won power and mass adoration by relieving the peoples they rule of the burden of freedom. The fascist regimes of 1922 to 1945 may turn out to be only a first chapter in the still unfolding history of radical authoritarianism.

My response to what Berman is saying, I mean, there has been this idea put out there that modernity opens up the horizon for every individual, and that it opens up a visa of freedom. It enables us to exercise our free will and our freedom of conscience. And that what is actually happening is that rather than embrace the potentialities of this freedom that has been introduced into human society, human beings cannot bear the burden and the responsibility of freedom of choice and of being free. And so they go rushing over to a strong man and hand over their freedom to this strong man, and they prefer they choose to be enslaved rather than free, right? So I have some issues with this argument.

As I have said, I don't know who Marshall Berman is referring to when he says that modern life, whatever that may mean, brings freedom to every individual. So that point I have already made, because there are so many people who are enslaved in so many ways. Then there is also this idea of freedom of choice, which I have touched upon before, and which I saw in a book by Noam Chomsky [Deterring Democracy] that he also mentions it that, do we really have freedom of choice or are our choices being controlled for us?

For example, when I look back at the culture in which I was raised. So born in the 1970s, grew up in the 1980s, 1990s as a teenager and coming into my 20s. And you grow up within the parameters of a certain culture, and you don't know that there is any other way, you don't know that it is possible to step outside of the parameters of that culture into another culture. And it could be said that when I converted to Islam, Islam in some ways, yes, it allows for a great variety of cultures within its parameters, but it still consists of a certain moral code, and it does establish a certain culture. So say, Islamic culture and Islamic way of life or attempting to be an Islamic way of life, then that is when you discover that actually you're not supposed to be doing that.

When a Westerner who has been raised in a so-called liberal democracy with so-called freedom of choice, steps out of that because they can see that actually the choices that we have available to us are highly controlled by the culture that has been cultivated by corporations. We have, as I have said before, an artificial culture. We are living, in effect, in a aquarium. I won't say goldfish bowl, but it is an aquarium that is not really in touch with the reality of what it is to be a human being. And so oftentimes people can feel that they' are living in this artificial reality, this stage set, this film set that we are living in, that we are meant to believe is real. And when you see that, Oh, I am just living in a stage set. I am living in a film set, and I am supposed to accept that it is real and believe that it is real like everybody else does.

And you say, Well, this life is precious. I was given this existence. So what? Am I going to spend my whole life living in a film set and pretending that this artificial way of life is a real way of life just to keep everybody happy? No. Because this existence is too precious to do that. You then exercise your freedom of choice to step out of these coordinates to step out of these parameters. You are exercising your freedom of choice to go into the Islamic way of life, which is we could say for some people, is a way of life that connects you to what is more real. It connects you to the reality of what it is to be a human being. That is why a lot of people convert.

And so when you go into a way of life that connects you with the reality of what it is to be a human being, that is when you get the protests, from the people that are adhering to this artificial way of life. You get the objections to your choice by people who say, But you have got freedom of choice. You have got freedom. So why are you using your freedom of choice to choose this thing? And it is like, Well, I didn't know that there were rules and restrictions on how I should be exercising my freedom of choice. Isn't freedom of choice freedom of choice in all cases? Or is it just freedom of choice in ways that are designated appropriate for me to choose? So, Berman might have argued that: Rebecca, you are afraid of freedom, and that is why you are adopting a way of life that is full of rules and regulations. You are afraid of freedom.

But the irony is that, okay, technically I might have freedom, but I am still constricted by the parameters, by the coordinates of the culture in which I have been raised, which is a lot of the time a fake culture. I just don't want a fake culture, and I don't want a culture where there is so much freedom of choice in certain areas that what I have found with certain freedoms of choice is that what it means in society is that the people who have a strong personality or a manipulative personality can dominate those who are not in such a strong position. There is no actual equality of freedom of choice in society because what Berman is overlooking is the fact that we don't all have the same personalities. We don't all have the same social power in society.

I have said that in response to what Berman is saying here is that, Is this really the right argument? Is there a fear of freedom? Or is it that people turn to strong authoritarian figures when economies have failed? When they see the moral collapse of their society? And when they feel that their ideals and themselves have been betrayed? I think this is why people turn to strong men or women, why people turn to authoritarian figures. It is when they have had enough of the corruption in their society and they don't see a strong enough person or people to address that corruption. And along comes a strong man or woman with what looks like an authoritarian personality, claiming that they can change things radically. Well, of course, people are going to go to that person.

They are going to say, Yeah, we have put up with high inflation, unemployment, the rich ripping us off, loss of our identity, loss of our culture. We have put up with that for long enough. You are saying you can fix it, so we will support you. It has got nothing to do with a fear of freedom of choice or a fear of freedom. And then so I say in response to that, when they have been unhappy for a long time with the direction in which their societies are heading, and also when they feel they have been humiliated and lost their sense of identity and respect in the world, that is when they go towards this so-called authoritarian figure.

So Berman seems to be blind to what the issues are here. And this is something that I think even today, in today's global climate, modernity in the last 100 years or 150 years has not been neutral in terms of the culture that it has exported around the world. And I have studied the impact of modernity on mainly Chinese, Japanese, and some African cultures, because modernity brought with it a specific culture, mainly a secular European or we could say, yeah, secular European-American culture. That is what was exported around the world. And this is what has erased people's sense of themselves. That is what has erased their sense of identity and history and culture.

And this modern European-American culture has also exported itself around the world as something that is superior to everybody else's culture. And so people who are on the receiving end of this mission to modernize the world, they are also on the receiving end of a subliminal message that is saying that your culture is inferior. Your identity is inferior. Your history is inferior. You are inferior. And so you have to be like us in order to be advanced, progressive, and modern. And this is the great gaslighting exercise that has gone on globally for the last 150 years.

So yes, I challenged this idea that people who are not very impressed by certain enlightenment ideals, I challenge the idea that they reject or they question these ideals because they are afraid of freedom. Rather, what people object to is the exportation of the culture that comes with those ideals. Actually, I think that even the enlightenment thinkers that were trying to fight for these ideals, they themselves might not have been too happy with how things have turned out culturally since they started to espouse those ideals.

So Berman says that: "All That is Solid Melts Into Air", I try to open up a perspective that will reveal all sorts of cultural and political movements as part of one process. Modern men and women asserting their identity in the present, even a wretched and oppressive present, and their rights to control their future, striving to make a place for themselves in the modern world a place where they can feel at home. From this point of view, the struggles of democracy that are going on all over the contemporary world are central to modernism's meaning and power.

And my question, or my response to these points that Berman makes are that with the development of modern economies, the destruction of the extended family that has come about because of the development of modern economies, enforced migration, which has come about because of the development of modern economies, and loss of spiritual tradition. How can we make ourselves feel at home? He is saying that in the modern world, the thing to do is campaign for democracy and freedom and equality, and we are just trying to make ourselves at home in the modern world. It is like, Yeah, but why do we not feel at home in the modern world in the first place?

It is because the mechanisms of modernity have destroyed our home, the development of the modern economy, which has brought people out of the countryside into the cities, broken up families, and brought about war and displacement because of greed and the desire to enrich certain economies, and the entertainment industry that has also seduced the youth away from their families and inculcated in them a contempt and disrespect for their elders and for their ancestors and for their ancestral culture, all of that has brought about an environment in which we don't feel at home. And then ironically, Berman is saying, Oh, as modern men and women, we are trying to make ourselves feel at home in the modern world. Yeah, the modern world that has destroyed our sense of what it is to be at home, because of the way that modern world has been created.

So these are some of my thoughts today with regard to modernity, and InshaAllah, I will continue to have some discussion using Marshall Berman's book as a springboard or a starting point by which to have this discussion. And, InshaAllah, I will be loading up more videos with regards to modernity, modern life, postmodernity, and to think about the world in which we are living and how we should be in this world.

So thank you for listening, and InshaAllah, I will see you in the next video. As-salamu alaykham.