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The use of the term "modernism" was initially confined to the context recent history of West European countries from the Renaissance to the rise of mass media, and characterized by a larger-scale integration of formerly isolated local communities and departure from tradition and religion toward individualism, rational or scientific organization of society, and egalitarianism. A society in the state of modernity is called a modern society. The process of a society becoming a modern society is called modernization. The most defining events in the modern period include:
The more particular events in the Western European history include:
It is usually suggested that some or most of these events led to the more complete realization of "modern" society in Europe.
There have been numerous attempts, particularly in the field of sociology, to understand what modernity is. A wide variety of terms are used to describe the society, social life, driving force, symptomatic mentality, or some other defining aspects of modernity. They include: Bureaucracy, Disenchantment of the world , Rationalization, Secularization, Alienation, Commodification, Decontexutalization , Individualism, Subjectivism, Linear-progression , Objectivism, Universalism, Reductionism, Chaos, Mass society, Industrial society, Homogenization, Unification, Hybridization, Diversification, Democratization, Centralization, Hierarchical organization, Mechanization, Totalitarian, and so on.
Modernity is often characterized by comparing modern societies to premodern or postmodern ones, and the understanding of those non-modern social statuses is, again, far from a settled issue. To an extent, it is reasonable to doubt the very possibility of a descriptive concept that can adequately capture diverse realities of societies of various historical contexts, especially non-European ones, let alone a three-stage model of social evolution from premodernity to postmodernity.
However, in terms of social structure, many of the defining events and characteristics listed above stem from a transition from relatively isolated local communities to a more integrated large-scale society. Understood this way, modernization might be a general, abstract process which can be found in many different parts of histories, rather than a unique event in Europe.
In general, large-scale integration involves:
Seemingly contradictory characteristics ascribed to modernity are often different aspects of this process. For example, unique local culture is invaded and lost by the increased mobility of cultural elements, such as recipes, folktales, and hit songs, resulting in a cultural homogenization across localities, but the repertoire of available recipes and songs increases within a area because of the increased interlocal movement, resulting in a diversification within each locality. (This is manifest especially in large metropolises where there are many mobile elements). Centralized bureaucracy and hierarchical organization of governments and firms grows in scale and power in an unprecedented manner, leading some to lament the stifling, cold, rationalist or totalitarian nature of modern society. Yet individuals, often as replaceable components, may be able to move in those social subsystems, creating a sense of liberty, dynamic competition and individualism for others. This is especially the case when a modern society is compared with premodern societies, in which the family and social class one is born into shapes one's lifecourse to a greater extent.
These social changes are somewhat common to many different levels of social integration, and not limited to what happened to the West European societies in a specific time period. For example, these changes might happen when formerly separate virtual communities merge. Similarly, when two human beings develop a close relationship, communication, convention, and increased division of roles tend to emerge. Another example can be found in ongoing globalization - the increased international flows changing the landscape for many. In other words, while modernity has been characterized in many seemingly contradictory ways, many of those characterizations can be reduced to a relatively simple set of concepts of social change.
At the same time, however, such an understanding of modernity is certainly not satisfactory to many, because it fails to explain the global influence of West European and American societies since the Renaissance. Mere large-scale integration of local communities, seen in the Macedonia of Alexander the Great or the Mongolia of the Khans, would not necessarily result in the same magnitude of influence as the West European modernization. What has made Western Europe so special?
There have been two major answers to this question. First, an internal factor is that only in Europe, through the Renaissance humanists and early modern philosophers and scientists, rational thinking came to replace many intellectual activities that had been under heavy influence of convention, superstition, and religion. This line of answer is most frequently associated with Max Weber, a sociologist who is known to have pursued the answer to the above question.
Second, an external factor is that colonization, starting as early as the Age of Discovery, created exploitative relations between European countries and their colonies. This view has notably been explored by the world systems theory of Emanuel Wallerstein .
It is also notable that such commonly-observed features of many modern societies as the nuclear family, slavery, gender roles, and nation states do not necessarily fit well with the idea of rational social organization in which components such as people are treated equally. While many of these features have been dissolving, histories seem to suggest those features may not be mere exceptions to the essential characteristics of modernization, but necessary parts of it.
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