What is modernity, what caused it, and how has it developed?
Modernity refers to the modes of social life or organisation which emerged in Western Europe from about the seventeenth century and which subsequently developed a world wide influence. The central drivers of modernity were the forces of Western Europes industrial and political revolutions. Modernity destroys tradition. Collaboration between modernity and tradition was crucial in the earlier phases of modern social development, but this phase was ended by the emergence of reflexive modernisation or high modernity. The reflexivity of modern life consists of the fact that social practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of incoming information about those very practices, thus altering their character.
