새로운 문명학의 형식

Abstract

In the modern tradition, the idea that the history of mankind possesses a unitary meaning and direction has always been a sort of persistent refrain of Western thought, which regarded its own civilization as the highest evolutionary stage reached by mankind as a whole, and which therefore felt in charge of civilizing, and even colonizing, converting, subjecting all the other peoples it happened to encounter. But the form of new civilization studies differs from it completely. It follows that our understanding of modernity is different and so we need to highlight the so-called porous modernity. Porous modernity armed with the ethical thought outlined here, thus restores the fullness of moral choice and responsibility to us. By criticizing the possible totalizing bent of modernity in the age of globalization, and by defending the local identities of national societies, porous modernity supports an open attitude to the entire world. The current status quo in the postmondern world may be seen as an opportunity not only to contribute to overcoming modernity but also to preparing a viable alternative to such. That is to say, whereas the western world has been faithful to the project of modernity or dreaming escape from modernity within itself by foregrounding postmodernism, that situation of the civilization studies which can neither embrace nor abolish given modernity and can neither participate without any consciousness in the stream of globalization nor deny it unconditionally, will be a field of challenge to the Western modernity. The problem is that what we now are seeing around the civilization studies is a reaction to that very globalization, which is very valuable in trying to assure aspects of identity and particularity which globalization often uproots and destroys. Indeed,this situation itself, if it is identified, will be a good test case for construction of the modern or post-modern world.