The Nineteenth Century Prelude to Modernity

    The nineteenth century is the beginning of modernity which has close affinity with industrialization, migration, urbanization etc. Expansion of international trade, urbanization of the peasant population of Europe and a stead rise in literacy contributed the flourishment of modernity. During 19th century, the world witnessed the rapid progress in science, technology, mass communication on and so many other different fields. For the full-fledged development of modernity, the following things facilitate too much.

1) The new concept of money: Before 19th century, there was feudal system in the society. There was agro-based economic system. People were not well aware of money and its importance. Peasants were the people who tilled the land and in return they got certain amount of grain to sustain the life. The motto of life was 'Work is worship'. Kings and noblemen of the 19th century used to keep soldiers for their security and in return they used to get money, and thus importance of money began to be realized. Before 19th century, priests also could not realize the importance of money; they were satisfied with what people offered to the church. Before 19th century two types of economic system were popular.
1) Retail trade
2) Domestic trade
    Domestic trade says earn according to need, to earn more than necessary is sinful. Retail trade on the other hand says that earn according to desire. Now, retail trade is in functioning. Now in the 19th century, people had limitless desires, to meet those desires money became appropriate mean. Adam Smith, the great economist in his famous book 'Wealth and Nation' has valorized the importance of money and also said that everything is on sale. Labour experiences and expertise are such things which are always in sale so as to get profit. Now profit is realized only on money. So, modern concept of earning money began in the 19th century. To meet the limitless desires of human beings money only became important thing.
2) Steam power: Steam power revolutionized life and work and it brought nation together in war and peace. It created great wealth. Now some railroad magnets became richer than kings or emperor. Steam power also made work for millions. For which they were paid a wage that allowed them to go on living. The steam engine, together with its two offspring, the railroad and the dynamo also became a symbol of the power, magnificence cruelty and mystery of its time, which are the parts or modernity.
3) Machine Gun: The credit for the modern machine gun goes to Hiram Stevens Maxim who invented the first true machine gun which employed the recoil of the barrel to eject the spent cartridge and chamber another. The bullets were fed into the weapon, which was water cooled, by a belt that could contain thousands of rounds. Due to this modern automatic machine gun, great wars were waged as a result great havoc and destruction resulted in the world. Gun became an instrument of equalizer among countries. As Mao had said "power comes through the muzzle of gun". Power exercise became the part of modern life and so was activated by machine gun.
4) The Magic of Electricity: In 1820, the Danish physicist Hans C. Orested found that an electric current flowing near a compass needle will cause the needle to move. He was the first to show a definite connection between electricity and magnetism. In the early 1830's the English scientist Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry independently discovered that moving a magnet near a coil of wire produced an electric current in the wire. After the invention of electricity, the light dissolved the difference between night and day and masked the change of the seasons. For a quarter of a million years human kind had welcomed the spring because it brought not only warmth but also light. Winter was not just cold but also dark and any evils might lurk in the dark, that was the concept of priests but it became mere superstition when electricity brightened the night and made like the day. Electricity not only provided light and warmth but also activated for modern innovations. In this way electricity brought modernity in the world.
5) The End of Slavery: To live without any restriction and enjoy freedom with self-esteem is the real ethos of modern life. In the earlier age, slaves were considered to be inferior and they were not let themselves to realize as human beings. But in 19th century, great efforts were made against the slavery. Slaves should get equal treatment became the motto in America where blacks were treated as slave. It was the issue of slavery due to which civil war broke in America from 1861-1865. In 1865 slavery was legally abolished. Now equality and sense of brotherhood were raised by the blacks, Thus end of slavery and the arrival of democratic spirit with the fusion of equality and freedom, helped to have sense of modernity.
6) Photography: The introduction of photography revolutionized the arts or drawing and painting. It also changed the way we see things. Photography actually showed what the photographer had not seen with his naked eyes. It gave details of everything which we were not aware. So it changed our way of looking at things. Photography in a way facilitated modernity.
7) Faustian desire or boundless desire of human beings also helped for the orientation towards modernity.
8) Shocking to bourgeois: Bourgeois were shocked by three persons.
(1) Marx: He said that man is an economic unit, so he should not contract with anyone. He empowered the worker or proletarian against the bourgeois. He exposed the naked reality in front of workers that how bourgeois exploited the proletarians and enjoyed the surplus value and also activated them to more into the revolution against the bourgeois. In this way, he shocked them.
(2) Freud: Before Freud, people had ideal picture about man. Man was supposed to be rational creature. Freud developed the concept of unconscious and said sexual desire shapes our each and every action. By saying human being as animalistic, instinctual and lusty he dismantled the contemporary belief of bourgeois regarding man.
(3) Darwin: Contemporary bourgeois people thought man as descendant of god. But he said that man is descendant of monkey. Man has come in present condition through the evolutionary process. Man is a prototype of an ape which was very shocking for bourgeois orthodox Christian morality.