Kayla Salyer, Habermas 9/28

"Modernist culture has come to penetrate the values of everyday life; the life-world is infected by modernism. Because of the forces of modernism, the principle of unlimited self realization, the demand for authentic self-experience and the subjectivity of hyperstimulated sensitivity have come to be dominant"(Habermas 98). At the end of class Dr. Cummings mentioned the idea of over-stimulation in our culture. It was definitely in passing, but it was one of the very few things I might be able to go into. The quote is a lot, but I want to try to break it up to see if I can have a better understanding of what is going on in the piece.
Beginning with the first sentence, the word 'infected' sticks out to me. The idea that modernism is not only present, but actually imbedded, or that it has taken over our world. The idea placed before this shows that it has reached beyond the tangible; our values. This first sentence definitely implies a negative towards modernism. It is showing that it has latched on like a bug, and taken over.
Moving on to the next section, stuff begins to get real. We can focus on the lack of authenticity which causes the need for our overstimulation. This actually makes sense to me. The fact that there is nothing original, or genuine, makes it necessary for us to search for more. People want to be original, we want to find ourselves in a world where we contribute in our own ways, where we can experie
nce something that is only for us. Because everything is copied and reproduced, we search for something so out of the ordinary that, even though it is a reproduced copy, it gives us a sense of 'out of the ordinary'. For example, movies go to extreme lengths to show ridiculous gore, over the top simulations, or terrifying images. These may be able to give us a sense of something that is original.
Although Habermas is not exactly easy, I am trying to simply take apart this section to get an idea. So, I hope this at least touches on some of his ideas.