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Modernity is a term of art used in the humanities and social sciences to designate both a historical period (the modern era), as well as the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose in post-medieval Europe and have developed since, in various ways and at various times, around the world. While it includes a wide range of interrelated historical processes and cultural phenomena (from fashion to modern warfare), it can also refer to the subjective or existential experience of the conditions they produce, and their ongoing impact on human culture, institutions, and politics . As a historical category, modernity refers to a period marked by a questioning or rejection of tradition; the prioritization of individualism, freedom and formal equality; faith in inevitable social, scientific and technological progress and human perfectibility; rationalization and professionalization; a movement from feudalism (or agrarianism) toward capitalism and the market economy; industrialization, urbanization and secularization; the development of the nation-state and its constituent institutions (e.g. representative democracy, public education, modern bureaucracy) and forms of surveillance . Some writers have suggested there is more than one possible modernity, given the unsettled nature of the term and of history itself. Charles Baudelaire is credited with coining the term "modernity" (''modernité'') in his 1864 essay "The Painter of Modern Life," to designate the fleeting, ephemeral experience of life in an urban metropolis, and the responsibility art has to capture that experience. In this sense, it refers to a particular relationship to time, one characterized by intense historical discontinuity or rupture, openness to the novelty of the future, and a heightened sensitivity to what is unique about the present . As an analytical concept and normative ideal, modernity is closely linked to the ethos of philosophical and aesthetic modernism; political and intellectual currents that intersect with the Enlightenment; and subsequent developments as diverse as Marxism, existentialism, modern art and the formal establishment of social science. It also encompasses the social relations associated with the rise of capitalism, and shifts in attitudes associated with secularisation and post-industrial life . ==Etymology== The term "modern" (Latin ''modernus'' from ''modo'', "just now") dates from the 5th century, originally distinguishing the Christian era from the Pagan era. In the 6th century AD, Cassiodorus appears to have been the first writer to use "modern" (''modernus'') regularly to refer to his own age . However, the word entered general usage only in the 17th-century quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns—debating: "Is Modern culture superior to Classical (Græco–Roman) culture?"—a literary and artistic quarrel within the Académie française in the early 1690s. In these usages, "modernity" denoted the renunciation of the recent past, favouring a new beginning, and a re-interpretation of historical origin. The distinction between "modernity" and "modern" did not arise until the 19th century . A related word in English which conveys a similar meaning is model, as in someone who exhibits fashion. Likewise, modernity can be considered the fashion of societies, cultures, and civilizations, which is constantly being brought "up to date", that is, forced by the flow of time to refashion itself. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Modernity」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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