This week study discusses the term modernity and explains the progression of Latin America in order to become a modern society.

As discussed in the video, modernity has 4 key components:

1. Innovation
2. Liberation
3. Secularism
4. Universalism

In my opinion innovation is the first step towards modernity. Particularly, innovation in industry is an important factor in the advancement of a society. By introducing new and more efficient ways to do things we can expect to be in a better position. Furthermore, we can consider innovation in forms of arts since it could impact the way people think and better prepare them for a change and guide them towards modernity.

An important sign of modern societies advancement in the way that people in that society think. In the other words, growth in people’s way of thinking equals the growth in their society. We can witness a perfect example of this argument in Latin America where people started fighting for their independence against Europeans and freedom against slavery. As people of South America gained the intellectual freedom, their societies also became more modern. For instance, women or people from African descendants would not get treated as commodities and this is a sign towards modernity.

I believe secularism goes hand in hand with freedom. We are can call a society modern only if its people have intellectual freedom. In a modern society, people should be entitled to have their own way of thinking and therefore they should be able to choose weather they want to have a religion or not. Furthermore, politics should be divided from religion and I believe this is a fundamental step in modernity. I think religion is simply against modernity and involving it with politics would act like a venom for that society.

Regarding universalism, we can argue that in a modern society, people tend to be eager to advance themselves and one way to achieve this, is by learning from others. Therefore, we can claim that a sign of modernity is sharing ideas and achievements. Also, if we look at the whole world as one huge society, countries should learn from each others advancements.

Another interesting point in this week’s material for me was the point that in Latin America, modernity involved everything such as economy, freedom and rights, innovation and etc. but it lacked the political advancement which is a huge aspect of modernity. Even though people were free, however, they still were not treated equally and some people believed that they are more capable than others and therefore they should be the ones making rules which is exactly oppose to the idea of democracy. As a result, Latin Americans had a long way to overcome this idea and move away from dictatorship and towards democracy which is a necessity of modern societies.