Nam Nguyen

CORE152: Challenges of Modernity

Professor Nemes
Essay Assignment 1
Word count: 1000 (title excluded, in-text citations included)
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The Relationship between Moral, Intellectual Complacency
And the Struggles of Bourgeois Society

Most discussion of modernization as a social phenomenon so far has generally arrived at

two observations. Firstly, on a socio-economic level, unprecedented levels of efficiency in

production have been reached, causing drastic changes in social relations, both among members

of a society and across different societies. Secondly, the individual is overwhelmed in terms of

how to adjust him/herself to this vortex we call modernity (Berman, 1981). The aggregate effect

of such technical innovation and shifts in social dynamics is often complacency – the lack of

motivation to change the status quo – where “there is precious little for modern man to do except

plug in” (Berman, 1981). In this essay, through the analysis of different scholarly perspectives, it

will be argued that complacency emerges in two distinct yet intertwining forms: intellectual and

moral complacency. More specifically, moral complacency, characterized by an absence of a

guiding framework, incentivizes the private use of reason (Kant, 1784) to generate false objectivity

and biased justification for personal gains, while intellectual complacency results in public

ignorance. Later, it would also be demonstrated that these two outcomes, in combination, reinforce

the struggles existing in the bourgeois society.

Firstly, Nietzsche (1974) believes that the rise of modernity has resulted in the diminished

role of religion. The rise of atheism leads to the perception of a theist, like the madman, as “losing
his way” and in turn leads to the death of God. However, Nietzsche’s (1974) emphasis in the

parable is not put on religion insofar as it provides a system of belief. Instead, he convinces that

with the rejection of God means the dismissal of the past, when religion used to provide a moral

framework for the previous secular society. This is significant because in On the Advantage and

Disadvantage of History for Life (Nietzsche & Preuss, 1980), Nietzsche argues the danger of being

outright unhistorical. Particularly, although he recognizes the virtue of de-emphasizing the past,

which can lead to growing out of oneself by challenging historical presumptions set, Nietzsche

(1980) also sees the danger of a complete detachment from the past. This is because the past serves

as a horizon, without which one will “wither away feebly or over-hastily to its early demise”

(Nietzsche & Preuss, 1980). The refusal of moral guidelines, in Nietzsche’s perspective, is

society’s fatal flaw. Even though he did not specify how society will reach its demise in the modern

context, a following examination of other scholarships and discussion of the second type of

complacency can suggest a plausible mechanism.

Intellectual complacency is the core tenet of Kant’s (1784) Enlightenment. More

specifically, he believes that the lack of determination and courage to use one’s own understanding

without the guidance of another is dangerous to society, because it incentivizes others to set

themselves up as “the guardians of the masses” (Kant, 1784). Like Nietzsche, Kant (1784) does

not provide specific examples, but Césaire’s work provides keen observations to demonstrate this

argument. The guardians, in this case, would be the “chattering intellectuals, venomous journalists

or presumptuous theologians” that he believes are also responsible for the sufferings of the

working class alongside the bankers, politicians and owners of factors of production (Césaire &

Pinkham, 2012). Through the guise of philosophy, art and academia, this portion of society

provides “false objectivity” and “self-serving generalizations” to justify the status quo as
promoting civilization (Césaire & Pinkham, 2012). Those who “perform their functions in the

sordid division of labor for the defense of Western bourgeois society” can therefore be considered

as taking advantage of the private use of reason, which is influenced by personal and institutional

motives (Kant, 1784). As a result, such biased reasoning is not free and cannot free others, overall

impeding enlightenment. However, biased literature would not perpetuate so effectively without

public ignorance as a catalyst. Modernity, with its advancements, make it so convenient to rely on

others and not exert oneself intellectually. The intellectual complacency of the mass public, then,

creates a constant dependent condition, making the prevalence of such misleading works

amplified, and reality ignored – the reality of perpetual class struggles, of brutal capitalist

exploitation and of racist, dehumanizing colonialism. This is why Césaire characterizes this

situation as a poison that slowly diffuses across the Western world and driving them towards moral

degradation and savagery.

It can be argued that this is the threat to society that all both Kant and Nietzsche see but

have yet to succeed in explicitly articulating, until Césaire compiles his comprehensive overview

of colonialist attitude. Indeed, Kant (1784) describes a possible situation where a society of

“clergymen” – men who hold civil posts - that attempt to entitle themselves to a constant symbol

and intellectual superiority in order to remain in their state of “guardians”. This theoretical

hypothesis, which Kant (1784) sees as a crime against human nature, corresponds with Césaire’s

account of the corrupted academics. More importantly, the compatibility of the two thinkers also

lie in their common vision of an ideal society. Césaire’s vision of Progress constitutes of natural

processes of integration among different societies, where “exchange is oxygen” and can lead to “a

locus of all ideas, the receptacle of all philosophies, the meeting place of all sentiments (Césaire
& Pinkham, 2012). In other words, his vision, where everyone makes an active use of their own

understanding to better one another, is arguably a reiteration of Kant’s Enlightenment.

In conclusion, this essay has combined the theoretical philosophies of Kant, Nietzsche with

evidential recounts by Césaire to demonstrate the common threat that all three recognize as

complacency and refusal for social change. It has been demonstrated that the dynamics between

intellectual and moral complacency contributes significantly to the degradation of society. Beyond

the scope of this essay, further analysis of the overlapping philosophies can be done to synthesize

a solution that is not only theoretically sound but also practically achievable. A starting point would

be to evaluate the extent to which Césaire’s vision of a revolution by the proletariats would fit with

the philosophies of the other two thinkers.

Works Cited
Berman, M. (1981). All That is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity.
New York: Simon and Schuster.
Césaire, A., & Pinkham, J. (2012). Discourse on Colonialism. Marlborough, England:
Adam Matthew Digital.
Kant, I. (1784). Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment [Ebook].
Nietzsche, F. (1974). The Gay Science (pp. 181-182). New York: Walter Kaufmann.
Nietzsche, F., & Pruess, P. (1980). On the advantage and disadvantage of history for
life. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.