Statement 73

Modernity cannot be discussed as if it were a set of principles or criteria (like functionalism, secularism, capitalism or technology), each with its own associated ‘history’, for to exclude oneself – as investigator (an unenviable position) - from such a ‘study’ is to preserve its grip on our destiny. But including ‘oneself’ is impossible since there is no way to ontologically define our pre-modernized precursor state. The only way to get to an understanding of modernity in the terrifying play of a subject that is not a subject and an object that is not an object is to attempt to chase after, highlight, expose, and even design that which is extraneous to its naturalized, teleologically foreclosures. And even that brings us only to a position of peripherality that quickly sinks back into irrelevance.