Modernism and the machine

In his chapter on “Modernity and modernism,” David Harvey repeatedly touches upon the interrelationship between modernism and mechanized or factory efficiency, the propensity of different cultural constructions at the outset of the twentieth century to be discussed in industrial or manufacturing terminology. Everything from the cities and homes modernists lived in to the poems they wrote was viewed as another machine with an obvious byproduct coming out at the end. Homes were machines producing happiness for those living in them, cities machines to capitalize on human efficiency and productivity. This obsession with the factory process borders on mere utilitarianism, and his mention of Pound’s and Hemingway’s interest in the production potential, so to speak, of their language itself suggests that the sentiment extended even into literature and the other arts.

But here lies my biggest struggle with the concepts of modernity and modernism—that the two labels are so readily and interchangeably deployed into every realm from international politics to the arts that they would seem so all-encompassing as to be rendered meaningless. Admittedly, Harvey’s article clarified very little for me, save a renewed understanding of the imperceptible abstractness which usually confronts me when I attempt to make sense of these ideas. I did make note of the obsession with mechanization and renewal, a craving to do away with disorderly or haphazard societal constructs and organizations and in their stead institute minimalist, efficient, and modern replacements.

There existed a frustration with the fragmentation and compartmentalization of human existence, a yearning for streamlined and cohesive establishments, experiences. This attitude inspired a renewal in many fields, including most famously architecture and literature, in much the same vein as Ezra Pound’s demand to “Make it new!” Images included in Harvey’s text depict the mechanized standardization of city blocks, a tractor-like machine scooping up disorderly city blocks and replacing them with a standard grid of perfectly-aligned cubes for buildings. It was a reorganizational process, to do away with the silly complexities of the pre-Modern society and replace it with the new and improved incarnation, a version informed by technological advances allowing for factory efficiency.

In literature, this sort of practice would perhaps best be exemplified in prose like Hemingway’s or poems like Pound’s. Ernest made it his business to simplify his writing, concentrating on an economy of words and presenting a keen focus on meaning so as to produce equally accessible and profound literary works. Pound’s simplification of poetry into a modified version of the traditional haiku, as in my personal favorite “In a Station of the Metro,” allowed him to strip down all the poem’s components to the point where all that remained was pure and unadulterated imagery. In this way, he managed to preserve the essence of his art but remove any extraneous features that could potentially distract readers.

While my handle on the terminology is loose at best, it’s interesting to see the roots of subsequent literary movements in the twentieth century evident in the cultural and literary zeitgeists in its first few decades. These mindsets gave rise to a great deal of reformatory movements in latter years, shaking up every artistic and societal construction with the challenge of simplification and reinvention with an emphasis on machine-like efficiency. The preoccupation with renewal and modernization is one that persists even to this day—perhaps the imposed economy of words on social networking site Twitter, who limits users’ submissions to 140 characters, was subconsciously inspired by Pound’s imagist tendencies. But more than likely not.