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Modernity, ‘wokeness,’ and DEI

February 3, 2025

MANILA – Last week’s column, (see “The American backlash against modernity,” 1/26/25) elicited responses that seemed to conflate three distinct yet related ideas: modernity, “wokeness,” and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Here, I aim to clarify how these concepts differ and intersect.

While these concepts are most often discussed in the West, particularly in America’s culture wars, the tensions they reflect are not exclusive to Western societies. The Philippines, for example, is experiencing its own fraught transition to modernity, shaped by its complex engagement with a globalized world. The issues this brings about are evident in current discussions of proposed legislation.

Modernity. Modernity is a broad and evolving concept. Early definitions associated it with the rise of capitalism, scientific thinking, rational decision-making, industrialization, urbanization, individualism, automation, the nuclear family, and romantic love. These developments do not simply accompany modernity; they constitute its essence. But what’s their common denominator? They tend to be seen together in a new kind of social structure called modern.

Sociologists such as Niklas Luhmann define modernity in contrast to premodern society. Traditional societies are internally differentiated and organized around fixed hierarchies and segmentations—clans, tribes, ethnicities, and castes—whereas modern societies are based on functional differentiation. In this framework, a person’s role and worth are determined by what they do or can do rather than by inherited status.

Modern societies are also decentralized, with various systems—political, economic, legal, scientific, media, religious, artistic—operating autonomously yet

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