Discussion 8: All that is Solid melts into Air

Faust; the modern hero’s tragedy halts ‘precisely from his desire to eliminate tragedy’ his desire to create a safe new world ‘in which the look and feel of the old world have disappeared without a trace.’ Faust can be looked upon as the spiritual father of modernity grand visions and infinite hope as he becomes intertwined with a relationship embedded with fascination and alienation. The more one reads the more one understands his personal drives with economic, political and social forces that drive a connection between the solidity and warmth of life with people with the matrix of a concrete community. Goethe's Faust expressed the 'modern world-system coming into being' cut off from a world defined and bounded by tradition, religion, and superstition, Faust experienced overpowering calmness.

In this interesting book, Marshall Berman examines the conflict of classes, histories, and cultures, and contemplates our scenario for coming to terms with the relationship between a valuable social and theoretical idealism and a complex, overbearing materialism. Through reading the chapter on Faust I gathered an understanding about modernity, why certain anti-modern societies resist modernization. That understanding is that no tradition, which inherently protects the monarchy of privilege, can be maintained in the face of the attack of the profit-driven motive underlying capitalism, which will always seek out new markets to exploit, such as the unexploited market as protected by tradition.

Faust shares in common with the rest of humankind a desire to know as much as possible about the material and spiritual worlds. When pursuing such knowledge, does a person ever encounter boundaries that he or she must not cross, are there ethical and moral considerations that limit the scope of a person's quest for knowledge?