From Premodern to Modern: A Schematic of Change

This table outlines some of the broad transitions considered a part of the process
of Modernization. All scales affect all others, and should in no way be taken as dichotomous.
Rather, the purpose here is to briefly map some of the fundamental shifts in social life
that come out of the gradual and complex movement into the “Modern” moment.

Premodern Societies: Modern Societies:

Urbanization
1. Largely agrarian, rural population Largely centralized, urban population
Growth of markets
Division of labour
Factory system
Theories of mass society
2. Identity tied to heredity and lineage Identity defined through work and class
Atomization of family unit
Introduction of waged labour

3. Dogmatic and religious Religious wars Growing secularism, rationalism, skepticism

Democratization of knowledge through
print
Enlightenment philosophy

4. Organic conception of time Mechanical clocks Rationalized, absatracted, mechanistic conception

Factories turn labour into of time
commodity
Rational division of waged hours

5. Close proximity of work, leisure, and Factories reserved for work

spiritual lives Divsion of spaces of work, privatization of leisure
Private music halls, pubs expand
Domestic space distinct from
public world
6. Widespread illiteracy and largely oral Increasing literacy, growing print culture,
communication Expansion of print incipient public sphere
Trade in news develops
Greater knowledge of the world