Is there still a conscience in modern human beings who view the cosmos as part of their existence? Is there still hope for future generations to enjoy this nature to lead their lives towards fulfilling both their worldly and spiritual needs?
If we flashback to the Enlightenment era, where mankind worshipped reason or rationality. With confidence, humans believed that reason was a new God that would solve all the problems of human life.
Since the Enlightenment era, it has marked the entry of mankind into an era often referred to as the modern society era, or more popularly known as the modernity era, an era where humans are so enthusiastic and optimistic that all their life's problems will be solved by knowledge, technology, information, and digitization.
The question is: can all the life's problems of this modern society be solved? The reality is not so. Modern life born from the Enlightenment era has instead brought new problems for human life today.
I am interested in the expression conveyed by a German sociologist named Ulrich Beck (1944-2015), because he said: "modern life leads us to a risk society." This expression by Ulrich Beck describes the definition that all human activities, be it production or consumption, always carry risks.
Instant food, for example, or fast food, ready-to-eat food, and other derivative terms, which seemingly pose no risk or are safe for the body, actually have adverse effects on human health. Quoted from Kompas, the latest study report on fast food is associated with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, a spectrum of diseases characterized by liver steatosis that can lead to cancer or liver failure (Fast Food Associated with Liver Disease, Kompas.id, January 11, 2023). From this example, it illustrates how modern cultural culture has given rise to an instant culture, which eventually also gave birth to instant food for the daily lives of modern society.
Another example is the use of air conditioning, which is risky for human health, and then bottled water also contains microplastics-nanoplastics, as recently discovered by researchers (Bottled Water May Contain Hundreds of Thousands of Nanoplastics, Kompas.id, January 17, 2024). When we leave the house, we are exposed to vehicle smoke full of lead, which is also risky, using laptops, smartphones, and other electronic devices there is radiation. In essence, life in all its aspects carries many risks, so modern life has produced many risks for modern society today.
Ulrich Beck expressed his concerns about modern society's life with the term "risk society," then another figure, Anthony Giddens (1938-), a sociologist from England, saw the dilemma of modern society's life with the term "high risk." Giddens said: "how factories built by modern life eventually create pollution, greenhouse effects or Global Warming, which makes the ozone layer thinning. When the ozone layer leaks, it will threaten human life, and even can cause extinction for all human life on earth."
In this modern era, the development of science and technology in the field of weaponry has given birth to nuclear power, which in the end threatens human life, and it is highly likely to cause extinction. Then the development of science and technology in the field of food, where modern agricultural instruments such as chemical fertilizers or pesticides, actually make farmers lose money because they are threatened with crop failure due to chemical compounds that are actually not good for the environment.
In the practical realm, modern life has also given birth to bureaucracy, which is the offspring of modernity's womb. Simply put, bureaucracy is defined as an organization formed by the state to facilitate the role and function of governance. The main characteristic of this bureaucracy is high efficiency or effectiveness.
Unfortunately, the way bureaucracy works has been applied in almost all human activities. How could it not be, those who work in an institution, government institution, factory, and the like start from 8 in the morning and go home at 4 in the afternoon. Then if we want to be accepted in promising workplaces, we must graduate from elementary school, junior high school, high school, and even graduate. Not to mention, when we want to graduate from college, we must fulfill many courses, mandatory community service, make a thesis, and so on. All of these are a reflection of how modern life has been bureaucratized.
It's not surprising if someone graduates from college, economically stable, but they turn into radical individuals, or at least join one of the radical religious organizations. Why does this happen? Because this barren and dry modern life has caused modern society to experience soullessness (alienation) and thirst for spirituality, so they turn to such things as a means of escape. This is what Erich Fromm (1900-1980), a German national philosopher, termed as "escape from freedom."
In fact, modern society is trying to escape from freedom. However, the freedom they long for as this optimistic modern life is actually very disappointing for themselves and their lives.
The various problems of modern society's life mentioned above, then give rise to sharp criticism which ultimately gives birth to a new stream for philosophy, namely existentialism, a philosophy born as a response to dissatisfaction with the problems that arise in modern society's life. For existentialism, how modern life is very absurd and strange. Modern humans are nothing more than numbers or statistics, as humans have been used as a means to achieve economic goals outside of themselves.
Precisely, existentialist philosophy views modern life as an absurd life, a confusing and nauseating life, or a life that makes us want to vomit in the true sense. Because in reality, the dilemma of modern society's life on the one hand has brought various new problems for mankind, but on the other hand has brought society to meaningful conveniences.[]