Nineteenth Century Paradox: Progress, Nietzsche and Orientalism

Essay from the year 2015 in the subject Philosophy - Philosophy of the 19th Century, grade: 8.5, Tilburg University (Liberal Arts and Sciences), course: The Impact of Colonialism on 19th-century European Culture, language: English, abstract: The nineteenth century is usually referred to as the century of unprecedented progress of the Modern Age. It is, however, of high importance to realize the relativity of the concept 'modern'. People living in a particular historical period of time always consider their time as modern. One may view 'modern' as a distinguishably new way of life, change in technology, industry, culture and society, whereas another may relate the word 'modern' to something that belongs to the present time. Again, the concept of the present is highly subjective to the observers of the so-called present and relative in the historical framework. The most applicable understanding of the word 'modern' in this work is in its comparison with the times before the period of the nineteenth century. This essay presents an overview of how progress, orientalism and Nitzsche's philosophy co-existed and made sense of each other in modernity.