“First
possible significance of ‘modern’:
‘current’ [(gegenwärtig)] as distinguished from former [(vorherig)]. . .
.
“Second
possible significance of ‘modern’: ‘new’
as distinguished from ‘old’. . . .
“Third
possible significance of ‘modern’:
‘passing [away]’ [(vorübergehend)] as distinguished from ‘eternal’ [(ewig)].
“This
[third] significance of the predicate ‘modern’ becomes possible whenever a present
and its concepts can be conceived by contemporaries as [the] ‘past of a future
present’. It comes into its own
[(gewinnt ihr volles Recht)] when it is used to designate a present [(bei der
Bezeichnung einer Gegewart)] experienced as passing [away] so swiftly that one can no
longer set over against it, as in the case of the second possible significance
of ‘modern’, a past qualitatively different [in character], but only eternity
as source of tranquility [(als ruhenden Pol)].”
Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, “Modern,
Modernität, Moderne,” in Geschichtliche
Grundbegriffe: Historische Lexikon zur
politisch-sozialen Sprache in Deutschland, ed. Otto Brunner, Werner Conze,
and Reinhart Koselleck, vol. 4 (Stuttgart:
Klett-Cotta, 1978), p. 96 (pp. 93-131).
