- The Summary. So basically,  what happened in the western world was: The Enlightenment - the age of reason, science, all that shit. Modernity - urbanisation, industrialisation, work work work, mass media, leisure time etc. Structuralism - yayez, structure >_ < Post-Modernity - lol, oh so popular ^^ Globalisation and the Network Society - the now and the future of the world: INTERNETZ!  ...

...we stick with.  But its the most important one to know about because if you don't understand it, then you don't realise just how shaped you are by it.  And that can be seriously dangerous. The modern western world is seen - by us - to be the true goal for every civilisation.  It's hard to understand how the right to an abortion, or the right to free speech (for example) could be anything but the ideal...