ANTHROPOLOGY AND MODERNITY

Modernity is not only the temporal 'present'. It is an ideologically c harged construct, an attitude rather than anything 'really existing'. It is a Western concept closely related to the idea of progress and mo vement ahead. Anthropology, once a modern discipline of Western civili zation, became a symbol of modernity in the post-totalitarian countrie s of Eastern Europe because of its capacity for self-reflection and it s ability to ask and answer questions relevant to our contemporary wor ld. However, it is up to anthropologists to prove that the discipline really is able to be something more than a mere study of strange custo ms and thus reoccupy the position it once held.