By rejecting the pre-givenness of the sociopolitical order, modernity presented itself as the concrete combination of the human mind and actions in history. The amount of control and the degree of manipulation that could be inserted into the activity became the yardstick by which the rationality of any action or group of actions could be measured. The critique of counter modernism advocates an alternative to modernity, either as a return to tradition and the pre-modern social formation or as a creation of a new social order. On the contrary, the pathological study of modernity which Habermas follows still believes in the power of reason to deal with historical problems, particularly in their sociopolitical aspect.
By reconsidering the role of human reasoning as the core of the new age, in the life of human beings, it tries to redefine modernity. By considering modernity as the offshoot of de-centered human inter-subjectivism, which emerges from a particular life-context, Habermas
delivers the concept of modernity from Euro-centrism, dominant in the debates on modernization.
The study believes that Habermas’ normative attitude provides us with a value-based view of modernity and therefore rejects all inhumanities which may be committed in the name of modernity in society. Defining rationality as the outcome of communicative interaction of a community which is saddled on a particular context, does not allow us to describe modernity as a mere offshoot of Western rationality. Hence, it does not necessitate the equalization of modernization with Westernization. This study believes that Habermas’ explanation of modernity as an “unfinished project” opens new opportunities to our particular situation. The situation in which our societies are swinging between tradition and modernity, while neither can be considered traditional nor modern.