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| Modern |
 Title text: Scholars are still debating whether the current period is post-postmodern or neo-contemporary. |
Explanation
This strip references a perennial naming problem where academic jargon and everyday language meet. Shortly after the industrial revolution (or perhaps the Renaissance) contemporaneous things were significantly different and labeled "modern" (whether it's labor relations, art, economic organization, literature, architecture, etc) by historians. The "modern" political movements emphasize optimizing society in different ways and evolved into Communism, and its counter Fascism. The further development of culture to reject the idea you can optimize society, or that trying to do so is a bad idea, became known as post-modernism.
However, in standard English, modern retains its meaning of "contemporaneous" or "current era," so one can end up discussing a 'modern' era of stuff that comes after the rise of a Post-Modern (from an academic context) era of stuff, which doesn't really sound sensical. Thus one can have a movie called "Modern Times", from 90 years ago, which describes a world which is very different from today's modern times
The problem has arisen because once an era is named it is difficult or impractical to rename it later. The term "Modern" first began being used to describe an era in the early 20th century, especially to refer to art, and then in relation to that "Early Modern" was retrospectively applied to the period before it that were related to it. Once things had moved beyond that then "post-modernity" was a natural way of modifying the name. "Mid-century Modern", was again, a retrospective modification not used at the time. However, things have now moved so far beyond even post modernity, that further words are needed. This is itself a relatively 'modern' problem that possibly arose from the Victorian scholarly desire to allocate names to periods (Classical, Romantic, Renaissance etc.) based upon the perceived societal trends of the individuals, and often across greater periods of time, rather than any single monarch or period of succession. Prior to that historians would have discussed a time period based on the ruler at the time, and for a given region of influence, as those in charge were believed to be the most important factor, not the masses. Hence 'Ming dynasty' (China, 1368-1644), 'Tudor period' (England and Wales, 1485 and 1603), 'The Commonwealth' (Republican British Isles, 1649-1660), 'Napoleonic' (France and beyond, ~1804-1815), 'Victorian' (British Empire and related lands, 1837-1901) and 'Soviet Era' (USSR, 1922-1991). Though, depending upon the context/comparison being made, all these potentially overlapping terms and more ('19th Century', 'The Interbellum', 'The Depression', 'The Swinging Sixties') may still be considered apt.
Transcript
- [At the bottom of the panel a timeline is shown. It consist of two lines, one a bit above the other, and they are both open in both ends with two dots continuing both before and after the solid lines. There are ticks along the bottom of the two lines, and every tenth tick is longer and connects with the top line. There are four of these which are all labeled with a year written under the bottom line. The first tick is one of those connecting to the upper line, but after the last of those there are four more small ticks.]
- 1850 1900 1950 2000
- [Above the timeline there are five brackets indicating segments on the time line, each of them covering a segment from the previous to the next, and the first and last are open with a few dots indicating hey continue before or after the time line. Each of them has a sharp pivot in the middle of the bracket pointing up to a label for that period of time. In the fourth case the pivot is very high to make room for the text, as it would else conflict with the previous text. The entire timeline is thus divided into these five segments. The length of each bracket varies a lot, with the middle of the five by far the shortest. But the two at the ends are open and the entire length of these cannot be determined. The labels and the time period their brackets cover:]
- [Before 1850 until 1880:]
- Early Modern
- [1880 until 1945:]
- Modernist
- [1945 until 1965:]
- Mid-century modern
- [1965 until 2000:]
- Postmodern
- [2000 until past 2020:]
- Modern
- [Caption below the panel:]
- The use of the word "modern" to refer to a bunch of specific historical periods is a fun prank by historians.
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