The idea that most prominently constitutes intellectual “modernity” is the straying from the idea that truth is both objective and local. European and other “Western” countries became ideologically “modern” when these countries strayed from the belief that truth is absolute rather than relative, for example, and that the pre-Enlightenment European model of God is indeed the only true model of God. Today, most Europeans and other “Westerners” do not believe in absolute truth (that is, truth being objective) and the pre-Enlightenment European model of God (that is, truth being local). This personal definition of “modernity” necessitates the existence of a “traditional” or “pre-modern” view because it assumes that before a society believes in subjective, global truth, it believes in the opposite – objective, local truth. Although this definition does create an “other” category, I do not think this is problematic because this category neither uplifts nor downgrades the “traditional” society – it is merely a different mode of thinking, not a less intellectual one.

In “The Grocer and the Chief,” the grocer represents Balgat’s beginning transition into modernity, and the chief represents the traditional view. For the chief, all that needs to be known is inside his village. Any outside view (as projected through the one radio on page 50) must be filtered through the objective and honorable local view of Balgat, which constitutes the chief’s sermon-like commentary after each radio listening session. The grocer’s eagerness to leave Turkey (page 50) says that he believes that truth is not to be found within Balgat, but rather in the outside world at large.

Modernity in common parlance is associated with particular technologies, such as the internet or smartphones. However, rather than thinking of modernity as being a state brought by the invention of particular devices, I find it more analytically useful to consider modernity as modes of thought and as systems of discursive practice.

Whereas in a non-modern culture, ways of life and motivations for action are linked to and legitimized by connection to tradition, these practices and ways of thinking are instead governed by rationality and reason in modernity. Modernity is thus characterized as being the displacement of customs in favor of logical calculation.

The eponymous grocer in Lerner’s piece thus embodies modernity, rejecting traditional and scoffing the face of traditional hierarchies of power in the village. The grocer’s mindset and ways of engaging with tradition elucidate the notion that modernity is much more a state of mind than piece of technology.

Modernity is often conflated with a certain quality of life or amenities such as electricity and running water. When Lerner mentioned the power lines and new radios he found in Balgat, he clearly meant for them to indicate that modernity was reaching the town. The “modern era”, however, has been ongoing for much longer than we have had radios and electricity. What then characterizes modernity? For me, the change is a developed concept of the individual and a cultivation of the self outside of its cultural role. Lerner builds on this idea of modernity and ties this development of the individual to a movement away from nature and the bestial. The Grocer, who Lerner identifies as a modern man before his time, emphasizes this conception of the self. While the chief relies on maxims handed down from his forebears, the Grocer has his own interests, his own opinions, his own desires. For Lerner, this is the mindset that spurs innovation and that eventually brings the quality of life he associates with modernity. The shepherd, who is the grocer’s antithesis, cannot see beyond his traditions, he is as much a part of the cycle of nature as the sheep in his flock or the mud on his boots. Lerner is so eager to discover what has become of the Grocer because he sees the whole world as being open to him; the Grocer has broken out of nature’s grasp and has the power to shape his own destiny.

In my understanding, the use of the term ‘modernity’ necessarily suggests an other, as it emerged as label to mark what was viewed as a distinct break from the past in the late 1800s, characterized in part by increasing industrialization and urbanization and the worldview that this sparked, one of greater individualism and a heightened sense of humanity’s ability to control their environment. The term differentiated this qualitatively new kind of existence from the ‘traditional’ way of life and conception of the world that had been commonplace till that point. My first read of what we’re pursuing, then, is that the idea of modernity can suggest a unidirectional path towards ‘progress,’ as it implies that the one fairly specific conception of the world is the only one that is truly modern, or more fully developed.

These differing mentalities are exemplified in descriptions of the Grocer and of the Chief. When Tosun asks the Chief what topics villagers ask his advice on, he replies that they speak with him “about all that I or you could imagine,” and describes this as being anything from handling their wife to curing their sick cow. Lerner describes these two examples as illustrating the traditional, saying they are “the species that the villager has most to do with in his daily round of life.” The Grocer’s field of knowledge, by contrast, reaches beyond this non-modern village life, and his desires for life outside the village are seen as breaks with the “old code.” Lerner implies that the Grocer had been farther along a path towards modernity that the Chief and the village later followed by wondering if the Chief had learned anything from the Grocer, and saying that the Grocer was a man whose “psychic antennae were endlessly seeking the new future here and now,” whereas the Chief merely adapted to it as it came.