The Influence of Modernist Literature

Since the 1950s, science and technology have been developing rapidly, and mankind has entered the fourth technological revolution centered on the electronic computer, i.e. the era of electronic technology. The unprecedented expansion of science and technology has profoundly influenced and even regulated human behavior and values. The achievements of science have caused everything to lose its sacredness, mystery and historicity. Knowledge and education, science and information became the center of post-industrial society. On the other hand, after the 1950s, with the crisis of world wars, the succession of local wars, the shadow of thermonuclear wars, and the continuation of the Cold War and trade wars between the East and the West, Westerners shifted from the pessimism of fear and despair to the radicalism of drug addiction, fighting, sexual liberation, and rock and roll, in an attempt to free themselves from their madness and catharsis. People abandoned paranoid beliefs and absolute social goals, unwilling to take on the burden of politicians and philosophers, and developed a pluralistic code of life. The mutation of values, the perversion of freedom, the popularity of various liberation movements, the global division and factionalism, the rampant terrorism, the prevalence of nihilism and anarchy have formed a picture of the world without authority, without a center, and in a state of disintegration. The arbitrariness and diversity of social psychology have become the main features of modern society, greatly affecting modern literature.