Modernity

Currently reading The Post American World by Fareed Zakaria. An interesting and quick read. I am, however, struck by the use of the term modernity. It is used as a description of the current level of development and to have some import as distinct from past world views. As if each preceeding age didn't see itself as modern and the culmination of what went before it. To future generations, the description in a few decades/centuries may seem to make us into self absorbed adolescents rather than adults.