Modernity, a topic in the humanities and social sciences, is both a historical period (the modern era) and the ensemble of particular socio-cultural norms, attitudes and practices that arose in the wake of the Renaissance—in the Age of Reason of 17th-century thought and the 18th-century Enlightenment.
The four key characteristics of modernity are the rise of science and rational thought, individualism, industrialisation, and urbanisation.
However, there are other characteristics such as the increased role of the state as well.
modernity, the self-definition of a generation about its own technological innovation, governance, and socioeconomics.
To participate in modernity was to conceive of one's society as engaging in organizational and knowledge advances that make one's immediate predecessors appear antiquated or, at least, surpassed.