“If you could transport someone from the year 1916 to the present, we ask a little proudly, wouldn’t that person be stupefied by the changes? And, of course, he would be, at least for a few days, until he figured out how everything worked. But one thing would be very familiar to such a time traveller: the pride, and the anxiety, we feel about being so modern.” In The New Yorker, Adam Kirsch asks: Are We Really So Modern?