Epochalism is an attitude of respect for the progressive spirit of the age and for social and technological advancement, which was contrasted by Clifford Geertz with what he termed the (essentialist) valorisation of traditional values.
[1] More broadly, the term used has been used to describe the post-Fordist, postmodern belief that the current era or epoch represents a fundamental clean break with the past; is something unique in human history; and due to this radical change, previous rules will no longer apply.
[2][3] Epochalism in the developing world can be seen purely as a progressive force, favouring movement toward secularisation and industrial advance, as opposed to a regressive return to the traditional values of community and Gemeinschaft.
[5] The rapid rise of the World Wide Web led many digerati to see it as an unprecedented human phenomenon, wholly divorced from all past experience.
[9] Late modernity however, with its shortening of awareness of time-spans and its focus on the present,[10] makes the short-sightedness of epochalism - with what Morozov saw as its dark fetishism of Internet-based solutions[11] - an increasingly plausible intellectual posture.