Well, firstly, I must say that I have since given a reconsideration to my use of this term in the April 1 draft, and a lot of those uses could be (and have been) changed to "contemporary" or "recent," etc. This was my error.
Secondly, I often use "modern" to denote the historical era of Enlightenment thought, certainly, which I believe is the correct usage these days.
However, I also use it to denote a mode of seeing the world today - in this way, I use it more of a description of thought/behaviour/ideology than of era, etc. I do this because I do fundamentally believe we are still modern in our basic goals, particularly in relation to our liberalism or individualism. Because of these things, I think my use of modern to describe today's general ideology is fair.
In this way, "modernity" entails the social principles of disenchantment/surface-secularization, the primacy of individualism, and the accepted foundation of capitalist progress. It also connotes a time in which "science" has been given an importance over "tradition." All of these things, I believe, stemmed from the Enlightenment and are still in hegemonic power - thus, I follow that the time since is still justifiably considered "modern" according to my usage.
I am supported in this by the fact that those who discuss post-modern often do so because they are critiquing the status quo, or are "cutting edge" in some way - if that is the case, the mainstream that they critique must be, ipso facto, modern, in my estimation.
However, yes, I agree that I misused this word in the submission draft, and have since rectified this.
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