What is classic?

   After attempting to delve into Habermas, I must say that I had a particularly hard time gripping the concepts of this reading. Although a relatively short and concise piece, it was difficult for me to wrap my brain around his ideas of "spheres" and how he related other ideologies to the shifting views of modernism. At least one of Habermas's points did make sense to me however, that being that something that has been produced by modernism will eventually become a classic simply because it was at one time modern (p.4).
   A common theme in our class discussions this semester has been deciding whether something produced by modernism is actually "modern". By producing and formulating an idea that is so different from the normality of societal ideology, you have in turn created something "modern" that will leave its mark on history as well as the minds of those people within the society, this making it an eventual classic simply because it will be memorable and influential. As we have come to realize though, most "modern" ideas are based on historical one. How then, does something that has roots stemming from historical ideals become a classic itself without undermining the authenticity of the original? As so many people aim for modernism and aim for that shocking, new ideological breakthrough, how long until our society is just a trend of overwhelming modernistic ideas? Are we already there?
  There is the issue of the capitalization and profit associated with the new manifestation of modernism. Modernism has branched from simply a label that is put on a societal ideology to a label that is used to describe new technologies, new trends in fashion and design, and other new agents of capitalism. That makes the works of modernism take on a whole new meaning. Rather than creating a modernistic idea to change the times or start a movement within a society, people are now using "modern" as a way to make money, which is leading to an overwhelming amount of "modern" being produced. I think that this may be where the title of this Habermas work comes from, (Modernity-An Incomplete Project), because modernity seems to have stopped achieving what it was intended to achieve. It begun to morph and play into other, more influential ideologies of our time rather than remains a separate one of its own.
   In general, it seems that the true meaning of modern has been lost amidst this fad of modernism. As  being modern seems to have become a trend itself, doesn't this undermine the overall ideology of modernism? And can anything truly become a "classic" when there is nothing new or truly memorable about it? Not only because it is the result of a major trend, but also because it is based off of something that has already existed?