This speech manages to do a bunch of contradictory things at the same time. It manages to be chatty and crazy formal. It manages to make allusions and stick to the hard facts. And it manages to make past American conflicts look super hard and traumatic and easy-peasy lemon breezy.

Basically, FDR goes to great lengths to define the present moment—i.e., modernity—in contrast to the past. Just check out his long list of battles and conflicts in the first third of the speech. He's recalling the good, old days of military glory but combining that with an ironic sentiment along the lines of "if you thought it was bad before…"

For FDR, the hazards of 1941 have changed the world. World War II looks nothing like the age of Napoleon, the reign of Maximilian I of Mexico, or the time period of World War I. He even contrasts it with the Civil War, which had the most potential for tearing apart the country:

Since the permanent formation of our government under the Constitution, in 1789, most of the periods of crisis in our history have related to our domestic affairs. Fortunately, only one of these—the four-year War Between the States—ever threatened our national unity. Today, thank God, 130 million Americans, in 48 states, have forgotten points of the compass in our national unity. (4-6)

Not even a conflict like the Civil War can measure up to the ferocity of the Axis powers—that's how serious FDR considers this emergency. A few lines later, he again compares past conflicts with the present when he says:

[...] in no case had a serious threat been raised against our national safety or our continued independence. (9)

When FDR addresses modernity directly, he links it to the momentum of warfare and the speed by which it can dominate the world before it suddenly appears at the doorstep of America:

I have recently pointed out how quickly the tempo of modern warfare could bring into our very midst the physical attack which we must eventually expect if the dictator nations win this war. (37)

If the "Four Freedoms" speech were our only record of how people perceived the modern world in 1941, we'd get the impression that it was an incredibly grim and hopeless time. Sadly, it was—but at least we got Spam out of it. Maybe modernity is not that bad after all?