Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Postmodernism & Postmodernity
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Postmodernism - A challenge to the assumptions of modern thought – the ‘death of reason’ (Power,1990)
• Postmodernity – Social changes that herald the decline of the society constructed through modern ways of thinking
• Start with modernity -
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Background:
• Renaissance 14th – 16th century
• The Reformation 1517
• Deism
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Immanuel Kant:
‘Sapere aude: have courage to use your own understanding.’
Also: Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot etc. – radical doubt, questioning and emancipatory knowledge
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• The Enlightenment 17th – 18th century
• Individualism & Individual Freedom
• Reason/Rationality
• Order
• Progress
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Romanticism: Late 18th - 19th century (anti enlightenment’s ‘cold’ rationality)
• Individualism
• Experience
• Emotions
• Nature
• The Past (Nations)
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Modern Society (Modernity):
• Individualism (unified and autonomous sense of self)
• Order & Control
• Science
• De-traditionalization & Secularization
• Complex Division of Labour
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Industrialism• Bureaucracy• Professionalism & Expertise• Fordism/Production/Career (‘Job for Life’)• Economic Management• Urbanisation• Optimism/Confidence
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Two main strands to modern thought and its application – mechanization of social order + emancipation of the lifeworld (Cooper & Burrell, 1988)
• Systemic Modernism: • Instrumental rationality applied to control complex
organisations and tasks (see Weber, Fordism, Ritzer etc.)
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Critical Modernism:
• Critical reason applied to advancing understanding for the improvement of society
• Rational Science and Social Science
• Social Constructionism
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Jurgen Habermas:
• Enlightenment project incomplete• Instrumental rationality (systemic)
constraining rationality’s emancipatory (critical) potential– see ‘colonisation of the lifeworld’
• Need for revival of critical rationality through ideal speech community
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Anthony Giddens:
• Late Modernity (superficiality, scepticism and consumerism extensions of modernity – not new era)
• Reflexive Modernity – modernity as ‘post-traditional’
• Global Modernity, ‘Disembedding’ & Risk
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Evaluating Modernism & Modernity:• Privileging of rational over the irrational (emotional)• Precise language, categorisation and meaning• Liberation from superstition and tradition• Facilitates order/predictability• Focus on understanding/discovery• Technological/scientific (including medical)
advancement, production, economic expansion and improved living standards. BUT
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Devalues/constrains emotional experience• Constrains individual autonomy and spontaneity
through ‘disciplinary society’ – rational control and surveillance
• Marginalizes minority/non-Western forms of knowledge
• Moral inadequacy- role of rationality in colonialism, imperialism, social inequality, world wars and genocide (holocaust)
• Produces environmental degradation/increased risk (scientific failure and technological dystopia)
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Lecture 2
• Postmodernism: ‘This term means nothing: use it on all possible occasions’ (anon).
• Criticises assumptions of modern thought and modern rationality – heralds the decline of the modern project and modern society and the emergence of a new form of society - postmodernity.
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Postmodernists Reject:
• a) Enlightenment project of achieving progress through reason
• b) The belief in single all encompassing truths – meta-narratives
• c) The privileged status of reason/mind over emotion, sentiment, intuition, mysticism and body. (Romanticism?)
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• d) Pre-given boundaries between things, ideas and experiences
• e) Categorization of experience
• f) Objective knowledge
• f) The intellectual marginalization of particular sets of ideas, ways of life etc.
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Michel Foucault (Post-Structuralist)
• Power/Knowledge (influence of Nietzsche)• Language & Discourse (influence of Saussure)• Impossibility of Objective Knowledge/Truth• History as directionless – not progressive• Professionalism & Expertise• Surveillance, Control & Bio-Power
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Jacques Derrida (Post-Structuralist)
• Instability of Meaning – privileging of difference, inversion and ambiguity over authoritative (modern) classification/categorization
• Deconstruction – all texts (ideas, actions) open to as many interpretations as there are interpreters – no definitive reading
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Jean-François Lyotard
• End of Grand Narratives (decline in belief in progress)
• Legitimacy – (scientific, and others forms, achieved through presentation rather than substance)
• De-realization
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Jean Baudrillard
• Simulation – consumerism and the mass media engage in a proliferation of signs that are increasingly detached from any underlying reality
• Hyperreality
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Zigmunt Baumann• The Holocaust - consequences of rational social
engineering, instrumental calculation and bureaucratic organization
• ‘Liquid Modernity’ - Late (post) modernity – solid features of modern self and society ‘dissolve’ amid flux an flow of complex consumer society – selfhood is chosen from the ‘supermarket of identities’
• ‘Legislators and Interpreters’
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Postmodern Society (Postmodernity)
• Individualism (multiple/’performative’ self)
• Superficiality/Pastiche/Play
• Disorder & Flux
• Anti-Science
• No privileged standpoint – all traditions, beliefs equally valid
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Postmodern Society (Postmodernity)
• Fragmentation• De-industrialisation• Disorganisation• Relativism• Post-Fordism/Consumerism/Flexibility• Pessimism/anxiety, stress and doubt
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Evaluating Postmodern & Postmodernity:• Provides critical evaluation of modernity and modern
thought• Draws attention to the dehumanising and irrational
features of modern rational organisation (not exclusive in this – see Marx, Weber, Simmel, Ritzer etc.)
• Challenges the ethno-centric assumptions of Western rationalism
• Draws attention to the increasingly artificial, superficial and ‘mythical’ nature of contemporary culture and lived environment. BUT
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• Relativism/Radical Constructionism – If there is no privileged standpoint, and no possibility of objective knowledge, then why postmodern theory?
• Also – if all perspectives/versions of reality are equally valid then medical doctor = witch doctor?
• Tendency towards solipsism – view that nothing is verifiable beyond one’s own experience – potential for triviality, fatalism and even nihilism.
• No recipe/hope for social advancement/improvement criteria for judgement of ideas, values, morality
• Anomie and meaninglessness • Just Babel? – Pretentious Irrational Nonsense (Chomsky,
Sokal etc.)
Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
• End of Meta-narratives?
• What about -
• Globalization• Neo-liberalism• Liberal Democracy• Religion (Secularization or Desecularization?)