Sociology: Postmodernism and Modernism - Essay Example

Running Head: SOCIOLOGY Sociology of the of the Sociology Introduction Postmodernism is highly debated even in the midst of postmodernists themselves. For an early characterization of its basic premises, consider anthropological critic Melford Spiro's excellent outline of the basic tenets of postmodernism: "The postmodernist assessment of science consists of two interrelated opinion, epistemological and ideological. Both are based on partisanship. First, because of the subjectivity of the human object, anthropology, according to the epistemological dispute cannot be a science; and in any event the subjectivity of the human subject precludes the possibility of science discovering objective truth. Second, since impartiality is an illusion, science according to the ideological argument, subverts oppressed groups, females, ethnics, third-world peoples. Modernity came into being with the Resurgence. Modernity implies the progressive economic and managerial rationalization and differentiation of the social world. In essence this term emerged in the background of the development of the capitalist state. Anthropologists have been functioning towards studying modern times, but have now gone past that. The fundamental act of modernity is to query the foundations of past knowledge. Post-modernity: Logically postmodernism factually means after modernity. It refers to the incipient or actual closure of those social forms associated with modernity. Modernization: This term is frequently used to refer to the stages of social growth which are based upon industrialization. Modernization is a diverse unity of socio-economic changes generated by scientific and hi-tech discoveries and innovations. Modernism: Modernism is a test in finding the inner truths of a condition. It can be characterized by self-consciousness and reflexiveness. This is very intimately related to Postmodernism. Postmodernism There is intelligence in which if one sees modernism as the culture of modernity, postmodernism is the ethnicity of post modernity. "Modern, overloaded individuals, greatly trying to maintain rootedness and integrity...in the end are pushed to the point where there is little reason not to believe that all value-orientations are equally well-founded. Therefore, more and more, choice becomes meaningless. We must now come to terms with the second revolution, that of the Twentieth Century, of postmodernity, which is the enormous process of the destruction of meaning equal to the earlier destruction of appearances. Whoever lives by meaning dies by meaning (Browning 10 2000) Some theorists define post-modernism as an eclectic movement, originating in aesthetics, architecture and philosophy. Postmodernism espouses a methodical skepticism of grounded theoretical perspectives. Applied to anthropology, this skepticism has shifted focal point from the observation of a particular society to the surveillance of the (anthropological) observer. Postmodernity concentrates on the tensions of dissimilarity and resemblance which erupts from processes of globalization: the accelerating flow of people, the increasingly dense and common cross-cultural interactions, and the unavoidable intersections of limited and global knowledge. Postmodernists are doubtful of authoritative definitions and singular narratives of any route of events. Post-modern attacks on ethnography are based on the conviction that there is no true objectivity. The genuine implementation of the scientific method is impossible. . Sceptical Postmodernists: They are tremendously critical of the modern subject. They think the subject to be a "linguistic convention". They also reject any consideration of time because for them the modern understanding of time is oppressive in that it controls and measures individuals. They reject Theory because theories are plentiful, and no theory is considered more correct that any other. They feel that theory conceals, distorts, and obfuscates, it is alienated, disparated, and dissonant, it means to exclude, order, and control competitive powers. Affirmative Postmodernists- Affirmatives also refuse Theory by denying claims of reality. They do not, however, feel that Theory needs to be abolished but only transformed. Affirmatives are less inflexible than Skeptics. They support movements geared up around peace, environment, and feminism. Theorists View Point Giddens sees modernity's main characteristic as being incessant social change through technological innovation, and the constant dismantling and re-building of social institutions. Modernity is also a global phenomenon. Modernity is a global system of markets, global culture, global communications, and global politics in the form of relations between sovereign nation states. These features are seen as historically unique, as specific to the era of modernity. This modernity is compared to a bus without a driver, where everyone is a passenger, but unable to get off. Modernity is thus open-ended, unpredictable and uncontrollable. One of the main consequences of this kind of system is detraditionalisation. Modern societies are post-traditional societies according to Giddens. There are no uniformly accepted core values and norms that might provide clear guidelines for individual decisions, actions and patterns of conduct. There are no absolute moral guidelines passed on from previous generations. Modernity constantly challenges and transforms traditional values, norms and forms of conduct. Alongside this detraditionalisation goes a pluralisation of life-worlds. People now live and act in many different social settings. Life-worlds and social settings he thinks of as "sites" of "face-to-face" interaction (Best 25 2003). These particular settings and contexts for interaction are segmentalised and separated from each other. Furthermore, these particular segmentalised settings for action, these separate life-worlds are associated with particular kinds of life-style. A consequence of this is that knowledge and belief are both contingent and contextual. Since there are numerous segmentalised settings for producing new, different forms of belief and culture, there are no longer any universally accepted absolute truths, so that the apparent "hero" of modernity -- science -- is constantly challenged by alternative forms of knowledge, by other "heroines." For instance, various alternative therapies may challenge established medical science. Ecological discourses challenge the assurance of applications of science and its associated forms of industrialism. This contingency and contextualisation of knowledge and belief also extends to cultural, political and moral questions. However, Giddens' suggests that late modernity does not just involve a segmentalisation of life-worlds, but, in a contradictory process, our everyday experiences are increasingly mediated, rather than based on face to face interaction. We experience many other cultures, events, ideas through the global mass media. These highly mediated, pluralistic experiences and interactions construct new identities, and new bases for social differences. Finally modernity is profoundly disembedding. Prior to modernity, beliefs and social relations were embedded in particular places, particular times, they were rooted in local cultures. Disembedding refers to how social relations and culture are spread to different times and different places. The specific mechanisms through which this happens are money and markets on the one hand, and the global dissemination of knowledge on the other. A central feature of modernity is reflexivity, and in contemporary societies, reflexivity has become an even more chronic feature, meriting the term late modernity, which Giddens prefers to notions of post-modernity. The reflexivity of modem life consists in the fact that social practices are constantly examined and reformed in the light of incoming information about those very practices, thus constitutively altering their character ... only in the era of modernity is the revision of convention radicalised to apply (in principle) to all aspects of human life, including technological intervention into the material world. However, Giddens' analysis utilises two distinct notions of reflexivity. Institutional reflexivity and self-reflexivity. The former examines the ways in which knowledge about social life is used in ways that organize or transform social life. It appears that this notion of reflexivity is grounded in or is a development of certain aspects of Giddens' earlier notion of the "double hermeneutic -- where social scientific knowledge about society may "re-enter society," leading to changes in people's actions. Institutional reflexivity is a key feature of modern organizations, and instances include modern government, and private corporations. In some respects I feel that it is a development of certain Weberian themes on bureaucracy. Whereas Weber might be seen as examining the "internal world" of the modern bureaucracy, Giddens' analysis of institutional reflexivity focuses on the relationship between the bureaucracy and the "external world." Self-reflexivity is what has pre-occupied Giddens' work the most in this area. Again it has roots in his more abstract social ontology, especially those parts where he discusses agency as the "reflexive monitoring of action". (Andersen 100 2000) The crucial theoretical development here is to see the agent -- the self -- as the object of reflexivity, rather than the action produced by the agent. Consequently his analysis shifts to examine how people reflexively produce narratives of the self. Here I think that Giddens' theoretical developments are both more significant and more problematic for the coherence of his overall theoretical project. Self-reflexivity is a feature of modernity where the self becomes a reflexive project. In traditional societies reflexivity is limited to interpreting and applying traditional values -- an instance of the reflexive monitoring of action -- but in modern societies the producer of action, the agent or the self, becomes the object of reflexivity. My claim here is that Giddens' analysis suggests that the relationship between agency and structure has changed in the conditions of modernity, and that Giddens himself does not seem to fully appreciate the theoretical consequences of this for his more abstract social ontology of structuration. Some social theorists claim that in the late twentieth century we are entering a qualitatively different era or social epoch which can be described as post modernity'. Others, writing from more established Marxist cultural studies and feminist traditions, dispute the term post modernity' and dismiss postmodernists as nihilistic intellectuals who have misrepresented art as life. Such critics argue that the term high modernity or late capitalism more closely expresses the condition of these New Times'. However, most intellectual domains or discourse formations recognise the presence of the post-modern' in acknowledgement of the radical nature of contemporary changes taking place in all spheres of life. (Calhoum 45 2002) Whether one examines the economic, social, political or cultural spheres, significant shifts in experiences, lifestyles and social circumstances have been encountered in recent decades. Although the term post modernity' derives largely from cultural experiences, in particular from architecture and consumer culture, it has been adopted as an inclusive term to incorporate a range of major economic and social changes. (Andersen 110 2000) Ever since the first stirrings of modernity - in the 17th and 18th centuries - intellectuals have been tempted to identify themselves with social and political programmes which would usher in a completely new social order. Instead of grasping their flights of fancy and their critical insights as the products of a utopian imagination they have been seduced into seeing themselves as the architects of concrete, realisable utopias (a contradiction in terms). Bauman sees the chief weakness of the modernist impulse as being its refusal to live with the problems, the messiness of history. The dream of purifying history (what Marx called the leap from history into the realm of freedom) has lead to appalling programmes of social engineering: under fascism in the name of purity of race and under communism in the name of purity of class. (Calhoum For Bauman the post-modern is a state of mind, a self-reflexive consciousness of intellectuals, as they articulate new discourses and embrace new functions in the body politic. Whilst these changes are often contradictory and strong, continuities with the past remain. There are, it is argued, features of a post-modern' society which are significantly different from a previously modern' era. The modern' and the post-modern' are best understood as a couplet. Bauman's position is clear. There is a need for sociology of post modernity but not a post-modern sociology. References Browning, G., Halcli, A., Webster, F., (2000). Understanding Contemporary Society: Theories Of The Present. London: SAGE Publications Ltd. Pp 1-12 Bilton, T., Bonnett, K., Jones, P., Lawson, T., Skinner, D., Stanworth, M., Webster, A., (2002). Introductory Sociology. 4th ed. Bath, UK: Palgrave Macmillan. Best, S., (2003). A beginner's guide to social theory. London: Sage. Pp 23-34 Jones, P., (2003). Introducing social theory. Cambridge: Polity. Pp 45-56 Andersen, H. & Kaspersen, L.B., (eds) (2000). Classical and modern social theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Pp 100-123 Elliot, A. (ed) (1999). The Blackwell reader in contemporary social theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Seidman, S., (1998). Contested knowledge: social theory in the postmodern era. Oxford: Blackwell. Cheal, D., (2005). Dimensions of sociological theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Calhoum, C. et al (eds) (2002). Classical sociological theory. Oxford: Blackwell. Pp 34-45 Read More