4. Modernities and Postmodernity (unit4) Flashcards
What is the difference between modernity and postmodernity ?
Modernity is believed to have started around 1700 when societies began industrialising.
-Life is fairly orderly and predictable.
-Work and social class are important
-Societies are based on independent nation-states, national economies and national identities
-One-way mass media
-An optimistic view that the application of rational thought, science and technology could provide a means of controlling and improving the natural world
Postmodernists argue that the transition began in the 1980s – when some argued that the modern (or as we have been calling them,
traditional) theories were no longer applicable to society. Their ideas
included…
-Rise of the new media
-Rapid technological change
-Globalisation and consumer culture meant traditional sources of CAGE were becoming irrelevant to people’s lives.
-Structures like family, work, power of the nation-state were disintegrating.
-personal interests
-Social change meant people’s lives were becoming more insecure and unpredictable.
-decline in the faith of science, which has come to be seen as the causes of problems rather than the solutions.
Bauman- Late modernity:
social structures like the nation-state, the family and social class are breaking down. society is chaotic + constantly changing.
AO2: Families in the 1950s were a heterosexual married couple
with kids (the nuclear family)
Now there are :
Gay couples, lesbian couples, cohabiting couples, multiple partners, high rates of divorce and remarriage, lone parents, step families, dual income families, people living alone, people living in shared households with friend.
Lyotard Critique of meta narratives:
Metanarratives are ‘big’ theories, which try to explain all of
society as a whole e.g Marxism, functionalism.
Postmodernists argue that they’re too general – they can’t be
applied to today’s society due to its chaotic nature.
There are too many groups and society is more fragmented .
Globalisation and its effects on society:
Globalisation means that the nation-state and national differences are becoming less significant in people’s lives. The world is becoming more inter-connected.
People’s lives are no longer rooted (embedded) in and confined to local contexts – we now live + influenced globally.
examples: TV, EU, McDonalds, Tourism, Immigration, Music.
People now act/change/live through global means = rather than looking up to mother/father, now look up to celebrities from around the world. Links to ‘pick n mix’
Baudrillard ‘Pick n mix’ :
sees life in PM involving the search for satisfaction of media-created
desires + pressure to consume.
Individual identity no longer formed by factors such as CAGE.
They pick ‘n’ mix = identity now formed from the above + sport, fashion, music, dress, leisure.
AO2: Giddens pure relationships
Family diversity.
Bauman You are what you buy:
People buy goods not for their usefulness, but as identity symbols for their image .
In this PM pick ‘n’ mix consumer society, people can be whatever they want to be – adopting lifestyles and identities from around the world.
Baudrillard: We live in a media saturated society
Mass media used to just reflect basic society. It now dominates and distorts the way we see the world. The media has more impact on our lives than CAGE.
‘simulacra’ = images which appear to reflect events in the real world but have no basis in reality.
Evaluation of the Postmodernist theory:
-Over-emphasises the role of the media – people don’t do everything the media says, and aren’t as passive as suggested.
-nuclear families are still common, and people’s class, gender and nationality can still be a major influence.
-It is too voluntarist – it ignores the role of powers in society and social inequalities.
Giddens- late modernity and reflexivity:
We should therefore adapt, not abandon, traditional sociological theories (like functionalism + Marxism) as many of their ideas still make sense in today’s world!
-social reflexivity (knowledge we gain from society can affect the way we act in it)
-Individuals and social institutions face greater uncertainty in a world where established customs and values have weakened.
Reflexivity allows this to occur = it gives people AND institutions a greater capacity to act and plan rationally to change and improve the world.
People have to reflect on their actions and improve it. Peoples choices are more important than other and people should reflect on their own actions.
Beck – risk society and reflexive modernity
These risks occur in our everyday lives/institutions e.g.
the family (rising divorce rates/diversity of personal
relationships)
Also shown in failings of science and technology progress
– pollution, climate change etc
-Different to the past where stuff was out of our control –
now man-made. But if we can create the problems, we
can fix it e.g. through science, which is a feature of
modernity (Postmodernists don’t think we can fix)
we now need to work together to resolve problems + therefore change society.
Harvey and Marxism:
Harvey (1990) suggests many of the changes to a PM society can be
explained by modernist theories like Marxism.
E.g. globalisation, rapid culture change, individualization of identity reflect capitalism opening up to new markets.
Therefore, postmodernism isn’t a thing and instead, traditional/modern theories can be used to explain society.
