Globalisation, modernity and postmodernity Flashcards
What are modernist perspectives a part of?
they are a part of the enlightenment project - sociology can progress through human reason
Give a brief description of the four characteristics of modern society?
the nation state - bounded territory ruled by a powerful centralised state
capitalism - economy of modern societies are based on private ownership of the means of production and use of wage labourers. However, the nation state regulates capitalism and maintains conditions under which it operates. Lash and Urry call this organised capitalism
Rationality, science and technology - rational ways of thinking dominate and influence of religious explanations decline
individualism - tradition, custom and ascribed status becomes less important as the basis for our actions.
What is globalisation?
the growing interconnectedness of people across national boundaries - we live in one interdependent global village
Give a brief explanation of the 4 changes that have helped to bring globalisation about?
technological changes - satellite communications, the internet and global television networks have helped to create time space compression. Beck argues that this is causing us to live in a risk society.
Economic changes - we are developing a weightless economy. In this economy, money never sleeps. 24hr transactions permit instant transfer of funds around the world contributing to this risk society
Political changes - globalisation undermined power of the nation state. Ohmae - we now live in a borderless world in which TNCs and consumers have more economic power States are now less able to regulate activities of large capitalist enterprises. Lash and Urry - disorganised capitalism
Changes in culture and identity - today we find ourselves in a global culture in which western owned media companies spread western culture to the rest of the world.
what is postmodernity?
An unstable, fragmented media-saturated global village where image and reality and indistinguishable.
What does Foucalt say about discourse?
a set of ideas that have become established as knowledge / a way of thinking and speaking about the world. A discourse is power and knowledge.
What do postmodernists argue about knowledge?
There are no foundations to knowledge - an anti-foundationalist perspective. However this view has two consequences - the enlightenment project is dead, theories such as marxism are meta-narratives
Why are meta-narratives harmful and how do postmodernists contradict them?
they have helped to create oppressive totalitarian states that impose their version of the truth onto people.
Postmodernists take a relatavist position - all views are truth for those who hold them
Lyotard
knowledge is just a series of language games or ways of seeing the world. Postmodernists allow groups who had been marginalised by modernity to be heard.
Baudrillard
society is no longer based on the production of goods but rather on buying and selling knowledge in the form of images and signs. Signs stand for nothing but themselves - simulacra.
Hyper-reality - where the signs appear more real than reality itself and substitute themselves for reality
AO3 of postmodernism
marxists philo and Miller make several criticisms
- ignores power and inequality
- claim that we freely construct our identities through consumption overlooks effect of power
- simply wrong to claim that people cannot distinguish between image and reality
- morally indefensible position
Lyotard’s theory is self defeating - why should we believe a theory that claims that no theory has the truth
what do theorists of late modernity believe?
they recognise that something important is happening
features of modernity that have always been present as being intensified
pace of change has gone into overdrive
theories of modernist sociology are still useful
GIddens
disembedding - lifting out of social relations from local contexts of interaction. We no longer need to have face to face interactions in order to interact
tradition and custom become less important and no longer serve as a guide for how to act.
Forces us to become reflexive - monitor, reflection and modify our actions in light of new information.
rejects postmodernism view that we cannot intervene and improve things.
Beck
argues that we live in a risk society
today we face manufactured risk resulting from human activity such as globalisation and global warming
sees late modernity as a period of growing individualisation - as a result, risk consciousness becomes increasingly important to our culture
Ao3 of beck
Rustin - it is capitalism with its pursuit of profit at all costs that is the source of risk, not technologyy as such
Hirst - rejects Beck’s view that movements such as environmentalism will bring about significant change because they are too fragmented.
