Late Modernity and Post Modernity Flashcards
Pre-Modernity
Pre 1700s.
Rural way of life - Close knit communities.
Non-industrial society.
Collective interests - focus on the community.
Ascribed status - born into your status.
Strong faith in religion.
Lack of technology.
Enlightenment Period
Rationality and humanism begins to take the place of religion.
Industrialisation takes its first tentative steps.
Modernity
1800s + Modern Society
Industrial revolution.
Production chains begin.
Mechanisation begins.
Status begins to shift from ascribed to earned.
Move from rural to urban areas for a lot of the population.
Capitalism becomes one of the dominant forces of society.
Nationalism - Move from community to feeling part of a nation.
Capitalism - Increased private ownership, large factories, huge increases in wealth.
Science and Technology - More dominant than religious explanations - industry, medicine, communications.
Individualism - less interest in tradition/custom, personal freedom, personal identity.
Globalisation
The world is linked by transport and communications.
Goods move across the world in a matter of days, and people can cross the globe in a day by air.
Cultures mix.
Post Globalisation
A part of late/post modernity, not a distinct time-period in Sociology.
Technological changes - Internet/global tv/social media - closing distances between people.
Economic changes - weightless or electric economy, trans-national companies.
Global identity - rather than nationalism.
Late Modernity
A continuation of Modernity - an intensified version. Rapid social change means we have entered a “later” phase.
Rapid changes - a continuation of Modernity.
Everything now intensified/sped up.
e.g. social change now in overdrive.
Still in Modernity - but a “late” phase.
Late-modern sociologists therefore still find “modernist” theories useful e.g. Marxism/Functionalism.
Still buy into Enlightenment ideas - still believe we can discover objective knowledge and improve society.
Late modern society - high levels of social change on a global level.
Disembedding
Feature of Late Modernity.
We no longer need face-to-face contact.
Disembedding breaks down geographical barriers.
Interaction more impersonal.
Reflexivity
Feature of Late Modernity.
Constantly monitor, reflect on and modify actions in light of risks and opportunities.
Why? Because tradition/customs less important - less clarity on how to act now.
Culture becomes unstable and subject to change.
Beck
Todays society faces new dangers and risks -
Past - natural risks - drought, famine, disease.
Today - manufactured risks - global warming, nuclear war, economic crashes.
Calls our society “risk society”.
Like Giddens - late modernity = growing individualisation.
Reflexivity - reflect on possible consequences of actions.
Reflexive modernisation - Constantly taking account of risk attached to action.
This leads to “risk consciousness” in our culture - heightened awareness and minimisation e.g. food, smoking drinking.
These “risks” are exaggerated/distorted by the media.
(Late Modernist)
Rustin
It is Capitalism that is the source of risk, not technology.
(Late Modernist)
Post-Modernity
Not a continuation of Modernity - a fundamental break with it.
New society needs new theories.
Major intellectual movement since 1970s.
We are now living in a world which is:
Unstable, Media-Saturated, and where Image and Reality are indistinguishable.
Postmodernism and Knowledge
No such thing as objective truth.
Rejects ideas of “Enlightenment” which trust in Science.
Rejects “meta-narratives” or “big stories” e.g. Marxism.
Example - Marxist imposed “truth” has led to political oppression e.g. USSR.
Postmodernists are “relativist” - all views are true for those who hold them (all equally valid).
We should celebrate diversity of views rather than imposing one truth.
Lyotard
Knowledge is not about the truth - just a series of “language games”.
Postmodern society is preferable to modern society.
Meta-narratives claimed a “monopoly of the truth” and could impose this with force in modernity.
Postmodernity allows marginalised groups to be heard e.g. women/disadvantaged.
(Postmodernist)
Language Games
Statements are moves.
People are trying to get others to accept their claims as valid and reject alternatives.
Whoever wins the game gets legitimacy.
(Lyotard)
Baudrillard
Writing in 1980s.
Today’s society no longer based on production of “material” goods - now about buying/selling knowledge in forms of images/signs.
Simulacra - a representation of reality (a sign).
World of “hyper-reality” - signs appear more real than reality itself!.
These symbols are “meaningless”.
Particularly critical of television - blur between image and reality.
Identity has become destabilised.
We now construct our own identity.
Wide range of identities/images available in the media.
Easy to change our identity - depending on what we choose to consume (shopping for identity).
Baudrillard was pessimistic about Postmodernism.
If we can no longer understand reality/can tell what is real - how can we improve it?! :(
(Postmodernist)
Philo and Miller
Marxist Critique of Postmodernism:
Ignores:
Power and inequality
How the ruling class use the media as a tool of domination
How identity is fixed by poverty.
Postmodernism is self-defeating:
Postmodernism is claiming to be telling us something true whilst simultaneously telling us that there is no such thing as truth.
Late-Modernist critique of Postmodernism
They would argue that we are not in a new postmodern era - but a later continuation of modernity.
