modernity, late modernity, postmodernity, globalisation Flashcards
modernity sociologists
Marx, Durkheim, Weber
modernity key concepts
The scientific discoveries of Galileo, Newton and others of the 16C and 17C inspired a philosophical and movement called the Enlightenment
Two key features of the enlightenment project
a belief in the ability of human reason to provide an understanding of the word
faith in the ability of human beings to use this understanding to improve the world
3 key features of modernity
1 - economic - the dominance of industrial capitalism
2 - political - consolidation of the nation-state and liberal democracy
3 - cultural - stress on reason rather than traditional
modernity explained
the radical and rapid social changes led thinkers to try to understand how things happened
influenced by modernity - the first sociologists tried to apply reason and science to study society
however unlike natural sciences - no overall agreement
modernity evaluations
many believe theories outdated - refer to a world that has been eclipsed by globalisation and postmodernity
rationalisation and progress was not always a good thing - Bauman highlighted how the holocaust was a specifically modernist action
not all groups benefitted equally from enlightenment - science and rationality used to reinforce male power
postmodernist sociologists
Bauman, Lyotard, Baudrillard
postmodernism key features
collapse of social structures
social structures are like nation-state, the family and social class are breaking down
metanarratives and myth of truth
Lyotard - postmodernism has an incredulity towards metanarratives and people no longer believe in the myth of trust - too fragmented
media-saturated society
Baudrillard - life dominated by media imagery - surrounded by images to reflect things in the real world but have no basis in reality
hyperreality
Baudrillard - distorted view created and defined by the media becomes more real than reality
pick and mix identities
Baudrillard - identity formed by information, images and signs gained from media rather than class, ethnicity or gender
Bradley - globalisation brings different cultures into contact and creates new identities
postmodernism evaluation
marxist criticisms - Philo and Miller
- encourages political apathy - denies the existence of an objective reality that can be analysed and improved
- ignores growing inequalities of wealth and income
- Baudrillard’s arguments do not take into account reality that decisions made by politicians
postmodernist arguments are highly abstract and not based on systematic research - unable to produce much evidence to support theories
postmodernist connection with research methods
- reject belief that researchers can ever discover some objective truth about social world - believe that all can be done is to examine social world from different viewpoints
- reject traditional quantitative and qualitative researchers that it is possible to determine the truth about society
- the methods are used most frequently by postmodernists is ethnography - immerse themselves in the lives of participants and try to understand their viewpoints
globalisation and high modernity - key sociologists
Giddens, Beck, Sklair, Ohmae, Urry
globalisation and high modernity - explains
Sklair - transnational corporations - organisations that transcend the borders of nation states
global capitalist class - a tiny and powerful group of TNCs - increasing division of world into global bourgeoisie and global proletariat
Ohmar - borderless world - globally interlinked economy that transcends nation states
Urry - disorganised capitalism - fragmentation of socio-economic groups in the economy, state of advances capitalism - organised interaction and labour broken down due to recession
globalisation and high modernity - key features
Technological changes - satellite communications and internet allowed for shrinking of time and space - time-space compression - Harvey
Economic changes - movement from a physical to an electronic economy instead of physical eg yb
Transnational companies operate across national boundaries
Political changes - TNCs and consumers have more economic power than national governments so that we live in a borderless world of disorganised capitalism
Cultural changes - new technology, the mass media, geographic mobility and TNCs create increasingly global culture
Late / High modernity
Giddens - high moderinty
- societies can be understood, explained and improved
- rejects argument we moved into completely new era
- societies based upon the modern characteristic of reflexivity and disembedding
reflexivity - traditional and custom no longer serve as guides to how we should act - makes society unstable
disembedding - lifting out of social relations from local contexts of interaction - factors such as credit break down and geographical barriers and make interaction more personal
Beck - risk society - condition of late modern society characterised by manufactured risks
individualisation - our actions no longer governed by traditional but are reflexive
reflexive modernisation - we constantly take into account the risks attached to different courses of action open to us
late / high modernity evaluation
- not everyone has free choice implied by Gidden’s concept of flexivity eg poor exposed to more environmental risks in heavily polluted areas
marxists - capitalism produces risk rather than technology due to pursuit of profit
postmodern marxist
Harvey
- product of most recent stage of capitalism
flexible accumulation - new way of achieving profitability characterised by a requirement for workers are to be flexible to fit their employers’ needs
time and space compression
we are moving towards postmodern era
marxism - used to understand postmodernity - possible to improve society through rainbow coalitions
postmodernist marxism eval
do not offer the possibility of revolution - accept that society is too fragmented to build meaningful political opposition
applied postmodernism
religion
pick and mis identities also applied to religious beliefs - evidence of rise in personal spirituality alongside a rejection of organised religion - people take parts of different religions to create a form of religiosity that works for them
modernity key 4
the development of a nation-state - the development of territory rules by centralised state
the development of an economic system based on capitalism
the rise of rational, secular and scientific ways of thinking
the growth of individualism
modern society - what is it
first emerged in western europe from about late 18th C
modern society - the development of a nation-state
bounded territory ruled by a powerful centralised state
- population shared language and culture
- modern world made up of series of separate societies each with its own state
state is focus point of modern society - organising social life on a national basis
- modern states created large administrative bureaucracies and educational, welfare and legal institutions to regulate their citizen’s lives
nation-state source of identity eg flag
modernity - development of an economic system based on capitalism
economy of modern societies is capitalist - based on private ownership of means of production and use of wage labourers
- brought about industrialisation with increases in wealth - distribution is unequal, resulting in class conflict
the nation-state important in regulating capitalism and maintaining the conditions
Lash and Urry - organised capitalism - nation state becoming important in regulating capitalism and maintaining the conditions under which it operates
modernity - rise of rational, secular and scientific ways of thinking
rational, secular and scientific ways of thinking dominate
influence of magico-religious explanations declines
technically efficient forms of organisation eg bureaucracies and factories, dominate social and economic life
science becomes increasingly important in industry, medicine and communications
modernity - growth of individualism
tradition, custom and ascribed status less important
experience greater personal freedom and can increasingly choose our own course in life and define our own identity
however - structural inequalities such as class remain important in identity
globalisation
the increasing interconnectedness of people across national boundaries
we live in one interdependent global village and our lives are shaped by a global framework
globalisation - technological changes
now cross entire continents in a matter of hours, exchange information across the globe with the click of a mouse
satellite communications, the internet and global television - time-space compression
Beck - we are now living in a risk society where increasingly the threats to our well being come from human-made technology than natural disasters
globalisation - economic changes
economic activity now takes place within a set of global networks that are creating ever-greater interconnectedness
global economy is increasingly a weightless or electronic society - no longer physical goods
in the electronic economy, money never sleeps - global 24-hour financial transactions permit the instantaneous transfer of funds around the world - contributes to risk society
trans-national companies - coca-cola Sklair - form separate global capitalist class
globalisation - political changes
some sociologists claim that globalisation has undermined the power of the nation-state
Ohmae - we now live in a borderless world which TNCs and consumers have more economic power than national goernments
Lash and Urry - disorganised capitalism as states less able to regulate the activities of large capitalist enterprises
globalisation - changes in culture and identity
harder for cultures to exist in isolation from one another
major reason for this is the role of information and communications in technology
now live in a global culture - western-owned media companies spread western culture to rest of world eg nike
postmodernism
major intellectual movement emerged since 1970s - influential in many areas including sociology
now living in a new era of postmodernity - unstable, fragmented, media-saturated global village
reject meta-narratives such as marxism on the grounds that they have helps to create oppressive
Lyotard - in postmodern society - knowledge is just a series of different language games - competing views of truth preferable to modern society
baudrillard - simulacra
knowledge is central to postmodern society
argues that society is no longer based on the production of material goods but rather buying and selling knowledge in the form of images and signs
signs stand for nothing other than themselves - called them simulacra
eg tabloid newspaper articles about fictitious soap opera characters are signs about signs
hyper-reality - signs appear more real than reality itself
