1. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Postmodernism & Postmodernity

2. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Postmodernism - A challenge to the assumptions of modern thought – the ‘death of reason’ (Power,1990)
Postmodernity – Social changes that herald the decline of the society constructed through modern ways of thinking
Start with modernity -

3. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Background:
Renaissance 14th – 16th century
The Reformation 1517
Deism

4. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Immanuel Kant:
‘Sapere aude: have courage to use your own understanding.’
Also: Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot etc. – radical doubt, questioning and emancipatory knowledge

5. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
The Enlightenment 17th – 18th century
Individualism & Individual Freedom
Reason/Rationality
Order
Progress

6. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Romanticism: Late 18th - 19th century (anti enlightenment’s ‘cold’ rationality)
Individualism
Experience
Emotions
Nature
The Past (Nations)

7. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Modern Society (Modernity):
Individualism (unified and autonomous sense of self)
Order & Control
Science
De-traditionalization & Secularization
Complex Division of Labour

8. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Industrialism
Bureaucracy
Professionalism & Expertise
Fordism/Production/Career (‘Job for Life’)
Economic Management
Urbanisation
Optimism/Confidence

9. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Two main strands to modern thought and its application – mechanization of social order + emancipation of the lifeworld (Cooper & Burrell, 1988)
Systemic Modernism:
Instrumental rationality applied to control complex organisations and tasks (see Weber, Fordism, Ritzer etc.)

10. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Critical Modernism:
Critical reason applied to advancing understanding for the improvement of society
Rational Science and Social Science
Social Constructionism

11. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Jurgen Habermas:
Enlightenment project incomplete
Instrumental rationality (systemic) constraining rationality’s emancipatory (critical) potential– see ‘colonisation of the lifeworld’
Need for revival of critical rationality through ideal speech community

12. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Anthony Giddens:
Late Modernity (superficiality, scepticism and consumerism extensions of modernity – not new era)
Reflexive Modernity – modernity as ‘post-traditional’
Global Modernity, ‘Disembedding’ & Risk

13. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Evaluating Modernism & Modernity:
Privileging of rational over the irrational (emotional)
Precise language, categorisation and meaning
Liberation from superstition and tradition
Facilitates order/predictability
Focus on understanding/discovery
Technological/scientific (including medical) advancement, production, economic expansion and improved living standards. BUT

14. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Devalues/constrains emotional experience
Constrains individual autonomy and spontaneity through ‘disciplinary society’ – rational control and surveillance
Marginalizes minority/non-Western forms of knowledge
Moral inadequacy- role of rationality in colonialism, imperialism, social inequality, world wars and genocide (holocaust)
Produces environmental degradation/increased risk (scientific failure and technological dystopia)

15. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Lecture 2
Postmodernism: ‘This term means nothing: use it on all possible occasions’ (anon).
Criticises assumptions of modern thought and modern rationality – heralds the decline of the modern project and modern society and the emergence of a new form of society - postmodernity.

16. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Postmodernists Reject:
a) Enlightenment project of achieving progress through reason
b) The belief in single all encompassing truths – meta-narratives
c) The privileged status of reason/mind over emotion, sentiment, intuition, mysticism and body. (Romanticism?)

17. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
d) Pre-given boundaries between things, ideas and experiences
e) Categorization of experience
f) Objective knowledge
f) The intellectual marginalization of particular sets of ideas, ways of life etc.

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Michel Foucault (Post-Structuralist)
Power/Knowledge (influence of Nietzsche)
Language & Discourse (influence of Saussure)
Impossibility of Objective Knowledge/Truth
History as directionless – not progressive
Professionalism & Expertise
Surveillance, Control & Bio-Power

19. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Jacques Derrida (Post-Structuralist)
Instability of Meaning – privileging of difference, inversion and ambiguity over authoritative (modern) classification/categorization
Deconstruction – all texts (ideas, actions) open to as many interpretations as there are interpreters – no definitive reading

20. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Jean-François Lyotard
End of Grand Narratives (decline in belief in progress)
Legitimacy – (scientific, and others forms, achieved through presentation rather than substance)
De-realization

21. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Jean Baudrillard
Simulation – consumerism and the mass media engage in a proliferation of signs that are increasingly detached from any underlying reality
Hyperreality

22. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Zigmunt Baumann
The Holocaust - consequences of rational social engineering, instrumental calculation and bureaucratic organization
‘Liquid Modernity’ - Late (post) modernity – solid features of modern self and society ‘dissolve’ amid flux an flow of complex consumer society – selfhood is chosen from the ‘supermarket of identities’
‘Legislators and Interpreters’

23. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Postmodern Society (Postmodernity)
Individualism (multiple/’performative’ self)
Superficiality/Pastiche/Play
Disorder & Flux
Anti-Science
No privileged standpoint – all traditions, beliefs equally valid

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Postmodern Society (Postmodernity)
Fragmentation
De-industrialisation
Disorganisation
Relativism
Post-Fordism/Consumerism/Flexibility
Pessimism/anxiety, stress and doubt

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Evaluating Postmodern & Postmodernity:
Provides critical evaluation of modernity and modern thought
Draws attention to the dehumanising and irrational features of modern rational organisation (not exclusive in this – see Marx, Weber, Simmel, Ritzer etc.)
Challenges the ethno-centric assumptions of Western rationalism
Draws attention to the increasingly artificial, superficial and ‘mythical’ nature of contemporary culture and lived environment. BUT

26. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
Relativism/Radical Constructionism – If there is no privileged standpoint, and no possibility of objective knowledge, then why postmodern theory?
Also – if all perspectives/versions of reality are equally valid then medical doctor = witch doctor?
Tendency towards solipsism – view that nothing is verifiable beyond one’s own experience – potential for triviality, fatalism and even nihilism.
No recipe/hope for social advancement/improvement criteria for judgement of ideas, values, morality
Anomie and meaninglessness
Just Babel? – Pretentious Irrational Nonsense (Chomsky, Sokal etc.)

27. Modernity and Social Theory SO3523
End of Meta-narratives?
What about -
Globalization
Neo-liberalism
Liberal Democracy
Religion (Secularization or Desecularization?)