POSTMODERNISM

 

 Often in media, culture and identity questions.

MAIN CONCEPTS

  •  Post-modernity, the current period of history which is succeeding modernity.
  •  Post modernism, cultural movements which are characteristic of post-modernity eg. in music and film.
  •  Post modern social theory, new ideas which have challenged the classical modernist theories of Marx, Durkheim, Weber. The main concerns include culture and identity.

MAIN ASSUMPTIONS

  •  Modern society, which followed medieval society, has been discredited and no more progress is possible.
  • Assembly line is dehumanising, modern architecture doesn't work etc.
  •  Main features of a modern society:
    •   Economic, capitalist industrial economy with specialised workers, mass production and mass consumption.
    •   Political, increasingly centralised, bureaucratic nation state.
    •   Cultural, traditional thinking replaced by rational scientific thinking.

 Main Features of a Post Modern Society

  •  Economic, reversal away from deskilled mass of unionised workers. Flexible, remale, part time, self employment, job moving, more services and cultural products and new media and niche products.
  •  Political, Centralised states less important. The new right reduced state control. Globalisation has weakened some nation states.
  •  Cultural, concerned with image rather than objects. Cultural phenonoma important. Culture rather than social structure the the major concern for postmodern sociologists.
  •  Sociology Must Change
  •  Reject meta-narratives, which are theories like Marxism which try and explain all aspects of life. It says they are just 'big stories' which are no different from any other story we use to make sense of our lives.
     Postmodernism also rejects the idea that societies will progress and that scientific thinking will help this process.

EVALUATION

  •  Is this a postmodern society? Critics say that there has been no distinct break with modernity. Capitalism always encouraged technological developments and needed new products and markets.
  •  Lash and Urry (1987) have shown that Marxism can incorporate some postmodernist ideas. Motive remains profit and exploitation is seen as continuing.
  • So things cultural products which the postmodernists say are separate, the Marxists see as just another type of production.
  •  Defences of Postmodernism as Separate to Being A Piece of Marxism
  •  Modern methods of production allowed mass consumption
  •  Modern political systems may be liberal, pluralist democracies.
  •  The mass production of computers, editing equipment etc. allowed for the creation of cultural products, which enhances freedom.

CONCLUSION

 Bauman said there are three ways sociology could respond to the threat from postmodernism:

 1 - Accept that society cannot be explained and give up.
 2 - Ignore the claims and criticisms of postmodernism and carry on anyway.
 3 - Take a middle way and accept and study the new social relations identified by postmodernism and accept some of the criticisms of scientific methods.
Postmodern social theory is often described as postmodernism

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