Postmodernity
How does Postmodernity differ to Modernity? Compare through using the ideas of identity and culture. Evaluate the idea that postmodern ideas have superseded the structural theories of Functionalism and Marxism.
A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those would manipulate and control it.” (Huxley.1958)
The term "early modern" was devised by academics of European history to label the four centuries from approximately 1400 to 1800, the period from the Renaissance to the French Revolution. The original meaning is possessed by authority (e.g. The Catholic Church). The individual is dominated by tradition. The dating of the period implies a time of transition, a development from the “pre-modern” medieval age to modernity, predominantly experienced by Europeans. The early modern, early 20th-century intellectuals defined modernity as a progressive age totally different from what followed it, characterized by individualism, secularism, democratic sentiment, and the advent of technological change at exceptional speed. (Rosenzweig.2004) Modernity is a dismissal of mysticism in favour of materialism, of superstition in favour of science, of rulership by ecclesiastically supported divine right in favour of a government based on contractual legal principles, of human inspiration and originality in favour of method and repeatability, of moral agency in favour of reflex and conditioning as the determinants of behaviour. (Connelly.2008)
The break-up of the old order was a result of the development of modern science; ‘The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention’ Professor Whitehead’. (Habgood. 1964. Pg.88) This revolutionary period was marked by unsettlement, fear and
A society, most of whose members spend a great part of their time, not on the spot, not here and now and in their calculable future, but somewhere else, in the irrelevant other worlds of sport and soap opera, of mythology and metaphysical fantasy, will find it hard to resist the encroachments of those would manipulate and control it.” (Huxley.1958)
The term "early modern" was devised by academics of European history to label the four centuries from approximately 1400 to 1800, the period from the Renaissance to the French Revolution. The original meaning is possessed by authority (e.g. The Catholic Church). The individual is dominated by tradition. The dating of the period implies a time of transition, a development from the “pre-modern” medieval age to modernity, predominantly experienced by Europeans. The early modern, early 20th-century intellectuals defined modernity as a progressive age totally different from what followed it, characterized by individualism, secularism, democratic sentiment, and the advent of technological change at exceptional speed. (Rosenzweig.2004) Modernity is a dismissal of mysticism in favour of materialism, of superstition in favour of science, of rulership by ecclesiastically supported divine right in favour of a government based on contractual legal principles, of human inspiration and originality in favour of method and repeatability, of moral agency in favour of reflex and conditioning as the determinants of behaviour. (Connelly.2008)
The break-up of the old order was a result of the development of modern science; ‘The greatest invention of the nineteenth century was the invention of the method of invention’ Professor Whitehead’. (Habgood. 1964. Pg.88) This revolutionary period was marked by unsettlement, fear and
References: ‘Religion & Science’ – The Reverend J.S. Habgood. 1964. Mills & Boon. London Sociology-Themes and Perspectives 7th Edition. M.Haralambos & M.Holbor. 2008. HarperCollins Publishers ltd. London BRAVE NEW WORLD REVISITED [1958] Aldous Huxley [Online] - http://www.huxley.net/bnw-revisited/index.html (Accessed 26/02/13) Chris. Livesey: Sociology Central (www.sociology.org.uk) © 1995-2010 [Online] (Accessed 26/02/13) ‘Incredulity toward Metanarrative: Negotiating Postmodernism and Feminism’ - Hutcheon, Linda. The University of Toronto Libraries 1994. [Online] https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/10250/1/Hutcheon1994Incredulity.pdf (Accessed 26/02/13) ‘Manifesto of the Communist Party’ - Marx/Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org) 1987, 2000 (Accessed 26/02/13) Marxism versus postmodernism - [Trotskist International 24, 1997] [Online] http://www.permanentrevolution.net/entry/514 (Accessed 26/02/13) Modernity in the Sequence of Historical Eras - 2008 Paul Connelly [Online] http://www.darc.org/connelly/religion5.html (Accessed 26/02/13) The Postmodern Condition - A Report on Knowledge Jean-François Lyotard (1979) – [Online] http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/Literary_Criticism/postmodernism/lyotard_text.htm (Accessed 26/02/13)