...Sociology Major Essay – Modernity “To be modern is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us adventure, power, joy, growth, transformation of ourselves and the world - and, at the same time, that threatens to destroy everything we have, everything we know, everything we are.” – Marshall Berman, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, (Verso, London, 1988 p.1). Drawing on a variety of sociologists writings on modernity explain the idea of modernity as both positive and negative. Modernity is defined in the Collins English Dictionary as the quality or state of being modern. (Hanks 1979) This state of modernity, as described by M. Berman, is one that has positive and negative influences on both the private and public spheres. The modern world in which we live is one that is heavily influenced by the havoc of war and the ongoing process of capitalism. In order to understand the complexities of modernity, one must weigh its pros and cons. Ex-Cambridge Lecturer and sociologist T. Bilton pinpointed the origins of modernity to be during the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century. He discusses the slow industrialisation, new attitudes towards capitalism, and mass urbanisation. These attributes of modernity saw positive growth in wealth and the creation of bigger and more fluid markets. The trends that originated in 1780s England were to soon spread globally, with an increasing concentration of workers in larger workplaces, in tandem with deteriorating work conditions and...
Words: 1733 - Pages: 7
...condition of modern times which has been acknowledged by many writers to provide theoretical and rigorous critique of late modern society degradation, his idea speaks to both social theorists and environmentalists and at once echoes an explanation to help explain the growing ecological awareness and concern. Unlike previous social theorist in the likes of Durkheim, and Marx- those who attempted to understand the broader forces of society by examining the different junctures for its collapse, political capture, economic recessions and radical transformations, Becks is most fascinated by the success of modernity and how the changes has transformed all mannerism of human thinking, from the ways we communicate, to our social activities. Therefore to understand Beck’s thesis is to understand the nature of industrial modernity and its mysteries over nature. According to Beck, modernity is a world that introduces global risk which previous generations have not had to face. Placing the answer to the fact that modern societies have failed to control the risk they have created e.g ecological crises, global warming, health issues. (AIDS). In addition, Becks also distinguishes between the risk of pre-industrial society to today’s risk. Implying that risk today threatens irreparable global damages which cannot be limited and thus the notion of monetary compensation is therefore rendered useless. . Exploring this argument further, Becks distinguishes between the transformational periods of...
Words: 2508 - Pages: 11
...period of inception of modernity is controversial. Modernity is a change European society was undergoing and injecting these changes in the colonised oriental world for “their own benefits” and had in a way modernised these part. These impacts can be positive or negative depending on the receptiveness of the society or say modernity is dialectical in itself. The transfer of these changes brings cultural transformation in the recipient society. Irrespective of the characteristics of this society, just in order to exploit resources and being opportunistic sometimes yields bad consequences to these societies. But this is not true in all cases. The concept of modernity has kept adding characteristics to itself with time. In colonial or national context, modernity was the idea of liberation or differences in the society, influencing as well as being influenced by the colonial projects. Latter sounds more pronounced as the introduction of education, postal services, telegraphs, railways etc. has helped in the nationalist movement of India. Modernity has many equivalents, one of these is technology. Technology is the metonym for modernity. The equation fosters a conceptual reduction of technology itself, for technology appears as self-evident testimony to a series of interconnected ideologies, including rationality, progress and secularism. (Aguiar, 2008) Technology sounds to be the product of Western modernisation which has been introduced to the colonies as modernity mania1 of the colonisers...
Words: 1635 - Pages: 7
...including Sociology. They argue that we are now living in an unstable, fragmented, media-saturated global village, where image and reality are indistinguishable. For postmodernists, this new kind of society requires a new kind of theory – modernist theories no longer apply. Many sociologists argue that we are now increasingly affected by globalisation which have been brought about through technological, economic, political and cultural changes. Postmodernists argue that there are no true foundations to knowledge which is known as ‘anti-foundationalism’. This view has two consequences. Firstly, although the Enlightenment project of achieving progress is true, the absence of scientific knowledge restricts them from guaranteeing their knowledge is correct, therefore they cannot use it to improve society. Sociologists would disagree and argue that knowledge can be used to solve human problems. The second consequence of their anti-foundationalism view is that postmodernists take a relativist position and reject all-embracing theories such as Marxism, and refers to them as meta-narratives that claim absolute truth. They believe that it is just someone’s version of reality, not the truth. Therefore there is no reason to accept the claims that the theory makes. Postmodernist Baudrillard argues that society is no longer based on the production of material goods, but rather on buying and selling knowledge in the form of image and signs. For example, tabloid newspaper articles about fictitious...
Words: 1040 - Pages: 5
...sociologists have tried to explain modernization each through their own theories. Some known sociologists who have tried to explain modernization are Ferdinand Tonnies, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Peter Berger, and Karl Marx. Questions have arisen as to where or not modernization will continue in the United States, and to what theory best reflects my personal perception of modernization. Modernity is simply looked at as a way to better a person’s life. People tend to use things that benefit them. For example, in the earlier years, horse and carriage was society’s only way of transportation. As times changed, automobiles were introduced and horse and carriages were phased out (Chris, 2004). One sociologist Peter Berger identified four major characteristics of modernization. One was the decline of small, traditional communities. Berger believed modernization gave capitalism the upper hand in the world of economy while exploiting the working class society. This brings about the decline of small traditional communities which will eventually weaken the fabric of small communities. He believed modernity involved the progressive weakening or the destruction of relatively cohesive communities in which human beings have found solidarity and means throughout history (Macionis, 2006). The second characteristic was the expansion of personal choice. Many people lived traditionally and lived their lives according to...
Words: 1102 - Pages: 5
...A Shattered Visage: Modernity and its visual role in Shelley's Ozymandias Barring some unforeseen individual circumstance, you can always count on your eyesight as one of your primary avenues of perception. This has always been the case for mankind, our gift of vision has allotted us the ability to reproduce images of the world around us in our own right. We can craft a version of the world entirely out of our minds. We have created billion dollar industries on the reproduction and sale of images and effectively monetized one of the most basic forms of perception. But what if vision, something we like to swear by in our media-saturated society, doesn't work the same ways at the same times? Does the experience of looking at the Mona Lisa in 1814 differ from looking at it in the year 2014? Did the Sistine Chapel mean something completely different to someone first seeing it as opposed to someone seeing it on some tour in the present day? The two pieces I chose to discuss deal with these questions a lot. Percy Bysshe Shelley's seminal sonnet “Ozymandias” deals with a traveler looking at the remains of a massive statue and empire hundreds, if not thousands of years later. Jonathan Crary's “Modernity and the Problem of the Observer” deals with how our modes of visual perception have changed drastically from the pre-industrial era into the digital age, where the infinite replication of images is the norm. In marrying commentary on both of these literary artifacts, I will attempt...
Words: 1366 - Pages: 6
...Society has now entered a new, postmodern age and we need new theories to understand it. Assess this view. (33 marks) Postmodernists argue that we are now living in a new era of postmodernity (an unstable, fragmented, media-saturated global village, where image and reality are indistinguishable.) In postmodern society, we define ourselves by what we consume. This is a fundamental break with modernity. They therefore take a relativist position. They argue that all views are true for those who hold them. No one has special access to the truth - including sociologists. All accounts of reality are equally valid and we should celebrate the diversity of views. Lyotard suggests that we have entered a new postmodern age and that new theories are required in our society. In postmodern society, knowledge is just a series of different ‘language games’ or ways of seeing the world. However postmodern society is preferable to modern society where meta-narratives claimed a monopoly of truth and sometimes sought to impose it by force, as in the Soviet Union. Postmodernity allows marginalised groups to be heard. Lyotard argues that old theories can no longer explain this society due to the fact that our postmodern society is characterised by these competing views of truth. Yet, Lyotard’s theory is self-defeating. He suggests that all theories are without truth, portraying that his theory is another that should not be believed. Baudrillard, in agreement with Lyotard, believes that society...
Words: 686 - Pages: 3
...Caroline Barnes and Simon Jackson This paper offers a critical reading of Robin Boyd’s narrative of the Australian nation created for Australia’s pavilion at Expo’70. The critique offered is from an environmental perspective, using this example to lead into a broader reflection on Australian design history’s ‘modernity problem’. We argue that although the examination of Australia as a socio-cultural context for the practice of design continues to engage scholars, the will to profess the existence of progressive Australian design has precluded significant examination of design’s regressive effects. The current environmental crisis is, as Arturo Escobar argues, ‘a crisis of modernity, to the extent that modernity has failed to enable sustainable worlds.’[1] Design is implicated here for its contribution to environmental degradation, as is design history for accounts that validate designers’ development of concepts, processes and products that impose the unsustainable on societies. The latter is pronounced in Australian design history. When modernity and its cultural manifestations are understood as European inventions, admitting limited scope for cultural exchange, claiming historical significance for Australian design inevitably involves the uncritical application of imported principles.[2] The halting attempts to write Australian design history are mostly bound up in proselytizing for the values and benefits of the modern and eulogising designers’ efforts to force change in the...
Words: 6224 - Pages: 25
...Society Of The Spectacle | Guy Debord Modernity and Post-Modernity | Reading Report By Maeve Lejeune Guy Debord’s book Society Of The Spectacle, published in 1967, explores the social control that capitalism and the media has on society (Jenkins, 2013). Debord was a French Marxist theorist (The European Graduate School, nd) who observed how society was affected by the decisions made by people in powerful positions. During Debord’s life and writing, social upheaval was deeply prevalent in the world. He wrote Society Of The Spectacle after WWII, the death of Adolf Hitler, and in the midst of the Cold War and Vietnam War. The book, Society Of The Spectacle, discusses modernity and post-modernity by identifying key influences that shape society and the way that people consume products and interact with each other. This report will discuss the book by highlighting the dominant themes of Capitalism, mass-production and consumption, and the influence of the media on society. The report will also use examples from the Holocaust to compare and contrast with the theories of modernity discussed in the Society Of The Spectacle. Society Of The Spectacle demonstrates Debord’s understanding of the divisions between classes and discusses the downfalls of Capitalism. Throughout the 221 theses, which make up the book, Debord suggests that the relationship people have with the world is not necessarily with the ‘real’ world. Society’s relationship with the world is based on the...
Words: 1741 - Pages: 7
...The Cosmopolitan Society and its Enemies Ulrich Beck I N THIS article I want to discuss three questions: (1) What is a cosmopolitan sociology? (2) What is a cosmopolitan society? (3) Who are the enemies of cosmopolitan societies? What is a Cosmopolitan Sociology? Let me start by attempting to nail a pudding to the wall, that is, defining the key terms ‘globalization’ and ‘cosmopolitanization’. At the beginning of the 21st century the conditio humana cannot be understood nationally or locally but only globally. ‘Globalization’ is a non-linear, dialectic process in which the global and the local do not exist as cultural polarities but as combined and mutually implicating principles. These processes involve not only interconnections across boundaries, but transform the quality of the social and the political inside nation-state societies. This is what I define as ‘cosmopolitanization’: cosmopolitanization means internal globalization, globalization from within the national societies. This transforms everyday consciousness and identities significantly. Issues of global concern are becoming part of the everyday local experiences and the ‘moral life-worlds’ of the people. They introduce significant conflicts all over the world. To treat these profound ontological changes simply as myth relies on a superficial and unhistorical understanding of ‘globalization’, the misunderstandings of neoliberal globalism. The study of globalization and globality, cosmopolitanization and cosmopolitanism...
Words: 12924 - Pages: 52
...religions and therefore we become more accepting to them as they are not so unusual. He also argues globalisation has then lead to cosmopolitanism thinking. Cosmopolitanism thinking is a term which describes people or societies which are tolerant to the views of others as a result of constant exposure to new ideas and values. Cosmopolitanism thinking is a way of thinking that embraces modernity. Fundamentalism is the enemy of cosmopolitanism thinking. Within the relationship of globalisation and religion is fundamentalism as this is a response to globalisation. Fundamentalism describes people or groups that defend tradition and believe in the literal truth of sacred texts, they seek to return back to basics and do not like change. Giddens argues that fundamentalism has grown in reaction to globalisation and people are joining fundamentalist movements because in today’s society individuals are constantly faced with choice, uncertainty and risk. Fundamentalism offers individuals security and avoids any rational answers and solely turns to faith based ones. Although fundamentalists hate modernity they contradict themselves as they use modern methods to try get across their point to large audiences. For example they have television programmes this is known as...
Words: 1061 - Pages: 5
...diffusion of Western styles of living, technological innovations and individualist types of communication (highly selective, addressing only particular persons) as the superiority of secular, materialist, Western, individualist culture and of individual motivation and achievement (Lerner, 1958), Schramm, 1964). This first wave of theory produced three variants (McQuail, 2000: 84): 1. | Economic development: mass media promote the global diffusion of many technical and social innovations that are essential to modernization (Rogers, 1962). See Diffusion of Innovations theory. | 2. | Literacy and cultural development: mass media can teach literacy and other essential skills and techniques. They encourage a ‘state of mind’ favorable to modernity, e.g. the imagination of an alternative way of life beyond the traditional way. | 3. | National identity development: mass media could support national identities in new nations (colonies) and support attention to democratic policies (elections). | Most of these theories have been discredited because...
Words: 596 - Pages: 3
...‘Society has now entered a new postmodern age and we need new theories to understand to understand it.’ Assess this view. Sociologists all agree there is something called Modernity and Post Modernity-where they differ is which one they think society currently is. Theories such as feminism, Marxism, and functionalism are structural and believe society influences the individual. Whilst theories like post modernism and interactionism are non-structural and believe that the individual influences society. There are major changes that have occurred in society recently such as: the growing impact of new technology and the media, and new social and political movements (based on gender, environmental concerns and so on). What is being questioned is the nature, cause and effect of these changes which have different theories for explanation. The first argument is that the changes are so profound they represent a major shift from the modern century of the last two centuries, to a new post modern society. The second argument is that recent changes have been significant but they are still a part of modern society- just an intensification of the existing features of a modern society. The second argument is seemingly more valid, especially in terms of science and trying to prove post modernism. For post modernism argues that nothing can be proved to be true and take on a relativism method also supporting interpretivism. if this is the case the theory itself cannot be proven to be true hence...
Words: 2731 - Pages: 11
...The secularization is a process which describes the loss of importance of the widespread religious lifestyle and the sacred behaviours in front of a scientific point of view on the reality and a non-religious set of values. Indeed philosophical and scientific methods allowed not to consider a concept or a statement as sacred and immutable but they sharpened the social changes. This process has started in Europe during the Age of Enlightenment with the scientific discoveries of physicians and chemicals and with the development of social sciences and humanist philosophy. Secularization spread in the second half of the twentieth century; in particular it had a strong incentive after the second World War because of the industrialization process and the economic globalization. I strongly believe that even if Secularization started in Europe, it does not concern just the western world; for instance in some other societies (non-western countries) the role of the sacred has been replaced with technologies, modern education, scientific medicine and modern political and judicial systems. In addition to this the globalization is also a great communications medium between different societies which diffuses non-religious systems of knowledge, common values and datum points. In my opinion people should be Eurocentric for thinking that secularization concern just Europe; the distinction between the sacred and the profane is not only a prerogative of the Christianity, I think it is a system...
Words: 555 - Pages: 3
...industrialization." (Kendall 2007) Modernization theory has developed in three different parts; the first part appeared in the 1950s and 1960s, when the dominance of materialistic western, individualist culture and individual achievement became the influential and dominant way of life during this period of time. The second part of modernization theory is part of the “idea of progress” that was accepted in the 1980s with the thought of people themselves could develop and transform their society. The last part of modernization theory takes place in the 1990s and it tries a more neutral approach without being in favor or against western modernization. Rather it attempts to expose the disagreements in the modernization process and to explain the consequences of modernity for individuals in contemporary society (Giddens, 1991a, 1991b). Giddens showed that traditional society is based on direct interaction between people living close to each other. Modern societies stretch further and further across space and time using mass media and interactive media. Disembedding mechanisms (modern artefact objectified and made real) such as money and other symbolic means. As many theories modernization theory has critics, this...
Words: 1461 - Pages: 6
