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This article provides information about the views of giddens on post-modernism:
A major challenge to sociological theories of modernity came from the theoretical position of postmodernism. Postmodernism denies any meaningful continuity in history. It is a new historical epoch that is supposed to have succeeded the modern era or modernity.
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As Habermas states, postmodernism is akin to “the anarchist wish to explode the continuum of history”, demolishing theories of modernity in doing so. Giddens distinguishes between postmodernism and post-modernity.
Postmodernism refers to the recent changes in architecture, literature, art poetry while post-modernity refers to recent institutional changes in the social world. He finds the latter more important but does not believe that post- modernity theoretically captures the meaning of these social changes. In his view, the contemporary pervasiveness of reflexivity makes useless the distinction between modern and postmodern eras.
For some theorists postmodernism means that we have entered a new, postindustrial world, which problematises old assumptions, including ideals of social progress, the importance of class as a source of social identity and the very idea of a unified self. A new social world requires new knowledge. Postmodernism destabilises contemporary social theory. It values difference, as there are no absolute values that command our allegiance.
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Postmodernism critiques all limiting assumptions in social and political life, especially those based on rationality that seek to exclude multiple perspectives on the world. It is suspicious of any evolutionary theory and all centralising tendencies and celebrates a diversity of approaches to social life and decentralised social movements.
Giddens shares many of these themes with contemporary sociological theorists such as Habermas, Touraine and Melucci. These authors attempt to grasp the distinctive culture of late modernity that is fragile, ever-changing and different from that which preceded it. Due to the worldwide spread of capitalism, the mass media and industrialism, contemporary society is a global society. More and more people realise that their identities and moral systems can no longer rely on taken-for-granted traditions. With the decline in tradition hence, there has been a rise in reflexivity.
These theorists view modernity as an unfinished project and construct a narrative of modernity which culminates in a reformed vision of rationality, universality and evolutionary development. For Giddens, as for these theorists, in the late modern era of highly differentiated and specialised Western societies, conflicts arise in the areas of information and communication. The line between public and private issues becomes blurred. Reflexivity relates self with society in ever changing ways. Habermas is the strongest defender of the legacy of modernity against the postmodern criticisms of it.
He sees in modernity tendencies towards rampant instrumental rationality that destroys alternative, more democratic visions of social life. Like Parsons, he states that a universalistic rationality is a major achievement of modernity, which must integrate an increasingly differentiated and complex modern society. Rise of different types of reasoning constitute the key feature of the modern world. Modernity cannot rely on traditional justifications of rule and action and must ground its criteria for evaluation within its own history.
In the absence of tradition, communicative rationality takes on the ethical role of coordinating diverse social actions. He sees the culture of modernity embodied in communicative rationality as concerned with establishing autonomy and justice. For Habermas, this communicative context informs the acquisition of knowledge, the transmission of culture, the formation of personal identity and more general processes of social integration.
He further contends that new social movements provide avenues for the development of new values and identities. Arising in a post-traditional and post- industrial society, new social movements represent the main vehicle by which a non-instrumental, communicative rationality can be brought into public life.
New social movements associated with late modernity, such as feminism and environmentalism, have fundamentally changed the nature of politics. In sum, Habermas contends that modernity establishes inseparable links between rationality and freedom as demonstrated in the great modernist accomplishments such as democracy and human rights. New social movements are expressing and attempting to implement these achievements in new ways. His championing of the legacy of modernity distances him from the postmodernists.
Like Touraine and Melucci, Giddens theorises a reformed view of modernity that is much more critical than that of Habermas. They argue that new social movements raise novel issues of cultural identity in a global context marked by rapid increases in communication technologies and recognition of the importance of cultural differences.
Melucci and Touraine contend that modern societies exist in a post- industrial context, and cultural strife between diverse groups has replaced class struggles over the distribution of resources as central social conflicts. Modern societies are in chronic combat over the possession and very definition of cultural codes and information. New social movements are the primary agents and carriers of innovative discourses and practices in the struggles of the late modern era.
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These theorists critically engage the postmodern persuasion, arguing that modernity has not been superseded but remains an unfinished project, as modernist beliefs and practices are still central to contemporary societies. They believe that rational reflexivity has replaced tradition as the main form of social solidarity in the modern world.
Giddens differs from these theorists in that he takes tradition more seriously. In the new distinctively modern-risk society, people draw on expertise, re-evaluates it in terms of their own particular cultural context and then utilise this knowledge to evaluate their everyday actions. He argues that modernity excludes and marginalises particular groups of people who do not fit into these categories.
He agrees with the postmodern claims that the foundations of knowledge are fragile and there is no inherent progress in history, and the new social movements are raising qualitatively new issues about social life. He believes that personal identity has also become less firm and more fragmented in the modern world.
However, Giddens disagrees with many postmodern tenets. He prefers the idea of late modernity to that of post-modernity. “People do not live in fragmented, unconnected lives; they still construct narratives about their selves, but they do so in ‘post-traditional’ conditions”.