Explain Giddens' theory of modernity.

  Recent social changes have led to debates over the very nature of the contemporary social world. There is a debate between those who continue to see contemporary society as a modern world and those who argue that a substantial change has taken place in recent years and that we have moved into a new, postmodern world. Most of the classical sociologists were engaged in an analysis and critique of modern society which is clear in the works of Marx, Weber, Durkheim and Simmel. As we move into the 21st century, it is obvious that today’s world is a very different place. The issue is whether the changes in the world are modest and continuous with those associated with modernity or are so dramatic and discontinuous that the contemporary world is better described by a new term, “postmodern.”

A host of social changes are fundamentally altering our world, and traditional “class politics” and faith in progress are being replaced by “identity politics” and “new” social movements such as feminism, gay liberation, ecologism, ethnic revivalism, religious neofundamentalism” (Tucker Jr 1998: 126). These changes have brought with them a challenge to the “philosophical discourse of modernity”. The conceptual framework of social science and the historical legacy of Enlightenment rationality have been challenged by new postmodern knowledge, of which contends that reason is a form of illegitimate power that marginalises and excludes cultural vocabularies that do not conform to its categories.

Giddens said that in order to understand and conceptualise contemporary society, we need a new sociological theory capable of grasping its complexity. He describes the modern world as a “juggernaut”. Modernity in the form of a juggernaut is extremely dynamic, it is a “runaway world” with great leaps in the pace, scope and profoundness of change over prior systems (Ritzer 2000 : 424). Giddens defines modernity in terms of four basic institutions. The first is capitalism, characterised by commodity production, private ownership of capital, propertyless wage labor and a class system derived from these characteristics. The second is industrialism, which involves the use of inanimate power sources and machinery to produce goods. Industrialism is not restricted to the workplace, and it affects an array of other settings, such as “transportation, communication and domestic life” (Giddens 1990: 56). The third, is surveillance capacities which is defined as “the supervision of the activities of subject populations (mainly, but not exclusively) in the political sphere” (Ibid 1990: 8). The fourth is military power, or the control of the means of violence, including the industrialisation of war. It should be noted that at the macro level, Giddens focuses on the nation-state (rather than the more conventional sociological focus on society), which he sees as radically different from the type of community characteristic of pre-modern society.

According to Giddens, modernity is given dynamism by three essential aspects:

i) Time-space separation: With modernisation, time was standardised. In large part, social interaction does not take place at the same time and in the same place. Relationships with those who are physically absent and increasingly distant become more and more likely. New technological measures also call for expansion of our space which means that we can be in the same space though not necessarily in the same locale. The modern rational organisation, for example, has been able to connect the local and the global in new ways. A modern company can function because it has been possible to break the time-space connection.

ii) Disembedding of social systems: Earlier the institutions and actions of society were embedded in the local community. The condition has changed because social relations are lifted out of the local interaction context by disembedding mechanisms. Giddens distinguishes between two types of disembedding mechanisms which contribute to the development of modern institutions: i) symbolic tokens; and (ii) expert systems. Together these are called abstract systems. Money is an example of a symbolic token. It places time in a bracket as it functions as a means of credit. It represents a value that can be later used to purchase new goods. The standardised value allows transactions to be carried out without actually meeting, thus fracturing the notion of space. New patterns of interaction are created across time and space.

Expert systems are defined as, “systems of technical accomplishment or professional expertise that organise large areas of the material and social environments in which we live today” (Ibid: 27). The most obvious expert systems involve professionals like lawyers and physicians. Consider the following example. In travel by bus one enters a large network of expert systems including the construction of the bus, roads and the traffic control system. The bus can be taken without possessing knowledge of how these systems are constructed. One only needs the money for the ticket (another expert system). The expert systems also help to move social relations from one given context to another. Such a disembedding mechanism requires a time-space separation.

iii) Reflexivity of Modern society: According to Giddens, reflexivity, the third contributing factor in society’s profound process of transformation, is of two forms. The first is a general feature of all human action. The second type of reflexivity is unique to modernity. Modern society is experiencing a reflexivity at both the institutional and personal levels, and this is decisive for the production and change of modern systems and modern forms of social organisation. Giddens defines reflexivity as institutions’ and individuals’ regular and constant use of knowledge as the conditions for society’s organisation and change. The firm undertakes market surveys in order to establish sales strategies; the state conducts censuses in order to establish the tax base. This increased reflexivity is made possible by the development of the network of mass communication. With an expansion of the time-space dimension, the social practices are constantly investigated and changed on the basis of newly acquired information. Today we reflect on tradition and act in accordance with it only if it can be legitimised via reflexivity.

For PDF copy of Solved Assignment

Any University Assignment Solution

WhatsApp - 8409930081 (Paid)