Culture and Postmodernity

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Culture and Postmodernity
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Modernity vs. Postmodernity

• Modernity Stage in social evolution
  characterized by reason and the rational
  application of human ingenuity to nature by
  popular participation in determining government
  leaders and policies by secularization, freedom
  from superstition and myth by technological
  advances, generally involving industrialization,
  by urbanization by universal education and by
  possible if not inevitable, victory over disease
  and want (Griswold p.46).
• Post-modernity A postindustrial stage of social
  development dominated by media images, in which
  people are connected with other places and other
  times through proliferating channels of
  information. If the modern person was
  characterized by hope and anxiety, the
  post-modern person is characterized by a cool
  absence of illusion. Modern minds were skeptical
  postmodern minds are cynical. (Griswold p.47).

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Community

• Community A group of people that share a
  considerable number of meanings.
• Come up with list of communities you are a member
  of.
• Two basic senses
• Territorial i.e. spatially bound
• Relational i.e. bound by webs of interaction.

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Community and 3 revolutions in communication.

• Main point of chapter Communications revolutions
  represent an increasing transition from
  territorial to relational communities.
• Three revolutions away from oral culture.
• 1. Phonetic alphabet
• 2. Printing Press
• 3. Electronic communication

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Transition in Communication

• Oral Culture face-to-face communication. Depends
  on memorization. Fluid as history fades into
  myth.
• Phonetic alphabet democratizes access to
  writing.
• Printing Press further democratizes as written
  communication no longer depends on scribing.
• Electronic media (radio, telephone, TV, fax,
  internet) greatly increases the territorial reach
  of communication.

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Impact of Electronic Media

• 1. Can connect people regardless of territory.
• 2. Allows the raw expression of ideas and
  emotions.
• 3. Democratizes access in terms of time and
  space.
• 4. Democratizes in terms of education.

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Postmodernity

• Griswold electronic communications revolution
  leads to postmodernity (leaves out
  transportation?).
• Three attributes of post-modern culture.
• Fragmentation Rather than holistic, permanent,
  solid, and timeless, culture tends to be
  fragmentary, ephemeral, discontinuous, temporary.
  
• Depthlessness Instead of the profound and
  authentic, postmodernity embraces the
  superficial.
• Rejection of metanarratives. Narratives of the
  path and destiny of human progress appear naïve.

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Frederic Jameson

• De-territorialization.
• Creation of worlds unto themselves.
• Inability to gain orientation.
• New political art? Webers new prophets

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Community?

• a culture that denies depth and history, a
  culture that rejects any larger story of its past
  and future, a culture in which anything can be
  combined with anything elsedoes not sound
  promising as a foundation around which community
  can be built. (Griswold p.168).

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Optimism and Pessimism

• Global electronic communications can bring people
  together. It can separate people.
• Americans and Europeans
• 1991 Gulf War same news images brought them
  together.
• 2003 Iraq War same news images separated them.

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Decline of Metanarratives?

• Religion?
• Nationalism?
• So, One answer to chaos is reviving
  metanarratives and cultural essences.

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A Poly-centered World

• YB Yeats Things fall apart. The center cannot
  hold.
• Griswold The center has not held. People are
  part of many communities.
• Griswold But things have not fallen apart.
  People still ward of chaos through shared meaning.

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Midterm, Oct 22, 545 am

• Structure
• 35 multiple choice questions.
• 17 questions on Griswold
• 16 questions on other readings (Every reading and
  the documentary have questions. Several of these
  amount to applying Griswolds concepts to these
  readings).
• 2 questions on culture concept from first day.
• How to study
• Use Powerpoint slides as a guide to the readings.
• Underline concepts and main points of paragraphs
  and chapters, not small details.
• Study in groups.
• Send e-mail to SOCI3010-L_at_listserv.uga.edu if you
  have doubts. Helping others cannot hurt your
  grade. Helping others on-list can help your
  participation grade.