Criticism of the Journey: After the 1960s

Author: Murray Bookchin
Publisher:
Publish Date: 1998-02-01
Features: The emergence of critical theory is closely related to social development. Since the 1960s, the West has entered what is known as late capitalism, also referred to as post-industrial society, information society, transnational capitalist society, the post-industrial period, or the post-period. After experiencing the turbulence, pursuits, and disillusionment of the 1960s, intellectuals adopted a critical and reflective attitude toward society. They discovered that social institutions, modes of production, and the literature and arts associated with them exhibited various contradictions and paradoxes, such as the rise of transnational corporations, the popularity of mass culture, the decline of civil society, the spread of consumer consciousness, the explosion of information, the of tradition, the loss of individual subjectivity, the expansion of cyberspace and visual imagery, and so on.