Readings on Basic Knowledge of Western Social Sciences: Postmodernism (Second Edition)

Author: (Canada) David Leon
Publisher:
Publication Date: 2005-05-01
Features: The vitality of sociology and even social sciences largely depends on a keen response to social and cultural changes. In this regard, David Leon, a sociology professor at Queen's University in Canada, sets an example for social science workers. His research, writing, and teaching interests all revolve around significant social changes in the modern world. Technology, society, and (post)modernity are his focal points; accordingly, the information society, globalization, secularization and religion, electronic surveillance and privacy, and of course, (post)modernity, become the themes of his works. These works mainly include: Surveillance After September 11 (2003), Surveillance as Social Sorting: Privacy, Risk, and Digital Discrimination (2002), Surveillance Society: Monitoring Everyday Life (2001), Rethink Church, State and Modernity: Canada between Europe and America (co-edited with Marguerite Vandi, 2000), Jesus in Disneyland: Religion in Postmodern Time (2000), Computers, Surveillance and Privacy (1996, co-edited with Ella Zureik), The Electronic Eye: The Rise of Surveillance Society (1994), The Information Society (1988), and so on. Postmodernity naturally belongs to the series of "keen responses" mentioned above. This small book was first published in 1994 and republished in 1999 with revisions and supplements. The author's intention is very clear: to make "keen responses" to some important issues of contemporary social and cultural changes through postmodernity. He says: "Now, anyone who wants to map the cultural changes and, if the views in this book are correct, understand contemporary social phenomena, must center on the issue of postmodernity. Because the issue of postmodernity provides an opportunity to reassess modernity. It shows that the current signs can be understood as modernity itself being changeable and unpredictable, and it seems to be abandoning the promises it made about the future at the time." (Quoted from page 127 of the book) "The concept of postmodernity is valuable because it alerts us to a series of major issues. It enhances our sensitivity and helps us treat certain debates as issues to be explained. It forces our perspective to broaden beyond narrow technological and specific debates, allowing us to address historical changes from a wider viewpoint." (See page 9 of the book) Unlike the common perception of postmodernity as heresy, rebellion, or other "negative" phenomena, the author does not consider it a futile academic fabrication or populist propaganda. Instead, he views postmodernity (ity) as a subjective discourse for grasping the changes of a specific era, just as modernity (ity) marks the world since the Enlightenment. Indeed, compared to the era of Marx, Weber, Simmel, and Nietzsche (considered the precursors of postmodern thought), the world we live in today has undergone significant "mutations." Information and communication technologies not only bring new forms of the external macro-world, such as the information society, globalization, and the global village, but they also constantly reconstruct and shape micro-forms of individuals, communities, nations, and gender. Biogenetic technology brings revolutionary changes to the external forms of the economic and social world while prompting a redefinition of the human body, even of humanity itself. The value and meaning of life are once again highlighted. Television, images, and advertising flood every corner of the earth, and the tide of consumerism sweeps through every rich and poor heart. Consumers and consumption, rather than workers and production, become the focus of social analysis. Baudrillard argues that adhering to Marxist production models of analysis cannot fully understand the consumer society. To a large extent, this rapidly evolving information society, this materialistic consumer society, this fantastical image world, and this fleeting "hyperreal" world, all lie outside the grand narrative of modernity. The new era needs new symbols and new thinking. It is precisely in examining social phenomena such as new technologies and consumerism within the context of cultural changes that Leon makes us believe that labeling this new era and new thinking with "postmodern (ity)" is appropriate. In this sense, we are in the postmodern age. However, this does not mean abandoning modernity. In Leon's view, postmodernity is not a radical break with modernity, just as modernity was not a radical break with tradition. The development of human society often finds new vitality in the "wisdom of the past." The new postmodern situation makes issues of timeless values and meanings, such as humanity, society, and the future, increasingly acute. So, how should we respond? To this, Leon disagrees with Nietzsche's nihilistic view that the loss of ethical, value, and meaning resources in modernity has plunged humanity into an irreparable abyss of nihilism. Modernity has not died, and on this point, Leon aligns with Habermas. There are still wisdom resources to be mined in modernity. Even Leon says that even in the postmodern age, people can recycle and utilize the wisdom resources of the pre-modern, i.e., tradition: religion and ethics. This fully demonstrates Leon's broad historical perspective. He proposes that we "acknowledge postmodernity, reassess modernity, and recycle the pre-modern" (see page 134 of the book). In this perspective, each era is relativized and contextualized, and thus, the future of humanity need not be the "apocalyptic" disaster scenario envisioned by millenniumarians. China in its transition period (from traditional to modern) is in a "thirst" for modernity. So, is postmodernity a luxury? A careful reading of Leon's interpretation of postmodernity reveals the answer: Who can deny that new technologies