Modernity

• The postmodernist argument revolves around the idea that there cannot be any overarching explanation of society. The idea of society only exists as a reassuring ‘narrative.’ So, in order to understand society, we need to have an awareness of the role of the media in creating an image of society that we seek to live out. 
• Two postmodernist sociologists: Lyotard and Baudrillard
• Lyotard argued that people are rejecting metanarratives, and they have abandoned any search for the ultimate truth. People now focus on ‘what works’ and tackling small scale societal issues. This all has increased the amount of diversity, tolerance and creativity because people aren’t trying to impose their meta-narratives on others. People can play around with their identities.  
• Meta-narratives (as argued by Lyotard) refers to big stories about how the world works. They provide a foundation for lots of smaller stories about the world. Metanarratives could be religious, sociological or scientific. Metanarratives include implications about how people should live as well as what is true.
• Weaknesses of Lyotard's metanarrative argument:

  • The theory itself is a meta-narrative so he contradicts himself because why should his metanarrative be more accepted than others? 
  • He provides very little evidence to support his argument  
  • He makes a sweeping generalisation  
  • He presents the world as a place where people are free to consume what they want. He ignores issues like class differences and capitalism which means that working class people can’t afford to consume the same things. So social divisions are much more important than Lyotard argues  
• Baudrillard notes that the mass of society lacks interest towards social solidarity, people live isolated lives but share common consumptions of the media. There are 'sign objects' - consuming the image not the thing itself. People have limited direct experience of the world so they rely on the media. The media means that people have to reflect the media images in how they behave, creating confusion over what is actually real. Over-consumption moves people away from social relationships, people buy things because they show they are successful or cool (not for functionality.)
• Weaknesses of Baudrillard’s argument:

  • Used little evidence to back up his claims – no evidence to prove that people are unable to disdinguish between fact and fiction  
  • He assumes that power is not significant today, but owners etc are able to shape metanarratives  
• A late modernity sociologist: Beck
• Beck argued that modernity introduced new risks. These are seen beyond the control of people being caused by such things as God, these new risks were considered to be solvable by humans.  

  In late modernity though, the risks were seen as spiraling away from human control, such as global warming being too complex for society to be able to deal with. Humans create risks that get too big for them to control, even rich people are not able to isolate themselves from risks anymore. There has been a move towards industrialization so people have more choices. 
• Weaknesses of late modernity:

  • No evidence
  • Assumes power is not significant today
  • The concept of risk is not new
  • People do believe that issues are changeable (extinction rebellion for instance)