Theories of today's society: Cultural, social and economic changes

   There are many theories on the society of the XXI century, and in this essay I'll be exploring and evaluating postmodernism, late modernism and postmodernist Marxism.

Index
· Characteristics of XXI century society & changes that led to it
· Postmodernism
· Late modernism
· Postmodern Marxism

   Society of the XXI and mid and late XX centuries is distinguished from other societies by four main characteristics. The first is the notion of a nation-state, where territories are divided into nations that generally share a same culture and language, and which are led by one central government. The second is the use of rationality and science to obtain knowledge, whereas in other societies such as pre-industrial European society superstition is the main means for this end. People become more individualistic, meaning that they have a greater personal freedom and rely less on tradition. Finally, society is dominated by capitalism, where the proletariat majority sells their workforce to the bourgeoisie owners of the means of production.

   Four main changes are the ones that have led to these characteristics, the most obvious of which is technological change. Technological development has led to space-time compression, because the effects of space and time on our lives are less noticeable thanks to machines. For example, a journey from Europe to South America on a plane takes less than a day, whereas on a ship it would have lasted months, and before that it would have been impossible. Economic change is seen in the way we handle money. Increasingly the way to do this is more digital, and even the products sold have shifted from being solely material goods to including, as an important part of them, information such as films, music or games. A great part of the money we handle is managed virtually, through global networks of banking and online transactions. Political change is seen in transnational corporations (TNC), such as Nike, which sell standardised goods worldwide, having factories and shops in multiple countries. These corporations now have more power than governments, because in the free-market economy they are the ones who truly appeal to people. This standardisation of the product of sale has the effect of creating the same tastes worldwide. For example, Nike designs a model of trainers they think will be successful based on American tastes, but when they sell the same thing in other countries people in those countries will begin to acquire these American tastes, simply because in many cases there isn't an equivalent design for their culture's tastes. This leads to social and cultural changes, where increasingly the world's cultures are being absorbed and mixed in one global culture. Another thing that leads to this is the mass media, which promote role models such as music superstars that radiate and spread these cultural traits.

POSTMODERNISM
   This said, postmodernists believe that the modern era has ended and we are now in a postmodern era. Postmodernism is based on the principle of anti-foundationalism, which argues that there is no absolute truth. This has two consequences: the Enlightenment project, which claimed that humans are capable of bringing a better society through the use of rationality and science, is dead, because we can't use objective knowledge if such thing does not exist; all theories which claim to have an absolute truth, such as Marxism or feminism, are now a waste, they are meta-narratives that have to be forgotten. Lyotard (1992) argues that, because of this, the only thing that exists are views and opinions, and all are equally valid. He believes that, despite the end of the Enlightenment dream, this is preferable to having an objective truth imposed on us. Baudrillard, like Lyotard, argues that there is no objective knowledge, but because economy now is based on the selling of information in the form of images, a new type of signs appears: simulacra (singular: simulacrum), which are signs that stand only for themselves, such as cartoons or the logo of a bank, this unlike symbols, which represented things in the physical world. This simulacra create a hyper-reality, in which people are trapped and thus separated from the real reality. Since we are more individualistic, tradition is less important in our lives and losses its power to guide our actions and define us. Now identity has become unstable, and it can be changed only by changing our way of consumption, because it is the simulacra that with which we present ourselves that give us identity.

   However, postmodernists have criticisms. For example, most non-postmodernists would argue that Baudrillard is simply wrong in suggesting that people can't distinguish between hyper-reality and the real reality, and, as we will see, other theories argue that while it may be true that science can't lead us to absolute truths, it can get us near enough that we can indeed change and improve society. Moreover, why would you take as a truth a theory that says that there aren't truths? If all views are equally valid, the view that the Holocaust never happened becomes just as valid as the posture that it did, despite having tones of evidence against it, thus legitimising neglect to the victims. Thus, this perception can have not only theoretical but moral issues associated with it.

LATE MODERNISM
   Late modernism argues that we have not moved on from the modern era, but are just on the late stages of it. Giddens argues that we are undergoing disembedding, which is the process where we become distant from tradition and its ethical guidelines. Due to individualism we are more free to decide how t act, but this leaves the question: "how to make this decision?". What we do is jump to reflexivity, where we monitor, reflect upon and modify our behaviour constantly. Under these two principles, late modern society becomes fragile and ephemeral, always subject to rapid change. Beck argues that today's society is characterised by manufactured risks, human-made hazards such as global warming or economic instability. We humans, due to Giddens' principles, pay special attention to these risks when making our choices on how to act. For example, if you see on the internet that a certain food is bad for the health, you will change your diet. He calls this risk-consciousness. Beck is optimistic about the Enlightenment position. He is sceptic of science, because it is technological development mainly that has brought a large number of the manufactured risks, but he believes that empirically observing the world can change society for the better. For example, new political movements such as environmentalism are largely based on scientific understanding of our condition.

   Some sociologists reject Beck's optimism, because they argue that political movements like Extinction Rebellion are too fragmented to make an important impact. Moreover, Marxists oppose to the idea that we can freely change our lifestyle based on our decisions, because there are structural factors that restrain us. For example, a working class person who wishes to stop consuming fast food and each mor healthy organic food is faced with the fact that fast food shops are more common in w/c areas, thus exposing him or her to more temptation, and that organic food is more expensive.

POSTMODERNIST MARXISM
   Marxists agree with postmodernists in that we have moved to a new era different from modernism, but take sides with late modernism in their acceptance of the Enlightenment project. Harvey notes that capitalism has an ethos of profitability, and thus it constantly replaces old ways to acquire benefit with new ones, leading to more specialised and efficient workers.  Harvey agues that the present system of production is one of post-Fordism; Fordism is the mass production of standardised goods in factories that is characteristic of the industrial era, whereas post-Fordism is the mass production of personalised products for small, niche markets. For example, Nike now allows the consumer to design their own pair of trainers from templates via online websites. This leads to the creation of more diversity: people are more able to translate their own personal tastes and preferences into the real world, and thus more trends of fashion emerge. Moreover, drawing on Baudrillard's notion that consumption makes identity, identity in post-Fordism becomes commodified and commercialised; identity and culture become consumable products. For example, if a person likes rap music, they only have to consume 'rap music products' (clothing and gadgets that are commonly used by rap stars) to create that identity, and souvenirs of countries you visit, like key chains with the Eiffel Tower, are the epitome of the commodification of culture. Jameson suggests that postmodernity is the highest point of capitalism, because it is able to commodify all aspects of life.

Summary:

PoMo: Lyotard - anti-foundationism; Baudrillard - simulacra and hyper-reality
LateMo: Giddens - disembeddeding and reflexivity; Beck - manufactured risks and risk society
Marx PoMo: Harvey - post-Fordism; Jameson - the capitalist peak

Thanks for reading. If you found it useful or interesting, share it with your friends and family, and I should want to leave with a meme depicting one of the criticisms agains postmodernism that I always find hilarious.

Marxism: historical materialism

   Marx was a materialist is the sense that he believed we humans need material goods to survive, such as food and shelter. Different societies have different ways of obtaining these material goods. Marx believes that it is the necessity to satisfy these material needs, as opposed to the development of new ideas, that is the primal engine for the advancement of history. This is because humans will come together in groups in order to be more effective at obtaining material goods - it is self interest that motivates social relations - and therefore changes to social structures are impulsed by the same goal; when a better way to produce goods is found, this causes relations to change, but, as we will see, a "better way to produce" is not necessarily "better" for all individuals.

   Tribal societies had what he calls primitive communism, a system where all members work to obtain their necessities, which are shared more or less evenly because all goods were owned communally, since there was no concept of private property. They would do this through hunting or gathering. Marx views humans as animals that create instruments as a force of labour. These would include tools such as spears and axes, but with the emergence of private property the means of production become privatised, and this gives place to a ruling class that dominates over villagers. Colonial expansion then creates a new type of society: Marx calls it the ancient society, and it's the first to have exploitation; in its case, of slaves. Legally, the slaves are owned by the nobles and aristocrats, and they are seen as the means of production, instruments to produce material goods. For example, they'd build houses and castles and cultivate the land. In feudalism the exploited class would be the serfs who are legally owned by the feudal lords who own the land. In all societies, Marx argues, there is alienation: an alienated worker is set apart from the final product of his or her work and has little to no control over what this work is. In this way, a slave is forced to produce for the aristocrat and the serf for the lord, not for themselves. Nevertheless, since their owners want to preserve them healthy enough to continue working, they will provide them with basic necessities which they'll take from what they produced themselves, so in this sense they are not totally separated from their work. In capitalism, on the other hand, workers are the most alienated; the exploitation is from the bourgeoisie, who own the factories, to the proletariat, who although legally free, are obliged to sell their force of labour to the bourgeoisie in their pursue of subsistence. Division of labour has reached its maximum expression, so that each worker is a meaningless piece of a larger system of meaningless pieces that do the same over and over each day. They are stripped away from their humanity because they are only machines. Moreover, it is in capitalism that workers are completely separated from the product of their work. For example, a worker who participates in the creation of a watch doesn't receive anything from the watch: they are working for a salary with which they can buy whatever they want, and even if it is the watch they built, at the time of purchasing it they are consumers no different from anyone else who did not participate in its creation.

Definitions of Religion

   Sociologists don't agree on what is meant by religion, and there are different approaches to this definition. To understand the difference between them, we must understand the difference between a functional and a substantive definition. A functional definition is one that defines a thing through what it does or is used for; for example in defining a vehicle, it would say that it's the thing that takes you to work or to school. A substantive definitions, on the other hand focuses on what the thing is, on its substance; in defining a vehicle, it would focus on its structure: wheels, seats, engine.

   Weber provides a substantive definition of religion. He says that religion is an organised belief in the supernatural, including, but not limited to, gods and angels. This belief, he emphasises, cannot be confirmed by science. In this way, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, ancient Greek and Norse mythology are religions, because they affirm the existence of supernatural beings. This definition comes handy when researching about religion, because it marks a clear difference between what is and what is not religious belief; for example, in later editions of the 1851 UK Census, some people marked as their religion Jedi Knights or Heavy Metal. This clearly is not what the researchers were going for, but with Weber's definition they could easily select out what didn't fit in. However, this definition is exclusive, meaning that it restricts what can be seen as a religion, and this makes it Eurocentric. Eurocentrism is the belief that European values are the standard against which all values should be weighted, but this excludes Eastern traditions which don't believe in a supernatural God, like Buddhism and Confucianism, that we would regard as being religions. Thus, a substantive definition provides clear distinction and criteria for religion but excludes many non-Western faiths.

   Durkheim provides a functional definition. For him, religion integrates individuals into the norms and values of society to create social solidarity and harmony. For example, by calling all its followers to church every Sunday, Christianity creates a sense of community and of duty. This definition is more inclusive: it recognises non-Western traditions, as clearly there is too social solidarity in Buddhist temples. However, it is too inclusive. The criteria for being a religion becomes so vague that even going to school and studying for tests fits the definition. In football fandom, followers of a team may gather weekly to watch the games of their team and conduct rituals such as chanting hymns, but, although there are regular rituals, just like Sunday prayers or the five daily prayers of Islam, it is hard to accept football fandom as a religion. Moreover, Yinger argues that religions provide answers for 'ultimate questions': for example, where do we come from, where should we go, how should we behave. However, there are other, secular sources for these questions; science aims to explain where we come from and where do we go (in terms of the future of the universe), and there are plenty of ethical philosophical theories that don't include, or require, the existence of a God, like Kant's Categorical Imperative, Aristotle's Virtue Ethics or Bentham's Utilitarianism. Thus, functional definitions tell us how religion is used in society and to what end it functions, but they need of substantive definitions to differentiate themselves from other things that move toward the same goal.