Culture and Identity: Critical Theories`Ross Abbinnett brings a keen and subtle philosophical mind to bear on themes and debates that have become commonplace in sociology. This is a sinuously written book which casts new light on pressing contemporary issues. It is required reading for everyone who wants to think seriously and with an open mind about the terrain of the present′ - Keith Tester, Professor of Sociology, University of Portsmouth This incisive and timely book provides a concise and reliable guide to the debate on modernity and postmodernity. In particular the work of Lyotard, Beck, Bauman, Baudrillard, Giddens, Jameson and Derrida is critically reviewed. Culture and Identity provides: a thorough and accessible discussion of the main themes in the modernity-postmodernity debate; a shrewd and penetrating account of how these themes address everyday life; a novel account of how technology is altering our perceptions of the `human′; and a balanced account of the hope for radical politics and radical critique to correct the excesses of capitalism. What emerges most forcefully from the book is the error of dismissing postmodernism as a self-indulgent and ultimately, dangerous piece of ideology. Abbinnett provides a pertinent reminder of the continuing importance of the themes and challenges raised in the `postmodern moment′. |
From inside the book
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... ontology , and the stable institutions favoured by neo - conservatism ' ( ibid . , p . 339 ) . Thus , if the underlying necessity of capital should be conceived as an adaptive process , this process becomes all the more pernicious and ...
... ontology ( totality ) : The relation between the Other and me , which draws forth in his expression , issues neither in number nor in concept . The Other remains infinitely transcendent , infinitely foreign ; his face in which his ...
... ontology . The law , contractual obligation , economic necessity - indeed , all of the historically and philosophically established categories of ' the social ' - are forms that seek to impose justifiable limits upon the ethical ...
... ontology : the cognitively integrated ' subject ' , the economically rational actor , the contractually obligated citizen . The initiation of language comes through the original bond of separation between discrete ipseities ; and so it ...
... ontology . Thus , when Bauman deploys the Kantian concept of heteronomy ( that which influences the moral will from outside of its pure self - legislation , its pure autonomy ) , he is referring to those legal , moral and political ...
Contents
15 | |
25 | |
35 | |
Postmodernism and the Aesthetic | 43 |
Deconstruction and Identity | 53 |
Technology Ideology and the Culture Industry | 73 |
Information Simulation and the Silent Majorities | 96 |
The Postmodern and the Sublime | 112 |
Culture Politics Différance | 125 |
Derrida Fukuyama and the New World Order | 137 |
Science Technology and Catastrophe | 159 |
Capitalism Globalization and Cosmopolitanism | 190 |
Bibliography | 217 |