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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... organization of social relation- ships has tended to suppress the free discussion of the ends of modernity . And so for Habermas , the emergence of political groups based around single issues like ecology or animal rights signifies the ...
... organization of law , state and economy . To return to my question about the relationship of the individual to the values of his or her own culture therefore , Kant's essay sets out a discourse of will and reflexive sovereignty which is ...
... organization of justice , self - conscious individuals are formed through the substantive universality of ethical life ( Hegel , 1967b , p . 155 ) . Put very simply , Hegel's claim is that once the acquisitive individual realizes that ...
... organization of customs , norms and laws which embody the idea of the state . Ultimately , therefore , the nation state becomes aware of itself – of the structures of recognition , mediation and coercion which belong to its concept ...
... organization of social relations . However , unlike Adorno and Horkheimer's account of the failure of the Enlighten ... organized capitalist societies ' ; and that conse- quently , the dominance of instrumental reason can never come to ...
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 |