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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... rational will exceeds the immediate demands and satisfactions of the present ; the moral stricture is entirely independent of love , friendship and traditional obligations . Third , the nature of this moral stricture is such that it ...
... rational necessity of duty , his actual motivations – greed , acquisitiveness , self - love - are legitimized by Kant's abstract idea of moral responsibility . For Hegel , then , the establishment of civil society as the sphere of ...
... rationality ; rather , it leads back to the substantive 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 ...
... rational social order ' , has been shattered by the violent domination that expert cultures have assumed over the ' hermeneutics of everyday com- munication ' ( ibid . ) . Thus , both the possibility of the effects that have come to ...
... rational subjectivity from processes of techno - scientific modernization ( ibid . , pp . 13-14 ) . Ultimately , Habermas attempts to circumscribe the modern philosophi- cal enterprise as an interpretive rather than a legislative ...
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 |