CCT 205: Digital Innovation and Cultural Transformation

Lecture 5: Modernism to Postmodernism

Administrivia

• Feedback delay - it’s coming shortly.

• Final concept mashup extended until Friday the 16th as a result

Modernism

• Triumph of logic, reason, instrumental rationality as chief driver of progress

• Scientific vs. religious basis of thought (e.g., Galileo's battles over heliocentric view)

• Replacement of charismatic or ordained power with bureaucratic, legal authority (Weber)

• Bellamy’s “Looking Backward” - a utopian socialist and ultimately modern society

Cracks in Modernity

• “iron cage” of bureaucracy - institutions themselves become unwieldy and oppressive

• Rationality vs. morality - rationality can be used as means to evil purposes (e.g., Holocaust)

• Socialism as deliberate modern project - centralized control, uniform answers, efficiency (at least at first) at expense (and in ignorance) of more human concerns

Postmodern Turn

• Results of hyperextension of modernist thought led to concern for what’s left behind

• Foucault’s analysis of techniques of power in practice - order at a price

• Reaction to both capitalist and socialist limitations of power - civil changes of 1960s, eventual crumbling of Soviet bloc

Modern/Postmodern

• Form• Hierarchy• Synthesis• Objectivity• Grand Narratives• Cause/Effect• Literal• Reason• Product• Passive Reception

• Antiform• Anarchy• Deconstruction• Subjectivity• Multiple Narratives• Complexity/Chaos• Oral• Rhetoric• Process• Active Participation

Postmodern Benefits

• Breaks from “iron cage” and allows for human creativity and expression to return

• Embraces multiplicity, flows, mobility, change (even harkening backwards) - can lead to a new aesthetic that allows for mutable, multifaceted, localized and yet simultaneously global community

Postmodern Limitations

• Truth becomes contingent and contentious - makes it hard to determine right/wrong, maintain any sense of order

• Displacing rationality can lead to superstition and illogical behaviour (there is some truth still out there, after all…)

• Deconstruction without synthesis - not much of value gets done

Examples: Urban Living

• Robert Moses and Le Courboisier - modernist construction of urban space

• Jacobs and the protection of livable organic neighbourhood - effects on Toronto living and other locations

• But…cyberpunk dystopia (fiction) and urban slums (fact) - life in spite of modern technologies, potential for division and chaos

Examples: Language and Local Culture

• Rise of global cultural (and cultural imperialism)

• Postmodern turn: Simultaneous rise of local/national cultures, often in valid reaction

• But: Bangalore and Kannada education - will local values jeopardize region’s global competitiveness and role?

Example: Culture and Faith

• Secular logic displaced mainstream religious faith (and its control - e.g., Quebec’s Quiet Revolution)

• Post (pre?) modern turn - increased interest in metanarratives as reaction to perceived coldness of rationality

• But: leads to moral confusion and waywardness, tends to morph into literal and occasionally extremist views (e.g., cults, but also extremist interpretations of mainstream faiths)

Example: Media

• Rise of mass media - increasing impetus to national and global media forms to maximize economies of scale

• Postmodern turn - homogenization of cultural forms led to niche broadcasts and eventually Internet

• But: do we have a common media bond anymore?

Example: Information

• Canonical information - core texts you must know and define expertise (although narrowly); rational, objective explanations (e.g., Newtonian mechanics)

• Postmodern turn: explosion of specialty areas, explanations of non-linear, seemingly chaotic systems (e.g., quantum physics, string theory, sub-atomic studies)

• But: problems in building shared, integrated information base, infoglut, conceptual confusion

Example: Ecology

• Rationalization of economic production at expense of “free” environmental resources

• Postmodern turn: Integration of ecological systems analysis, interdependence and integration of ecological realities in economy

• But: understanding can be exceptionally local (e.g., NIMBY); can be unduly conservative or emotional (e.g., seal hunt concerns)

Example: Work

• Fordism: mechanistic, efficient, authoritarian, rational, centralized, supply-driven - with qualification towards higher wages to ensure market and worker buy-in

• Post-industrial capitalism: decentralization, internationalization, flexible production, JIT, pull-system, outsourcing

• But: negative consequences of information age, gutting of middle class,

Example: Governance

• Rise of modern state and state bureaucracies

• Postmodern turn - deregulation, flexible services, outsourcing, increased balance with global capital/concerns and territoriality

• But: return of balkanization, downloading of costs, elimination of safety net, erosion of services, reduction of public voice

Example: Warfare

• Rise of states -> rise of weapons of mass destruction

• Postmodern turn: threat of wholesale annihilation and organized state-sanctioned violations of human rights reduced

• But: Rise of ethnic-based and/or civil war (e.g., genocides in Yugoslavia, Darfur) and terror (e.g., al Qaeda’s operational strategy hard to counteract via state apparatus - leading to changes that violate state principles…)

A happy medium?

• Modernity privileges order and logic - but perhaps to illogical ends

• Postmodern reactions reintroduce human condition and emotion - but too much can engender chaos and regression

• Postmodern as qualification/regeneration?

Next Week

• Chs. 10,11, 12 for lecture

• Labs tonight - mashup assistance - last week for this, we move to talking about next assignment following week.