Apologies in advance to those who work with me for I am about to post briefly about post-modernism; more specifically I’m going to write a post about modernity and what comes afterwards.
A lot of people – IMHO – talk about the specific changes taking place in business or education or politics as a result of the internet and social web; they may even highlight specific changes that seem to be taking place in, for example, consumer behaviour. But what about the changes taking place at the level above – at the level of the cultural and social ideologies that shape our wider political, economic and public sphere?
I only ask because I’m reading John Schwarzmantel’s Age of Ideologies which argues that the ‘ideologies’ – political, social etc – that have largely shaped our business, poltics, social behaviour etc are a product of a very specific phase of history: modernity.
As we’re now in the age of post-modernity these ideologies (arising directly from the American/French revolutions) need re-shaping. Schwarzmantel also suggests the concept of ideology itself may need to be revised wholesale to accommodate the fragmented world of post-modernity.
So let’s hold it there. The reason I’m blogging this is because Schwarzmantel’s view of the rise of modernity struck some chords with what’s happening now as the internet impacts on politics, economics, society etc. So I thought I’d look at the origins of modernity as outlined by Schwarzmantel and see if his conclusions about the transition from the pre-modern into the modern 200 years ago can be applied to what’s happening in our internet-enabled world now and spot parallels or patterns.
Schwarzmantel discusses the effects of modernity on three areas: society, politics and economics. Over a series of forthcoming posts I’ll look at each of these areas in-depth.
More to follow….
Technorati tags: Age of Ideologies, Ideology, John Schwarzmantel, Internet, Theory
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