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The effects of postmodern thought on society
Industrial revolution and social change
Industrial revolution and social change
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Jean-François Lyotard was a French philosopher and literary theorist. He was a key figure in the development of postmodernist philosophy. Beyond helping to define postmodernism, Lyotard also analyzed the effect of postmodernism on the human condition. The Postmodern Condition is one of Lyotard’s seminal works on the impact of postmodernism on the modern world. The focus of the work is the current transition of societies from an industrial to a postindustrial framework. How does this shift revise the means and methods of productions and the products created? How does the alteration of legitimation from Enlightenment/Newtonian criteria for legitimation to postmodern ones affect the nature and status of science and knowledge? What change will this perform on the structure and nature of society?
Lyotard argues that the transformation will have a distinct significant impact on knowledge. “Its (knowledge’s) two principal functions— research and the transmission of acquired learning— are already feeling the effects or soon will.” (Lyotard, 4) As with many seismic changes in society, the shift is the result of an invention. Just as Gutenberg’s printing press democratized knowledge, the invention of computers is once again altering the dissemination of knowledge. “It is reasonable to suppose that the proliferation of information-processing machines (computers) is having, and will continue to have, as much of an effect on the circulation of knowledge as did advancements in human circulation (transportation systems), and later, in the circulation of sound and visual images (the media). (Lyotard, 5)
Science has altered from a system based on revelation of some "objective truth" (final signified anyone? lol) to one within and ...
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...in to perceive the State as a factor of opacity and ‘noise’. It is from this point of view that the problem of the relationship between economic and State powers threatens to arise with new urgency.” (Lyotard, 5) Lyotard goes so far as to say that modern multi-national corporations have reached the point of imperiling the state, an interesting evolution of who controls the means of production within a society.
The Postmodern Condition endures as one of the canonical works of postmodernism theory. Whether or not one subscribes to all the points made by Derrida, it serves as a remarkable look into a remarkable mind. The postmodern view of science and knowledge is a radical one, but Derrida offers plausible reasoning for why that view is the most sound.
Works Cited
Jean-François Lyotard (1979). La condition postmoderne: rapport sur le savoir. Paris: Minuit.
Postmodernism movement started in the 1960’s, carrying on until present. James Morley defined the postmodernism movement as “a rejection of the sovereign autonomous individual with an emphasis upon anarchic collective anonymous experience.” In other words, postmodernism rejects what has been established and makes emphasis on combined revolutionary experiences. Postmodernism can be said it is the "derivate" of modernism; it follows most of the same ideas than modernism but resist the very idea of boundaries. According to our lecture notes “Dominant culture uses perception against others to maintain authority.”
Nicholas Carr’s “Is Google Making Us Stupid” and Sherry Turkle’s “How Computers Change the Way We Think” both discuss the influence of technology to their own understanding and perspective. The first work by Nicholas Carr is about the impact technology has on his mind. He is skeptical about the effect it could cause in the long term of it. He gives credible facts and studies done to prove his point. While Sherry Turkle’s work gives a broad idea of the impact of technology has caused through the years. She talks about the advances in technology and how it is changing how people communicate, learn and think. In both works “Is Google Making Us Stupid” and “How Computers Change the Way We Think” the authors present
We live in a time where technology is at the center of our society. We use technology on a daily basis, for the simplest tasks, or to aid us in our jobs, and don’t give a second thought to whether these tools are actually helping us. Writers such as Kevin Kelly and Clive Thompson argue that the use of technology actually helps us humans; whiles writers such as Nicholas Carr argue that technology affects people’s abilities to learn information negatively.
Derrida, Jacques, and John D. Caputo. Deconstruction In A Nutshell : A Conversation With Jacques Derrida. New York: Fordham University Press, 1997. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost). Web. 10 Feb. 2014.
REFERENCESJean Baudrillard Simulations--1983 Semiotext[e]. America--1988 (English Edition) Verso. Seduction--1990 (English Edition) St. Martin’s Press. The Illusion of the End--1994 (English Edition) Stanford University Press. Simulacra and Simualtion--1994 (English Edition) University of Michigan Press. Jean-Francois Lyotard The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge--1984 (English Edition) University of Minnesota Press. The Postmodern Exaplained--1993 (English Edition) University of Minnesota Press. Michel Foucault Madness and Civilization--1973 Vintage Books. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison--1977 Vintage Books. The History of Sexuality--1980 Vintage Books. Linda Hutcheon A Poetics of Postmodernism: History, Thoery Fiction--1988 Routledge. The Politics or Postmodernism--1989 Routledge.
Postmodern literature contains an authoritative point of view as it expresses the “real” and the “unreal”. The authoritative viewpoint hides within the representation of words and the form of the text. Jean Baudrillard speaks of the masking of view in his essay, “Postmodernism and Consumer Society”, when he says, “This, feigning or dissimilating leaves the reality principle inta...
Information technology has advanced in multiple ways in society, where organizations has implement the structure into their work environment. Industries have outsource their manufacturing to other places in the world and rely on telecommunication to keep the marketing. The geographic distribution has changed significantly by reducing the distance it takes to complete an operation, due to information technology. These are just a couple of examples of how this advanced technology has reshape our society and continuing.
I would like to explore one of the questions posed to us by Professor which is “How can we make the positive aspects of postmodernism work in our favor?” Or even more specifically, the positive and neutral elements of postmodernism, work in the favor of the Christian worldview and thought. We will start by first exploring the basic tenants of postmodernism and a brief history of where it has been and where it is currently, revealing multiple advantages for the Christian worldview in the engagement of a postmodern.
ABSTRACT: In this essay I explicate J.F. Lyotard's reading of the Kantian sublime as presented in Lessons on the Analytic of the Sublime (1994) and in "Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism" (1984). Lessons articulates the context in which critical thought situates itself as a zone of virtually infinite creative capacity, undetermined by principles but in search of them; "Answering the Question" explores how the virtually infinite creative capacity of thought manifests in the avant-gardes. Essentially, in both works Lyotard understands the Kantian sublime as legitimating deconstructive postmodernism.
...deas and knowledge. Also, it is essential to understand in order to succeed in school, find information, and qualify for most jobs. New technologies continue to be created. The wisest step is to embrace the new technologies since they are unlikely to go away. Those who have the most knowledge of new technologies are able to accomplish more, and find more options available to them in life.
Postmodernism assumes an ontology of fragmented being. Where modernism asserts the primacy of the subject in revealing universal truth, postmodernism challenges the authority of the subject and, thus, universal truth based on it. Modernism and postmodernism, however, draw upon distinctly different epistemological modes: critical and dogmatic.
“Does Capitalism Have A Future?” is a scholarly book written by five scholars in an attempt to explore the possibility of a future collapse of global capitalism and proposes a hypothesis for the possibility of post-capitalism. Wallerstein, who is one of the scholars who wrote the book, argues that certain social movements of our contemporaneous days will create a transition to a post-capitalist world. He adds that the world’s contemporary struggle is an indication of the forthcoming new mode of production in the human history, which will most likely be a non-capitalist mode of production. “Does Capitalism Have A Future?” clearly states that there will be a struggle to determine the structure of a post-capitalist system and it also states that this change will happen soon, specifically in the next 3 or 4 decades. “What we need to analyze are the probable organizational strategies on each side in this struggle that started more or less in the 1970s and will continue in all probability to circa 2040 or 2050” .
Today is an era of information explosion. In the past few years, many newly invented technological devices and software are now tightly integrated with our everyday lives. Today, people can look up almost any kind of information, make friends, communicate with others, and express ourselves with the simple touch of a button on a device we usually keep within arm’s reach. “Widespread use of technology is changing the way we work, learn, and communicate – even the way we carry out our regular, daily activities.”(Seifer and Mihalynuk) These devices not only benefit our livelihoods and increase our happiness, but they are also integral in advancing education, technology, development, and, in general, human evolution. The children of today, who have been raised in this era of information explosion, will undoubtedly reap such benefits and, in turn, advance society towards a better generation.
Technology has changed modern society drastically, both positively and negatively. Technology has influenced every aspect of our life, making it simpler but not necessarily better. Albert Einstein was concerned about the advancement of technology. "I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction."1 Undoubtedly, what has changed the most are communication, the spread of information, and how business is practiced. Consequently, practically everyone knows how to use a computer, connect to the Internet, or use a smartphone. This is demonstrated by the way the Internet is used daily by millions of people to communicate, to sell, advertise, retrieve, and share information. Thanks to the Internet, information from anywhere in the world is at our fingertips. As a result, the advancement of technology has changed our life in many ways including; sharing of information, communication, business, education, social interaction, simplifying everyday tasks, replacing basic skills and jobs.
The biggest and easiest seen change that computers have had on today’s society can be seen in the workplace. Before computers became an office tool and were made available to the average employee, paperwork and sharing information in an office setting was done by many different individuals constantly filing and looking up figures. Now a computer can store large amounts of information that is readily available to virtually anyone with the click of a mouse button. One person can complete a job that in a time before computers would take many. Computers have made file cabinets and libraries almost obsolete. Businesses can share information nation or even world wide in a matter of seconds. For example, a word document file can be sent from an office in New York to an office in Los Angeles in under a minute, in the past this same information would have taken a week to be sent through the mail. Computers have changed the way that factories are run too. On an assembly line, before computers every job, no matter how easy or difficult, had to be done by an employee. Now, however, computers run machines and do most of these tasks.