ECLI 04

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ESTUDOS CULTURAIS EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
Lesson 4- culture and identity: modernity and 
postmodernity
Lesson 4- Culture and identity: modernity and postmodernity
ESTUDOS CULTURAIS EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
Conteúdo Programático desta aula
- Students should understand the 
concept of “agency”
- Learners should be aware of the 
ideas of Giddens and Beck on 
“reflexive modernity”
- They should recognize the 
contribution made by Habermas 
to the study of the relationship of 
the individual to society. 
Lesson 4- Culture and identity: modernity and postmodernity
ESTUDOS CULTURAIS EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
Introduction
Students should understand the concept of “agency”.
They should, also be aware of the ideas of Goffman on
the nature of humanity. Learners should be aware of
the ideas of Giddens and Beck on “reflexive
modernity”. They should recognize the contribution
made by Habermas to the study of the relationship of
the individual to society. Finally students should be
able to compare and contrast modernist theories and
post modernist theories. Students should understand
the postmodern view of culture and identity and
understand alternatives to postmodern thinking, in
particular the idea of “reflexive modernity”.
Lesson 4- Culture and identity: modernity and postmodernity
ESTUDOS CULTURAIS EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
What is ‘agency’?
- When thinking about agency we must not totally 
separate the individual from wider society.
- To do so would be to ignore the fact that humans are 
social beings who live within a culture.
- To see humans as creative and totally free in 
everything they do would be to ignore power and the 
importance of the group.
- It overstates the amount of freedom we have ‘to be 
who we wish’.
Lesson 4- Culture and identity: modernity and postmodernity
ESTUDOS CULTURAIS EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
Anthony Cohen (anhropologist), suggests that we should 
see humans as having a ‘creative self’, but they have 
been given the ability and power to be creative becuse 
of culture, not despite it, or because of its absence.
Culture requires us to think, gives us forms –
metaphors, dogmas, names, “facts” – to think, but does 
not tell us what to think: that´s the self ‘s work. In 
other words, culture offers a range of choices to choose 
from in a creative fashion. Culture provides us with the 
possibilities for action, but we take responsibility –
through our possesion of agency – for what we actually 
do. Such a view would come under criticism from many
Lesson 4- Culture and identity: modernity and postmodernity
ESTUDOS CULTURAIS EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
Feminist and Marxist sociologists, who would argue that 
the possibilities provided to us are extremely limited and 
are the outcome of power struggles in society. In this 
view we only have the freedom to choose between a 
number of situtions of inequality – not much freedom of 
choice at all.
Let´s watch the following video about Femist 
perspectives 07:45
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7caula09km0
Lesson 4- Culture and identity: modernity and postmodernity
ESTUDOS CULTURAIS EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
Theory of Agency
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSrFTyZq5j8
Although humans have agency since they can make
choices, Giddens stresses that humans are still in some ways
controlled. The realm of human agency is bounded. Men
produce society, but they do so as historically located
actors, and not under conditions of their own choosing.
Giddens refers to these structures as both ‘enabling’ and
‘constraining’. There are still power differences in society,
yet we can work within the structures to change them over
time.
Lesson 4- Culture and identity: modernity and postmodernity
ESTUDOS CULTURAIS EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
Jürgen Habermas
Habermas, capitalism and ideology
Under capitalism the masses are constrained by
economic structures and therefore have no power. In order
for people to break free from capitalism they have to be able
to judge in a rational way their social situation and that of
the wider society.They need to think about the world, and to
reach agreement with others about what should be done, and
how they should act. Habermas seeks a society free from the
constraints of ideology. The existence of ideology is seen to
lead to:
Lesson 4- Culture and identity: modernity and postmodernity
ESTUDOS CULTURAIS EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
-Falsehoods
-A lack of critical thinking
-Inequalities of power during communication
-Passive acceptance of society as it is
Central to Haberma´s notion of the emancipation of
humankind is the achievement of a truly ‘ideal speech
situation’, where individuals are able to communicate
in na active and free fashion, without the constraints of
power, structure and ideology. This means that people
become ‘critical’ in order to become free – hence the
label given to the theorizing conducted by the
Frankfurt School: ‘critical theory’. This is a notion of
agency, but by another name
Lesson 4- Culture and identity: modernity and postmodernity
ESTUDOS CULTURAIS EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
Modernity
Taking place in a time of rapid and massive change,
modernity was characterized by the following
elements:
-Industrialization
-Urbanization
-A rise in the importance of science
-The growth of the manufacturing industry
-Seculariztion (the decline of religion)
-The invention of more advanced technology
-Rationalization
Lesson 4- Culture and identity: modernity and postmodernity
ESTUDOS CULTURAIS EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
The goals were:
-Find the absolute truth
-Develop universal general laws
-Control the present
-Predict the future
-Control the shape and direction of the future
Lesson 4- Culture and identity: modernity and postmodernity
ESTUDOS CULTURAIS EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
What is postmodernity?
Postmodernity is that which comes after modernity. For
many postmodernists this era is characterized by a shift
away from production and towards an economy,
culture, identities and life-styles based on
consumption. Postmodernity has brought the aims and
spirit of modernity crashing down, especially the
Enlightenment preoccupation with absolute truth and
certainty.
The modernist world was fixed – it had a definite
character. The postmodern world is based on the
collapse of all that modernity held o be true and fixed.
In postmodernity truth, certainty and reality are
provisional and relativistic. There are no more
absolutes – no more definite standards. This is the case
not just for morality but also for the knowledge we
have about the world around us. There are too many
choices on offer, all claiming
Lesson 4- Culture and identity: modernity and postmodernity
ESTUDOS CULTURAIS EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
be the ‘real’ version of the ‘truth’. Religion, politics,
the sciences and so on all claim special access to the
truth, but how can we tell which is correct? Knowledge
has become a commodity and a form of power, rather
than an absolute, a truth. Just as truth fragments into
a plurality of truths,, so the traditional means of
identity formation bade on class gender, ethnicity and
so on has been replaced by a plurality of sources of
identity. In this way, dominant cultural meaning has
been replaced by an individual search for meaning, and
life-style has become a matter of choice. Ultimately,
Lesson 4- Culture and identity: modernity and postmodernity
ESTUDOS CULTURAIS EM LÍNGUA INGLESA
uncertainty, confusion, ambiguity and plurality will be all
that is left.Let´s watch a video about post modernism
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO_gaxFIRXw
• What is ‘reflexive modernity’?
• Giddens(1990) describes society as being in a period of
‘reflexive modernity’, where culture and society are
based on individuals´ awareness that decisions about
are more unrestricted than ever before. Therefore we
must become reflexive about who we are, what we
want and how we want to live.