Post-modernism and post-modernity. Page upon page has been devoted to post-modernism and post-modernity. But what actually are they, and what implications do they have for informal educators? Barry Burke investigates.
Contents: modernism · post-modernism · post-industrial society · post-fordism · disorganised capitalism · implications for informal educators · conclusion · how to cite this article · further reading
Most people recognise that things never stay the same. Greek philosophers were quite aware that society changed continuously. Heraclitus maintained that society was in constant flux, everything was always on the move. You can’t jump in the same river twice, he maintained. Philosophers and thinkers have, throughout time, believed that society moved according to immutable and unchanging laws, that there was a driving force that drove society onward. In modern times we have looked towards the evolution of society as a progressive one. Humankind, as a result of the development of rational and scientific thinking, was not only conquering the world we live in but also looking to the stars.
Modernism
This progressive movement of society is associated with what has been described as modernity or modernism. It is essentially a historical period in Western culture and has its origins in the Enlightenment at the end of the 18th century. The Enlightenment, and the historical period that it brought in, it can be argued, is characterised by three major features.
Intellectually, there was the power of reason over ignorance;
There was the power of order over disorder; and
There was the power of science over superstition.
These three features were regarded by many as universal values. It was believed that through these the old ruling classes with their outmoded ideas could be defeated. Modernity was ‘revolutionary’ and in many respects the French Revolution of 1789 was the personification of these features. They heralded the advent of capitalism as a new mode of production and a transformation of the social order. These basic beliefs provided the basis upon which humanity was to be able to achieve progress.
Instead of looking backwards to a Golden Age, enlightenment was now seen as possible in the present through the application of reason. It was through reason that enlightenment, the conceiving of infinite possibilities, would enable the emancipation of humanity to take place: emancipation from ignorance, poverty, insecurity and violence. (Leonard 1997:6)
Until quite recently, there was a common belief that despite all the trials and tribulations suffered throughout the world, there was a general movement towards human emancipation. It was felt that society moved on. There were blips in this movement, it was not smooth: wars and famines, natural and man-made disasters took place but these were usually overcome and we all moved on.
However, in the late 1970s, a movement began amongst French intellectuals, that questioned this view of society as moving onwards and upwards, and that there was some unseen driving force within society. It rejected any notion that we were still within the modern era brought in by the Enlightenment, two hundred years ago. The modern world accord
Philosophy
The second trend within post-modernism is a philosophical one. In the 1970s, the group of French philosophers, I have already mentioned, mainly on the Left, had become disillusioned with the heady days of the late 1960s when Western Europe and the United States were in political turmoil. For a short period in 1968, there seemed a strong possibility that major political changes could take place throughout the Western world as a result of action by students, trade unionists, anti-Vietnam war protesters, liberal Communists and militant Socialists. This was not to be and in France where the struggle was arguably the most intense, this led to a waning of the huge influence previously wielded by the large Communist Party (to which most of these intellectuals owed allegiance). This disillusionment led to their disengagement with politics and their distrust of grand theories, such as Marxism, which they felt attempted but failed to explain the reality of social life and began to form ideas that slotted in to the themes explored by contemporary artists. Despite their many disagreements, they stressed the fragmentary and plural character of reality. They denied human thought the ability to arrive at any objective account of that reality. Any ideology or social theory that justified human action as a means to progress or order was condemned as meaningless. The grand social theory or narrative that justified human activity, whether it was Marxism, liberalism or Fascism is no longer credible, they argued. There are no universal truths. All they have done in the past is legitimate the power of those who know and deny power to those who do not know.
New Times
Thirdly, these two trends, in art and philosophy, seemed to reflect what was going on in the social world. It was felt by many, particularly on the British Left, that we were actually living in what they called ‘New Times’. At the heart of these ‘New Times’ was the shift from the old mass-production Fordist economy to a new, more flexible, post-Fordist order based on computers, information technology and robotics. Marxism Today, wrote (in 1988) that our world is being remade.
Mass production, the mass consumer, the big city, big-brother state, the sprawling housing estate, and the nation-state are in decline: flexibility, diversity, differentiation, mobility, communication, decentralization and internationalisation are in the ascendant [my emphasis]. In the process our own identities, our sense of self, our own subjectivities are being transformed. We are in transition to a new era. (quoted in Callinicos 1989:4)
Many people accept that we do live in a different kind of society today to that of a relatively few years ago. However, what type of society is it that we now live in? A number of theories have already been put forward, some of which you may be familiar with.
Post-industrial society?
The concept of the post-industrial society is linked with the work of Daniel Bell. He maintained that there was a progression from traditional society based on agriculture to industrial society based on modern manufacturing industry and then to post-industrial society where the emphasis on the production of goods has been overtaken by the service economy. This post-industrial society, according to Bell, has meant a change in the social structure so that we now live in a ‘knowledge society’ run by university-trained professionals and a technical elite whereas before we lived in an industrial society run by industrialists and employers. Bell’s analysis of the trend away from the traditional industrial base typical of Western Europe and North America won a considerable amount of support but it needs to be looked at with a more critical eye.
In the first place, it was never the case that the majority of the workforce in the UK were ever involved in manufacturing except for a brief period in the 1950s. Usually less than half of the working population were in manufacturing. Secondly, although there has been a shift from manufacturing into the service sector, this can be accounted for by the increased productivity in the manufacturing sector (which means that fewer people can produce more goods). The service sector, on the other hand, is labour-intensive and productivity is relatively poor. This does not mean that the British economy is becoming post-industrial but it does mean that fewer people are employed in the manufacturing sector.
Where Bell was also mistaken is when we look at the social consequences of this change. Bell maintained that the replacement of manufacturing by service industries would usher in the knowledge society and a vast increase in white-collar employment. There would be created an elite of technicians, information experts, computer buffs, systems analysts, financial managers etc. What actually happened was that as the service sector took on more workers, they included not only more managers, executives, professionals and administrators but also more clerical workers who were often low paid and as insecure as any worker in manufacturing industry. Similarly, with the expansion of supermarkets in the retail sector, more and more non-clerical workers were employed at fairly low pay and high levels of insecurity.