Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age

Rating:
Summary: Live Dangerously
Review: "What to do? How to act? Who to be? These are focal questions for everyone lining in circumstances of late modernity - an ones which, on some level or another, all of us answer, either discursively or through day-to-day social behavior. They are existential questions, although, as we shall see later, their relation to the existential issues discussed in the preceding chapter is problematic." Giddens (1991:70)

Perhaps one of the most difficult books I have had to write a review on despite, ironically, sounding more like a self-help book rather than one of deep existential examination. However, that might just mean that the book is based on self-help books of which Giddens is an avid reader. The importance of such books is that in modern societies - self identity is a central issue. With the advent to new technology and increased education, the modality of formulation of Self-Identity has changed. A dark cloud of self-reflexivity both on institutional level and the personal level looms over those who see change as a risk and fear it while those who see promise, there is a silver lining. The rules of the game has changed - forever. Sink or swim. For Giddens the change is profound:
"For it is arguable that the period of high modernity is one of fundamental transition - not just a continuation of modernity's endless dynamism, but the presaging of structural transformations of a more profound type. The expansion of internally referential system reaches its outer limits; on a collective level and in a day-to-day life moral/existential questions thrust themselves back to center-stage. Focused around processes of self-actualization, such issues call for a restructuring of social institutions, and raise issues not just of a sociological but of a political nature." Giddens (1991:208)

The importance of the questions of identity posed above is both cause and result of changes at the institutional level and interplay, if you will between the global and the regional. Within this framework, both the institution and the individual can change and adopt. One responsible for the other. All are interconnected. Giddens sees links between links between the individuals sense of identity and the global players - a shift from traditional sociology - which sees these players in isolation. If we take as an example, the changes that have taken place in the recent past, the high level of the rate of divorce (which it is argued can serve as a metaphor for modernity) sets people on a crisis mode - a mode that holds as much risk as it does promise. It becomes a significant time - for Giddens it is a "fateful moment":
"Most of these dilemmas become particularly acute, or are experienced with special force, during the fateful moment of an individual's life. Since fateful moments, by definition, are highly consequential, the individual feels at a crossroad in terms of overall life-planning. Fateful moments are phases when people might choose to have recourse to more traditional authorities. In this sense, they may seek refuge in pre-established beliefs and in familiar modes of activity. On the other hand, fateful moments also often mark periods of reskilling and empowerment. They are points at which, no matter how reflexive an individual may be in shaping of her Self-Identity, she has to sit up and take notice of new demand as well as new possibilities. At such moments, when life has to be seen anew, it is not surprising that endeavors at reskilling are likely to be particularly important and intensely pursued. Where consequential decisions are concerned, individuals are often stimulated to devote the time and energy necessary to generate increased mastery of the circumstances they confront. Fateful moments are transition points which have major implications not just for the circumstances of an individual's future conduct, but for self identity. For consequential decisions, once taken, will reshape the reflexive project of identity through the lifestyle consequences which ensue." Giddens (1991:142-143)

Based on the three dynamics of modernity: the separation of time and space, the disembedding mechanism and institutional reflexivity plus added to that the notion of an acute sense of crisis the self is beset with this fateful moments. To this, Giddens replies with Life Politics.
"Life-political issues place a question mark against the internally referential systems of modernity. Produced by the emancipatory impact of modern institutions, the life-political agenda exposes the limits of decision-making governed purely by internal criteria. For life politics brings back to prominence precisely those moral and existential questions repressed by the core institutions of modernity. Here we see the limitations of accounts of 'postmodernity' developed under the aegis of poststructuralism. According to such views, moral questions become completely denuded of meaning or relevance in current social circumstances. But while this perspective accurately reflects aspects of the internally referential systems of modernity, it cannot explain why moral issues return to the center of the agenda of life politics. Life-political issues cannot be debated outside the scope of abstract systems: information drawn from various kinds of expertise is central to their definition. Yet because they center on questions of how we should live our lives in emancipated social circumstances they cannot but bring to the fore problems and questions of a moral and existential type. Life-political issues supply the central agenda for the return of the institutionally repressed. They call for a remoralising of social life and they demand a renewed sensitivity to questions that the institutions of modernity systematically dissolve." Giddens (1991: 223-224)

Changes therefore cannot be seen in isolated areas or pockets of consideration. We cannot focus on the individual only. The changes must bee seen within the context of the macro and micro revel. Within the realm of reflexivity, we do not only look at changes within ourselves as individuals and institutions but how we institute change. Using divorce as a metaphor for modernity, we can see all the hurts and pains and promise, much like Nietzsche said....live dangerously.

Rating:
Summary: A Branch of Structuration Theory
Review: The question of self identity is a classical philosophical question and also a fundamental issue for any social/ sociological theory which deals with the subject, the active agent. The approach to this issue can be either set out in a philosophical manner or that of a social science. By "social science" I refer to the narrow sense of a somewhat empirical and experimental tradition.

Giddens adopts the latter. He argues from results of psychological experiments that human beings are subject to a sense of security since a newborn. By the sense can one assure the continuity of the self-identity. The continuity furtherly guarantees that the person not get into psychological disorder.

The self-identity in "high-modernity" has to cope with new problems. Giddens avoids using the term "postmodern", but he does points out the failure of the Enlightenment project which other postmodernists recognize. Giddens admits that human knowledge cannot reach so far as to set out a orderly plan of the society. The uncertainty signified by the sphere of the unknown/ unrealizable forms a great challenge to the self identity he mentioned above. Giddens tries to describe the society in high-modernity as a "risk community" and politics of life. The former concept may be inspired by Ulrich Beck. And the latter means an incorporation of global or domestic issues into everyday decisions, such as whether or not to buy environment-friendly products.

The style of this book can be seemed as a detail part of his structuration theory, which attempts to combined the conflicting individualist and structuralist perspectives. Those who are familiar with the agent/ structure controversies may find this book helpful.

On the contrary, those who have a better taste for philosophy or postmodern discourse would find the arguments of Giddens implausible. He seeks justifications from the validity and reliability of psychological experiments. Unfortunately, psychology itself is suspicious, since the explanation and attribution of experiment results are also subject to our cognitive framework. This critique may leads to phenomenological or postmodern reflexions, the former of which remains in line with subject philosophy while the latter of which de-construct the subject and put their eyes on language, discourse and desire.

Rating:
Summary: A Branch of Structuration Theory
Review: The question of self identity is a classical philosophical question and also a fundamental issue for any social/ sociological theory which deals with the subject, the active agent. The approach to this issue can be either set out in a philosophical manner or that of a social science. By "social science" I refer to the narrow sense of a somewhat empirical and experimental tradition.

Giddens adopts the latter. He argues from results of psychological experiments that human beings are subject to a sense of security since a newborn. By the sense can one assure the continuity of the self-identity. The continuity furtherly guarantees that the person not get into psychological disorder.

The self-identity in "high-modernity" has to cope with new problems. Giddens avoids using the term "postmodern", but he does points out the failure of the Enlightenment project which other postmodernists recognize. Giddens admits that human knowledge cannot reach so far as to set out a orderly plan of the society. The uncertainty signified by the sphere of the unknown/ unrealizable forms a great challenge to the self identity he mentioned above. Giddens tries to describe the society in high-modernity as a "risk community" and politics of life. The former concept may be inspired by Ulrich Beck. And the latter means an incorporation of global or domestic issues into everyday decisions, such as whether or not to buy environment-friendly products.

The style of this book can be seemed as a detail part of his structuration theory, which attempts to combined the conflicting individualist and structuralist perspectives. Those who are familiar with the agent/ structure controversies may find this book helpful.

On the contrary, those who have a better taste for philosophy or postmodern discourse would find the arguments of Giddens implausible. He seeks justifications from the validity and reliability of psychological experiments. Unfortunately, psychology itself is suspicious, since the explanation and attribution of experiment results are also subject to our cognitive framework. This critique may leads to phenomenological or postmodern reflexions, the former of which remains in line with subject philosophy while the latter of which de-construct the subject and put their eyes on language, discourse and desire.

Rating:
Summary: A lucid and engaging synthesis
Review: This book is indeed a work of social science, and not a work of formal logic, dialectic, or philosophy. And as such, it seeks to avoid the subject-object aporias and non-explanatory vocabulary of "postmodernism" so fashionable in some academic circles in favor of an integrated model of the self and society that not only makes sense, but resonates with the modern reader and social scientist in a way not easily dismissable by concerns of validity claims. Phenomenology, it must be noted, is less than a water-tight system of defendable truth-claims; postmodernism in its extreme denies the notion of objective knowledge altogether. This book has different aims.


The strength of Giddens' work has always been his identification of reflexivity as the central mechanism behind social and psychological transformations - the nested critique of society that sets up progressively complex turnovers in psyche and structure, one on the heels of the other, institutionalizing doubt as a central feature of existential and social life. Giddens makes clear that "postmodernity" is a meaningless term for his purposes; instead he takes the more sensible route (alongside contemporaries such as the brilliant Scott Lash) and employs the term "high modernity" to describe the present times as of the same conceputal order (albeit much more "intense" in critical ways) than preceding centuries. He compares and contrasts the self and the other, the mechanics of disembedding and reimbedding, the dynamics of intensionality and extensionality, and the twin states of trust and risk in a way that convincingly demonstrates that modernity is a game whose time is not yet up - and whose textures social science is capable of elegantly describing, and possibly even explaining. Giddens' theory of the "pure relationship" and his related analyses of self-society relationships are extremely important theoretically to many areas of the social sciences, including nation-state theory, globalization, development ethnography, refugee studies, and cultural studies. His work is even beginning to exert an influence on parallel disciplines as well, for example discourse analysis.


So, while the philosopher might dismiss this work as dependent on the truth-claims of modern psychology, the sociologist (at whatever level of expertise) will find this to be an engaging, challenging, and clearly written work with far-ranging application to empirical social-scientific material.

Rating:
Summary: A lucid and engaging synthesis
Review: This book is indeed a work of social science, and not a work of formal logic, dialectic, or philosophy. And as such, it seeks to avoid the subject-object aporias and non-explanatory vocabulary of "postmodernism" so fashionable in some academic circles in favor of an integrated model of the self and society that not only makes sense, but resonates with the modern reader and social scientist in a way not easily dismissable by concerns of validity claims. Phenomenology, it must be noted, is less than a water-tight system of defendable truth-claims; postmodernism in its extreme denies the notion of objective knowledge altogether. This book has different aims.


The strength of Giddens' work has always been his identification of reflexivity as the central mechanism behind social and psychological transformations - the nested critique of society that sets up progressively complex turnovers in psyche and structure, one on the heels of the other, institutionalizing doubt as a central feature of existential and social life. Giddens makes clear that "postmodernity" is a meaningless term for his purposes; instead he takes the more sensible route (alongside contemporaries such as the brilliant Scott Lash) and employs the term "high modernity" to describe the present times as of the same conceputal order (albeit much more "intense" in critical ways) than preceding centuries. He compares and contrasts the self and the other, the mechanics of disembedding and reimbedding, the dynamics of intensionality and extensionality, and the twin states of trust and risk in a way that convincingly demonstrates that modernity is a game whose time is not yet up - and whose textures social science is capable of elegantly describing, and possibly even explaining. Giddens' theory of the "pure relationship" and his related analyses of self-society relationships are extremely important theoretically to many areas of the social sciences, including nation-state theory, globalization, development ethnography, refugee studies, and cultural studies. His work is even beginning to exert an influence on parallel disciplines as well, for example discourse analysis.


So, while the philosopher might dismiss this work as dependent on the truth-claims of modern psychology, the sociologist (at whatever level of expertise) will find this to be an engaging, challenging, and clearly written work with far-ranging application to empirical social-scientific material.