CCT 205: Digital Innovation and Cultural Transformation

1. CCT 205: Digital Innovation and Cultural Transformation Lecture 5: Modernism to Postmodernism

2. Administrivia • Feedback delay - it’s coming shortly. • Final concept mashup extended until Friday the 16th as a result

3. Modernism • Triumph of logic, reason, instrumental rationality as chief driver of progress • Scientific vs. religious basis of thought (e.g., Galileo's battles over heliocentric view) • Replacement of charismatic or ordained power with bureaucratic, legal authority (Weber) • Bellamy’s “Looking Backward” - a utopian socialist and ultimately modern society

4. Cracks in Modernity • “iron cage” of bureaucracy - institutions themselves become unwieldy and oppressive • Rationality vs. morality - rationality can be used as means to evil purposes (e.g., Holocaust) • Socialism as deliberate modern project - centralized control, uniform answers, efficiency (at least at first) at expense (and in ignorance) of more human concerns

5. Postmodern Turn • Results of hyperextension of modernist thought led to concern for what’s left behind • Foucault’s analysis of techniques of power in practice - order at a price • Reaction to both capitalist and socialist limitations of power - civil changes of 1960s, eventual crumbling of Soviet bloc

6. Form Hierarchy Synthesis Objectivity Grand Narratives Cause/Effect Literal Reason Product Passive Reception Antiform Anarchy Deconstruction Subjectivity Multiple Narratives Complexity/Chaos Oral Rhetoric Process Active Participation Modern/Postmodern

7. Postmodern Benefits • Breaks from “iron cage” and allows for human creativity and expression to return • Embraces multiplicity, flows, mobility, change (even harkening backwards) - can lead to a new aesthetic that allows for mutable, multifaceted, localized and yet simultaneously global community

8. Postmodern Limitations • Truth becomes contingent and contentious - makes it hard to determine right/wrong, maintain any sense of order • Displacing rationality can lead to superstition and illogical behaviour (there is some truth still out there, after all…) • Deconstruction without synthesis - not much of value gets done

9. Examples: Urban Living • Robert Moses and Le Courboisier - modernist construction of urban space • Jacobs and the protection of livable organic neighbourhood - effects on Toronto living and other locations • But…cyberpunk dystopia (fiction) and urban slums (fact) - life in spite of modern technologies, potential for division and chaos

10. Examples: Language and Local Culture • Rise of global cultural (and cultural imperialism) • Postmodern turn: Simultaneous rise of local/national cultures, often in valid reaction • But: Bangalore and Kannada education - will local values jeopardize region’s global competitiveness and role?

11. Example: Culture and Faith • Secular logic displaced mainstream religious faith (and its control - e.g., Quebec’s Quiet Revolution) • Post (pre?) modern turn - increased interest in metanarratives as reaction to perceived coldness of rationality • But: leads to moral confusion and waywardness, tends to morph into literal and occasionally extremist views (e.g., cults, but also extremist interpretations of mainstream faiths)

12. Example: Media • Rise of mass media - increasing impetus to national and global media forms to maximize economies of scale • Postmodern turn - homogenization of cultural forms led to niche broadcasts and eventually Internet • But: do we have a common media bond anymore?

13. Example: Information • Canonical information - core texts you must know and define expertise (although narrowly); rational, objective explanations (e.g., Newtonian mechanics) • Postmodern turn: explosion of specialty areas, explanations of non-linear, seemingly chaotic systems (e.g., quantum physics, string theory, sub-atomic studies) • But: problems in building shared, integrated information base, infoglut, conceptual confusion

14. Example: Ecology • Rationalization of economic production at expense of “free” environmental resources • Postmodern turn: Integration of ecological systems analysis, interdependence and integration of ecological realities in economy • But: understanding can be exceptionally local (e.g., NIMBY); can be unduly conservative or emotional (e.g., seal hunt concerns)

15. Example: Work • Fordism: mechanistic, efficient, authoritarian, rational, centralized, supply-driven - with qualification towards higher wages to ensure market and worker buy-in • Post-industrial capitalism: decentralization, internationalization, flexible production, JIT, pull-system, outsourcing • But: negative consequences of information age, gutting of middle class,

16. Example: Governance • Rise of modern state and state bureaucracies • Postmodern turn - deregulation, flexible services, outsourcing, increased balance with global capital/concerns and territoriality • But: return of balkanization, downloading of costs, elimination of safety net, erosion of services, reduction of public voice

17. Example: Warfare • Rise of states -> rise of weapons of mass destruction • Postmodern turn: threat of wholesale annihilation and organized state-sanctioned violations of human rights reduced • But: Rise of ethnic-based and/or civil war (e.g., genocides in Yugoslavia, Darfur) and terror (e.g., al Qaeda’s operational strategy hard to counteract via state apparatus - leading to changes that violate state principles…)

18. A happy medium? • Modernity privileges order and logic - but perhaps to illogical ends • Postmodern reactions reintroduce human condition and emotion - but too much can engender chaos and regression • Postmodern as qualification/regeneration?

19. Next Week • Chs. 10,11, 12 for lecture • Labs tonight - mashup assistance - last week for this, we move to talking about next assignment following week.