Chapter Overview

Daniel Bell: Postindustrial Society

This chapter explores a variety of postmodern grand theories that attempt to explain economic, political, social and/or cultural developments in contemporary society. Daniel Bell describes contemporary society as postindustrial because (1) we have moved away from goods-production towards service-provision; (2) blue-collar, manual labor has been replaced by professional and technical jobs; (3) theoretical knowledge now dominates practical knowledge; and (4) new intellectual technologies along with the fusion of science and innovation have become institutionalized. Bell argues that in postindustrial society a disjunction arises between social structures and culture, because while social structures remain dominated by rationality and efficiency, culture becomes increasingly irrational. Bell is critical of the fact that hedonism threatens to replace frugality and that traditional values are eroded in our postindustrial society.

Michel Foucault critiques theories of modernity because they focus on searching for the source of social progress and emphasize coherence and continuity in this search. Foucault rejects the search for origins and focuses on incoherence and discontinuity. The substance of Foucault’s grand theory concentrates on what he calls governmentality, or the practices and techniques by which control is exercised over people. Foucault argues that three basic instruments can be utilized to control individuals or exert disciplinary power: hierarchical observations, normalizing judgments, and examinations. Hierarchical observation allows those in power to oversee all the people they control with a single gaze. A panopticon is the ideal structure that permits complete observation. Those in control have the power to define what is socially acceptable conduct and to judge and punish those who violate these established norms. Even though Foucault focuses on disciplinary power, he recognizes that control is constantly contested. Subordinates have the potential to alter social structures through resistance, or what Foucault calls the microphysics of power.

Zygmunt Bauman is also critical of the incapability of modernity to accept ambivalence — a task at which postmodernity succeeds. According to Bauman, the postmodern world is complex and unpredictable because it lacks one central goal-setting organization. The state of individual identity in the postmodern world is fluid, as we continually attempt to constitute ourselves without any clear direction. Bauman argues that there is a neotribal element to postmodernity. Rather than assimilating to the whole of society, communities are now able to lead a distinctive existence and become the refuge for strangers and ethnic, religious, or political groups. Bauman claims that politics, ethics, and morality are all part of the postmodern world. Tribal politics, as well as the politics of desire, fear, and certainty, characterize postmodern politics. Morality in the postmodern world is not universal, but it is characterized by the need to be for the Other. However, Bauman cannot provide an overarching ethical code for postmodernity — thus, we are destined for a life of irresolvable moral dilemmas.

Jean Baudrillard is not concerned with politics or ethics — he does not believe that these concepts or ideas exist in a postmodern world. Baudrillard is concerned with how non-material signs have come to dominate contemporary society, particularly through the transformation of society from producer- to consumer-oriented. According to Baudrillard, we consume signs rather than goods or services, and a code helps us to understand how all these signs we consume relate to one another. Baudrillard argues that we do not consume because we need to, but rather because we want to be different from other consumers. Compared to primitive societies that engaged in symbolic exchanges, Baudrillard believes that simulations and a lack of genuineness dominate the postmodern world.

The fact that postmodern society is increasingly characterized by a state of hyperconsumption is a concern of George Ritzer’s. Older means of consumption, such as the Parisian arcades and department stores, produced phantasmagoric – or dream world – qualities, but unlike the new means of consumption, they were physical structures. Ritzer argues that the new means of consumption, such as the Internet, Las Vegas, and Disney World, rely on immaterial signs and use simulations, spectacles, and implosions to enchant consumers. These new means of consumption also manipulate time and space to create places that are more virtual than real, or hyperreal. The point of this enchantment and hyperreality is to convince consumers that their leisure time should be used to spend money.

Paul Virilio developed the concept of dromology to explain the relationship between speed and technology in a postmodern world. According to Virilio, speed – especially the speed of communication – is destroying the physical and spatial dimensions of our society. With the Internet we no longer need to be in the same country or on the same continent to communicate instantaneously with others. This, argues Virilio, engenders much confusion, as we are no longer able to tell where we are, what time it is, or who we are supposed to be. Wars are now fought and mediated through technology rather than standing armies. Medical technologies are colonizing our human bodies, bringing our bodily functions up to speed with the rest of society. The implication of these new technologies is that we face the possibility of being controlled not only from the outside, but also from the inside.

Feminist theorists are cautious about the postmodern turn in social theory for several reasons. They view postmodernism as too removed from political struggles. Postmodernism may lead people away from collective action and towards a radical individualism. Furthermore, feminists argue that postmodernism is too divorced from material reality — its focus on discourse, representation, and texts ignores material inequality, injustice, and oppression. Those feminists who are more accepting of postmodernism view it as an epistemology rather than a theory. In other words, postmodernism can be a strategy for questioning claims to truth or knowledge.