1. Society and social structure:
Modernism: the prevailing points in modernist society and social structure are dominated by order and equilibrium. Modernist thought is focused on a totalizing theory, the search for over-encompassing theories of society and social development. The key concepts are: equilibrium; homeostasis; tension reduction; order; homogeneity; consensus; stasis; normativity; foundationalism; logocentricism; totality; closure; transcendental signifiers;
structural functionalism.
Post modernism privileges disorder rather than order and therefore the theory of chaos follows. It is influenced by quantum mechanics, topology theory and other theories which have a chaotic structure and no center or foundation exists. The key concepts are: far-from-equilibrium conditions; flux; change;chance; spontaneity; irony; orderly disorder; heterogeneity;diversity; intensity; paralogism; toleration for the incommensurable; dissipative structures; antifoundationalism;fragmentation; coupling; impossibility of formal closure;structural dislocations/undecidability; constitutive theory.
2. Social roles:
Modernism: The social role is directed by centripetal forces of society which give each man/woman his/her place in society. Roles tend to become dichotomized. A person is relegated to role-taking. The operative metaphor we offer is a member of a symphony orchestra. The key points are: role-taking; socialization; integration; centripetal; closure; static; dichotomies; system serving; primacy to the "me"; limit attractors; symphony orchestra player.
Postmodernism: Roles are unstable and in a dialectical relationship between centrifugal and centripetal forces. They would be very much like torus or strange attractors. For the post-modernist view, the call is to be a jazz player and poet. The key points are: role-making; role-jumbling; variability; centrifugal; openness; porous boundaries; testing boundaries; primacy to the dialectic between the "I-me"; privileging the "I";
strange attractors; torus; jazz player.
Subjectivity/Agency:
Modernist: it has privileged the idea of the individual, a person who is assumed to be conscious, whole, self-directing, reflective, unitary, and transparent. Human nature is a balance between egoism and altruism. The subject is consulted into her/his discursive subject-positions necessitated by the imperatives of a smoothly functioning socioeconomic political order. The key points are: centered; the individual; transparent; reflective; self-directing; whole; positivistic; the "oversocialized" conception; juridic subject; homo-duplex; homoeconomicus; homeostatic; passivity; the "good," interpellated, spoken subject; transcendental self; cartesian; cogito, ergo sum; logos; rational man; conscious, autonomous being; desire centered on lack.
Postmodernist: it has offered the idea of the decentered subject. It is more determined than determining, is less internally unified than a desiring subject caught within the constraints of various discourses and their structuring properties. Postmodernists believes in an interaction between symbolism and imagination: it is related to Freudian theory about unconscious which is connected to conscious and physical life. The key points are: decentered subject; polyvocal; polyvalent; parljtre; l'jtre parlant; pathos; subject-in-process; schema L and schema R; subject of desire; activity; subject of disidentification; assumption of one's desire; effects of the unconscious; positive/productive desire; will to power.
Discourse:
Modernism: it assumes a neutral discourse; it is an instrument for use to express rationally developed projects of an inherently centered subject. Consequently the signifier and the signified are said to stabilize and crystallize in conventional understandings. Interpreters and viewers are encouraged to assume conventional discursive subject-positions and fill in the gaps by use of dominant symbolic forms. Key points: instrumental; uniaccentual; global; neutral; dominant; master/university discourse; primacy to paradigm/syntagm; major literature; readerly text; production/reproduction; referential signifier and text; privileging of master signifiers and "natural" categories; privileging noun forms.
Postmodernist: it does not assume a neutral discourse. There are many discourses reflective of local sites of production, each, in turn, existing with a potential for the embodiment of desire in signifiers and for the constructions of realities. The sign, composed of signifier and signified, finds its natural state as being in flux. The signified is multiaccentual, the site of diverse struggles. Two other levels have been identified and work at the unconscious level: the condensation-displacement semiotic axis, and the metaphoric-metonymic semiotic axis. Key points: multiaccentual; fractal signifiers; regime of signs; discourse of the hysteric/analyst; linguistic coordinate systems; discursive formations; borromean knots; capitonnage; symptoms; objet petit (a); primacy to the semiotic axes metaphor/metonymy, condensation/displacement; minor literature; writerly text; nonreferential text; hyperreal; cyberspace; verb forms. Commentary: a. Modernist Thought. The Modernist paradigm assumes that discourse is neutral; it is but an instrument for use to express rationally developed projects of an inherently centered subject. In fact, some transcendental signifiers exist at the center of social structure and phenomena that are discoverable. Assumed, most often, is an ongoing dominant discourse that is seen as adequate for providing the medium for expression, whether for dominant or subordinate groups.
Knowledge:
Enlightenment thought tended toward a totalizing Truth centered on an ostensibly discoverable logos. Driven by formal rational methods, one inevitably dominant and globalizing thought would result. Narrative knowledge is based on myth, legend, tales, stories, etc., which provided the wherewithal of being in society. Scientific knowledge tends toward closure, narrative knowledge embraces imaginary free play. Conventional knowledge is more likely to be reconstituted by way of the readerly text, major literature, or the discourse of the master and university. The search for Truth by the modernists was inevitably guided by the ideal of establishing Absolute Postulates from which all other "facts" can be explained by linear, deductive logic. Efficiency and competency in the educative process are geared toward a banking education whereby conventional master signifiers or their derivatives are stored to be capitalized. The key points are: Modernist: global; dominant; discourse of the master and university; grand narrative; totalizing; binary (as in law); logos; education as liberating; Truth; privileging scientific knowledge; absolute postulates; axiomizability; deductive logic; banking education; closure.
Post-modernists, on the other hand, view knowledge as always fragmented, partial, and contingent. It always has multiple sites of production. It is derived from a dialogic pedagogy where novel signifiers are coproduced in the process of critique and the development of a language of possibility. It is more likely to reflect Pathos, human suffering, than Logos. Post-modernists, however, view local knowledge as not necessarily subsumable under one grand narrative or logic. Post-modernists view subjects within a social formation as thwarted in their attempts to be true to their desires. The key concepts are: local; repressed voices; constitutive processes; metanarratives; power/knowledge; fragmented; contingent and provisional truths; Pathos; discourse of hysteric and analyst;
knowledge for sale; education as ideology and functional; narrative knowledge; noise, the parasite; enthymemes; the rhizome; dilire; incompleteness; undecidability; dialogic pedagogy; abduction.
Space/Time:
Modernism: thought rests on Newtonian mechanics. This classical view in physics rests on notions of absolute space and time. This in turn is connected with the existence of determinism within systems: if we know the positions, masses, and velocities of a particle at one time we can accurately determine their positions and velocities at all later times. Newtonian physics and Euclidean geometry, with its use of Cartesian coordinates, is the map or blueprint of space on which modernists construct the social world. A person's life course, for example, could be plotted with precision if we could discover appropriate determinants. This is the basis of positivism. It is by a striated space that science progresses and by which desire can be territorialized on the body by a political economy. But striated space needs its discrete variables with whole-number dimensions. The key points are: three-dimensional space; integral; homogeneous; striated space; Newtonian mechanics; Euclidean geometry; Cartesian coordinates; quantitative; differential equations and continuities; reversibility of time.
Postmodernism: see things differently. Quantum mechanics, non-Euclidean geometry, string theory, twister space, topology theory, and chaos theory, to name a few of the most prominent approaches, have offered alternative conceptions. The question of a dimension and prediction becomes problematic. Nuclear physicists, for example, faced with trying to reconcile general relativity theory with quantum mechanics, have come up with infinities. Key Concepts: multidimensional; smooth; fractal; imaginary; quantum mechanics/relativity; implicate (enfolded) order;
non-Euclidean geometry; holographic; topology theory; qualitative; twister space (imaginary); cyberspace; nonlinear; nonreversible time.
Causality:
Modernism: thought rests on the determinism of Newtonian physics. It appears most often in the form of positivism. Modernist thought would assume that given some incremental increase in some identified cause or determinant, a proportional and linear increase in the effect will result. Key concepts: linear; proportional effects; positivism; determinism; classical physics; I. Newton; "God does not play dice"; certainty; grand theorizing; predictability; future fixed by past; particle effects.
Postmodernism: see things differently. Chaos theory, Godel's theorem, and quantum mechanics stipulate that proportional effects do not necessarily follow some incremental increase of an input variable. Uncertainty, indeterminacy, and disproportional effects are all underlying assumptions and worthy of inquiry in explaining an event. In the extreme, a butterfly flapping its wings in East Asia produces a hurricane in Warren, Ohio. Post-modernists, especially Nietzsche and Foucault, it is the "fear of the chaotic and the unclassifiable" that accounts for the order we attribute to nature. The key concepts are: nonlinear; disproportional effects; genealogy; rhizome; chance; contingency; quantum mechanics; uncertainty; iteration; catastrophe theory; paradoxical; discontinuities; singularities; field effects.
Social change:
Modernism: thought often sees change in terms of evolutionary theory, in various versions of Darwinian dynamics, particularly in terms of some "invisible hand" at work, or some working out of a logic, as in the Absolute Spirit of Hegel, or in forces of rationalization as in Weber, or in dialectical materialism as in Marx. Social change is therefore a linear affair with continuous adjustments of social institutions to continuous processes of differentiation. Key concepts: evolutionary; Darwinian; rationalization; linear; Absolute Spirit; dialectical materialism; praxis; Hegel; reaction and negation; reversal of hierarchies; reduction of complexity;stable premises for action; history as progress; variation, selection, and transmission; oppositional subject; discourse of the hysteric.
Postmodernism: thought focuses more on nonlinear conceptions of historical change, genealogical analysis, and transpraxis, a materialistically based politics that includes a language of critique and possibility. Post-modernists are in general agreement that, in studying historical change, much room must be made for the contributions of contingency, irony, the spontaneous, and the marginal. Nietzsche is the dominant thinker. The key points are: genealogy; transpraxis; standpoint epistemology(ies); Pure Play/musement; rhizome; disidentification; play of the imaginary; dialectics of struggle; affirmative action; deconstruction and reconstruction; proliferation of complexity; premises of action based on tolerability; overcoming panopticism; multiplicities of resistance to power; assuming one's desire; dialogism; conscientization, language of possibility; revolutionary subject; discourse of the hysteric/analyst.