Back to the Future: Modernity, Postmodernity and Locality Book

The subject of this study is the question of whether modernity is being replaced by an opposite of postmodernity culture. The author argues that postmodernism is more of an internal critique of modernism, and the interpretation of reason embodied in modernity, than an attempt to subvert it. Postmodernists argue that modernist perspectives undervalue the concerns of minorities, local identities, non-western thinking, a capacity to deal with difference, the pluralist culture and the cosmopolitan way of life and attention is paid to the implications of this critique. Substantial parts of it are devoted to the contradictions between centralized power in government, the economy in culture, and the local settings in which everyday life is carried out. The argument is developed that community in the sense of a cooperative, kin and family-based authority system was always on the defensive in the face of modern individualism and the concept of the sovereign modern state.Read More