Modernity/Post-modernity: has is brought more harm than good on institutions like the family?

According to Marsh in all Berman, contemporaneity is a mode of vital experience of lacuna and time, of the ego and early(a)s, of looks possibilities and perils-that is sh atomic number 18d by practiceforce and women all e precisewhere the world today. To be neo, he suggests is to find ourselves in an environment that promises us climaxure, power, joy, proceeds, transformation of ourselves and the world-and, at the homogeneous time, that threatens to destroy everything we kick in, everything we know, everything we be.Modern environments and experiences cut across all boundaries of geography and ethnicity, of order and nationality, of religion and ideology in this sense, contemporaneousness force bug out(a) be said to unify all mankind. But it is a paradoxical unity, a unity of disunity it pours us all into a vortex of perpetual disintegration and renewal, of struggle and contradiction, of ambiguity and anguish. To be contemporary-day is to be part of a universe of discourse in which, as Marx said, all that is solid melts into air. ( marshall Berman, www)Modern life has been characte pilferd with great discoeries in the strong-arm sciences, changing our images of the universe and our place in it the industrialization of production, which transforms scientific acquaintance into engine room, creates new adult male environments and destroys old ones, gen agetes new forms of corporate power and var. struggle (Marshall Berman, www)According to Giddens, youngity refers to modes of kind life or organisation which emerged in atomic number 63 from some the 17th century onwards. It is an era elevated by discontinuities which give by modern social creative activity from waded-down order.The characteristics of this era be the pace of change- quick change in modernness i.e. technology the domain of change particular institutional forms (e.g. capitalist economy, nation e resign and the distinctions in the nature of institutions ami dst modern and traditional ones.According to Giddens, the modes of life fuddle moved us away from all traditional types of social order. This is beca part they have served to establish forms of social interconnection and they have summon to alter some of the nigh intimate and various(prenominal)(prenominal) features of our day-to-day existence, (reading).As we sight gather, modernity is about change from traditional ways to modern ways of doing things. In this discussion, I discuss the impact of modernity on institutions most especially the family. Has modernity brought much(prenominal) harm than good?Traditionally as most of us believe, life at the very commencement gear evolved very much around Christianity and flavor in God. This shaped peoples lifestyles, ways of lively and thereof the gild. Christianity and the belief in God is the tradition that has been abandoned as a takings of modernity, as perplex by Kirk Thomas, the tradition which promised to become frui tful some 350 commodious time ago proposed that the best hope for au consequentlytic charitable flourishing would come through diligent management being presumptuousness to two reference points of truth the rule contain and the world of God. Human beings would understand their true spate and be able to enjoy it to the full barely as they read and lived on the basis of two books the bible as both the record of both Gods action at bottom and the interpretation of the whole truthfulness and nature as a source of human nourishment and pleasure, (K.T, www).This tradition Kirk continues was sabotaged from within and distort from without- from within, the tradition was vandalised by a impart to power collect to conflict between forces of the reformation and the counter reformation and from without, the tradition was deformed by the will to independence, (K, Thomas). As time progressed, the word was non seen as the scarce source of knowledge or truth. Slowly thither was the realisation that reasoning could conk without having to depend on faith- thus at that place was the ripening of scientific knowledge in the attempt by valet to separate truth from falsehood, reason from unreason and fact from fiction. This was seen as the way to examine causes of human problems and analyse them.As a result, humans dreams of the future dominated their imaginations- the dream of a society of social harmony free from heaviness and ignorance. By contrasting such a sharp future and the past- the dark ages to be overcome, it seemed development was irreversible, thither was no turning back, (Catrell). Humans desire for reason do it become the sole action in society, then it became an autonomous power which carried other oppressive powers within its bosom- capitalism, colonialism, technology and state bureaucracy- this was the birth ob modernity. The book of the word was shut and the world became more important. diversity is ongoing, humans are striving to ach ieve more and more. What are the effects of this on modern society, institutions and the soulfulness?Modern era exacerbates the changes triggered by the industrial change that in the main affect economical life, culture and the family. postmodernist life is characterised according to Peter Berg asa) suffering from time- famine- this is because the requirements of capitalism are overly demanding and occur at other sectors of life, i.e. leisure, spiritual life and the familyb) because the other spheres of life become less important to man, he becomes hyper- individualistic where individual self- fulfilment is the life long quest and priority. Family wherefore becomes less important than it was onward modernisation. As a result, it becomes more single headed as unwed ancestry becomes normal, where as during the pre- modern era, family was very crucial to peoples livelihoods as they depended highly on from from each one one other. The community was much more important than t he individual. mountain held close bonds in the beliefs they shared and the norms that they were careful non to break. modernity in that locationfore has been a complex pagan and social movement that has/is changing the shape of the society today.Let us look closely at the effects of modernity on the family. at that place is the fade away of the nuclear family showing that people are non as highly dependent on each other as they were in the first place modernisation. Today is for the most part every man for himself, looking after mainly his immediate family because of the high demands the society has on the individual, the jabbing it has for making the individual strive to better himself at all cost. Today there is an increase in the use of birth control and stillbirth. In the past, a young woman that fell pregnant had to be hidden from the society or chased from her sign because she was seen as such a disgrace, exactly nonetheless, people, set life so much that abort ion nonetheless in the most difficult circumstances was not an option. Today in modern times, it is legal.Could it be because modernity has resulted into us putting such little foster on sisterren and family than our ancestors? The move from tradition to scientific has given a licence to man to play God. For example, there is the issue of cloning and an change magnitudely permissive place towards euthanasia. Whether these are harms or good brought by modernity, one has to decide. contemporaneousness has provided us with a lot of preferences that our ancestors didnt have. As put by Marshall Berman, the promised land into which we have pass over flowing with rapid scientific progress and everlasting consumer goods seems equal a splendid world indeed- but is there an underside to the bewildering options before us? Does too much choice become unhealthy? Does choice ever become dangerous.Our fundamental identities as men and women he writes are matters of choice and constructi on. He states that in our age, we have moved from fate or unavoidableness to choice. Simply put, we have choices to make where our ancestors did not. We choose our education, our profession, our spouses and our places to live. Modernity has made us turn our children into acquisitions. Modern technology has made a reality what the pre modern heed could only imagine as an utter oxymoron plotted parenthood and genetic engineering will fiddlingly manufacture for us the blonde- haired, blue- eyed designer child that we order. Modernity has seduced us into exploiting the institution of work and family to give the sack the appetites of the self, but that appetite is impossible to satisfy. The question therefore is, is it good or bad that the individual is slow and rapidly achieving the perfection he strives for? He has so many alternatives than did our ancestors.It is clear that the family is one of the institutions that has been greatly change my modernity. According to Gordon Ande rson, in the modern era, four behavioural factors undermine the traditional family* the distinction between uncomplicated winding and secondary hosts- the former is the small intimate, effective group exemplified by the family and dominant in the pre- industrial society- the latter(prenominal) is the large scale, depersonalised, rational organisation illustrated by the modern corporation and modern state. Modernisation is essentially the liberalist rationalisation of society and the gradual eclipse of primary by secondary relationships. Modern societies he states are planned economies. Bourgeois, capitalism and socialism are dominated by secondary groups and relations and in these event the family is less important. Family in modern times is characterised with low birth rates, high rate of dissociate and abortion and weak family institution.* In the bourgeois society, family is in any case undermined because there is a drive to move private issues over to the farming of the public policy- that is deviant behaviour, personal relationships, family life and other areas of life that were private become objects of state concerns and involvement.* Anderson states that the weakening of the family in modern society stems from the growth of individualism- rather than group- centeredness* As a result of medical checkup technology, demographic trends and the materialistic value of the system of modern society, sexual behaviour becomes less of a reproductive memory activity and more of a recreation. For example, single women or risible people may choose to have children even without the attachment of marriage. Sex has become like taking a cup of coffee. Children today can start having sex as early as 12 years old whereas in pre modern times, courtship was the only thing to do before couples got married, ( Anderson)The causes of family change in postmodern era engine room and the economy- The family is changing because of the electronic transformation of the pos t modern era where information and misinformation are transmitted with increasing speed to increasing numbers of people thus also changing the nature of human converse. There is no need for families to stay together when they can easily communicate in a short time via emails telephone etc. Giddens also adage this in his characterisation of modernity under what he called the separation of time and space. He examinees on the difference between space and place. Place he says, refers to the corporal setting of social activity as primed(p) geographically and that unlike pre-modern societies where place and space coincide, the advent of modernity he suggests tears space away from place by fostering relations between absent others. In other words, modernity compresses everything communication as a result is fast in reaching those people that one is not living with.Giddens also talks about time and space under the characteristic of modernity called, disembedding- this he says is the lif ting out of social relations from local contents of interaction and their restructuring across indefinite spans of time and space. This he states occurs in two ways, through the creation of symbolic tokens and the development of expert systems. By symbolic tokens he means, the media sub which can be passed around without regard to those that deal out them. Expert systems, he states are systems of technical accomplishments or professional expertise that recognise large areas of try material and social environments in which we live today. all in all these only show us that the family will livelihood on changing due to modernity because the individual has other ways of getting by, i.e. through the use of symbolic tokens such as money, or through putting trust in expert systems. some other cause of family change is demographic, for example the decline in population of some countries I.e., Japan, Germany, Italy, etc. Even those countries that are over populated are also trying to reduce population by changing the building of the family. some other cause in family change. In the realm of values the following transformations occur, these are The cultural and ideological elite of the postmodern world from old-fashioned economic politics to new identity politics. Social movements result psychological and cultural objectives such as human being pride and politically correct language. Feminisms goals increasingly mingle economic equality and cultural equality The try for self-fulfilment now assumes the forms of new age religious, environments and communal movements. either these transformations in society have resulted into changes in the family.Another cause is the reversal of home life and priorities. delinquent to the fact that in this era people are time bind- demands of work and parenting clash- the home becomes the arena for stress and work haven to which parents escape to socialise with friends and colleagues.As we can see, work which was once histo rically a survival necessity is turned into a good. In agricultural societies, work occurs at home on the farm, industrialisation and the rise of the factory pulls work out of the home thus causing a personal separation between home/family life and work/economic life, ( Anderson). Feminism in this era has also made the modern woman to see a job as not something to put up with, but something desired, a mark of liberation, a source of identity, meaning and self -esteem. Staying at home with babies and diapers is viewed as torture and oppression. Does this show the victory of corporate capitalism which seems to have taken over the working class and has triumphed finally over the family, the home and the private sphere?What are the consequences for the individual and society?When reality changes, humans have no choice but to delineate it, i.e. when the original concept family declines, other concepts are formed, i.e. families of gay parents and single parents redefine the family. The issue of whether or not changes of the family are good or bad is debatable. On one hand, one may say, pre industrial families in fact suffered from more severe pathologies that does modern evolving family including municipal violence, child abuse and marital rape- the patriarchy family was not kind to all its members, on the other hand to day, there is a lot of vehemence on individual freedom of choice.Consequences for children- less primary enculturation in the home as there is a lot of single parenting in the modern era and there is also a high emphasis on the importance of work and the increase in day care. Mothers also suffer as divorce causes them a decline in income and bad physical and mental health.What are the consequences of these for the society?The rise of cumulus society- where a society is polarised between a multitude of atomised and alienated individuals on the one hand and an compulsory state on the other. In mass societies individuals invent allegiance to the mselves and to their nation- nothing in betweenThe rise of the nanny state- with high divorce rates, single parenthood and childlessness and increased freedom of choice, a substitute initiate emerges- the nanny.Decline of civility- Kirk suggests that the absence of effective socialisation agents will produce a skinny self, thus leash to a decline in civility because he states that the quality of an individual self depends on his/her socialization. The result of an increase in dysfunctional families is an increase in children with criminal activities and hobbies. Dysfunctional families he says produce stunted selves because they fail to do their job, (Kirk Thomas)Modernity and post modernity have brought a lot of changes to the family and the society as a whole. The major causes of family decline are late rooted in major social, cultural, economic and technological trends that have been underway for several centuries. However, whether the changes brought forward are positive or n egative is up to the individual to decide.