Kravchenko S.A. Modernity: the analysis of theoretical approaches / S.A.

Kravchenko // Sociology: History,

Theory, and Practices. - Volume 9. - Moscow-Budapest: Institute of Sociopolitical Research, Russian Academy of
Science, 2008. – P. 23-32.

Dr. Sergey A. Kravchenko, Professor, Head of the sociological department at the Moscow State Institute of
International Relations, Russia

MODERNITY: THE ANALYSIS OF THEORETICAL APPROACHES

In the history of Sociology there were always the presentations about modern. First of all
it was understood as a new stage of social and cultural development of the society. Secondly,
theories were offered that usually implied its comprehensions in the form of a specific
metaparadigm with particular theoretical and methodological tools. So, the interpretive
metaparadigm (M. Weber, А. Schutz and others), reflecting the vision of alternativeness of the
socium, pluralism of the subjectively constructed worlds, came forward as modernity in relation
to the society with a linear development as well as to the positivist metaparadigm that assert
«universal» laws. Under the influencing the accelerated social and cultural dynamics quite new
socium appeared, more opened and dynamic, subjected to indefinite fluctuations. Accordingly,
this socium became the new modernity. For its adequate theoretical interpretation there was
created and claimed the integral metaparadigm (P. Sorokin, T. Parsons, R. Merton).
Modern in which we live now the English sociologist A. Giddens, in our view,
successfully defined as ‘radicalized modernity’. From one side this definition is opposed to the
earlier stages of social development that were named as modern, from the other side – it
expresses the process of structural-functional radicalization of the modern society as the
increased influence of fragmentations, dispersions, breaks of social reality, that claime more
active reaction both individual and collective actors. For the interpretation of new social realities
the so called reflexive metaparadigm was required. Apparently, sociologists ran into the very
thorny problem of the accelerated development of human societies. This circumstance results in
the fact that the interpretations of the radicalized modernity are also changing very quickly, that
results in the attempts to create new theoretical approaches.
Giddens’s version of Sociology has always been open to social and cultural dynamics.
From the 1970s onwards he has began the development of structuration theory. In 1976 he
published New Rules of Sociological Method. Then the scientist offered the following books:
Central Problems of Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradictions in Social Analysis
(1979), The Constitution of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration (1984), Social
Theory and Modern Sociology (1987).
The main theme of his scientific researches of the last years is the analysis of the essence
of the radicalized modernity. In the work The Consequences of Modernity (1990) Giddens
points out the feature of the contemporary world. Thus, the radicalized modernity in particularly
• identifies institutional developments which create a sense of fragmentation and
dispersal;
• sees high modernity as a set of circumstances in which dispersal is dialectically
connected to profound tendencies toward global integration;
• analyzes a dialectic of powerlessness and empowerment in terms of both
experience and action1.
Radicalized modernity globalizes social space and its changes that is incomparable with
the sphere of changes in all traditional societies, because practically nowadays all of the regions
of the world socially, culturally and informatively are pulled into co-operating with each other.
Globalization actively influences local socium being as the sociologist considers the main reason
of the revival of local cultural identity: local nationalism comes back into life in reply to
1
Giddens, A. The Consequences of Modernity. - Cambridge: Polity Press, 1990. – P. 150
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globalized tendencies. Under the conditions of the radicalized modernity internal nature of
modern institutes is also being changed that is expressed in breaks of social succession,
violations of structurally-functional integrity – peculiar characteristics of a linear dynamics on
the whole. The socium reacts on the breaks by the development of both institutional and
individual reflexivity. Giddens notices that the reflexivity should be understood not simply as
‘consciousness’, but as the essence and the characteristic feature of the locomotive stream of the
social life.
Due to the reflexivity the knowledge of the people also acquires the character of a
dynamic factor which is instrumental in a permanent transformation of both the social institutes
and the models of behavior of individuals. By other words, there appear quite new reflexive
reality of mobile and plastic type able for self-realization and self-organization. Accordingly,
there appear social forms which in general did not exist before and do not even have the roots in
the past appeared, e.g. - electronic money on which modern world economy is based. The earlier
existed forms of geopolitics are becoming out of use. After the end of the ‘cold war’ most of the
countries no longer have enemies. Nowadays the states are more threaten by risks and dangers,
but not so by enemies.
Further, in The Transformation of Intimacy (1992) Giddens refers to the new patterns of
sexuality. He argues that the radicalized modernity is transforming intimacy. Sexuality has
become freely floating. The development of different variants of life styles is common. The
dominant social role of men goes down in the radicalized modernity. Sexual control was thus
carried out above women from the side of men who performed basic economic functions and
played the social role of bread-winners. The radicalized modernity suggests a world with the
processes of democratization of the personal life and sexual emancipation. It also carries with
itself the ‘end of nature’ – in the sense that the out world stops to be something external for
people and grows into the creation of men. Giddens supposes that the former division of nature
and the social environment loses any sense now.
All these and other innovations taken together result in the fact that the way of personal
life is almost unconnected with the succession of generations. Traditional life orientations little
work at overcoming of subjective crises. However it does not mean the abstracting of individuals
from the context of social life. On the contrary, as Giddens underlines, to adapt oneself to the
social realities individuals in a greater degree than before have to constantly examine and reform
their social practices in the light of incoming information about these practices. According to the
sociologist, actors are knowledgeable and competent agents who reflexively monitor their
actions.
One of the major parameters of the modern society is the growth of new patterns of
security, danger, trust and risks. Risks are conditioned by socio and cultural dynamics of the
radicalized modernity. They arise out of the absence of sure foundations for knowledge. They
are also determined by institutional reflexivity – the processes of continuous changes in
functioning of concrete institutes, parties, new social movements are transforming the familiar
contours of the society. To live in the epoch of the radicalized modernity means to live in the
world of chances and risks.
The social and cultural dynamics of the radicalized modernity puts the problem of the
democratization of a society in a new way. The sociologist speaks about the «democratization of
democracy» under which he understands the continuous social process of self-actualization and
self-organization of citizens their readiness to the experiments with alternative democratic
procedures, especially if they help to approach the acceptance of political decisions to the
everyday anxieties of citizens. As a reaction on breaks and risks the individuals seek to form
new social movements and interest groups (groups of self-help). In a certain sense they continue
the policy of emancipation. But if their predecessors were striven for ‘freedom from’, the
modern activists are striven for ‘freedom for’ – the sphere of their interests is self maintenance of
freedom as an independent choice of a certain life way or life styles. Their task is the creation of
the culture of citizenship. The market in itself is not able to generate such a culture. Giddens
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argues that ‘life politics’ may have more social impact than traditional political parties, may lead
to a new era of ‘dialogic democracy’ via it the conflicts and differences are settled through
discourse, democratic persuasions, including tolerance, rather than violence. The sociologist
especially underlines that the ‘democratization of democracy’ is a global process.
In Runaway World (1999) Giddens suggests a world out of control. Industrial processes
which pollute, nuclear technology, genetic engineering add to the former manufactured
uncertainty of the radicalized modernity.
Not so much time has passed since Giddens offered the conception of the radicalized
modernity. But social and cultural dynamics is increasing and becoming more complicated. This
process has prompted alternative responses from the participants of the 16th World Congress of
Sociology (South Africa, Durban, 2006).
I argue that there are at least four principle moments. Firstly, Giddens, essentially, has
given the Eurocentrist interpretation of the radicalized modernity which dissatisfies many
sociologists today. Nowadays, as a rule, scientists speak about the multiplicity of the modernity.
They state that a concrete modernity has a local social and cultural essence determined by a
number of local factors. Thus, Sh. Randeria (Instit. Social Anthropology, U Zurich, Switzerland)
offers the ‘idea of entangled and uneven modernities as a way towards a less Eurocentric and
more cosmopolitan understanding of modernities within and outside the West’2. He traces
separate internal developments or paths and patterns of modernity within each European and
non-European society.
R. Greenstain (U Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa) argues that ‘alternative
modernity is the driving force behind many local and regional policies’3 pursued in South
Africa, India, China and countries of Latin America. It is interesting to note that this conception
is developed by a number of scientists. R. Weber (Instit. Political Science, U St. Gallen,
Switzerland) states that ‘the theorem of multiple modernities has gained wide attention’4. M.
Yang (Instit. Sociology, Chinese Acad. Social Sciences, Beijing) notes that the sociologists of
his country strongly believe in ‘gradual, adaptive and bottom-up transformation of the society as
it moved toward modernity’5.
At the same time, a number of alternative modernities does not exclude the role of
‘global modern’, influencing very radically on the essence of concrete local modernities.
Sociologists D. Neubert and E. Macano (Dept. Sociology, U. Bayreuth) assert that the ‘presence
of certain goods of global modernity has been having a tremendous impact on the way in which
individuals in Africa behave relate to one another and to society as a whole… the latter both
wish to have them and often cannot have them or reject them and yet have to come to terms with
them, for they have made their way into their society. The chances of mastering the challenge of
global modernity can be stated as the ability of individuals and local communities to come to
terms with products of modernity, thereby, manage processes of social change’6. The
modernities, in particular, can be differentiated by ‘the form of functional differentiation’. V.H.
Schmidt (Dept. Sociology, National U Singapore) asserts that ‘Modern society takes the form of
functional differentiation. Functional differentiation is compatible with enormous ground-level
diversities, with a great deal of institutional and socio-cultural variety. This variety, in turn, has
more recently given rise to another paradigm aiming to make sense of the present condition,
namely that of «multiple modernities»’7. In my view, the idea of a great number of globolocal
modernities is very productive. In the nearest future it will result in the appearence of new
conceptual approaches.

2
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. ISA 2006 Congress. The Quality of Social Existence in a
Globalizing World. – Durban, South Africa, 2006. – P. 209.
3
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 97.
4
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 279.
5
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 288.
6
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 181.
7
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 229.
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 Secondly, some sociologists consider that the variety modernities is determined by the
factor of the originality of social time flowing specifically in different cultures. Under the
influence of this factor there appear the historical stages, differentiated by the temporal
parameters of planning and constructing the future of individuals. Essentially, people living
nowadays areforced to pass from one tempoworld into another where the life is more dynamic
and indefinite. Taking into consideration this criterion C. Leccardi (Dept. Sociology & Social
Research, U Milano-Bicocca, Italy) writes: ‘If the “first modernity” construed the meaning of
future as a time of experimentation and possibilities, the “second modernity” defines it rather as
an uncertain dimension, as a potential limit rather than a resource. This new semantic
framework also deeply shapes the ways and forms in which young people’s biographies come to
be defined… a life plan constitutes less and less the principle capable of structuring biographies,
new ways of relating with the future and time are delineated’8. In our view, the sociologist
rightly noticed that the ‘second modernity’, as a higher stage of the radicalized modernity
diminishes the amount of long-living parameters of order and, accordingly, increases short-living
parameters that objectively constructing obstacles before the young people for a detail planning
of their future.
A. Malaina (CETSAH, Ecole Hautes Etudes Sciences Sociales, Paris, France) pays
attention to the fact that national works of art and, in particular, cinematographic arts can have
the temporal rates of development, marked by specific discourse: ‘The cinema of Pedro
Almodovar, which is currently very popular, can be characterized as the reflection of a society
of delayed modernity’9. A similar idea is offered by Е.Т. Sevänen (Dept. Cultural Research, U
Joensuu, Finland) who states that in modernity ‘our picture of the world varies according to the
kinds of distinctions and concepts that we apply to it… it is the function of art to provide people
with alternative models of the world’10.
I state that the accent on the original flowing of social time substantially undermines the
idea of one-way Eurocentrist modernity. The factors of the influence of the temporal measuring
of the development of concrete socium as well as the alternativeness of social time reflect the
peculiarity of culture and, certainly, the originality of globolocal modernity.
Thirdly, many sociologists conduct researches in the direction of discovering new basic
characteristics of modernity. In my view, a very interesting conception of ‘posthuman’ is being
developed by N. Gain (Brunel U, Uxbridge, Middlesex, UK). It touches upon new descriptions
of modernity. He analysis the following questions: Is there a discrete human subject that lies at
the centre of sociological analysis? Can humans be separated easily from the machines and
technologies that structure life today? What might the term ‘agency’ mean in a world of so-
called ‘intelligent’ mashine? According to the sociologist, ‘it is no longer possible, for example,
to treat social relations as arising simply from human relations (as did Marx and Weber)…
Objects and technologies now exercise an increasing power over our lives, to the extent that we
can no longer place humans as all-powerful agents at the centre of all analysis, or even
presuppose what it means to be human’11.
It comes out from these statements, that modernity supposes to have the social of a
special quality, which is determined by ‘intellectual’ technology, that is becoming the attribute
of this socium. Here is a truly methodological paradox: as it is generally known that sociologists
tried to overcome so-called technological determinism, and it seemed to be correct in the early
sociological theories. Nowadays, certainly, taking into consideration new developments of
contemporary society they come to the ground of intellectually-technological socium, which,
however, does not seem vulgar in the context of the present social and cultural dynamics.
I suppose, K.J. Macdonald (U Melbourne, Australia) is right referring ‘complex space’
and ‘complex time’ to the basic characteristics of modernity. According to him understandings
8
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 144.
9
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 156.
10
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 232.
11
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 86.
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of time and space have been central to a dominant understanding of the constitution of
modernity. If modern time is linear with the past enclosed in the present, the modernity has
‘complex space’ and ‘complex time’, so actors ‘live in different, non-sequential temporalities
and in different places at the same time’12. To my oppinion, it is a very important conclusion
that will influence the perspective directions of the development of the world sociological
thought. It has become a fact (recently it would seem to be impossible in principle) that the same
social actors can live in different spaces and tempo worlds. And I suppose the number of such
actors will inevitability increase, putting forward, in particular, new administrative problems.
Fourthly, a large number of sociologists go on the way of exposure of new institutional
descriptions of modernity. They considerably extend Giddens’s conception of the radicalized
modernity. Thus, some sociologists consider that the institute of religion has substantially
changed. So, K. de Groot (Tilburg U Theology & Religious Studies, Netherlands) considers that
there appear ‘liquid modernity’ in which solid institutions, such as class and the family, have
eroded. So he investigates fluid forms of socium and religion proposing a concept of liquid
religion. ‘This concept,- he writes, - promises to open up perspectives for both old and new
social forms of religion that seem to flourish within a liquid milieu such as religious events,
small communities, global religious networks and virtual communities, as well as religious
meetings and collective activities out side the religious sphere, such as the cultural, economic,
medical and educational sphere13. P. Kumar (U KwaZulu Natal, Durban, South Africa) declares
that ‘in modern society transmission of conventional forms of beliefs is gradually breaking
down, it is important to test this transmission thesis in other contexts and see if there is global
trend in this regard’14.
I.G. Sudjatmiko (Dept. Sociology, U Indonesia, West Java) has offered a very original
vision of the development of religion through the prism of modernity. He points out three
patterns of supernatural sociation. ‘The first one is the “Communal” (“We and God”) found
mostly in simple societies where individuals are diffused or “absorbed” by the community.
These simple societies are characterized by a strong “We” as shown in the absence of private
prayer and the word “I” in their prayers. The second pattern is the “Associational” (“We, I and
God”) exemplified by world religious that have organizations, collective as well as private
prayers. The third pattern is the “Personal” (“I and God”) where individuals do not participate
in organized religions and collective prayers’15.
As well as Giddens modern sociologists investigate the changes in the law and order
system. It is expressed in a claim of principles of ‘dialogic democracy’ particularly scientists
state the trends of emotional neutrality and universalism in the police activity. J.V. Tavares Dos
Santos (Dept. Sociology, Federal U Rio Grand Do Sul, Porto Alegre, Brazil) considers that the
age of modernity has shown an increasing crisis of social control and policing. One of the
problems is police officer’s education. He thinks that the basic issue for the future of policing is
as follows: ‘the guarantee that police officer’s education entertains no discriminations in regard
to sex or ethnic minority, the training in techniques that reduce life risks, with the orientation of
using fire arms only in extreme cases’16 .
Another interesting moment. For the last years Sociology of body as a new particular
branch of Sociology got a substantial development, especially in the context of understanding
the institutions of modernity. Its representatives, in particular, N. Porro from Italy using the ideas
of М. Foucault and the conception of habitus of P. Bourdieu has marked that through the history
of the bodies in action it can be possible to tell the history of mankind, its itineraries from
primitive communities to civilization, until modernity. The transition from solid to liquid

12
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 163.
13
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 59.
14
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 139.
15
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 247.
16
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 253.
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modernity can be analyzed in regard to the use of ‘properly sports activities, as well as the rules
enforced by the fashion or by publicity, food and dietetic regulations17.
In my view, the increasing social and cultural dynamics objectively facilitates the
appearance of new institutional characteristics of socium that is becoming more reflexive. Thus,
it must be empirically represented and interpreted in theory.

17
XVI World Congress of Sociology. Abstracts. – P. 202.
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