Tastes and Postmodern Theory: Social Analysis

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Taste

Tastes refer to the populace’s diverse capacity to uncover delight in a scrupulous wording and according to Bourdieu (1997), there are shared blueprint in issues pertaining taste. Nevertheless, taste is attached to key societal separation akin to gender as well as class, separations between the unsophisticated and sophisticated, as well as the illiterate and the literates. Tastes can be used as a measure of societal division giving rise to creation of a wall between societal sets.

Social network places as a source of describing people’s taste

Presently the social network places are good sources of information on explaining how people spend their lives offline. This becomes very useful to researchers that are able to understand the kind of lifestyles that people live from day to day. The various issues that people discuss in the social network include their interests in terms of the books they read, the movies watched, the games played and so on. These social network places help ethnographers in understanding human behaviour in the process of interaction where people form relationships (Wasserman, 1994; Jensen & Neville, 2002; McCallum, Corrada & Wang, 2005). This social network places are important as they help connect people with the same interests. However it can bring about social differences in that people with different interests cannot connect in the social network places. In this case you find that a friend of a friend is connected to another person who has the same taste through a two communication system. Some scholars suggest the existence of a site that can connect people with the same interests (Serra, 1982; Haralick, Sternberg & Zhuang, 1987).

Contribution of tastes to social differences

Tastes among human beings range from identities in terms of sub- culture, lover as well as taste level. Films made by specific individuals with certain titles as well as from specific film genres. Books that have been written by a specific author, title as well as genre. Music also defines people’s tastes in terms of the specific artist, song, album as well as genre. Foods with a specific name, ingredient as well as course explain which ethnic group one comes from. Sports with a certain name and genre define a person’s tastes and preferences. A television’s show name and the genre of the show will also influence a person’s taste.

Taste in terms of art in people’s culture exposes people cognizant or incognizant to accomplish the purpose of justifiable diversity in the society. Some forms of art which seem offensive to some people do not offend the people practicing this culture, this then turns out to regard the people being offended by this culture as inferior (Bourdieu, 1997 ). Tastes in various sports, music, books and so on bring about social differences in that it defines people from a certain class. Lifestyles in people’s way of dressing and eating also show social differences in that it defines a people’s ethnic identity as well as class.

Taste brings about social differences in that it distinguishes a person’s social class as well as ethnic identity. People from a high social strata have differing tastes with people from the lower class. Tastes in a particular ethnic group also bring about social differences in that one is able to identify a person’s ethnic group depending on the taste of this individual.

Postmodern theory

This is a theory which follows the modern theory. For one to understand this theory one has to understand the theory of modernism which gives reference to a time in western culture in terms of its art and its account in sociology. This period of modernism was characterized by new inventions in technology attached with war where this theory was reacting against the perception of an era as well as the state of contemporary development. Postmodernism wraps up several subjects as well as a wide-ranging region of deliberation which is inclusive of architecture, art, literature as well as technology.

Contribution of Postmodern theory to contemporary social analysis

In contrast to modernism postmodernism does not have any restrictions. It also puts emphasis on a disorganized society which was viewed negatively by the modernists. According to the postmodernists disorganization in the society represents the actuality of the society. While modernists were opposed to vagueness, postmodernists on the other hand accepted it as a true presentation of what the world is like due to the complex nature of the world. Postmodernism has two premises which include the fact that there is no single way to understand the world be it in the truth, nature and God. The second premise is that there is no existence of thoughts preceding language (Ermarth, 1998).

Postmodernism is important in analyzing contemporary society in that it helps validate truths through scientific research (Latour, 1991). In addition, postmodernism helps one to understand how the marginalized groups are oppressed. This is due to the fact that it deals with disparities present in the society that form people’s distinctiveness. According to Denzin (1991), post modernism is precise in its perspective and it distinguishes stance taken by an array of topics. Postmodernism therefore helps in dispelling any form of stereotype against a certain group which may be considered as inferior for example, the disabled or poor members of the society. Moreover, it ensures that the oppressed have a voice in that they share the incidences they have gone through and this helps people to understand that they are not inferior and they should be treated with dignity. Although this theory helps understand the origin of oppression as well as abuse of authority, it however does not give guidelines on how to forge ahead (Bell,Caplan & Karim, 1993).

Postmodernism is also essential as it helps in analyzing social problems. These problems include crime where according to postmodernism we are able to understand the sociology of crime in that we are made to understand the causes and the effects of crime. It also helps policy makers to devise ways in which to combat crime.

Postmodernism is a very important theory in helping us to analyze social action in contemporary society. In this case we understand issues to do with scientific research, class as well as social problems like crime which affect the modern society. The flip side of this theory is that it does not give solutions to the social problems but instead leaves it to the policy makers to decide on the steps to be taken.

Effect of scholarly focus on consumers and consumption practices on sociologies of everyday life

One theory that best describes consumer and consumption practices is ecological modernization theory. This theory has expanded in its scope in recent years (Mol and Spaargaren, 1998; Spaaragen, Mol and Buttel, 1999). This theory has various characteristics based on the fields it puts its focus on namely; biology, ecology as well as the natural sciences. The purpose of this study is to look at the transition from a customer to consumer and how it helps bring out additional protracted habits of existence.

Nature of ecological modernization theory

One principle of this theory is that calamities in the environment are existent, and they deal with valid, purposeful, and materials of societal scheme. Therefore material possessions have been transforming for some time now and confronting us with a test which if not handled well could lead to modification in societal replication. This theory challenges the approach adopted by ecologists as well as experts on matters as well as material courses associated with the meaning of substance flow and energy. Sociologists put emphasis on the fact that a calamity in the environment is a serious societal calamity as we have to deal with the dilemma of how to deal with sustainability. It is a calamity emanating from the manner in which a contemporary culture organizes itself in terms of manufacturing products as well as consuming.

Secondly this theory also postulates that technology influences the organization of substance flow in a contemporary society. However the misconception is that fresh machinery would eliminate evils in the environment that bring actual or intense transformation (Beck 1992, 1994). The cause of this could be that technology in the environment plays a big part in this theory. Nevertheless the improvement in technology means that there is a great potential for a more sustainable organization of manufacture and utilization. This theory focuses on the industrial mode of manufacture as well as utilization which happens to be the main cause of environmental degradation. It focuses on subjects such as novelty, transmission of new knowledge or organization methods as practiced in industries which focus on subjects like Fordist versus post- Fordist production regimes and their impacts to the surroundings.

As compared to other theories like de-modernization theories and treadmill- analyses this theory is less fundamental as its origin is not from the postulation that capitalism causes production of unsustainable products. Principles have come up that help explain how an organized production and consumption cycle image is when there is sustainability. Recently standards of products in terms of its sustainability and how it can be reused has become a matter of discussion.

When looking at the cycle of production and consumption sociologists should not lose focus on the importance of human beings. This is because production- consumption cycles are made up of social practices that should be deliberated on two levels namely the micro and macro levels (Giddens, 1984). It has been discovered that the position a consumer holds in the society will affect the way in which he consumes products and thus affect the production- consumption cycle. Excess expenditure by the consumers helps scholars understand how vibrant the industrialized societies are. The consumers as well as retailers are diverse in that they have different interests which affect the production and consumption cycle. The view by experts will also affect the way consumers utilize products (Beck, 1992, 1994).

The consumption of products by consumers has been affected by the focus put on this topic by scholars. For example policies by policymakers will influence which goods to be consumed and which goods will not be consumed. The focus on environmental degradation also affects the way consumers utilize products in a manner that does not harm the environment.

List of References

Beck, U. (1992) From Industrial Society to the Risk Society: Questions of Survival, Social Structure and Ecological Enlightenment, Theory, Culture & Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Beck, U., Giddens,A, Lash S (1994) Reflexive Modernization; politics, tradition and aesthetics in the modern social order. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bell, Caplan & Karim (1993) Gendered Fields: Women, Men & Ethnography. London: Routledge.

Bourdieu, (1997) Outline of a Theory and Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Denzin, N. (1991) Images of Postmodern Society: Social Theory and Contemporary Cinema. London: Sage.

Ermarth, E.D, (1998). Postmodernism. In: Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge.

Giddens, A. (1984) The Constitution of Society. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Haralick, R.M, Sternberg, S.R and Zhuang, X. (1987) Image Analysis using mathematical morphology. IEEE transactions on pattern analysis and machine intelligence 9(4), 532-550.

Jensen D and Neville J (2002). Data mining in Social networks. National Academy of Sciences Symposium on Dynamic Social Network Analysis.

Latour, B. (1991) We have never been modern. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

McCallum Andrew, Corrada-Emmanuel Andres and Wang Xurei (2005). Topic and role Discovery in Social Networks. Proceedings of 19^th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, pp. 786-791.

Serra J. (1982). Image Analysis and Mathematical Morphology. London: Academic Press.

Spaargaren, G. (1997) Citizenship involvement in the ecological modernization of household- related public utility sectors in the EU; from captive to authority consumer. Research proposal for the EU program ‘Environment and Climate 1994-1998. no. PL970850, pp.22.

Spaargaren, Gert and Bas van Vliet (1998) Lifestyles, Consumption and the Environment; the ecological modernization of domestic consumption. Paper presented at the 14^th World Congress of Sociology, Montreal, July 1998, pp.29.

Wasserman Stanley, (1994) Social Network Analysis: Methods an Applications. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

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