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Postmodern Thought and Cellular Phones

Postmodernism is a movement in philosophy that posits a worldview which reflects the contention that truth is not something that exists and can be located but rather it is something that is constructed by society and culture. In this sense, truth is culturally-relative and cannot be applied from one culture to the other or is merely an effort to foist the "truth" of one culture onto another. Postmodernism arose in the 1970s primarily as a reaction to former views of culture and truth that were popular with sociologists of the preceding generation. Structural and functional theories of society were predominant during this period. As Peterson and Anand (2004) explain, "The former asserted that those who controlled the means of producing wealth shaped culture to fit their own class interests; the latter believed that a set of monolithic abstract values determined the shape of social structure" (p. 312). Postmodernists did not view the structure of society in this manner.

Postmodernists viewed society as a living breathing entity that evolved over time, much like humans themselves. Postmodernists view society and culture as "elements in an ever-changing patchwork" (Peterson & Anand, 2004, p. 312). It is this perspective of postmodernists that temporarily resolves the contradictions of capitalism. This is because capitalists view an elite who control the means of production and wealth as defining culture, but postmodernists believe that culture is not formed based on values but on expressions that are often symbolic. In this sense, the mass of workers or poor are not at the mercy of an oppressive elite since their expressions have an impact on shaping culture and its organizations and communities. As Peterson and Anand (2004) argue, "Culture is not so much societywide and virtually unchanging as it is situational and capable of rapid change" (p. 312). An example of this might be the election of Barack Obama as...

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Postmodern Thought and Cellular Phones. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 03:29, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/2001206.html