Social Institutions in Postmodern Society

The first part of this article provides an introduction to postmodernism, beginning with the ways in which pre-modernism and modernism paved the course for the existence of such a philosophical conception. The second section delves into an analysis of the following social institutions: family, education, and religion. More specifically, the transitional nature of education is examined against shifting family dynamics that have progressed from modern to postmodern times, as well as the contemporary academic trend toward individuation. Religion is examined through a postmodern lens, including the advent of denominations such as Unitarian Universalism, along with postmodern ministries and present-day educational controversies (i.e., school prayer, moments of silence).

Keywords Culture; Gender Gap; Language Games; Modernism; Multiple Intelligences; Postmodern Ministry; Postmodern Society; Unitarian Universalism; VARK

Social Change > Social Institutions in Postmodern Society

Overview

Postmodernism is an abstract, elusive archetype that serves as a significant influence on Western ideology and roughly began in the 1950s-1960s and is therefore in the preliminary stage of formulating an explicit identity (Baackmann & Craven, 2008; Hicks, 2004; Macionis, 2001; Myers, 2001; Shalin, 1993). Before postmodernism, the foregoing eras consisted of a pre-modern, medieval era and later, modernism. Pre-modernism (Holsinger, 2005) refers to the life and culture that existed during the Middle Ages, in which traditional lore upheld small communities that were adhered together through durable communal ties that reinforced a village mentality of kinship, cooperation, and unity. Unquestioned consecration toward religious creed as well as numinous, fateful,or spiritual means prevailed as standard conventions. This included conceptualizing life's customary twists-and-turns as "God's Will" or resolving everyday quandaries through blind faith. Indeed, it was during this medieval period that the Catholic Church reigned with full-fledged sovereignty, and religious turmoil was brought about by repeated crusades. Operating under a feudal domain, land was traded for protection between lords and serfs. The common peasant became obligated to a given jurisdiction in which movement was forcefully restricted, limiting exposure to outside modalities of thought. Hence, pre-modernism did not lend itself to either multiplicity or independence, but instead encouraged communities and families into likeminded confluence.

Modernism

The aftermath of such an era emerged with Modernism at the beginning of the eighteenth century (Collins, 1992; Singer, 2006), when undying religious allegiance and mysticism were replaced with concepts such as truth, science, knowledge, logic, and reason. Medical breakthroughs revolutionized the continuation of life; these innovations included the advent of the smallpox vaccination ("Edward Jenner," 2008) and curative antidotes that arrogated the presence of drastic infant mortality rates and elongated the human lifespan. Mathematics evolved into new territory as Isaac Newton and Gottfried Leibniz originated the tenets that underlay calculus (Cirillo, 2007), while John Locke promoted the premise that humans are autonomous and that the "tabula rasa," or blank slate philosophy allows the attainment of a person's knowledge base, temperament, and emotions to acquire experientially, as opposed to that which is infused through divine intervention or transmitted celestially through a soul (Keveney, 2007). Hence, the transition into individualism set forth, in which people repositioned themselves apart from their small, cohesive family units and agrarian lifestyles in order to gain self-expansion and fulfillment, a process that was facilitated through the technological advancements of the industrial revolution and encouraged ethnic, religious, and economic diversification. Moreover, people were more liberated and financially at-ease than their predecessors, which naturally granted luxuries that were more refined, cultivated, and unregulated, enabling their progression through life without reliance on provincial support. Such self-sufficiency aligned with a series of consequences, namely the reduction of community; instead, people immersed themselves in novel, self-advanced situations that preserved their anonymity and precluded the formation of close-knit connections from establishing.

Postmodernism

The transition into most new epochs includes retaliation against those that lay before, and hence, the dawn of postmodernism was naturally antithetical to its modernist lineage. In response to the certitude and factual conviction that accompanied modernism, postmodernism is riddled with skepticism, uncertainty, and subjective construal. Questions that arose with postmodernism probed beneath the facade of principles such as "truth," "knowledge," and "logic" and concluded that such esoteric ideals are relative, biased, or steeped in ambiguity. For example, educational tenets that had historically been accepted as universally recognized and undisputed "realities," such as the epic heroism of Christopher Columbus, underwent pronounced scrutiny. Even institutions that prided themselves on dispassionate impartiality, such as the legal system, whose symbolic depiction of a blindfolded woman unable to distort the scale of justice that she grips, were beleaguered by postmodernists. The law, they postulated, did not seek to unearth the truth through upright and nonpartisan measures, but rather fell prey to the prejudicial whims of human corruption by awarding preferential treatment toward those who could "buy" their freedom and detaining those less privileged. Language can also be understood through a postmodern lens (Hodge, 2003; Shaw, 2001), in that words do not recapitulate reality but instead imbed themselves into the biased meaning of their users and surrounding situational forces, a phenomenon Wittgenstein termed "Language Games" (Kopytko, 2007; McKinnon, 2002).

Furthermore, as globalization became increasingly pervasive, religious pluralism and the acceptance of unconventional cultural norms came to the forefront, and the excavation of multicultural predispositions superseded that which had previously been deemed irrefutably truthful. Racism, along with several other "isms," such as sexism, classism, and ageism surfaced as forces with which to be reckoned, sparking the postmodern trend toward social, political, and environmental activism, which seeks to overturn inequities that have plagued various disadvantaged communities (Handler, 1992). In the process of leveling the playing field, those that suffered oppression or deprivation assembled together in concerted accordance in order to collectively overcome their hardships and support fellow comrades. Thus, the individualistic paradigm that indoctrinated the modern period was replaced with a sense of group identity as terms such as "feminism" (Lanre-Abbas Bolatito, 2003) and "Black/Latin/Asian pride" (Gierach, 2001; Wright, 2003) entered the dialect of everyday language, a process that has been further enhanced through the technological advancements that have accompanied postmodernism. For example, via the internet, groups of people can communicate anonymously in designated areas such as chat-rooms or message boards with others who share concordant interests, backgrounds, idiosyncrasies, or strife, thus reinforcing a sense of group distinction and cohesiveness. However, a heated debate exists surrounding the beneficial properties of mechanized communication modalities, and questions whether technology enhances group solidarity ("Internet Chatroom," 2003), or obviates human contact by promoting reclusive isolation (Block, 2008; Shaw & Black, 2008).

Further Insights

Postmodernist Family Structure & Education

The modern age held a very specific definition of the nuclear family, which encompassed intact parents who expressed the ideals attached with romantic love, maternal love, and domesticity. Romantic love refers to the purity of the parental union, formulated under the assumption of 'soul mates,' in which one man was fated for one woman throughout the course of their entire lives; this notion discouraged influences that threatened such a lifelong commitment, and therefore shunned engagement in premarital sex and the institute of divorce. Maternal love emphasized the mother-child bond as a natural force that is both omnipresent and indestructible, while domesticity assumed automatic fidelity toward household matters, a feat particularly headed by the wife/mother whose dutiful devotion lay within her abode. The onset of modern education loosely began with Kindergarten, an optional preparatory stage whereby students attended school for part of the day, during which they engaged in fun, recreational activities before heading back to their doting mothers. Eventually modern students acquiesced into a didactic classroom setting and were furnished textbooks that chronicled historical accounts under prudent censorship. Mandatory school forms were phrased under the assumption that children were cared for by biological, married parents, and if children demonstrated unruly behavior, they were deemed to have a "social adjustment" that undoubtedly stemmed from poor parenting (Elkind, 1995).

Postmodern families are grouped together through an assortment of patterns, including two-person married (Robers, 2008) or unmarried couples, (Glick, 1984) single parent structures (Sang Min Lee & Kushner, 2008), adopted and step-family arrangements (Edwards, 2002; Mannis, 2000), teenage mothers (Denzin, 1987), as well as homosexually headed households (Brinamen & Mitchell, 2008), and those in which extended family members have full custodial rights (Curry & Aldridge, 2005). Thus, it would be faulty for contemporary school systems to make presumptions about "normal" family configurations and instead they proactively seek to accommodate a range of conditions. Children no longer epitomize virtuous naiveté since they are often exposed to desecration, loss, and pain at tender ages. This includes events such as divorce and increased societal violence, which desensitize them to life's troublesome realities. Postmodern teenagers are venturing into adult terrain with regard to sexual experimentation and drug/alcohol use. Thus, schools often serve as the primary source of intervention including early-onset sex education that covers information on AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases, as well as the promotion of safe-sex practices that sometimes include condom distribution. Another postmodern trend is that students physically occupy more time at school, since most Kindergarten programs are mandatory, and an assortment of extended-day, afterschool, and daycare alternatives exist that are conducive to dual-working parents. Furthermore, advanced reading and mathematical curricula are being introduced much earlier, with bodies of work that surpass the narrowly defined "classics" that were common to the modern era, which often excluded female and minority authors.

The Postmodernist Classroom

Whereas modern educational provisions required that students abide by instructive conventions relative to their age-specific classifications, an inverse trend prevails throughout postmodernism, in that contemporary schools seek to cater to the unique needs of each individual student (Elkind, 1998). In other words, modern schools delineated collective goals that pertained to each developmental grade. For example, curricula designated toward first graders differed from that which targeted second graders and students unable to adhere to such expectations were faulted. Although programs of study are still distinguished between grades, individual variables possessed by each student integrate into the equation and many teachers are professionally equipped to understand the different exigencies with which their students contend, regarding temperament (Pullins & Cadwell, 1985), learning style (Coffield, 2006), birth order (Modin, 2002), gender (Pomerantz, Saxon, & Altermatt, 2002), and intelligence (Rindermann & Neubauer, 2004).

An illustration of this can be demonstrated through an inventory called the VARK (French, Cosgriff, & Brown, 2007; Kalkan, 2008), established by Neil Fleming, which details the preferential ways in which students assimilate material among four distinct learning styles:

• Visual,

• Auditory,
• Reading/writing-preference, and
• Kinesthetic.

Visual students prefer that which can be viewed firsthand, such as charts, diagrams, illustrations, written text, and classroom apparati (e.g., chalkboards, PowerPoint machinery) that help convey daily lessons, whereas auditory learners respond most favorably to the spoken word transmitted via lectures or audio segments. Students with reading/writing-preferences often find themselves pouring over texts, and perhaps taking notes within the side margin in order to adequately ingest incoming data, while kinesthetic learners find hands-on activities such as role-playing, field work, or empirical application most stimulating.

Evidence provided by social scientists such as Howard Gardner (Barrington, 2004; Shearer, 2004), show our society's conceptualization of human intellect has broadened into expansive territory. Gardner postulates that, as opposed to the modern era's narrowly defined appreciation of intelligence measured by assessments such as the Stanford-Binet IQ test or the Wechsler-Intelligence Scales (Yam, 1998), people can reveal their cerebral prowess through nine types of intelligence:

• Naturalistic,
• Musical,
• Logical-Mathematical,
• Existential,
• Interpersonal,
• Intrapersonal,
• Bodily-Kinesthetic,
• Linguistic, and
• Spatial.

Postmodern school personnel spend an inordinate amount of time adapting their techniques to fit the individual needs of their students, a methodology that can cause teachers to become overwhelmed. This is also exacerbated by the fact that postmodern faculty members are no longer considered experts in their field, or those who didactically pass down information to novice youngsters. Rather than hierarchical relationships, contemporary schools tend toward egalitarianism and collaborations in which teachers and students alike voice their input in small-group settings; everybody's contribution is deemed valid, and concrete measurements such as grades are negotiable (Hodge & Derezotes, 2008).

Postmodernism & Religion

Unitarian Universalism

Based upon modernism's emphasis on logical cogency and systematic reasoning, psychology, an orientation that underscores nonpartisanship and scientific epistemology, began its integration into religion (McMinn & Hall, 2000). Not only has this assimilative process become more efficiently cultivated throughout postmodernism, but the concept of spirituality has surfaced as a widespread religious alternative, in which both pluralism and/or individualized interpretations of that which is sacred have allowed subjective, contextual elucidation to enter into dogmatic realms. A manifestation of such postmodern creed is the emergence of Unitarian Universalism, a religion founded in 1961 that combines elements of the two religions imbedded within its namesake — i.e., Unitarianism and Universalism, each of which has a longstanding lineage (Wyatt & Dwyer, 2008). Unitarianism's roots can be traced back to sixteenth century Poland, during which Christian reformers divided into their own distinct sect based on a shared denouncement of the Holy Trinity as three separate entities. Elsewhere throughout Europe and America during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, a faction of Christians distinguished themselves from their majority counterparts and formulated the Universalist appellation, in which followers condemned the existence of Hell as a final destination point for dissident souls, thus embracing faiths of all brands. Hence, the postmodern amalgamation of these two convictions, or Unitarian Universalism, is an institution that promotes humanism (Doerr, 1998), whereby the first of its seven fundamental principles underlines upholding worthiness and dignity in all human beings (Peng, 2007), and in which "one is likely to find Christians of all denominations, Jews, Wiccans, Buddhists, atheists, agnostics, and people from other religions" (Wyatt & Dwyer, 2008, p. 210). As such, the essence of Unitarian Universalism revolves around the congregation of spiritual sanctification, as opposed to obedience toward austere religious parameters.

Postmodern Ministries

Leibovich (1998) covered postmodern ministry, a phenomenon that began in the 1990s wherein young preachers held unconventional services that were geared toward the disgruntled twenty-something Generation X cohort. The ceremonies were casual, hip, and alternative, in which food, grunge music, pop culture, informal dress, tattered settings, and dynamic discussions were lauded by clergy who portrayed themselves as authentically flawed human beings; a stark contrast to the conservative and righteous traditions of the past. One goal that postmodern ministers aspired to achieve was to counter the looming childhood angst that many of the churchgoers experienced, in which their "Baby Boom" parents had sacrificed quality family time in lieu of the dedication they extended toward high-profile, lucrative careers. As such, the ensuing apathy that was stereotypically infused into the Gen X soul was sought to be overturned through attendance at postmodern church gatherings, a refuge that offered carefree community-oriented connections alongside a place of worship. Although postmodern churches adopted right-winged ideology, such as anti-abortion and sexual abstinence stances, they also claimed no political affiliation, and professed to embrace people who would be shunned from other parishes, including gay and lesbian patrons, by operating from the premise "love the sinners, hate the sin." (Leibovich, 1998, p. 8).

Prayer in Schools

On a similar vein, the nationwide trend that school systems in many states have adopted, which implements a daily moment of silence (Frantz, 2008; Robelan & Holovach, 2007) at the beginning of each academic day, has been met with a firestorm of controversy in postmodern pluralistic and inclusive society. Hailed by exponents as a time for thoughtful contemplation during which students can ponder a variety of weighty or mundane issues, or pray should they choose to, moments of silence offer reflection and tranquility. Conversely, opponents of such practices feel that the moment of silence is a cunning guise interjected by fundamentalists who seek to impose their religious intentions and traditional mores. Moreover, if the moment of silence is indeed a veneer that carefully cloaks a religious agenda, it caters exclusively to those upholding Western ideologies, whose prayer tends to circulate around cerebral processes of pensive meditation and introspection. This type of setup automatically bars religions in which prayer also takes on physical articulation, and vehemently infringes upon the all-encompassing nature of postmodernism. For example, the Muslim prayer Salaat is an intricate procedure that requires partisans to face the direction of Mecca and eventually formulate a kneeling position in which their forehead, nose, and hands make contact with the ground, a process that cannot be facilitated merely through the moment of silence.

While the existence of school prayer and the moment of silence have not been entirely eradicated in true "separation of church and state" form, the fact that they have engendered tremendous public uproar is an indication of postmodernity. Indeed, it is likely that such procedures would have been discretely brushed under the rug during modern times, which favored status-quo conformity such as the preservation of religious "Judeo-Christian" homogenization (Mart, 2004). Although the direction of postmodern religion is indeterminable, a sense of hopeful imminence was captured through the riveting inauguration address of United States president Barack Obama’s first term. He conveyed all of the affirmative aspects of postmodernism — diversity, globalization, and harmonization among polarities — through the following statement:

Viewpoints

In a critical analysis of postmodern education, Washburn & Thornton (1996) express disgust at the notion that factual, substance-driven instruction has been swapped for cushy, value-laden material that emphasizes the importance of "getting along," "caring," and "respect" within a diverse, globalized world, and they assert that this transition has procured mediocrity and indifference. Additionally, they comment:

The Certainty of Postmodern Uncertainty

Friedrich Nietzsche, commonly regarded as a philosopher who laid the groundwork for postmodern thinking, said "convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies," (as cited in Nietzsche, Hollingdale & Schacht, 1996, p. 179). Although written nearly a century before the advent of the postmodern era, the depth and complexity of this statement is saturated with wisdom, profundity, and foresight. Human beings tend to naturally gravitate toward leaders, institutions, and ideologies that provide resolution to life's queries, since such affirmations bestow a sense of comfort and security in a world that is intrinsically defined by doubt and mystery. On the surface, critics might point to postmodernist credo as a slothful excuse for ruminating in idle indecision, when in reality it takes maturity, fortitude, responsibility, initiative, and courage to brave the storm of uncertainty, arrive at conclusions independently, question reality, and accept the inexorable obscurity of life. This is particularly relevant within a religious milieu, because people inherently yearn for guarantees regarding their soul's inevitable terminus ad quem, although in reality it behooves people to ruminate in the depths of nebulous inconclusiveness, for the only thing that's certain is that there is no certainty.

Terms & Concepts

Gender Gap: Educationally, females have historically performed higher on reading benchmarks while males dominate math, science, and technology domains.

Language Games: A concept created by Wittgenstein, which underscores the fact that words do not recapitulate reality but instead imbed themselves into the biased meaning of their users and surrounding situational forces.

Modernism: The influential era that began at the beginning of the eighteenth century when concepts such as truth, science, knowledge, logic, and reason were emphasized.

Postmodern Ministry: A phenomenon that began in the 1990s in which young preachers held unconventional religious services that were geared toward the twenty-something Generation X cohort.

Unitarian Universalism: A religion founded in 1961 that combines elements of the two religions imbedded within its namesake — i.e., Unitarianism and Universalism, each of which has a longstanding lineage.

VARK: An educational inventory established by Neil Fleming, which details the preferential ways in which students assimilate material among four distinct learning styles: visual, auditory, reading/writing-preference, and kinesthetic.

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Pullins, M. & Cadwell, J. (1985). Temperament as a factor in the assessment of children educationally at risk. Journal of Special Education, 19, 91-102. Retrieved December 20, 2008 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Complete, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=4727424&site=ehost-live

Rindermann, H. & Neubauer, A. C. (2004). Processing speed, intelligence, creativity, and school performance: Testing of causal hypotheses using structural equation models. Intelligence, 32, 573-589.

Robelan, E. W. & Holovach, R. (2007). 'Moment of silence' generates loud debate in Illinois. Education Week, 27, 22-23. Retrieved December 20, 2008 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Complete, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=27229682&site=ehost-live

Roberts, S. (2008). Most children still live in two-parent homes, census bureau reports. New York Times, 14-14.

Sang Min Lee & Kushner, J. (2008). Single-parent families: the role of parent's and child's gender on academic achievement. Gender & Education, 20, 607-621.

Shalin, D. N. (1993). Modernity, postmodernism, and pragmatist inquiry: An introduction. Symbolic Interaction, 16, 303-332.

Shaw, D. G. (2001). Happy in our chains? Agency and language in the postmodern age. History & Theory, 40, 1-8. Retrieved December 20, 2008 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Complete, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=5487057&site=ehost-live

Shaw, M. & Black, D. W. (2008). Internet addiction. CNS Drugs, 22, 353-365. Retrieved December 20, 2008 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Complete, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=32542414&site=ehost-live

Shearer, B. (2004). Multiple intelligences theory after 20 years. Teachers College Record, 106, 2-16. Retrieved December 20, 2008 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Complete, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=11853761&site=ehost-live

Singer, B. (2006). Introduction: Modernism, modernity, and the senses. Monatshefte, 98, 175-179. Retrieved December 20, 2008 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Complete http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=21596424&site=ehost-live

Speich, J. (2001). Santa Fe independent school district v. Doe: Mapping the future of studentled, student-initiated prayer in public schools. Albany Law Review, 65, 271-313. Retrieved December 20, 2008 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Complete, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9539749&site=ehost-live

Teo, K. W. (2009). Encyclopedia of the first amendment. Library Journal, 134, 125-128. Retrieved January 1, 2009 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Complete, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=35997462&site=ehost-live

Vekiri, I. & Chronaki, A. (2008). Gender issues in technology use: Perceived social support, computer self-efficacy and value beliefs, and computer use beyond school. Computers & Education, 51, 1392-1404.

Washburn, K. & Thornton, J. (1996). Dumbing Down. Essays on the strip-mining of American culture. New York, London: W.W. Norton & Company.

Wright, D. C. (2003). Black pride day, 1968: High school student activism in York, Pennsylvania. Journal of African American History, 88, 151-162. Retrieved December 20, 2008 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Complete, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=12452964&site=ehost-live

Wyatt, N. & Dwyer, T. V. (2008). Unitarian Universalism: A research guide. Reference & User Services Quarterly, 47, 210-214. Retrieved December 20, 2008 from EBSCO online database, Academic Search Complete, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=32147091&site=ehost-live

Yam, P. (1998). Intelligence considered. Scientific American Presents, 6-11. Retrieved December 20, 2008 from EBSCO online database, Academic Research Complete, http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=20940672&site=ehost-live

Suggested Reading

Cahoone, L. E. (2003). From modernism to postmodernism: An anthology expanded. USA: Wiley-Blackwell.

Corroto, C. (2011). A postmodern headache. Qualitative Inquiry, 17, 854-863. Retrieved October 31, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocIndex with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=66698676

Fortunati, L., Larsen, S., & Stamm, J. (2012). Introduction to the special section on knowledge management in postmodern society. Information Society, 28, 201-207. Retrieved October 31, 2013, from EBSCO Online Database SocIndex with Full Text. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=sih&AN=79665782

Lyon, D. (2000). Jesus in Disneyland: Religion in postmodern times. USA: Polity.

Strohm, P. (2000). Theory and premodern text. USA: University of Minnesota Press.