week 3 reading note
Thanks to Nak-ho, I present my week 3 reading note again.
It seems like Brint’s typology of community was influenced by modernistic perspective to human life. In particular, the notion of “time-space distantiation” seems to affect his distinction between geographic and choice community.
In regard with our last class discussion, I agree with Chris and Nakho about their ideas that there are other types of community, which are composed of marginalized individuals and, then, are not easily classified by modernistic thought of communal life. We must not ignore those communities for our investigation. However, in contemporary societies, many ordinary individuals are still affected by geographic and choice-based communal life. As individual freedom of choice increases, people can easily create community with help of information and communication technologies beyond the limits of space and time. However, as Calhoun points out, we must not dismiss the fact that many social phenomena have been created and driven by cybercapitalism. That is why we can not help giving skeptical eyes on cyber community and paying attention to community of place.
Also, I am curious about whether communal life and collective life are the same. If they are the same, are we seeing that communal, or collective, life is at the opposite end of the continuum between collectivism and individualism? So, can we say that as individualistic life increases in modern society, communal or collectivistic life decreases? In contrast, if they are different, and if the distinction is meaningful, how they differ from each other? If both communal and collective life is composed of social network, what characteristics can differentiate from each other? For this matter, I found that Parsons’ idea is useful. Parsons also based social integration on interactions among individuals. Based on his explanation, I could define that community has a certain value, which is “commitments to a conception of a good type of society” as “the desirable” to society based on consensus, rather “the desired” by individuals according to rational interest. Therefore, community differs from collective life since it implies potential toward public life with the medium of communicative action.
On the other hand, from the two articles about Talcott Parsons, I could understand his theory of social system and his endeavors to create a grand social theory in more detail. My overall impression of Parsons’ theory is that he was very too ambitious, and his intellectual trajectory seemed to change from liberal to conservative especially in terms of ontology even though he actively participated into social issues in behalf of minorities. I don’t think that I am able to criticize his theory of social system in detail, but as for his idea of societal community in global context, I’d like to point out that Parsons was less concerned with revealing the primary driving force of social differentiation from modernity by too much focusing on political and governmental power, and cultural conflicts in contemporary societies. Thus, he seemed to analysis money as communication media, rather than power itself. I think that social differentiation and disintegration also must be understood in terms of political economy, in particular global capitalism. I think that the primary driving force of “reflexive” or “radicalized” modernity is still capitalist.
It seems like Brint’s typology of community was influenced by modernistic perspective to human life. In particular, the notion of “time-space distantiation” seems to affect his distinction between geographic and choice community.
In regard with our last class discussion, I agree with Chris and Nakho about their ideas that there are other types of community, which are composed of marginalized individuals and, then, are not easily classified by modernistic thought of communal life. We must not ignore those communities for our investigation. However, in contemporary societies, many ordinary individuals are still affected by geographic and choice-based communal life. As individual freedom of choice increases, people can easily create community with help of information and communication technologies beyond the limits of space and time. However, as Calhoun points out, we must not dismiss the fact that many social phenomena have been created and driven by cybercapitalism. That is why we can not help giving skeptical eyes on cyber community and paying attention to community of place.
Also, I am curious about whether communal life and collective life are the same. If they are the same, are we seeing that communal, or collective, life is at the opposite end of the continuum between collectivism and individualism? So, can we say that as individualistic life increases in modern society, communal or collectivistic life decreases? In contrast, if they are different, and if the distinction is meaningful, how they differ from each other? If both communal and collective life is composed of social network, what characteristics can differentiate from each other? For this matter, I found that Parsons’ idea is useful. Parsons also based social integration on interactions among individuals. Based on his explanation, I could define that community has a certain value, which is “commitments to a conception of a good type of society” as “the desirable” to society based on consensus, rather “the desired” by individuals according to rational interest. Therefore, community differs from collective life since it implies potential toward public life with the medium of communicative action.
On the other hand, from the two articles about Talcott Parsons, I could understand his theory of social system and his endeavors to create a grand social theory in more detail. My overall impression of Parsons’ theory is that he was very too ambitious, and his intellectual trajectory seemed to change from liberal to conservative especially in terms of ontology even though he actively participated into social issues in behalf of minorities. I don’t think that I am able to criticize his theory of social system in detail, but as for his idea of societal community in global context, I’d like to point out that Parsons was less concerned with revealing the primary driving force of social differentiation from modernity by too much focusing on political and governmental power, and cultural conflicts in contemporary societies. Thus, he seemed to analysis money as communication media, rather than power itself. I think that social differentiation and disintegration also must be understood in terms of political economy, in particular global capitalism. I think that the primary driving force of “reflexive” or “radicalized” modernity is still capitalist.
posted by umaysay at
10:20 PM
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