"The chief significance of postmodernism is that it seeks to subvert the Western rationalist tradition of scholarly and scientific enquiry" (Goldthorpe, 2000, p.8). Discuss with reference to recent developments in industrial and organizational sociology.

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“The chief significance of postmodernism is that it seeks to subvert the Western rationalist tradition of scholarly and scientific enquiry” (Goldthorpe, 2000, p.8).  Discuss with reference to recent developments in industrial and organizational sociology.

The Russian economist Kondratiefff’s first talked of the cyclical way of economic life by which roughly every fifty years society experiences the birth of a new technology that becomes its driving force and supports a steady growth over an extended period of time. When looking at the theoretical development of industrial sociology over the last century one can notice a similar cyclical pattern.  It appears that every 15 years, give or take, a new theory on industrial sociology tends to surpass the existing one and  that scholars put all their focus on this new theory. This process of advancement in knowledge has followed in lines with the Popperian “theoretical conjecture/empirical refutation” course of action, that originates from the Enlightment, when Man’s faith, if not reverence, for reason and science beagan. Indeed, during the Renaissance, when the light of reason and logic shone upon the “Dark Ages” Mankind became entrenched with the notion that reason and logic were virtually untouchable upon the pedestal upon which they had been set, that thios notion has become the driving force of our societies virtually in every aspect of it: intellectual, social, and political. (Kumar,1990).

However, Although Man has reaped great benefits from modernity, “the comprehensive designation of all changes, intellectual, social and political, that bought into being the modern world (Kumar, 1990), with exponentially increased  living standards being an obvious example, not everyone blindly accepted this New Era. Indeed, the first people to voice their concerns over the nature and the effects of modernity were, not surprisingly a group of people who were less constrained by the omnipotent laws of reason and science, as say Emile Durkheim, who at the time was formulating his theory on suicides by using very scientific methods of research. This group is, of course, the artists. Baudelaire, a French poet of the 19th century is an example of how these people began, inadvertently perhaps, modernism, “a cultural critique of modernity that occurred in he West at the end of the 19th century”. (Kumar, 1990). Baudelaire would have lunch every day at the Eiffel Tower’s restaurant, not for his adulation of the monument, which in it’s symbolism is very similar, not only to the dashing trains in Tennessee William’s A Streetcar Named Desire, but also the world of modernity: cold, metallic, and deprived of life, but more for the view. However, he did not want the table with a view for the traditional sense of being able to look at Paris from a birds-eye view, but rather because it was “the only darn place in Paris from where you don’t see this bloody monster of a tower.”

Baudelaire is a mere example out of many  possible, but the anecdote illustrates quite

Well that not everyone espoused modernity with arms wide open. This criticism of modernity, and its grand postulates is also apparent in industrial sociology. Indeed, when looking at a very schematic representation of the theoretical developments in industrial sociology, colloquially a time line, one notices that the last major theory is one called postmodernism. This “theory”, a term used here with extreme hesitance, marks a clear break with the previous development of industrial sociology (previously solely based on the “theoretical research/empirical refutation” tenet. This reluctance to used the term is quite clear when one sees the vagueness of the definition of a term that in its meaning defies such clustering:                    

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Moreover, Kumar writes “Contradiction, circularity far from being regarded as faults in logic are in some post-modern theories celebrated.” Clearly the opposing nature of these two strains of thought has led to wide debate and the proponents of the earlier  theoretical developments in industrial sociology dismiss postmodernism believing that it’s chief signifigance is subvert the Western rational tradition of  scholarly research and scientific enquiry” (Goldthorpe, 2000). This essay will discuss the legacy of modernity’s reason/logic paradigm and it’s effect on the theoretical development of industrial sociology, and then study wether or not and to what extent  Goldthorpe’s statement has any ...

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