THEORIZING THE PRESENT MOMENT : DEBATES BETWEEN MODERN AND POSTMODERN THEORY

Abstract

The postmodern turn in social theory has unleashed furious debates about the proper methods, models, concepts, and politics that we need to make sense of and respond to the turbulent transformations within contemporary theory and society. Advocates of modern theories and politics such as Marxism, liberalism, or feminism continue to argue that classical models provide the best optic and tools to understand and intervene in the contemporary situation; and there continue to be Weberians, Durkheimians, Parsonsians, Habermasians, pragmatists and others who argue that we are still in the era of modernity and that classical modern theories and politics continue to be salient during the present era. Some postmodern theorists, by contrast, argue that modern theories and politics are obsolete in the current situation, that we have entered a new postmodern condition that requires new theories and politics.'