Page 64 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 64
from walter benjamin to the end of cinema
tions of the weakening and the breaking of social bonds. Giddens charac-
terised this state of affairs in the framework of his theory as the processes of
detraditionalisation. These processes, as he claims, bring us to the post-tra-
ditional society, which in Giddens’ words is “an ending”. What is (was) a
traditional society and how it is understood after its “ending” may be re-
flected upon through a number of contemporary authors such as, for exam-
ple, anthropologist Benedict Anderson, historian Eric Wolf and especially
the French sociologist and philosopher Pierre Bourdieu. In those societies,
including industrial ones, where many traditional institutions are func-
tioning in any form of rituals or through ideological patterns, social uncer-
tainties are recognisably lower than in a so-called risk society as defined by
Ulrich Beck (1998). This means that the traditional political cultures main-
tain social bonds in such a way that an individual (without any thought of
doubt or in a conscious renunciation of a part of their autonomy or free-
dom) gets “in exchange” a well-defined position in the society. Additional-
ly, an individual gets “safety” within such institutions as family or church
and within other forms of collective life, which differ according to a soci-
ety’s cultural determinants. In general, the socialist states were an attempt
to create “safety” and stability through an economic system that comprised
of full employment of the population. However, this attempt failed at the
very beginning, which could explain why these societies actually and para-
doxically finally promoted a set of traditional values. It is, of course, doubt-
ful that traditional societies (all of which transformed and adapted their
rituals throughout history) always functioned in such a way as pictured
by nostalgic traditionalists looking back from a context of modernism or
post-modernism. Therefore, it is quite right to ask a complicated question
regarding a problem of how much the notion of tradition explains any-
thing at all about the time in history when nations and linguistic commu-
nities took shape.1
Culture and Transition
Some of us in contemporary Europe remember the period of socialism be-
cause we happened to live in one of the countries, which called itself “so-
1 Traditions, as an invention of culture that took shape in the period of growing
literacy, needed to find roots in communities of the past, and so it created the past
“by itself ”. Thus, as characters in the renaissance pictures of religious events from
the hazy beginnings of Christianity are dressed according to Florentine or Venetian
fashion, the past is “redressed” repeatedly, when a new identity demands it to be
changed in the name of the present and the future.
62
tions of the weakening and the breaking of social bonds. Giddens charac-
terised this state of affairs in the framework of his theory as the processes of
detraditionalisation. These processes, as he claims, bring us to the post-tra-
ditional society, which in Giddens’ words is “an ending”. What is (was) a
traditional society and how it is understood after its “ending” may be re-
flected upon through a number of contemporary authors such as, for exam-
ple, anthropologist Benedict Anderson, historian Eric Wolf and especially
the French sociologist and philosopher Pierre Bourdieu. In those societies,
including industrial ones, where many traditional institutions are func-
tioning in any form of rituals or through ideological patterns, social uncer-
tainties are recognisably lower than in a so-called risk society as defined by
Ulrich Beck (1998). This means that the traditional political cultures main-
tain social bonds in such a way that an individual (without any thought of
doubt or in a conscious renunciation of a part of their autonomy or free-
dom) gets “in exchange” a well-defined position in the society. Additional-
ly, an individual gets “safety” within such institutions as family or church
and within other forms of collective life, which differ according to a soci-
ety’s cultural determinants. In general, the socialist states were an attempt
to create “safety” and stability through an economic system that comprised
of full employment of the population. However, this attempt failed at the
very beginning, which could explain why these societies actually and para-
doxically finally promoted a set of traditional values. It is, of course, doubt-
ful that traditional societies (all of which transformed and adapted their
rituals throughout history) always functioned in such a way as pictured
by nostalgic traditionalists looking back from a context of modernism or
post-modernism. Therefore, it is quite right to ask a complicated question
regarding a problem of how much the notion of tradition explains any-
thing at all about the time in history when nations and linguistic commu-
nities took shape.1
Culture and Transition
Some of us in contemporary Europe remember the period of socialism be-
cause we happened to live in one of the countries, which called itself “so-
1 Traditions, as an invention of culture that took shape in the period of growing
literacy, needed to find roots in communities of the past, and so it created the past
“by itself ”. Thus, as characters in the renaissance pictures of religious events from
the hazy beginnings of Christianity are dressed according to Florentine or Venetian
fashion, the past is “redressed” repeatedly, when a new identity demands it to be
changed in the name of the present and the future.
62
