Page 71 - Darko Štrajn, From Walter Benjamin to the End of Cinema: Identities, Illusion and Signification. Ljubljana: Educational Research Institute, 2017. Digital Library, Dissertationes, 29.
P. 71
a distant view in michelle pfeiffer‘s smiling eyes
whole conceptual set-up that designates the “new” global reality), acquired
much more dramatic and traumatic dimensions in the former socialist
world than in the Western countries. On practically all levels of discourse,
the notion of identity took centre stage in the post-socialist post-traditional
world, where a restructuring of the complex symbolic order took place. In
most former socialist countries, which worked their way through the politi-
cal and economic transition, there were (and still are) visible cultural move-
ments and semantic displacements pointing towards new constructions of
a range of meanings within the framework of the notion of identity. In most
Central and Eastern European countries (with the above-mentioned ex-
tremes), supposedly old traditions were reinterpreted and historical texts
were rearranged in order to fix new/old identities. Hence, we can say that
culture is playing a very central role in a string of activities constructing a
new order of so-called “new democracies”. Of course, in these countries the
public discourse on the general level, but also on the expert level and espe-
cially in the educational speech, points towards some newly “invented tra-
ditions”. These discourses are becoming a basis of political rearrangements
since a newly acquired statehood or just a new context of intercultural re-
lations, formed a decisive hyper-framework in the field of symbolic social
and political “language games”, as this field has been called by Francois
Lyotard in the Wittgensteinian manner. Most of the Central and Eastern
European “new democracies”, which survived largely rather unpredictable
transformations of their legal systems (changes to property laws were the
most crucial) acquired a form of society, which Giddens defines as post-tra-
ditional. However, this is just another level of transition, which is nowa-
days being experienced by all those countries that already underwent dein-
dustrialisation. The kind of society that Ulrich Beck (confirming Giddens’
description of society) defines as the “risk society” moves the central con-
stituting agencies from the notion of class differences to “values”, which
means that cultural categories are gaining a new decisiveness.
We can now see that the sociology of risk society also brings about a
turn in perceptions of the social realm with all its conceptual innovations.
From its understanding of the reflexive constitution of post-traditional so-
ciety (which visibly shows how a society constructs itself), Beck and Gid-
dens are actually pointing in the direction of a search for inventions of new
social bonds. It looks like this consequence is broadly compatible with the
political left, but in the context of globalisation and in a post-traditional
pattern, conservative thinkers are inspired to construct ideas of a society
69
whole conceptual set-up that designates the “new” global reality), acquired
much more dramatic and traumatic dimensions in the former socialist
world than in the Western countries. On practically all levels of discourse,
the notion of identity took centre stage in the post-socialist post-traditional
world, where a restructuring of the complex symbolic order took place. In
most former socialist countries, which worked their way through the politi-
cal and economic transition, there were (and still are) visible cultural move-
ments and semantic displacements pointing towards new constructions of
a range of meanings within the framework of the notion of identity. In most
Central and Eastern European countries (with the above-mentioned ex-
tremes), supposedly old traditions were reinterpreted and historical texts
were rearranged in order to fix new/old identities. Hence, we can say that
culture is playing a very central role in a string of activities constructing a
new order of so-called “new democracies”. Of course, in these countries the
public discourse on the general level, but also on the expert level and espe-
cially in the educational speech, points towards some newly “invented tra-
ditions”. These discourses are becoming a basis of political rearrangements
since a newly acquired statehood or just a new context of intercultural re-
lations, formed a decisive hyper-framework in the field of symbolic social
and political “language games”, as this field has been called by Francois
Lyotard in the Wittgensteinian manner. Most of the Central and Eastern
European “new democracies”, which survived largely rather unpredictable
transformations of their legal systems (changes to property laws were the
most crucial) acquired a form of society, which Giddens defines as post-tra-
ditional. However, this is just another level of transition, which is nowa-
days being experienced by all those countries that already underwent dein-
dustrialisation. The kind of society that Ulrich Beck (confirming Giddens’
description of society) defines as the “risk society” moves the central con-
stituting agencies from the notion of class differences to “values”, which
means that cultural categories are gaining a new decisiveness.
We can now see that the sociology of risk society also brings about a
turn in perceptions of the social realm with all its conceptual innovations.
From its understanding of the reflexive constitution of post-traditional so-
ciety (which visibly shows how a society constructs itself), Beck and Gid-
dens are actually pointing in the direction of a search for inventions of new
social bonds. It looks like this consequence is broadly compatible with the
political left, but in the context of globalisation and in a post-traditional
pattern, conservative thinkers are inspired to construct ideas of a society
69
