SumBlog 11

Giddens compares the then current state of our society between the description of postmodernity and radicalized modernity. He uses some of Max Weber’s ideas in that as society advances “the bonds of rationality are drawn tighter and tighter, imprisoning us in a featureless cage of bureaucratic routine.” (p.367). I understand this because I can see the same thing happen as you grow up and advance through school. As a young kid you’re running wild but as you get older and move up in school; cliques and crowds and in groups form and there’s less individuality. Which actually while just writing that, helped me understand the next part of the reading I didn’t understand. Giddens said that Weber’s characterization of bureaucracy is inadequate and that “Rather than tending inevitably towards rigidity, organizations produce areas of autonomy and spontaneity – which are often less easy to achieve in smaller groups.” (p.368). I didn’t get this because I figured if you’re in a smaller group than it would be easier to keep tabs on each other. Using the same example of kids in school, for me I saw that when people found their smaller segregated groups that they were comfortable with, they could be more themselves because they felt safe around the ones they were with. I know my example isn’t a perfect match to what he’s talking about but it helps me relate. An uncommon relationship he mentioned later on was the one between intimacy and abstract systems, specifically “Money, for example, can be spent to purchase the expert services of a psychologist who guides the individual in an exploration of the inner universe of the intimate and the personal.” (p.369) and he brings this up in the mention of how we are encouraged more and more in a modernized society to exchange intimacy for impersonality.