MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA

MEGATRENDS AND MEDIA
postmodern times probably all culture is pseudo-culture, it is invariably
the case that all intellectuals are melancholies.“ 12
1.1 Nostalgic paradigm in philosophy and socio-cultural theories
of modernity/ model cases
„The ambivalent experience of modernity and nostalgia inspires not only
nineteenth-century art but also social science and philosophy.“ 13 Svetlana
Boym also states that modern sociology is based on the distinction
between traditional community and modern society and that it tends to
idealize the unity, intimacy and the transcendental view of the world in
the traditional society. The narrative of establishing modern society is
parallel to the biblical story of the banishment from Eden.
The contents of socio-cultural theories are composed of various
narrations leaning towards the nostalgic. These become part of
the nostalgic paradigm. Turner states that ontological nostalgia is
a permanent dimension of the classical German philosophy and social
theory, as their accentuated resort – the will to live – has always been
in contradiction with the forms of social relationships. 14 „Kierkegaard,
Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were philosophers of the will who laid
the philosophical basis for the emergence of a nineteenth-century
sociology in Germany which was itself a sociology of the will, that is
an analysis of meaningful action. The theme which linked together
Tönnies, Simmel, Weber, Lukács and inaly Adorno was the notion that
we constantly create life-worlds (Lebenswelt), which through alienation
and reiication negate the spontaneity and authenticity of the will and
its conscious subject, Man.“ 15 The fact that Georg Simmel and Max Weber
12 TURNER, B. S.: Orientalism, postmodernism and globalism. London, New
York : Routledge, 2003, p. 131. [online]. [2015-01-10]. Available at: .
13 BOYM, S.: The Future of Nostalgia. New York : Basic Books, 2001, p. 24.
14 Turner states that in the 19th Century American sociology, the tendency
towards nostalgia was not markedly noticeable, unlike in France, where its
primary source was the loss of rural integrity and religious authority, while
in English social theory, the ideas of Alasdair MacIntyre are a lapidary
example of the nostalgic paradigm (see below). (TURNER, B. S.: A note on
nostalgia. In Theory, Culture & Society, 1987, Vol. 4, No. 1, p. 151-152.)
15 TURNER, B. S.: Orientalism, postmodernism and globalism. London, New
York : Routledge, 2003, p. 122. [online]. [2015-01-10]. Available at: