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More generally, Postmodernity can be characterised as a process of de-differentation of what Modernity has differentiated. Max Weber analysed the modernisation process as a progressive autonomisation of domains such as Science, Religion, Art, Justice, Philosophy, Technology and so on (Lash, 1990). Psychology is a product of this modern process of differnetiation. Lash describes postmodernism as a process of de-differentation of all these domains. The moves of the subdisciplines of psychology can so be re-interpreted. Part of them will join Technology. But the core of Psychology, in other words the historically developed art and science of self-reflexivity and ‘political’ action (the participation of the individual in the constrcution of social networks), will have to make itself a new future by developing a science of postmodern men and women. This whole field now is open to sociologists, philosophers and pyschoanalysts. When I read The Meeting of the Waters : Individuality, Community and Solidarity (Kristensen, 1997), I was convinced that most of the chapters – the book is a reader – were written down by personality psychologists or social psychologists, as many chapters deal with Self and Identity. Rob Shields’ analysis of Cinderella as a prefiguration of the postmodern problem of identity in everyday life and in cyberspaces leading to ‘psychoanaesthesia’ and depression, should have been written by a psychologists. However, all these chapters are written by sociologists. The book is a fine example of the deadlock in which modern psychology has brought itself by cutting off its communication with the culturally and historically rooted problems of individual men and women in their everyday life. For the psychologist of postmodernity this should not be a reason for bitterness or envy, but an encouragement. It should strengthen him or her in the conviction that the death of the Modern Ego does not imply the death of psychology as such (Rosseel 2001).
Notes
Having acquired my first digital recorder while working in Iqaluit, Nunavut I began to depend on this exciting new technology. To my frustration later on I realized that I was unable to use the .dss files in most applications. But today I found Switch 1.04 and for the first time I was able to save a .dss file to .wav. I chose an audio summary I had made of Kristensen’s (1997) The Meeting of the Waters : Individuality, Community and Solidarity. I would now like to find a place to put in into cyberspace. The conversion was seamless! And I have an editor now so I can edit my audio clips.
Keywords: .dss, .wav, Rob Shields, reflexive modernity, self-reflexivity, postmodernity, modernity, sociology, Switch 1.04, .
Bibliography
Kristensen. 1997. The Meeting of the Waters : Individuality, Community and Solidarity.
Rosseel, Eric. 2001. “The Death of the Helmsman: A Psychology of Postmodernity.” November.
Shields, Rob. 1997. “Cinderella Punk.” The Meeting of the Waters : Individuality, Community and Solidarity.
Flynn-Burhoe, Maureen. 2003. Audio summary of Kristensen The Meeting of the Waters: Individuality, Community and Solidarity.
Speechless 