what's modernism and what's traditionalism n their connections to sociology?

Question

help me..

Answer 1

Can't give you an answer about what this or that sociologist considers "modern", but sociology is a fairly superficial discipline, so it probably refers to the twentieth century. Among many historians, the beginnings of modernity occurred in the Rennaissance (c. 1400). In terms of modern science and philosophy, modernity begins in the 17th century.
The modern worldview and its assumptions were put together in the 17th century, though many of their underlying themes were implicit in Renaissance art and other works. There really haven't been any authentically radical thinkers since the 17th century, except for Einstein and Planck, though many others have confused dramatic and disturbing changes in human practical matters with the deep assumption-questioning that is required for authentic radicalism.
In view of this, one might look at the matter sociologically, and tease out an underlying theme in modernity of increasing intellectual superficiality, and a confusion between practical drama and intellectual depth, that has especially flourished in the last century.
Have fun with that.

Answer 2

Modernism is rooted in the idea that the "traditional" forms of art, literature, religious faith, social organization and daily life had become outdated; therefore it was essential to sweep them aside. Modernism encouraged the re-examination of every aspect of existence, from commerce to philosophy, with the goal of finding that which was "holding back" progress, and replacing it with new, and therefore better, ways of reaching the same end. In essence, the modernist movement argued that the new realities of the industrial and mechanized age were permanent and imminent, and that people should adapt their world view to accept that what was new was also good and pretty.

Modernism
"a general term applied retrospectively to the wide range of experimental and avant-garde trends in the literature (and other arts) of the early 20th century.... Modernist literature is characterized chiefly by a rejection of 19th-century traditions and of their consensus between author and reader: conventions of realism ... or traditional meter. Modernist writers tended to see themselves as an avant-garde disengaged from bourgeois values, and disturbed their readers by adopting complex and difficult new forms and styles. In fiction, the accepted continuity of chronological development was upset by Joseph Conrad, Marcel Proust, and William Faulkner, while James Joyce and Virginia Woolf attempted new ways of tracing the flow of characters' thoughts in their stream-of-consciousness styles. In poetry, Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot replaced the logical exposition of thoughts with collages of fragmentary images and complex allusions..... Modernist writing is predominantly cosmopolitan, and often expresses a sense of urban cultural dislocation, along with an awareness of new anthropological and psychological theories. Its favoured techniques of juxtaposition and multiple point of view challenge the reader to reestablish a coherence of meaning from fragmentary forms."
(Chris Baldick, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms [New York: Oxford University Press, 1991], s.v.)

What is traditionalism?
Posted May 15th, 2002 by Jim Kalb in Political theory

A traditionalist is someone who accepts tradition as authoritative.

That's not someone who believes that tradition is a good source of suggestions or an acceptable guide when no better can be had. Nor is it someone who thinks that all traditions must always be followed. It's someone who recognizes that tradition knows more than any of us, and should be followed unless there are very good reasons to the contrary. Rejecting tradition is like a novice rejecting the advice of a master. It might be a good idea, and on occasion it might even be necessary, but it's not something to be done lightly, especially in important matters. When you do it you're usually wrong.

Traditionalism is rational when we are dealing with things that cannot be demonstrated and reduced to clear rules. Those include basic things like the attitudes, practices and ideals that define our way of life. A way of life is too close to us and too comprehensive to be reduced to rule or judged wholly by external standards. You have to live it to understand it. As a result, every way of life is traditional.

We live not only by stated purposes but by unstated understandings and by symbols--things done not because they are practical but because they make intangibles concrete and so part of the daily pattern of life. For that reason tradition is especially concerned with things that to antitraditionalists seem irrational or at least non-rational, and therefore perhaps dispensible--manners, social forms, festivals, heroes, sacred symbols and institutions, principles and practices that are accepted on faith.

Answer 3

Connections???