structuralism and post-modernism
...d integrated on. As such, these are but elements of a bigger structure and not individual mechanisms. The concept of structure is theoretical and explanatory. It is not descriptive. The concept lies on the underlying unconscious regularities of human expressions of which are not empirical but can explain and discuss what is empirical. Therefore, the structural method simply states that in everything, there are common structures that are responsible for similarities of organization. And that it is in these structures that characteristics of the human mind are mirrored and reflected. It must not be assumed that since there is a structure, there is no room for change in the system. Sociologically speaking, structures are influenced by the features of society that any change on the society would have an impact on the structure. For instance, the kinship structure of a particular society is preserved by the continuous change in the family like marriages, coming out of children, and the phases the children go through. As such, the composition of the household and the rules governing marriage and the rule of descent are maintained by the changes brought by time. This may be of a cyclic pattern but no two things are absolutely the same. Thus, in time, the changes that once maintained a structure would be the ones to modify it as it adapts the changes brought by time. Structuralism can be summarized in these 4 basic procedures: • Structural analysis examines unconscious infrastructures of cultural phenomena • Regards the elements of infrastructures as relational and not as independent entities • Attends single-mindedly to system • Propounds general laws accounting for the underlying organizing patterns of phenomena. Structuralism has always believed that nothing is an accident. That things happen for a reason. Everything is brought about by the society one is in, whether that be in jokes, consequences, or trivial issues. It is structuralist thought that everything is in fact related so there is reason behind occurrences and that the reason is based on the structures. Structure of gender, political system, everything. Structure basically looks at things in pairs and through opposites, analyses can be made. Thus, structure of gender is based on the opposite characteristics of male and female, the political system on the powerful and the non-powerful, jokes on what is reality and fictional, occurrences on what is past and present. Structuralism has answers for everything because the foundations behind the ways of the world are the ones given attention. Therefore, one is what he is because of the structures of his society, of his values, of his biological definition, etc. Post-modernism is quite the opposite. It is the post-modernist thought that says that Postmodernist analysis had its roots in French thought, particularly during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The central figure in developing alternative notions of the subject, the determining effects of discourse, and the nature of the symbolic order was Jacques Lacan. New-wave postmodernist thinkers are likely to draw from chaos theory, Godel's theorem, catastrophe theory, quantum mechanics, and topology theory. Novel conceptions of space, time, causality, subjectivity, the role of discourse, desire, social structure, roles, social change, knowledge, and the nature of harm, justice, and the law were developed and continue to be developed in postmodernist thought. Postmodernism abandons the center ...