The Postmodern condition by Jean-Francois Lyotland is writing that focuses on narratives and historical metanarratives. The author of this article is trying to analyze the notion of knowledge in a postmodern society and looks at different perspectives that may have been given to the same. It is a short but very influential article about the impact that technology has had in exact sciences. There are different metanarratives that the author is addressing such as reductionism and teleological notions of human history such Enlightenment and Marxism. These are things that have become untenable according to the author and advancement in technology, mass media and computer science and the main reasons behind this. Modern science is therefore something that is destroying its own metanarrative.
“I can’t even think straight” by Arlene Stein and Ken Plume heavily focuses on the theoretical and empirical approach towards homosexuality and how the same is making matters even worse. The author is talking about the manner in which different perspectives have been brought forward about the topic of homosexuality and how the “feminist revolution” is missing in sociology. Studies about gay and lesbians mainly occur around issues of deviance, gender and sexuality which are sometimes biased.
Two camps, empirical and theory-oriented have emerged and each one of them presents its findings and also creates a problem about how the issue might be understood. Labeling of homosexuals is becoming problematic and as a result of that, it can only be termed as deconstructionism of constructionism. The attempt to define the gay and lesbian community itself is creating a lot of politics around the problem which makes matters even complicated.
Cultural Codes and Democratic Communication by Jeffrey C. Alexander looks at political power, and how it is a tool for communication in modern-day society that is faced with a number of issues including understanding homosexuality. Politics has a strong reference to a symbolic code and it is, therefore, important to understand that it never happens by accident. Speeches might be situationally motivated, but on the other hand, they have a deep symbolic structure and their impact cannot be ignored. Universalistic ties that are being enjoyed today cannot be smooth without all these issues and this is because people attach different meanings to different symbols.
The Modern World-System in Crisis by Immanuel Wallerstein looks at the capitalistic world system that we are in today and says that it has been in crisis for a very long period of time. This is bound to continue according to the author because wild oscillations of the same are felt after a set period of time. There is a great shift that is working to reinforce the status quo and the entire world system is getting into a crisis.
Rob Ford in this case is talking about patriotism and matters of gay and lesbianism as far as Olympics in Sochi is concerned. In his own view, the mayor supports the athletics team but does not see any need to raise a pride flag in support of gay and lesbians. However, what the mayor forgot is that they are an endangered minority especially in Russia where the Olympics will be taking place. Based on thoughts that have been expressed in the article titled “I can’t even think straight”, the mayor is politicizing the entire process while ignoring what empiricists and theorists have been able to find out about homosexuality.
This is also a characteristic of the crisis that world systems are in based on the argument by Immanuel Wallerstein. This is a different culture and cultural codes that are found here hold a different thing about homosexuality and that is why there is a major problem politically.