Modernity and Self-Identity: Self and Society in the Late Modern Age

by Anthony Giddens

This major study develops a new account of modernity and its relation to the self. Building upon the ideas set out in The Consequences of Modernity, Giddens argues that 'high' or 'late' modernity is a post traditional order characterised by a developed institutional reflexivity. In the current period, the globalising tendencies of modern institutions are accompanied by a transformation of day-to-day social life having profound implications for personal activities. The self becomes a 'reflexive project', sustained through a revisable narrative of self identity. The reflexive project of the self, the author seeks to show, is a form of control or mastery which parallels the overall orientation of modern institutions towards 'colonising the future'. Yet it also helps promote tendencies which place that orientation radically in question - and which provide the substance of a new political agenda for late modernity. In this book Giddens concerns himself with themes he has often been accused of unduly neglecting, including especially the psychology of self and self-identity. The volumes are a decisive step in the development of his thinking, and will be essential reading for students and professionals in the areas of social and political theory, sociology, human geography and social psychology.

Genres: Sociology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Psychology, Anthropology, Social Science, Politics

268 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

Anthony Giddens, Baron Giddens (born 18 January 1938) is a British sociologist who is renowned for his theory of structuration and his holistic view of modern societies. He is considered to be one of the most prominent modern contributors in the field of sociology, the author of at least 34 books, published in at least 29 languages, issuing on average more than one book every year. In 2007, Giddens was listed as the fifth most-referenced author of books in the humanities.

Three notable stages can be identified in his academic life. The first one involved outlining a new vision of what sociology is, presenting a theoretical and methodological understanding of that field, based on a critical reinterpretation of the classics. His major publications of that era include Capitalism and Modern Social Theory (1971) and New Rules of Sociological Method (1976). In the second stage Giddens developed the theory of structuration, an analysis of agency and structure, in which primacy is granted to neither. His works of that period, such as Central Problems in Social Theory (1979) and The Constitution of Society (1984), brought him international fame on the sociological arena.

The most recent stage concerns modernity, globalization and politics, especially the impact of modernity on social and personal life. This stage is reflected by his critique of postmodernity, and discussions of a new "utopian-realist"[3] third way in politics, visible in the Consequence of Modernity (1990), Modernity and Self-Identity (1991), The Transformation of Intimacy (1992), Beyond Left and Right (1994) and The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy (1998). Giddens' ambition is both to recast social theory and to re-examine our understanding of the development and trajectory of modernity.

Currently Giddens serves as Emeritus Professor at the London School of Economics.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book extremely annoying.

We can start with some good points. Giddens states, forcefully and clearly, a set of propositions about the 'modern self'. It is a familiar picture for anyone familiar with the literature. If you've read Charles Taylor's Sources of the Self, Lionel Trilling's Sincerity and Authenticity, or Nancy Armstrong's Desire and Domestic Fiction, for example, you will already have encountered the notion that individuality, personality, privacy etc. are hallmarks of modern culture. What Giddens adds to this tradition is a focus on everyday life in Westernised countries today. His approach is systematic. He tries to list all the 'tribulations of the self' we regularly encounter, all the factors that lead to 'existential anxiety', all the systems that lead to the 'sequestration of experience'.

What he does not do, it is sad to say, is defend his conception of 'modernity'. The book is full of extremely frustrating arguments about how 'modern' differs from 'pre-modern' life, where Giddens describes the 'pre-modern' way of doing things in a single sentence, and provides neither evidence nor argument to justify his interpretation of the first 400,000 years of human existence. He expresses absolute certainty that 'modern' life is fundamentally different in character from all the 'pre-modern' life that preceded it, and yet makes no attempt at all to deal with the extreme diversity of 'pre-modern' ways of doing things. How can gardeners from the highlands of New Guinea, herdsmen of the Serengeti, the urbanised farmers of ancient Mesopotamia and the igloo-builders of Siberia seriously all be dumped into the single bucket of the 'pre-modern'?

Perhaps I am overly harsh. Giddens does occasionally reference a famous ethnographer or historian, and there may be a great deal of erudition lurking behind the self-confident prose. But one does suspect that his viewpoint is irremediably Eurocentric. On the odd occasion when he does indulge in some historical detail to substantiate his points, his examples are all European, and they are either quite superficial or just plain wrong. It is not the case, for example, that 'most historians agree that autobiographies (as well as biographies) only developed during the modern period'. What was St Augustine doing when he wrote his Confessions in 397AD, if not writing his autobiography? If the Buddhacharita is not a biography of the Buddha, then what exactly is it? Perhaps there are answers to such questions. Perhaps what Giddens really meant is the a new kind of 'modern' biography emerged in Europe over the last 200-300 years. But if this is what he meant, he should have said so, and he should have explained it.

Now if Giddens' understanding of European history is superficial, his knowledge of Asian, African, American and Oceanic history is apparently non-existent. If he had engaged with world history in the book, he would have had to revise several of his claims. One of his crucial claims, for instance, is that modernity is characterised by the 'pure relationship'. In modernity, our sexual relations are determined by free choice. We select a partner because we want to live with them, not because it fulfills some social obligation to marry someone of a particular kin-group or because an authority-figure has instructed us to do so. (In this we differ greatly from our poor 'pre-modern' forebears.) This kind of 'pure relationship' changes the meaning of sex. Sex is now a pure form of 'intimacy'. In fact, there really was no such thing as 'intimacy' before modernity, because sex always had a public and social character.

What rot.

Anyone who has read a single sūfī devotional poem or a classic of Sanskrit erotic verse who know full well that 'intimacy', privacy and the joys of sex have been valued for their own sake in many times and places. In fact, 'intimacy' was so valued by sūfī and Sanskrit poets of antiquity and the middle ages that it came to symbolise the individual's relationship with God. Now to give Giddens his due, it is probably fair to say that St Augustine inaugurated 1,500 years of prudery in Western culture, and that in the modern West intimacy has been revalued. But if he wanted to make this argument he should have done so.

It could be objected that I have focused on the wrong aspect of the book. The book is really a book about what it is like to be an individual today in the West, not a world history explaining the development of 'modernity'. Taken this way, it has a lot of merits, primarily as a kind of textbook that summarises the common sense of Anglo-American liberalism in the 1990s. But on the very first page, Giddens claims that it is not only a few societies he wishes to examine, nor will he focus only on one historical moment. It is 'modernity' as a whole that he sets out to describe, and unfortunately he makes very few of the comparisons necessary to distinguish what is 'modern' from what is not.

[loafingcactus · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author has a brilliant concept of society, this I will not argue. In life one is offered many solutions to modern life with little analysis or background, such as the solution of spending more time in nature. And I have heard a counter-argument to that solution which suggests that because nature is amoral it decreases the moral good of those exposed to it rather than increases it. Without directly addressing that argument, the author makes an exceptionally good argument in this book for why connections with nature are a good counterpoint to the difficulties of modernity. Essentially, modernity turns everything inward such that it is only self-referential. Nature, in its inability to be controlled, cannot be pulled into those reflexive structures. Consequently exposure to nature can present a non-reflexive reality to a person who has been trained to only exist reflexively. And there’s more where that came from.

So that’s the good. It is considerable and you would be better off for having read the book. I took 25 pages of notes. Now for the bad: The author is known for churning out book after book and if this book is any example of the self-indulgence involved then one need not wonder how he does it. The shortcomings in scholarship are particularly irksome in the present environment where publishers claim to have a purpose as quality control. If this is all they can do, Stanford University Press has no purpose in being. By far the most egregious example of poor scholarship is a citation of Kafka which is a secondary citation. This is an author who surely can assign a grad student to go find the proper citation for him but he just doesn’t even bother, and the publisher let him get away with it.

But wait, there’s more. The author cites hardly any other works or facts. It’s simply him and his wisdom having a little solipsistic party. Two entire chapters of the book are written as analysis of other books which were picked just because. One chapter is on the genre of self-actualization self-help books, written as an analysis of a randomly selected book. Again, given the availability of unlimited grad students one would expect the author to select some particular book for some particular reason. Raffle off a Twinkie for the best reason. Having some reason is just not that hard.

Leaving that behind, I do have a couple of quibbles with his arguments. The main one is that at the end of the book he gives humanity an assignment which he believes will lead out of the impossible morass of modernity, but the author has not answered two fundamental questions: Why would humanity come together to respond to his assignment? (This is making me laugh a lot- really, why? Have you ever tried to tell a group of people to do something? Let alone every last person on the planet. LMAO.) And, does free will (agency, if you must) exist such that the assignment has any meaning?

The book reminds me quite a bit of The Technological Society, where Ellul also explains an impossible-to-counter direction of society and after explaining all the possibilities at considerable length provides an unsatisfactory way out. But Ellul at least has a reason, even if it is not a very good one, for making the argument in the context of free will. This author is silent on the matter.

And a last matter of irksomeness is that the author uses the term “morality” without any particular meaning. Near the end of the book the author presents a chart attempting to show an analysis of moral questions as they emerge from existential realities, but it is as haphazard as the books the author selected to respond to and therefore does not answer the question of what he means by morality. In fact, if what the author means is direct existential questions, then how the author uses the term in the book as a solution is problematic.

Misc review footnote: The issues discussed in this book map very well to the novels of Thomas Hardy.

[Benediktas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some vague chapters without clear purpose or meaning but an impressive work in general, emphasizing and analyzing moral and political issues of late-modernity/neocapitalist society in a convincing, positive manner. Sociology, psychology and philosophy are combined in a search for an understanding of various aspects of self-identity (risk, mediation, reflexivity...) specific to our times - that leads to quite a complex vocabulary but also rewards with insights into possibilities of fruitful transdisciplinary research. For those who don't have the time or patience to read through the whole book, I would recommend the parts on pure relationship, narcissism and sequestration which I found to be the most original and thought-provoking.

[Milad Jahani · Rating 5 out of 5]

آنتونی گیدنز نویسنده کتاب"تجددو تشخص" به دنبال بررسی و ارتباط بین تجدد در عصر کنونی-اخیر- و هویت شخصی است که رویکردی جامعه شناختی و روانشناختی را زیر بنای صحبت خود قرار می دهد. گیدنز هریک از بخش های موضوعی خود را با توجه به متغییر های در بردارنده اش مورد ارزیابی قرار می دهد.
در ابتدا تجدد در عصر کنونی را ادامه نوعی نظم ما بَعد سنتی می داند و جهانی شدن را جزء سازوکارهای این عصر برمی شمارد. به اعتقاد وی سه اصل را که تحت عنوان پویایی و تحرک اجتماعی یعنی جدایی زمان و فضا ، ساختکارهای تکه برداری و بازتابندگی نهادین در عصر جدید را اصلی مهم و تأثیر گذار در نظام اجتماعی می داند و خاصه از هویت شخصی که از مفهومی چون ، خود (ego)، بدن ، تأثیر مفهوم بدن در اجتماع، روانشناسی ego و بازتولیدات انسانی دارد ؛ سخن به عمل می آورد و کتاب خود را با توجه به پیامدهای ژرفی که از مباحث تجدد و تشخص دارد به پایان می رساند.

[Farid Kamyab · Rating 5 out of 5]

خیلی دقیق و کوتاه بگم: منحصر به فرد و دنباله ی کتاب «پیامد های مدرنیت» که اینبار نه جامعه شناسی، بلکه بیشتر یک اثر در زمینه روان شناسی اجتماعی است.

[Kaja Folga · Rating 3 out of 5]

Klasyk socjologii współczesnej, przybliża kilka podstawowych pojęć, jednak nie wystarczy do współczesnych rozważań o tożsamości. Więcej aktualnych informacji można znaleźć chociażby u Bogdana Wojciszke. Na pewno tłumaczy je znacznie przystępniej.

[Andy Oram · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this very useful to my own understanding of trends and potential in modern times, and I recommend the book for its positive-minded, constructive approach to today's problems. Giddens accepts many of the commonly understand aspects of life today--our reliance of large, abstract systems we don't understand, our risk of losing our individual identities in these systems, the expanded role of the state in our lives, and so on--which is why I assign only four stars to this book instead of five.

Giddens is an optimist, as well as a very capable writer. His book proceeds in a well-planned series of steps from basic principles of modern life to the power we can still exert as individuals and as social movements. (The text becomes easier to read as you go along, I've found.)

The threat of global warming hangs over the text, and its relevance is even clearer now, 18 years after the book was published. Furthermore, I think Giddens assumes that certain movements, such as therapy and woman's liberation, have gone further and reached more of the population than they really have. But the book's message of possibilities persists, and goads us on to moral action.

[Kmorgenstern · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this book, Anthony Giddens offers a very detailed and comprehensive analysis of the existential problems concerning every individual is facing in this late modern age in forging an identity for the self-project. This is by no means an easy task given the confusions of choice we are all confronted with now. This book brilliantly bridges psychology with social science. It is an incredibly dense read, though, forcing one to chew on each sentence to really comprehend the significance of it. Very coherently argued and laid out, it shed a huge light on both my psychology and my sociological studies - and it provided the missing link. Some might be disappointed that in the end, he does not come up with an easy answer, but to me, that is what makes the book even more valuable as it stimulates the reader to really engage and think about the questions and issues asked and find their own answers. I already know, I will be revisiting this book down the road. Right now I am still digesting the first round.

[Burcu]

The introduction is helpful, yet as the author himself acknowledges, there are many references to earlier works, particularly The Consequences of Modernity. There is some exploration into psychoanalysis as well in the earlier chapters. The main text is essentially a veering of the questions he raised in "The Consequences" toward the idea of the self in relation to the social. In a way, the self is "embedded" into the earlier framework.

[Tanya · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book on the "modern project" of the self. Fascinating given it was written over a decade ago.

[Floris Steenbreker · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 instead of 3.
I think this book is using way too complex language for the information it is trying to bring over.
It is also poorly written chronologically wise in the book. In the introduction is used a lot of terms that I would only get to understand later on.
That wouldn't really be an issue, could actually be quite useful: make me excited for the knowledge I am gonna gather from this book. But Giddens just not hit the spot. It sounded more as if he was a genious and wanted to show off his luxurious knowledge.

And a lot has been a literal repeat from theory's that he would have issued in earlier chapter, which is sad, since I felt like focussing on every word with the way he formulated. It was sad when I had to scrap a part of the story since I already heard it, getting me out of the flow

But for the things that he said: great respect. A great analysis of our time and interesting critique on studies that had been done.


If u have a lot of free time, I would recommend scrolling through this book

[Nicholas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written by one of the greatest thinkers of modernity, one can’t help but see why this book gives birth to many theoretical spinoffs in fields outside of sociology, such as political science and IR. Never eager to lament about lost innocence or to launch into a tirade against capitalism, Modernity and Self Identity is a meditation that considers both in equal nuance and finesse. That doesn’t mean its diagnosis isn’t piercingly unsettling.

Yet, by ditching Foucauldian and Marxist perspectives that in Gidden’s reckoning is too fast in laying the blame on power and domination, the book offers us no easy way out of the contradiction between a self-referential system and its underlying meaningless. And being reflexive about it doesn’t make it better. Such is the genius yet terrifying indictment of Giddens.

[KimNica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Many points Giddens makes with regards to living under conditions of high modernity resonate and don't ring less true thirty years after they were first written. However, Giddens technical language and sparse use of examples makes many of them difficult to follow - I had to read many sections and even chapters multiple times to really understand them which is a bit annoying. Also, let's not forget that the perspective of this book is extremely Eurocentric and that many observations are probably less applicable if you are not from a Western First World country.
Nonetheless, there is a lot in here for anyone remotely interested in the social sciences and contemporary life.

[Raira Cabral · Rating 4 out of 5]

Modernidade e Identidade de Anthony Giddens discute como a modernidade transforma a construção da identidade pessoal. Em um mundo em constante mudança, a identidade passa a ser um projeto contínuo, onde o indivíduo precisa se reinventar e refletir sobre si mesmo diante das incertezas sociais. A obra destaca a importância da auto-reflexividade e da adaptação na vida moderna.

[çiğdem · Rating 2 out of 5]

Büyük bir hevesle okumaya başladım ama beklediğimi bulamadım. Yazar, üçüncü bölümden itibaren kişisel gelişim, ilişki koçluğu ve psikolojik rahatsızlıklar üzerine söz etmeye başlamasıyla kitaptan oldukça koptum. Daha farklı bir araştırma için okusaydım muhtemelen daha fazla işime yarardı.

[Faraz · Rating 4 out of 5]

While Anthony Giddens' writing doesn't have a lot of jargon, he has a bad habit of beating his points to death. He makes a point and lingers on them forever. I really like the points he makes tho. Smart guy imo.

[Esmeralda Hendrix · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pro: link between self and modernity
Con: extensive, too elaborate, lacking a clear theoretical framework.

General conclusion: nice to read if you want to catch up with a lot of concepts.

[Wendy Van Roosmalen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ploegwerk

[Robin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fascinating examination around issues of structure and agency in high modernity.

[Julia · Rating 1 out of 5]

zelden een boek zo erg gehaat

[Roy Kenagy]

DMPL0 CITED IN CECH TROUBLE WITH PASSION self-expression a "reflexive project" - evolving narrative that one nurtures, refines, and enacts... (p80, p231)

[Domi]

Chapter: The Contours of High Modernity.

[Mikael C · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing detailed book in sociology with references to Freud, Kierkegaard, Marx and much more 10/5!!

[Eloy Overvelde · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting read, though very hard to get through at times.

[Guilherme Smee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neste livro, o grande sociólogo Anthony Giddens discute a influência da modernidade no nosso sentimento de identidade e, ao mesmo tempo, como a forma que construímos partes da nossa identidade afetou algumas instituições modernas. Não gosto muito desse termo modernidade ao se referir aos dias atuais, acho contemporaneidade muito mais a ver. Já não somos mais modernos, somos pós-modernos, pós-humanos, novos sinceros e não uma palavra que era empregada para um fantoche que sorteava cartas com a Xuxa ao comprarmos um tênis. Enfim... Giddens também usa a palavra auto-identidade, separando, assim, uma identidade dada por outros daquela conferida por nós mesmos. Entretanto eu questiono se a identidade que damos a nós mesmos não tem também a interferência do outro e se aquela que o outro nos confere, não tem também a influência de nós mesmos. O livro é bastante pertinente, embora um pouco desatualizado (a escrita original é de 1998), ainda não trata dos terremotos provocados pela internet. Um conceito que Giddens retoma aqui e achei bastante pertinente para os dias atuais é o de Unwelt, cunhado por Erwin Goffman, um baita antropólogo, que significa a proteção que trazemos para nós mesmos ao construirmos para nós mesmos um casulo social de pessoas que pensam e se comportam como nós. O conceito de Unwelt de Goffman é muito parecido com a bolha dos algoritmos das redes sociais. Giddens traz muitos outros conceitos legais e importantes, mas o que mais valeu a leitura desse livro, para mim, foi o conceito de Unwelt.

[Vern Glaser · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting book that explores how modernity impacts self identity. The basic argument of the book is that modern society provides us with many choices that we can make to mitigate the risks we face in life. In pre-modern society, for example, people lived in one spot and were essentially constrained to take the natural circumstances given to them. But in modern society, we all rely on expert systems that control nature but we really don't understand. And if we really think about the expert systems we rely on there is a lot of risk still there---ie, does the doctor really know what they are doing? are they really an expert?

This way that we rely on expert systems causes us to need to trust, and that trust is based upon routines that we do that give us consistency in life...the way that so much of life is "sequestered" ends up making the modern person having to deal with shame, a sense that we cannot trust anything, not even our own existence.

This is essentially a Marxist extension of the impacts of division of labor...some interesting ideas, but it does not really offer a compelling solution with the "life politics"

[Gretchen Hoffman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes I feel a little battered by this book as it challenges my assumptions and taxes my vocabulary with its slight (british?) variance in word usage. On the other hand, I find it helps me examine the root of the frustrations I feel when facing contemporary society with a new and perhaps more precise lens.

[Holly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rereading this gives me a new appreciation for how careful a writer Giddens is. If I can forgive the dispassionate tone and just appreciate it as a descriptive book, it's such a good book. Better than I've been giving it credit for.

[Jenny Weight]

a great way to understand how individual identity is negotiated in modernity.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has become a cornerstone of my graduate school education.