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page001from KEY IDEAS IN SOCIOLOGY1 Key Ideas About the Social World
If you pay attention to recurring messages in the popular media, you might easily get the idea that our world is in the process of changing dramatically. You might sense that the past is rapidly disappearing as we crossing the threshold into an entirely new era. From cheerleaders of the future, the message we get is that on one side of the divide are all the old, bankrupt ideas that have made our world so messy and dangerous, whereas on the other side are the brilliant new ideas that will usher us into utopia. From the prophets doom, you get the opposite sense of where we have been and where we are heading. They usually have a positive, if romanticized, view of the past and its presumed values (commitment to family, community spirit, the work ethic, etc.), and they envision a future devoid of such virtues. Not surprisingly, they view what is ahead with considerable foreboding.
Both views have many popularizers. Perhaps you have seen titles like the following on bookstore shelves and at newsstands:
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