Postmodern View of Time in Sociology

In modernism, there are two perceptions of time. One is that of modern philosophy, in which history is seen as the process of the liberation of mankind. The second is the postmodern view, which moves away from that kind of past-present-future, straight-line perception of time. In the postmodern view, the past exists only as memories. The important thing here is that for modernity to exist, it requires not just the modernist historical view, which draws the schematics of human liberation, but also the postmodern perspective, which questions those plans. The postmodern perception of time does not, however, oppose the modern view of history. Modernity, after all, has both modern and postmodern aspects and would not exist without both of them. This theory applies in Japan as well but, as is described in the following section, those two aspects present themselves in different ways than in the West. It is possible to discern that modernism and postmodernism form two sides of the same coin in Japanese modernism, just as they do in the West. The difference, however, is that postmodern thinking remained in the shadow of the modern in the West until people started to question the validity of modern philosophy, whereas in Japan, modernization was spurred by a postmodern spirit. So, while in Japan this postmodern spirit constitutes the driving factor, in the West it plays simply a bit-part and, conversely, the modernism that stole the spotlight in the West remained in the shadows in Japan. Theoretical framework of Sociology is based on the postmodern view of time. This paper try to show the possibility of this perception of time in order to make a general theory at the time of globalization.