Bell the precursor

It is good to read the three pieces together because Kumar and Urry’s pieces may have supplemented what have been left out of the first one. So after reading all of them, I think I got a fuller picture of Bell’s idea of post-industrial society and later information society.

The third part of the reader continues the theme of the first two parts – advocates and critics. As a precursor, Bell’s analysis of the post-industrial society is very insightful and attractive. This is written in 1973 – really impressive. (And as Melin said in the Introduction, many of the ideas appeared in 1960s!) In some ways, this extract reminds me of Masuda’s piece from time to time because both of them compare and contrast the three forms of societies, and claim the characteristics of the new form of society based on the old forms. I could not tell what I felt wrong about them when I read, but when I came to Kumar’s work, I found the following critics:

“Current changes are seen according to a model derived from (assumed) past changes, and future developments are projected following the logic of the model.”

This reminds me of a term “social Darwinism”. I am not sure whether it is the right way to use it, but I think there is definitely something to think about.