ABSTRACT
The theorists of postmodernism, and many academics along with them, however, have a radically different view of the tradition. Like Marxist theorists before them, postmodernists posit that the broad societal shifts occurring today are propelled by the dictates of an ever-changing amoral technology organized under the principles of a rapacious and fundamentally immoral market economy. As structural functionalist theory evolved into what has come to be known as the "mainstream" academic approach to the family, more philosophically-inclined theorists had a somewhat more negative take on modernization's effect on the culture at large. It is of some importance to keep in mind that modernization is a process that goes beyond technological and economic development. When properly used the concept of modernization refers not only to changes in the economic, political, and social structures of society but also to changes in the structure of the consciousness of individuals—their ideas, values, and norms.
