ABSTRACT
Social theory is an extremely complex thing to define, and there are a few things which are as imaginative and abstract as a social theory. Still, one cannot do without social theory as it helps us to make sense of the reality around us. One of the greatest challenges that social theory has had to face in the recent past is to engage with the question of modernity. What is modernity, how and where did it emerged and what are the critical features of modernity are some of the questions that social theory has had to grapple with. Modernity is a dialectical phenomenon in the sense that while on the one hand it freed us from structures of oppression and ignorance and offered us immense possibilities of making lives better (improved medical facilities, enhanced access to education etc.), on the other hand, it accentuated, through its institutional apparatus of capitalism, alienation (Marx), anomie (Emile Durkheim) and disenchantment (Max Weber). This chapter seeks to grapple with some of these contradictions that modernity forces us to confront with.
