This presentation is intended to be a discussion about the taken-for-granted
relation between surface and content in regard to empirical social reality. It is a kind
of a methodological reflection at an ontological level, about how we arrive at
definitions in the contexts of Modernity and Late Modernity (the latter which I treat
as synonymous with the contemporary). The ambition is to challenge the logic that
derives from Modernity from a methodological viewpoint. Categorizations of all
kinds were common in the beginning of the period we call Modernity (starting from
the 17th cen., reaching full bloom in the 19th and 20th). Quantitative categorizations
were frequently used in scientific research as a method to establish facts and to gain
knowledge about society and its citizens. As time passed, other methods and
perspectives challenged the earlier ones, saying that people and the world are in fact
prismatic, as is reality and truth. We had entered Late Modernity where there is not
just one way of describing things, and the former categorizations were challenged
as being too simple, static and prejudiced.
By claiming that we now live in a Late Modern society, we thereby define
Modernity as an era in the past. Y
