Internet Exercises

Exercise 1

A key issue for understanding the consequences of modernity is to understand how tradition has been transformed. Go to Anthony Giddens's homepage and view his lecture on "Tradition" in his Director's Lectures on "The Runaway World Revisited" (http://www.lse.ac.uk/Giddens/pdf/24%20Nov%2099.pdf). This lecture was written for a general audience and provides an excellent introduction to the place of tradition in the contemporary world. Read the lecture and answer the following questions:

a. What are the elements of tradition?

b. What global processes affect tradition?

c. What does it mean to say we live our lives less and less as fate?

d. In what way is fundamentalism a product of global processes?

Exercise 2

Zygmunt Bauman explains that the Holocaust wouldn't have been possible without modern bureaucratic efficiency. Go to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial homepage (http://www.ushmm.org/) and visit the museum's Introduction and online exhibits by clicking on the bottom left of your screen. Visit the exhibits and answer the following questions:

a. How many people died in the Holocaust?

b. How were the Nazi's able to murder so many people?

c. Why were certain groups like the Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses chosen?

d. What makes the Holocaust a modern form of genocide?