Showing papers in "Thesis Eleven in 2000"
TL;DR: The civilizational turn in sociological theory is best understood as an attempt to do full justice to the autonomy of culture (against all versions of structural-functional theory) without conceding the issue to cultural determinism.
Abstract: The civilizational turn in sociological theory is best understood as an attempt to do full justice to the autonomy of culture (against all versions of structural-functional theory) without conceding the issue to cultural determinism Civilizational formations are based on combinations of cultural visions of the world with regulative frameworks of social life, but the relationship between the two levels is open to conflicting interpretations and strategic uses of them Axial age civilizations open up new structural and historical dimensions of interaction between cultural and social patterns, and are therefore central to the agenda of civilizational analysis Among the later breakthroughs which draw on Axial sources, the emergence of modernity stands out as particularly important; the cultural and political program of modernity may be seen as a new and distinctive civilization, but it remains open to more or less formative influences from older civilizational legacies
45 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that the world economy is far from globalized and that the nation-state has lost its functional salience for modernity, concluding that "nothing has changed" in modernity.
Abstract: Many voices now proclaim that we live in a global age. Doubts are cast on this view in this paper, particularly insofar as it suggests that the nation-state has lost its functional salience for modernity. A first argument suggests, by means of varied figures and analytic consideration, that the world economy is far from globalized. A second argument adds to this an insistence of national diversity within capitalism. None of this is to suggest that nothing has changed. To the contrary, the internationalization of the world economy is now embedded more firmly than it was in the past - as the result of a stable geopolitical settlement.
22 citations
TL;DR: In this article, Bauman and Diken introduce an ambivalent social theory of strangerhood and its relationship to modernity, which they call Strangers, Ambivalence and Social Theory (SAT).
Abstract: The literature on ‘the stranger’ usually recognizes Simmel’s authority in formulating a sociology of strangerhood. Occasionally this literature provides a reformulation of the stranger through specific types of actors. For example, the Simmelian stranger has been the basis for Park’s ‘marginal man’ (1928), Wood’s (1934) and Schutz’s (1944) ‘the newcomer’, Siu’s ‘the sojourner’ (1952) and Stonequist’s notion of ‘the cosmopolitan individual’ or ‘the international mind’ (1937).1 Recent revisionist literature draws on, but moves beyond, the Simmelian stranger and its presuppositions. The category of the stranger has thus experienced a renaissance in contemporary social theory (Dessewffy, 1996; Harman, 1988; Stichweh, 1997; Tabboni, 1995). In particular, Zygmunt Bauman has been at the forefront in developing a social theory of strangerhood and his recent publications have contributed further to this intellectual project. In Work, Consumerism and the New Poor (1998a) and Globalization: The Human Consequences (1998b) Bauman is concerned with the constitution and treatment of the social and cultural Other in the west, especially those who have been excluded from an increasingly globalized and mass consumer society. Bulent Diken, in Strangers, Ambivalence and Social Theory (1998), draws on Bauman’s theory of strangerhood and its relationship to modernity and formulates an ‘ambivalent social theory’. In devising such an ambivalent social theory, Diken utilizes ethnographic data on Turkish immigrants in Denmark to reveal the exclusionary and oppressive practices latent in the public discourse of immigration. In their explication of the phenomenon of strangeness, Bauman and Diken highlight some of the recurrent themes in contemporary social theory: identity politics;
22 citations
TL;DR: The German welfare state as discussed by the authors can best be visualized as an institutional architecture that consists of four floors, and the sequence in which the floors were built and their internal structure are markedly different from the experience of other comparable capitalist industrial societies in the West.
Abstract: The German welfare state – and similarly most other welfare states – can best be visualized as an institutional architecture that consists of four floors. This structure has been erected during the course of roughly one-and-a-half centuries. Both the sequence in which the floors were built and their internal structure are markedly different from the experience of other comparable capitalist industrial societies in the West.
17 citations
TL;DR: The present historical epoch seems to be characterized by a general trend towards pacification as mentioned in this paper. Conflicts of all kinds - internal and external, personal and collective - are becoming less central t...
Abstract: The present historical epoch seems to be characterized by a general trend towards pacification. Conflicts of all kinds - internal and external, personal and collective - are becoming less central t...
14 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors take their starting point from the observation that civilizational comparison is always some form of cultural analysis and ask if and how a cultural theory of modernity is possible and fruitful under current theoretical and historical conditions.
Abstract: Comparative analysis of civilizations has recently revived and has led into a debate about varieties of modernity. This connection between an empirically defined area of study, `civilizations', and a theme that is predominantly seen as conceptual, `modernity', is a peculiar one and raises crucial questions for any social theory. Can `modernity' be located spatio-temporally among the civilizations? Is it itself a civilization (or the successor to all civilizations), or does it not rather refer to a human condition? This article takes its starting point from the observation that civilizational comparison is always some form of cultural analysis and asks if and how a cultural theory of modernity is possible and fruitful under current theoretical and historical conditions.
12 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the author discusses and criticizes some of the most influential versions of this view and argues that the path to a historically grounded civilizational analysis is obstructed by persisting images of Byzantium as a stagnant culture, immobilized by a complete fusion of secular and sacred authority.
Abstract: The attempts to interpret Russian and Southeast European history in light of a Byzantine background tend to focus on traditions of political culture, and to claim that patterns characteristic of the late Roman Empire have had a formative impact on later developments. But the effects attributed to political culture presuppose a civilizational framework, and arguments on that level must come to grips with evidence of historical discontinuity, during the Byzantine millennium as well as in later centuries and on the periphery of the Byzantium cultural world. The path to a historically grounded civilizational analysis is, however, obstructed by persisting images of Byzantium as a stagnant culture, immobilized by a complete fusion of secular and sacred authority. The article discusses and criticizes some of the most influential versions of this view.
8 citations
TL;DR: The authors argued that civilizations are fluid and amorphous entities that cannot be treated as states, and that the ways of peace such as cultural exchanges and trade are just as important as war and conflict in any attempt to understand the history of humanity.
Abstract: The article examines the `clash of civilizations' theory of history as developed recently by Samuel Huntington and Victor Lee Burke. It argues that this theory attempts to combine an historical sociology that sees states and war as the motors of human history with a notion of civilization as something solid and fixed. It contends that civilizations are fluid and amorphous entities that cannot be treated as states, and that `the ways of peace' such as cultural exchanges and trade are just as important as war and conflict in any attempt to understand the history of humanity.
7 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the implications of Gillian Rose's social and political theory of modernity, which not only construes the autonomous moral subject as free within the order of representations and unfree within its preconditions and outcomes, but also 'the working out of that combination' (ibid.).
Abstract: This article explores the implications of Gillian Rose's social and political theory of modernity. For Rose, modernity not only construes `the autonomous moral subject as free within the order of representations and unfree within its preconditions and outcomes' (1996: 57), it is also `the working out of that combination' (ibid.). The implications of this view are explored below, concentrating in particular on the way Rose tackled the aporias and contradictions of modern sociology and social theory. Its conclusion is twofold. First, that Rose retrieves the absolute as fundamental to the meaning of social and political critique, and second that, in the face of demands for radical political action, not least in Marx's 11th thesis on Feuerbach, it is the religious dimension of our political experience that has been consistently overlooked. It is my argument that, in her concept of `the broken middle', Rose does not overcome the gap between theory and practice, but she does comprehend it as a way of life, one ...
7 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue that the human ability of self-reflexivity and critique and the recognition of selftransformative faculties are often and principally denied to those societies which do not fit into the framework of modernity, thus subverting claims of universality.
Abstract: Recent developments in social theory, and especially in movement research, have deepened our understanding of the self-instituting and self-transformative capabilities of society. However, as the case of Alain Touraine's notion of historicity shows, there is a real danger that social praxis is being reduced to the function of self-thematization and self-programming, enshrining society in a self-referential circle. Ideas of self-transcendence and the non-identity of society with itself cannot be adequately accounted for as long as full scope is not given to the interpretive dimension of human articulation. Moreover, the human ability of self-reflexivity and critique and the recognition of self-transformative faculties are often and principally denied to those societies which do not fit into the framework of modernity, thus subverting claims of universality. Against this Johann Arnason has suggested a return to an anthropology of the social subject which, over and above the constituting faculties, foregroun...
7 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the question of what type of ethics may be efficient to cope with actual problems in advanced societies, i.e., environmental problems, social conflicts, the usage of new technologies, is addressed.
Abstract: This article deals with the question of what type of ethics may be efficient to cope with actual problems in advanced societies, i.e. environmental problems, social conflicts, the usage of new technologies. The answer given is that it is not morality or ethical decisions that count but the customary (das Ubliche). But the customary is a rather precarious resource. This is not only because it may turn out to be the particularistic orientation of social groups, like those of companies, political parties, or even peer groups but also because it is eaten up by the progress of modernity. This is shown by comparison with the historical forerunner of the customary, namely what has been called ethical life (substantielle Sittlichkeit) by Hegel.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors take up J. P. Arnason's basic theoretical assumption that the western trajectory to modernity marks only one possibility of the modern constellation and that modernity has to be pluralized.
Abstract: The article takes up J. P. Arnason's basic theoretical assumption that the western trajectory to modernity marks only one possibility of the modern constellation and that modernity has to be pluralized. Arnason's differentiation between a civilizational paradigm and a civilizational horizon allows us to acknowledge the ambivalent perceptions of modernity prevalent in the colonial and postcolonial encounter and gives space for counter-paradigms of modernity. Through a brief discussion of Indian reflections on modernity (P. Chatterjee, J. Alam) I want to argue that the aspect of agency, marginalized in the philosophical and sociological debate on multiple modernities, has to be integrated into the theory. Examples from the Indian Himalayas should show how in everyday life as well as in the course of a social movement for regional autonomy `preferred futures' are negotiated on the basis of a reflexive balancing of `traditional' and `modern' elements which are articulated and joined in a self-made present. Th...
TL;DR: In this article, the authors argue that the focus on National Socialism and Stalinism needs further differentiation, and argue in favor of discerning terror and ideology as main characteristics (totalitarianism as extermination).
Abstract: This essay discusses totalitarian theories with regard to their capacity to interpret in a normatively plausible way such different dictatorships as Nazism, Stalinism and post-Stalinism. In contrast to theoretical approaches which subsume all these regimes under a single concept (totalitarianism as total control), it argues in favor of discerning terror and ideology as main characteristics (totalitarianism as extermination). The focus on National Socialism and Stalinism needs further differentiation. Theories of bureaucratic structures and charismatic domination may help in distinguishing both regimes' very particularities; at the same time, however, they seem to fail relevant aspects of historical reality.
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors argue for an interactional concept of culture, or interpretation, as also of research and representation, and put emphasis on modes of linkage between social action and discourses and on social reflexivity.
Abstract: While universalistic assumptions have been undermined by experiences of cultural difference, the notion of culture has been universalized. But it seems that the notion of culture, the way it has prevailed in public discourse as well as in social and cultural studies, has to be seen as the main stumbling block to intercultural dialogue. The article argues for an interactional concept of culture, or interpretation, as also of research and representation. Emphasis has to be put on modes of linkage between social action and discourses and on social reflexivity. While attempting to avoid the logic of identity, epistemologically, identity has to be understood as a social project. Thus universalism, which `as such' is underdetermined and shows only contextually, has to be seen not as something achieved and secured, but as an objective. Universalism has to prove itself within difference, it cannot be imposed by one side.
TL;DR: This article presented an overview of Spengler's theory of civilization based upon his ''first'' and ''second'' philosophies of history, concluding that "the late'' Spenglers left behind his more aesthetic and historicist understanding of civilization, turning to philosophical anthropology, losing confidence that a new great culture would someday emerge.
Abstract: This article presents an overview of Oswald Spengler's theory of civilization based upon his `first' and `second' philosophies of history. The `late' Spengler left behind his more aesthetic and historicist understanding of civilization, turning to philosophical anthropology. Spengler lost confidence that a new great culture would someday emerge. While Samuel Huntington in The Clash of Civilizations argues that civilizational pluralism is growing and anticipates a non-Western civilization eventually succeeding a West in decline, dialog with Spengler suggests otherwise.
TL;DR: In this article, the epistemological, axiological and praxeological dimensions of this essentially metaphysical and hierarchical conception of natural and human alterity are examined to delineate our relation to the other of modernity: the Savage.
Abstract: As a precursor to the Enlightenment, early modern European conceptions of being and human alterity formed a critical part of both the birth of modernity and the reception of divergent cultural forms lying beyond the horizon of Western knowledge. The extension of occidental power beyond its familiar shores not only resulted in the coercion and subjugation of countless New World natives but also compelled the Western mind to account for the seemingly radical alterity of `savage' life forms in civilizations hitherto unknown to Europeans. This exacting philosophical demand evidently precluded a recognition initially of cultural difference, largely as a result of a predominantly hierarchical conception of being which, following Lovejoy, we understand as the great Chain of Being. The epistemological, axiological and praxeological dimensions of this essentially metaphysical and hierarchical conception of natural and human alterity are examined to delineate our relation to the other of modernity: the Savage. The ...
TL;DR: There is a clearly discernible thread running through Johann P. Arnason's whole work, starting with a highly sophisticated discussion of the Marxian term ''praxis'' in the 1970s he was increasingly able to link his insights to macro-sociological questions as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: There is a clearly discernible thread running through Johann P. Arnason's whole work. Starting with a highly sophisticated discussion of the Marxian term `praxis' in the 1970s he was increasingly able to link his insights to macro-sociological questions. In the 1980s, focusing particularly on the notions of `power' and `culture', he formulated a theory of modernity which challenges the diagnoses of other major contemporary social theorists such as Habermas, Giddens, Castoriadis and others.
TL;DR: In this paper, a comparison of the analyses of West German society in the 1960s in Dahrendorf's Society and Democracy in Germany and in the 1980s in Beck's Risk Society provides the historical frame for a reconsideration of the student movement of the late 1960s.
Abstract: A comparison of the analyses of West German society in the 1960s in Dahrendorf's Society and Democracy in Germany and in the 1980s in Beck's Risk Society provides the historical frame for a reconsideration of the student movement of the late 1960s in terms not of its own self-understanding but of its place and role in the larger processes of social and cultural change in the Federal Republic. The idea of cultural revolution - one of the central, defining themes of the student movement - and its outcome are examined with reference to Schulze's cultural sociology of postwar German society.
TL;DR: In this article, the major 20th-century revolutions can be seen as particularly important cases of inter-civilizational encounters, and they represent different responses to the ascendant and challenging civilization of the West.
Abstract: The great revolutions of modern times have been analysed from various angles, but their civilizational aspects and contexts have on the whole been neglected. More specifically, the major 20th-century revolutions can be seen as particularly important cases of intercivilizational encounters. They represent different responses to the ascendant and challenging civilization of the West. The Western civilizational trajectory (or set of trajectories), based on a shift from fideism to empiricism and on multiple social dynamics fuelled by this cultural reorientation (such as those of the capittalist economy and the one-nation-state), is selectively appropriated by non-Western societies which at the same time reject the less adaptable parts of the West in the name of traditional or invented alternatives. Russia, China, Turkey and Iran are analysed as variations of this recurrent pattern. At one end of the spectrum, the Russian revolution aspired to transcend Western models on the basis of a more radical interpretation of their own principles; at the other, the Iranian revolution, made up of several episodes with intervals in between, has been characterized by an exceptionally tenacious - and in some ways inventive - defence of a pre-existing civilizational identity.
TL;DR: Finley's reflections on ancient and modern democracy, explicitly directed against the liberal mainstream of political science, but also - avant la lettre - against the belittling of Greek democracy that has become fashionable among post-Marxist radicals, can be taken as a starting point for further discussion of historical as well as theoretical questions as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Moses Finley's reflections on ancient and modern democracy, explicitly directed against the liberal mainstream of political science, but also - avant la lettre - against the belittling of Greek democracy that has become fashionable among post-Marxist radicals, can be taken as a starting point for further discussion of historical as well as theoretical questions. The points at issue have to do with the belated recognition of democracy as a part of the Greek tradition, but also with the divided and contested modern tradition that grew out of this new perspective on the past. The French Revolution is crucial to both aspects of the problem. Although it can be shown that the well-known attempts of the revolutionaries to appropriate classical models did not - in the short run - radically alter the image of ancient Greece, the very experience of the revolution - both as an exceptionally dramatic historical event and as a key episode in a more long-term process - was bound to change modern perceptions of the clas...
TL;DR: In contrast to the home-made Nazi regime, the East German dictatorship was imposed by a foreign power and remained dependent on it as mentioned in this paper. But it did not cause a civilizational collapse comparable to Nazism.
Abstract: In contrast to the home-made Nazi regime, the East German dictatorship was imposed by a foreign power and remained dependent on it. It did not cause a civilizational collapse comparable to Nazism, ...