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A Historical Sketch of Sociological Theory: The Early Years

Chapter 1 Chapter SummaryClassical sociological theories are theories of great scope and ambition that either were created in Europe between the early 1800s and the early 1900s or have their roots in the culture of that period. The work of such classical sociological theorists as Auguste Comte, Karl Marx, Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Georg Simmel, and Vilfredo Pareto was important in its time and played a central role in the subsequent development of sociology. Additionally, the ideas of these theorists continue to be relevant to sociological theory today, because contemporary sociologists read them. They have become classics because they have a wide range of application and deal with centrally important social issues. This chapter supplies the context within which the works of the theorists presented in detail in later chapters can be understood. It also offers a sense of the historical forces that gave shape to sociological theory and their later impact. While it is difficult to say with precision when sociological theory began, we begin to find thinkers who can clearly be identified as sociologists by the early 1800s. Social Forces in the Development of Sociological Theory The social conditions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were of the utmost significance to the development of sociology. The chaos and social disorder that resulted from the series of political revolutions ushered in by the French Revolution in 1789 disturbed many early social theorists. While they recognized that a return to the old order was impossible, they sought to find new sources of order in societies that had been traumatized by dramatic political changes. The Industrial Revolution was a set of developments that transformed Western societies from largely agricultural to overwhelmingly industrial systems. Peasants left agricultural work for industrial occupations in 1

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factories. Within this new system, a few profited greatly while the majority worked long hours for low wages. A reaction against the industrial system and capitalism led to the labor movement and other radical movements dedicated to overthrowing the capitalist system. As a result of the Industrial Revolution, large numbers of people moved to urban settings. The expansion of cities produced a long list of urban problems that attracted the attention of early sociologists. Socialism emerged as an alternative vision of a worker's paradise in which wealth was equitably distributed. Karl Marx was highly critical of capitalist society in his writings and engaged in political activities to help engineer its fall. Other early theorists recognized the problems of capitalist society but sought change through reform because they feared socialism more than they feared capitalism. Feminists were especially active during the French and American Revolutions, during the abolitionist movements and political rights mobilizations of the mid-nineteenth century, and especially during the Progressive Era in the United States. But feminist concerns filtered into early sociology only on the margins. In spite of their marginal status, early women sociologists like Harriet Martineau and Marianne Weber wrote a significant body of theory that is being rediscovered today. All of these changes had a profound effect on religiosity. Many sociologists came from religious backgrounds and sought to understand the place of religion and morality in modern society. Throughout this period, the technological products of science were permeating every sector of life, and science was acquiring enormous prestige. An ongoing debate developed between sociologists who sought to model their discipline after the hard sciences and those who thought the distinctive characteristics of social life made a scientific sociology problematic and unwise. Intellectual Forces and the Rise of Sociological Theory The Enlightenment was a period of intellectual development and change in philosophical thought beginning in the eighteenth century. Enlightenment thinkers sought to combine reason with empirical research on the model of Newtonian science. They tried to produce highly systematic bodies of thought that made rational sense and that could be derived from real-world observation. Convinced that the world could be comprehended and controlled using reason and research, they believed traditional social values and institutions to be irrational and inhibitive of human development. Their ideas conflicted with traditional religious bodies like the Catholic Church, the political regimes of 2

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Europe's absolutist monarchies, and the social system of feudalism. They placed their faith instead in the power of the individual's capacity to reason. Early sociology also maintained a faith in empiricism and rational inquiry. A conservative reaction to the Enlightenment, characterized by a strong anti-modern sentiment, also influenced early theorists. The conservative reaction led thinkers to emphasize that society had an existence of its own, in contrast to the individualism of the Enlightenment. Additionally, they had a cautious approach to social change and a tendency to see modern developments like industrialization, urbanization, and bureaucratization as having disorganizing effects. The Development of French Sociology Claude Henri Saint-Simon (1760-1825) was a positivist who believed that the study of social phenomena should employ the same scientific techniques as the natural sciences. But he also saw the need for socialist reforms, especially centralized planning of the economic system. Auguste Comte (1798-1857) coined the term "sociology." Like SaintSimon, he believed the study of social phenomena should employ scientific techniques. But Comte was disturbed by the chaos of French society and was critical of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Comte developed an evolutionary theory of social change in his law of the three stages. He argued that social disorder was caused by ideas left over from the idea systems of earlier stages. Only when a scientific footing for the governing of society was established would the social upheavals of his time cease. Comte also stressed the systematic character of society and accorded great importance to the role of consensus. These beliefs made Comte a forerunner of positivism and reformism in classical sociological theory. Emile Durkheim (1858-1917) legitimized sociology in France and became a dominant force in the development of the discipline worldwide. Although he was politically liberal, he took a more conservative position intellectually, arguing that the social disorders produced by striking social changes could be reduced through social reform. Durkheim argued that sociology was the study of structures that are external to, and coercive over, the individual; for example, legal codes and shared moral beliefs, which he called social facts. In Suicide he made his case for the importance of sociology by demonstrating that social facts could cause individual behavior. He argued that societies were held together by a strongly held collective 3

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morality called the collective conscience. Because of the complexity of modern societies, the collective conscience had become weaker, resulting in a variety of social pathologies. In his later work, Dukheim turned to the religion of primitive societies to demonstrate the importance of the collective consciousness. The Development of German Sociology German sociology is rooted in the philosopher G.F.W. Hegel's (17701831) idea of the dialectic. Like Comte in France, Hegel offered an evolutionary theory of society. The dialectic is a view that the world is made up not of static structures but of processes, relationships, conflicts, and contradictions. He emphasized the importance of changes in consciousness for producing dialectical change. Dialectical thinking is a dynamic way of thinking about the world. Karl Marx (1818-1883) followed Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-1872) in criticizing Hegel for favoring abstract ideas over real people. Marx adopted a materialist orientation that focused on real material entities like wealth and the state. He argued that the problems of modern society could be traced to real material sources like the structures of capitalism. Yet he maintained Hegel's emphasis on the dialectic, forging a position called dialectical materialism that held that material processes, relationships, conflicts, and contradictions are responsible for social problems and social change. Marx's materialism led him to posit a labor theory of value, in which he argued that the capitalist's profits were based on the exploitation of the laborer. Under the influence of British political economists, Marx grew to deplore the exploitation of workers and the horrors of the capitalist system. Unlike the political economists, his view was that such problems were the products of an endemic conflict that could be addressed only through radical change. While Marx did not consider himself to be a sociologist, his influence has been strong in Europe. Until recently, American sociologists dismissed Marx as an ideologist. The theories of Max Weber (1864-1920) can be seen as the fruit of a long debate with the ghost of Marx. While Weber was not familiar with Marx's writings, he viewed the Marxists of his day as economic determinists who offered single-cause theories of social life. Rather than seeing ideas as simple reflections of economic factors, Weber saw them as autonomous forces capable of profoundly affecting the economic world. Weber can also be understood as trying to round out Marx's theoretical perspective; rather than denying the effect of material structures, he was simply pointing out the importance of ideas as well. 4

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Whereas Marx offered a theory of capitalism, Weber's work was fundamentally a theory of the process of rationalization. Rationalization is the process whereby universally applied rules, regulations, and laws come to dominate more and more sectors of society on the model of a bureaucracy. Weber argued that in the Western world rational-legal systems of authority squeezed out traditional authority systems, rooted in beliefs, and charismatic authority, systems based on the extraordinary qualities of a leader. His historical studies of religion are dedicated to showing why rational-legal forms took hold in the West but not elsewhere. Weber's reformist views and academic style were better received than Marx's radicalism in sociology. Sociologists also appreciated Weber's well-rounded approach to the social world. Georg Simmel (1858-1918) was Weber's contemporary and cofounder of the German Sociological Society. While Marx and Weber were pre-occupied with large-scale issues, Simmel was best known for his work on smaller-scale issues, especially individual action and interaction. He became famous for his thinking on forms of interaction (i.e., conflict) and types of interacts (i.e., the stranger). Simmel saw that understanding interaction among people was one of the major tasks of sociology. His short essays on interesting topics made his work accessible to American sociologists. His most famous long work, The Philosophy of Money, was concerned with the emergence of a money economy in the modern world. This work observed that large-scale social structures like the money economy can become separate from individuals and come to dominate them. The Origins of British Sociology British sociology was shaped in the nineteenth century by three conflicting sources: political economy, ameliorism, and social evolution. British sociologists saw the market economy as a positive force, a source of order, harmony, and integration in society. The task of the sociologist was not to criticize society but to gather data on the laws by which it operated. The goal was to provide the government with the facts it needed to understand the way the system worked and direct its workings wisely. By the mid-nineteenth century this belief manifested itself in the tendency to aggregate individually reported statistical data to form a collective portrait of British society. Statistical data soon pointed British sociologists toward some of the failings of a market economy, notably poverty, but left them without adequate theories of society to explain them. Ameliorism is the desire to solve social problems by reforming individuals. Because the British sociologists could not trace the source 5

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of problems such as poverty to the society as a whole, then the source had to lie within individuals themselves. A number of British thinkers were attracted to the evolutionary theories of Auguste Comte. Most prominent among these was Herbert Spencer (1820-1903), who believed that society was growing progressively better and therefore should be left alone. He adopted the view that social institutions adapted progressively and positively to their social environments. He also accepted the Darwinian view that natural selection occurred in the social world. Among Spencer's more outrageous ideas was the argument that unfit societies should be permitted to die off, allowing for the adaptive upgrading of the world as a whole. Clearly, such ideas did not sit well with the reformism of the ameliorists. Other Developments Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923) thought that human instincts were such a strong force that Marx's hope to achieve dramatic social changes with an economic revolution was impossible. Pareto offered an elite theory of social change that held that a small elite inevitably dominates society on the basis of enlightened self-interest. Change occurs when one group of elites begins to degenerate and is replaced by another. Pareto's lasting contribution to sociology has been a vision of society as a system in equilibrium, a whole consisting of balanced independent parts. After his death, Marx's disciples became more rigid in their belief that he had uncovered the economic laws that ruled the capitalist world. Seeing the demise of capitalism as inevitable, political action seemed unnecessary. By the 1920's, however, Hegelian Marxists refused to reduce Marxism to a scientific theory that ignored individual thought and action. Seeking to integrate Hegel's interest in consciousness with the materialist interest in economic structures, the Hegelian Marxists emphasized the importance of individual action in bringing about a social revolution and reemphasized the relationship between thought and action. The Contemporary Relevance of Classical Sociological Theory Classical sociological theories are important not only historically, but also because they are living documents with contemporary relevance to both modern theorists and today's social world. The work of classical thinkers continues to inspire modern sociologists in a variety of ways. Many contemporary thinkers seek to reinterpret the classics to apply 6

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them to the contemporary scene.

Chapter 2 Chapter Summary

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Introduction There are a variety of interpretations of Karl Marx's (1818 - 1883) theory of 9 capitalism. This arises from both its unfinished nature and Marx's shifting points of emphasis across his lifetime. The focus of Marx's work, however, was undoubtedly on the historical basis of inequality, and specifically inequality under capitalism. Marx's critiques of the capitalist system - its tendency towards crises, the necessity of inequality - are still relevant today. The Dialectic Marx's powerful critique has as it basis a unique approach to reality - the dialectic. Taking from G.W.F. Hegel (1770 - 1831), Marx believed that any study of reality must be attuned to the contradictions within society and, indeed, he sees contradiction as the motor of historical change. Unlike Hegel, Marx believed that these contradictions existed not simply in our minds (i.e., in the way we understand the world), but that they had a concrete material existence. At the heart of capitalism was the contradiction between the demands of the capitalist to earn a profit and the demands of the worker, who wants to retain some profit to subsist. Over time, the workings of the capitalist system would exacerbate this contradiction, and its resolution can be had only through social change. The Dialectical Method The dialectical approach does not recognize the division between social values and social facts. To do so leads away from any real understanding of the problems people face. Additionally, the dialectical method does not envision the social world as being dominated by a cause-and-effect relationship; instead, it looks at the reciprocal relations among social factors within the totality of social life. These relations include not only contemporary phenomena but also the effects of history, as dialecticians are concerned with how the past shapes the present and how the present lays the seeds for the future. Because of this complex set of relations, which often fold back in on themselves, the future is both indeterminate and contingent on individual action. Indeed, this relationship between actors and structures is at the heart of Marx's theory. Structures both constrain and enable individuals, having the potential of both helping them to fulfill themselves and contributing to their exploitation. Human Nature Marx's insights into actors and structures must be understood in the context of his views on human nature, which is the basis for his critical analysis of the contradictions of capitalism. Marx viewed human nature as historically contingent, shaped by many of the same relations that affect society. In his view, a contradiction exists between our human nature and work in the capitalist system. Though we have powers that identify us as unique animals, our species being, the possibilities for realizing human potential within the capitalist system are frustrated by the structures of capitalism itself. Unlike most social theories that have implicit assumptions about human nature, Marx elaborates a concept of human nature that also informed his view of how society should look. An important factor in this is Marx's ideas about labor. By objectifying our ideas and satisfying our needs, labor both expresses our human nature and changes it. Through this process, individuals develop their 9 human powers and potentials. Alienation Under capitalism, the relationship between labor and human expression

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Chapter 3 Chapter SummarySociology as a Discipline and Social Facts Emile Durkheim(1858-1917) is considered one of the "fathers" of sociology because of his effort to establish sociology as a discipline distinct from philosophy and psychology. This effort is evident in the two main themes that permeate Durkheim's work: the priority of the social over the individual and the idea that society can be studied scientifically. Durkheim's concept of social facts, in particular, differentiates sociology from philosophy and psychology. Social facts are the social structures and cultural norms and values that are external to, and coercive over, individuals. Social facts are not attached to any particular individual; nor are they reducible to individual consciousness. Thus, social facts can be studied empirically. According to Durkheim, two different types of social facts exist: material and immaterial. Durkheim was most interested in studying the latter, particularly morality, collective conscience, collective representation, and social currents. The Division of Labor In this work Durkheim discusses how modern society is held together by a division of labor that makes individuals dependent upon one another because they specialize in different types of work. Durkheim is particularly concerned about how the division of labor changes the way that individuals feel they are part of society as a whole. Societies with little division of labor (i.e., where people are self-sufficient) are unified by mechanical solidarity; all people engage in similar tasks and thus have similar responsibilities, which builds a strong collective conscience. Modern society, however, is held together by organic solidarity (the differences between people), which weakens collective conscience. Durkheim studied these different types of solidarity through laws. A society with mechanical solidarity is characterized by repressive law, while a society with organic solidarity is characterized by restitutive law. Suicide Durkheim's goal to differentiate sociology from psychology is perhaps best seen in this work on how social facts can be used to explain suicide rates. This work is also important because of the historical comparative method that Durkheim uses to show that that suicide rates vary across societies and over time. According to Durkheim, suicide cannot simply be explained by individual psychological problems-otherwise suicide rates would be static. Durkheim argues that two social facts, in particular, influence suicide rates: integration, or the strength of 10

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attachment people feel to society, and regulation, or the degree of external constraint on people. Durkheim distinguishes between four types of suicide that correlate to these two social facts. Egoistic suicide is a result of a lack of integration; altruistic suicide is a result of too much integration; anomic suicide is a result of too little regulation; and fatalistic suicide is a result of too much regulation. Elementary Forms of Religious Life This is perhaps Durkheim's most complex work, as he attempts to provide both a sociology of religion and a theory of knowledge. In this work, Durkheim studies primitive society to demonstrate that an enduring quality of all religions, even the most modern, is the differentiation between the sacred and the profane. The sacred is created through rituals, and what is deemed sacred is what morally binds individuals to society. This moral bond then becomes, according to Durkheim, a cognitive bond that shapes the categories we use to understand the social world. The development of religion is not simply based on the differentiation between the sacred and the profane, but also on religious beliefs, rituals, and the church. The latter two conditions are particularly important to Durkheim because they connect the individual to the social; individuals learn about the sacred and religious beliefs through participating in rituals and the church. The most primitive form of religion is totemism, which is connected to the least complex form of social organization, the clan. The totem is the actual representation of the clan-it is the material representation of the nonmaterial, collective morality of the clan. Totemism is important to Durkheim's theory of knowledge in that it is one of his categories of understanding: classification. Other categories of understanding include time, space, force, causality, and totality. These six categories may be abstract concepts, but they are all derived from social experiences, particularly rituals. Durkheim acknowledges that it is possible for moral and cognitive categories to change or be created anew through what he calls collective effervescence, or periods of great collective exaltation. Cult of the Individual Although Durkheim focused much of his attention on the social, he did not dismiss the idea of individualism. Indeed, he believed that in modern society the individual has become sacred, and he called the modern form of collective conscience the cult of the individual. According to Durkheim, humans are constituted by two beings or 11

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selves: one is based on the isolated individuality of the body, and the other is based on the social. These two beings may be in a continual state of tension, and they are connected in that individuality develops as society develops. For example, it is only in modern society, characterized by the division of labor, that people even come to understand themselves as distinct individuals. Durkheim argued that individuality has both positive and negative consequences. Egoism, or the selfish pursuit of individual interests, is at odds with moral individualism, the ability to sacrifice self-interest for the rights of all other individual human beings. Moral Education and Social Reform Durkheim believed that society is the source of morality; therefore, he also believed that society could be reformed, especially through moral education. According to Durkheim, morality is composed of three elements: discipline, attachment, and autonomy. Discipline constrains egoistic impulses; attachment is the voluntary willingness to be committed to groups; and autonomy is individual responsibility. Education provides children with these three moral tools needed to function in society. Adults can also acquire these moral tools by joining occupational associations. According to Durkheim, these associations would include members of a particular occupation regardless of class position and could provide a level of integration and regulation, both of which tend to be weakened by the division of labor. Criticisms Durkheim is often criticized for being a functionalist and a positivist. However, his historical comparative methodology puts him at odds with functionalists and positivists who believe that invariant social laws exist that can explain social phenomenon across all societies. Durkheim does tend to emphasize the objective nature of social facts; thus, he neglects the subjective interpretations that social actors may have of a particular social phenomenon and the agency of individuals in general to control social forces. Furthermore, Durkheim's basic assumption about human nature-that people are driven by their passion for gratification that can never be satisfied-is not empirically substantiated in any of his work. Finally, Durkheim's understanding of the relationship between morality and sociology has been critiqued as being conservative.

Chapter 4 Chapter Summary12

13 Max Weber's Methodology Max Weber (1864-1920) argued against abstract theory, and he favored an approach to sociological inquiry that generated its theory from rich, systematic, empirical, historical research. This approach required, first of all, an examination of the relationships between, and the respective roles of, history and sociology in inquiry. Weber argued that sociology was to develop concepts for the analysis of concrete phenomena, which would allow sociologists to then make generalizations about historical phenomena. History, on the other hand, would use a lexicon of sociological concepts in order to perform causal analysis of particular historical events, structures, and processes. In scholarly practice, according to Weber, sociology and history are interdependent. Weber contended that understanding, or verstehen, was the proper way of studying social phenomena. Derived from the interpretive practice known as hermeneutics, the method of verstehen strives to understand the meanings that human beings attribute to their experiences, interactions, and actions. Weber construed verstehen as a methodical, systematic, and rigorous form of inquiry that could be employed in both macro- and micro-sociological analysis. Weber's formulation of causality stresses the great variety of factors that may precipitate the emergence of complex phenomena such as modern capitalism. Moreover, Weber argued that social scientists, unlike natural scientists, must take into account the meanings that actors attribute to their interactions when considering causality. Weber, furthermore, sought a middle ground between nomothetic (general laws) and idiographic (idiosyncratic actions and events) views in his notion of a probabilistic adequate causality. Weber's greatest contribution to the conceptual arsenal of sociology is known as the ideal type. The ideal type is basically a theoretical model constructed by means of a detailed empirical study of a phenomenon. An ideal type is an intellectual construct that a sociologist may use to study historical realities by means of their similarities to, and divergences from, the model. Note that ideal types are not utopias or images of what the world ought to look like. Weber urged sociologists to reflect on the role of values in both research and the classroom. When teaching, he argued, sociologists ought to teach students the facts, rather than indoctrinating them to a particular political or personal point of view. Weber did argue, however, that the values of one's society often help to decide what a scholar will study. He contended that, while values play this very important role in the research process, they must be kept out of the collection and 13

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interpretation of data. Max Weber's Substantive Sociology Max Weber's sociology is fundamentally a science that employs both interpretive understanding and causal explanations of social action and interaction. His typology of the four types of social action is central to comprehending his sociology. According to Weber, social action may be classified as means-ends rational action, value-rational action, affectual action, or traditional action. Any student of Weber must keep in mind that these are ideal types. Weber developed a multidimensional theory of stratification that incorporated class, status, and party. Class is determined by one's economic or market situation (i.e., life chances), and it is not a community but rather a possible basis for communal action. Status is a matter of honor, prestige, and one's style of life. Parties, according to Weber, are organized structures that exist for the purposes of gaining domination in some sphere of social life. Class, status, and party may be related in many ways in a given empirical case, which provides the sociologist with a very sophisticated set of conceptual tools for the analysis of stratification and power. Weber also made a profound contribution to the study of obedience with his ideal types of legitimate domination or authority. Rational-legal authority rests on rules and law. Traditional authority rests on belief in established practices and traditions - i.e., authority is legitimate because it is exercised the way it has always been exercised. Charismatic authority rests on belief in the extraordinary powers or qualities of a leader. All of these forms of authority must take into account the point of view of those obeying commands. Moreover, each form of authority is associated with a variety of structural forms of organization and administration. Legal authority, for example, is often associated with bureaucracy, while traditional authority is associated with gerontocracy, patriarchalism, patrimonialism, and feudalism. Charismatic authority may be associated with a charismatic form of organization. The dilemma of charismatic authority, however, consists of the difficulty of maintaining charisma when the charismatic leader dies. In other words, charismatic organizations tend to routinize charisma, which invariably gives rise to either traditional or rationallegal authority. Weber also argued that rationalization is a long-term historical process that has transformed the modern world. His typology of forms of rationality is central to this argument. He argued that there are four types of rationality: practical, theoretical, formal, and substantive. He 14

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was most concerned with processes of formal and substantive rationalization, especially as propelled by capitalism and bureaucracy. Weber argued that rationalization has occurred in many spheres, including the economy, law, religion, politics, the city, and art. Weber's arguments regarding rationalization are exemplified in his studies of religion and capitalism. These sophisticated and voluminous studies inquire into the ways in which religious ideas, the spirit of capitalism, and capitalism as an economic system, are interrelated. In short, according to Weber, Calvinism as a rational, methodical system of religious beliefs and practices was an important factor in the emergence of modern capitalism in the Western world. The economic ethics of other religions, such as Hinduism and Confucianism, inhibited the emergence of modern capitalism in India and China. Once modern capitalism emerged in the Western world, however, it spread the effects of rationalization worldwide. While Weber's work has had a profound impact on sociology - as well as other disciplines - it is not without its critics. Some critics question the consistency and applicability of Weber's method of verstehen. Others are puzzled by Weber's methodological individualism as it is applied to macro-sociology. Some critics have rebuked Weber for failing to offer any alternatives to rationalization, capitalism, and bureaucracy. Finally, many critics decry Weber's unflagging pessimism about the future of rationalization and bureaucracy.

Chapter 5 Chapter Summary15

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Georg Simmel (1858-1918) is best known as a microsociologist who played a significant role in the development of small-group research. Simmel's basic approach can be described as "methodological relationism," because he 17 operates on the principle that everything interacts in some way with everything else. His essay on fashion, for example, notes that fashion is a form of social relationship that allows those who wish to conform to do so while also providing the norm from which individualistic people can deviate. Within the fashion process, people take on a variety of social roles that play off the decisions and actions of others. On a more general level, people are influenced by both objective culture (the things that people produce) and individual culture (the capacity of individuals to produce, absorb, and control elements of objective culture). Simmel believed that people possess creative capacities (more-life) that enable them to produce objective culture that transcends them. But objective culture (more-than-life) comes to stand in irreconcilable opposition to the creative forces that have produced it in the first place. Primary Concerns Simmel's interest in creativity is manifest in his discussions of the diverse forms of social interaction, the ability of actors to create social structures, and the disastrous effects those structures have on the creativity of individuals. All of Simmel's discussions of the forms of interaction imply that actors must be consciously oriented to one another. Simmel also has a sense of individual conscience and of the fact that the norms and values of society become internalized in individual consciousness. In addition, Simmel has a conception of people's ability to confront themselves mentally, to set themselves apart from their own actions, which is very similar to the views of George Herbert Mead. Simmel is best known in contemporary sociology for his contributions to our understanding of patterns or forms of social interaction. Simmel made clear that one of his primary interests was association among conscious actors and that his intent was to look at a wide range of interactions that may seem trivial at some times but crucially important at others. One of Simmel's dominant concerns was the form rather than the content of social interaction. From Simmel's point of view, the sociologist's task is to impose a limited number of forms on social reality, extracting commonalities that are found in a wide array of specific interactions. Along these lines, Simmel attempts to develop a geometry of social relations. The crucial difference between the dyad (two-person group) and triad (threeperson group) is that a triad presents a greater threat to the individuality of group members. In a larger society, however, an individual is likely to be involved in a number of groups, each of which controls only a small portion of his or her personality. Distance also determines the form of social interaction. For example, the value of an object is a function of its distance from an actor. Simmel considered a wide range of social forms, including exchange, conflict, prostitution, and sociability. One of the main focuses of Simmel's historical and philosophical sociology is the cultural level of social reality, which he called objective culture. In Simmel's view, people produce culture, but because of their ability to reify social reality, the cultural world and the social world come to have lives of their own and increasingly dominate the actors who created them. Simmel identified a 17 number of components of objective culture, including tools, transportation, technology, the arts, language, the intellectual sphere, conventional wisdom, religious dogma, philosophical systems, legal systems, moral codes, and ideals. The absolute size of objective culture increases with modernization. The number of different components of the cultural realm also grows. What worried

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Varieties of Neo-Marxian Theory

Chapter 8 Chapter Summary

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19 Since the time of Karl Marx's writing, a variety of theories have emerged that bear the Marxian legacy, although in many different ways. Economic Determinism Although it is often said that Marx was an economic determinist, or, rather, that he focused narrowly on how the economic dimension of society determined the shape of the rest of society, this view overlooks Marx's dialectical inclinations. A number of the so-called revisionist Marxists, including Friedrich Engels (1820-1895), Karl Kautsky (1850-1938), and Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932), espoused an economically deterministic brand of Marxism, influenced primarily by the boom and busts that characterized this period of capitalism. Hegelian Marxism One reaction to the growth of economic determinism was a renewed focus on Marx's philosophical writings, particularly their Hegelian roots. Although a number of Marx's early writings, which were primarily philosophical in their orientation, were unpublished and therefore unavailable to scholars at the time, Georg Lukcs (1885-1971) managed to anticipate much of what was to be revealed of Marx's philosophical perspective. In particular, Lukcs focused on two major concepts - reification and class consciousness. With reification he extended Marx's notion of the fetishism of commodities to include the process by which any portion of social life could be made a "thing," rather than just commodities. Lukcs also developed the notion of class consciousness, or the belief systems shared by those who occupy the same class position within society. Conversely, those who occupy the same class position may be unaware of their common lot, and may possess a false consciousness. Although classes are a part of every historical epoch, to Lukcs it was only under capitalism that a class could achieve true class consciousness and be a truly revolutionary force. Lukcs discussed the ways in which the nature of the capitalist system is obscured. He thought that once these were revealed, society would become a battleground in the conflict between those who wished to conceal the class character of society and those who wished to expose it. Another important Hegelian Marxist is Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937). Gramsci rejected deterministic Marxist formulations, focusing instead on how revolution was contingent on action on the part of the masses, assuming they became conscious of the nature of capitalism and their role in it. This they could do only by using the analysis provided to them by intellectuals. Perhaps the most important contribution Gramsci made to Neo-Marxian theory has been the concept of hegemony, which he referred to as the cultural leadership exercised by the ruling class. Thus, revolutionary forces must not only change the material bases of society, but they must also wrest from its oppressors the cultural leadership of society. Critical Theory 19

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Micro-Macro Integration

Chapter 14 Chapter SummaryBeginning in the 1980s there was renewed interest in the micro-macro linkage. Despite the early integrationist tendencies of the classical theorists, much of 20th-century theory was either micro-extremist or macro-extremist in its orientation. On the macro side are theories such as structural functionalism, some variants of neo-Marxian theory, and conflict theory. Conversely, symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology, exchange and rational-choice theory are all examples of micro20

21 extremism. Thus micro- and macro- extremism can be seen as a development in modern theory, and indeed, many of the classical theorists can be understood as having an interest in the micro-macro linkage. A renewed interest in micro-macro integration arose in the 1980s. There are two strands of work on micro-macro integration. The first involves attempting to integrate various micro and macro theories, such as combining structural functionalism and symbolic interactionism. The second involves creating theory that effectively combines the two levels of analysis. This chapter focuses primarily on the latter. Integrated Sociological Paradigm George Ritzer has attempted to construct an Integrated Sociological Paradigm built upon two distinctions: between micro and macro levels, and between the objective and subjective. This produces four dimensions: macro-objective, large-scale material phenomena such as bureaucracies; macro-subjective, large-scale ideational or nonmaterial phenomena such as norms; micro-objective, small-scale material phenomena such as patterns of behavior; and micro-subjective, smallscale ideational or nonmaterial phenomena such as psychological states or the cognitive processes involved in "constructing" reality. These are not conceptualized as dichotomies, but rather as continuums. Ritzer argues that these dimensions cannot be analyzed separately, and thus the dimensions are dialectically related, with no particular dimension necessarily privileged over any other. Ritzer has utilized this integrated approach to look at the consequences of the rise in consumer debt in Expressing America: A Critique of the Global Credit Card Society. He attempts to integrate micro and macro by focusing on the micro-level personal troubles it creates, as well as the macro-level public issues involved. Personal troubles are those problems that affect an individual and those immediately around him or her. In the case of credit cards, individuals are accumulating large amounts of debt, resulting in prolonged periods of financial trouble. Public issues tend to be those that affect large numbers of people. Credit cards create public issues because of the large number of people indebted to credit card companies, which have given rise to bankruptcies and delinquencies. Ritzer demonstrates the dialectical relationship between the personal troubles and public issues created by policies and procedures of credit card firms, such as deluging the populace with pre-approved cards, as well as targeting minors for credit cards. Multidimensional Sociology 21

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Jeffrey Alexander has used an integrative approach that very much resembles Ritzer's. Though the dimensions along which he differentiates the levels of social phenomena differ, they mirror the distinctions created by Ritzer: rather than micro-macro, Alexander uses problems of order, which can be either individual or collective. Rather than subjective-objective, Alexander uses problems of action, which range from materialist (instrumental, rational) to idealist (normative, affective). Despite this similarity in analytical approaches, Alexander and Ritzer differ in the strategy used to integrate the various levels of analysis. Unlike Ritzer, Alexander privileges the macro over the micro. Alexander sees micro-level theory as unable to adequately deal with the unique nature of collective phenomena and unable to adequately handle macro-level phenomena generally. More specifically, Alexander's sympathies lay with collective/normative-level-oriented theory. Only this form of theory can sufficiently deal with macro-level phenomena while remaining coherent and without constructing structural dopes that act at the whim of macro-objective level phenomena. Micro-to-Macro Model James Coleman (1926-1995) has attempted to apply micro-level rational-choice theory to macro-level phenomena. As an overall integrative approach this is unsatisfactory as it provides insufficient insight into the macro-micro connection. Using Max Weber's (18641920) Protestant Ethic thesis, Coleman built a model explicating his integrative model. To Coleman, these various levels of analysis were related causally, and thus did not take into account feedback among the various levels. Allen Liska has tried to improve upon this model by giving more attention to the macro-to-micro linkage and to relationships among macro-level phenomena, though the relationships are still causal. Liska also argues for the increased use of a particular way of describing macro phenomena, aggregation. Unlike structural and global explanations, which rely on poorly understood processes such as emergence, the meaning of aggregation is easily elaborated. Micro Foundations of Macrosociology Randall Collins's integrative approach, which he calls radical microsociology, focuses on interaction ritual chains, that, when linked together, produce large scale, macro-level phenomena. Hoping to centralize the role of human action and interaction in theory, Collins rejects the idea that macro-level phenomena can act, instead focusing on the premise that, ultimately, someone, an individual, must do something in order for action to occur.

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Back to the Future: Norbert Elias's Figurational Sociology One European of note, Norbert Elias (1897-1990), has contributed significantly to an integrative sociology. Elias developed the notion of figuration to avoid analytically dichotomizing levels of analysis. Figurations are social processes that interweave people in relationships, creating interrelationships. Figurations are not static, coercive macrostructures, but rather are conceptualized as relatively fluid processes of inter-relationships among individuals that create shifting relations of power and interdependence. Elias makes relationships between people central, particularly relations of interdependence, in contradistinction to individualistic and atomistic approaches. The History of Manners Elias demonstrates his integrative approach in his best-known work, The Civilizing Process, which has two volumes, The History of Manners and Power and Civility. This work deals with the expansion of civility, or manners, across society. More abstractly, it relates changes in the structure of society to changes in the structure of behavior. The History of Manners deals primarily with the diffusion of manners (micro), while Power and Civility deals primarily with the changes in society that brought rise to the diffusion of manners (macro). Central to Elias's work are the changing levels of interdependence among people. This was the result of increases in differentiation in society from competition. Increased differentiation leads to increased interdependence, which in turn leads to an increase in consideration for other people. This has a number of effects: a transformation of control, from being relatively little and external, to an interiorization of control by individuals, who self-police. It also creates what Elias calls a shifting frontier of embarrassment created by a lack of self-control over impulses, and thus changes in manners. These changes were diffused throughout society by the creation of certain types of figurations. According to Elias, these figurations made it possible for a king to emerge, and it was in the king's court, populated by nobles, from which the habits and rules of the day emanated. Because nobles had long dependency chains, Elias believed they needed to be particularly sensitive to others. The king's increasing power, particularly through taxation and the monopolization of the means of violence, also encouraged sensitivity among nobles. Thus the civilizing process is tied to the "reorganization of the social fabric" through competition and interdependence. These macro level changes made possible a set of relationships that produced wide-scale changes in micro-level patterns of behavior throughout society, beginning in the king's court with his nobles.

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Agency-Structure Integration

Chapter 15 Chapter SummaryThe agency-structure perspective is the European alternative to the micro-macro perspective in America. Agency generally refers to microlevel, individual human actors, but it can also refer to collectivities of that act. Structure usually refers to large-scale social structures, but it can also refer to micro structures, such as those involved in human interaction. Structuration Theory Structuration theory focuses on the mutual constitution of structure and agency. Anthony Giddens (1938- ) argues that structure and agency are a duality that cannot be conceived of apart from one another. Human practices are recursive-that is, through their activities, individuals create both their consciousness and the structural conditions that make their activities possible. Because social actors are reflexive and monitor the ongoing flow of activities and structural conditions, they adapt their actions to their evolving understandings. As a result, social scientific knowledge of society will actually change human activities. Giddens calls this dialectical relationship between social scientific knowledge and human practices the double hermeneutic. Actors continually develop routines that give them a sense of security 24

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and that enable them to deal efficiently with their social lives. While their motives provide the overall plan of action, it is these routine practices that determine what shape the action will take. Giddens emphasizes that actors have power to shape their own actions but that the consequences of actions are often unintended. Structure is the rules and resources that give similar social practices a systemic form. Only through the activities of human actors can structure exist. While Giddens acknowledges that structure can be constraining to actors, he thinks that sociologists have exaggerated the importance of structural constraints. Structures can also enable actors to do things they would not otherwise be able to do. For Giddens, a social system is a set of reproduced social practices and relations between actors. The concept of structuration underscores the duality of structure and agency. There can be no agency without structures that shape motives into practices, but there can be no structures independent of the routine practices that create them. Culture and Agency Margaret Archer (1943- ) has criticized the concept of structuration as analytically insufficient. She thinks it is useful for social scientists to understand structure and agency as independent, because it makes it possible to analyze the interrelations between the two sides. Archer also thinks that Giddens gives short shrift to the relative autonomy of culture from both structure and agency. Archer's focus is on morphogenesis, the process by which complex interchanges lead not only to changes in the structure of the system but also to an end product-structural elaboration. The theory emphasizes that there are emergent properties of social interaction that are separable from the actions and interactions that produce them. Once these structures have emerged, they react upon and alter action and interaction. Archer reserves the term "structure" for material phenomena and interests. Morphogenetic theory focuses on how structural conditioning affects social interaction and how this interaction, in turn, leads to structural elaboration. Archer sees culture-nonmaterial phenomena and ideas-as autonomous from structure. In the cultural domain, morphogenetic theory focuses on how cultural conditioning affects socio-cultural interaction and how this interaction leads to cultural elaboration. Compared to structure and agency, Archer asserts that the nexus between culture and agency has been neglected. She suggests that in order to understand agency, one must understand the context of innumerable interrelated theories, beliefs, and ideas that have had an 25

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influence over it. Agents have the ability either to reinforce or resist the influence of the cultural system. Habitus and Field Another major approach to the agency-structure linkage is Pierre Bourdieu's (1930-2002) theory of habitus and field. Bourdieu sought to bridge subjectivism (the individual) and objectivism (society) with a perspective called constructiviststructuralism. Structuralism focuses on the objective structures of language and culture that give shape to human action. Constructivism looks at the social genesis of schemes of perception, thought, and action. Bourdieu wants to examine the social construction of objective structures with an emphasis on how people perceive and construct their own social world, but without neglecting how perception and construction are constrained by structures. An important dynamic in this relationship is the ability of individual actors to invent and improvise within the structure of their routines. The habitus is the mental structure through which people deal with the social world. It can be thought of as a set of internalized schemes through which the world is perceived, understood, appreciated, and evaluated. A habitus is acquired as the result of the long-term occupation of a position in the social world. Depending on the position occupied, people will have a different habitus. The habitus operates as a structure, but people do not simply respond to it mechanically. When people change positions, sometimes their habitus is no longer appropriate, a condition called hysteresis. Bourdieu argues that the habitus both produces and is produced by the social world. People internalize external structures, and they externalize things they have internalized through practices. The concept of field is the objective complement to the idea of habitus. A field is a network of social relations among the objective positions within it. It is not a set of interactions or intersubjective ties among individuals. The social world has a great variety of semi-autonomous fields, such as art, religion, and higher education. The field is a type of competitive marketplace in which economic, cultural, social, and symbolic power are used. The preeminent field is the field of politics, from which a hierarchy of power relationships serves to structure all other fields. To analyze a field, one must first understand its relationship to the political field. The next step is to map the objective positions within a field and, finally, the nature of the habitus of the agents who occupy particular positions can be understood. These agents act strategically, depending on their habitus, in order to enhance their capital. Bourdieu is particularly concerned with how powerful positions within a field can perpetrate symbolic violence on less 26

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powerful actors. Cultural mechanisms such as education impose a dominant perspective on the rest of the population in order to legitimate their power. Bourdieu's analysis of the aesthetic preferences of different groups can be found in Distinction. The cultural preferences of the various groups within society constitute coherent systems that serve to unify those with similar tastes and differentiate them from others with divergent tastes. Through the practical application of preferences, people classify objects and, in the process, classify themselves. Bourdieu thinks the field of taste involves the intersection of social-class relationships and cultural relationships. He argues that taste represents an opportunity to both experience and assert one's position in the class hierarchy. These tastes are engendered in the deep-rooted dispositions of the habitus. Changes in tastes result from struggles for dominance within both cultural and social-class fields as different factions struggle to define high culture and taste. Bourdieu also applies his concepts to French academia in Homo Academicus. This work is concerned with the relationship between the objective positions of different academic fields, their corresponding habitus, and the struggle between them. Bourdieu also wants to link the academic field to a larger field of power. He finds that French academia is divided into dominant fields of law and medicine and lesser fields of science and the arts. He suggests that faculty members within each field use their social and cultural capital to compete for esteem. As a result, aspiring academics attach themselves to established professors who control their intellectual production. Bourdieu is critical of this system because it encourages conformity rather than innovation. Colonization of the Life-World Jurgen Habermas's (1929- ) theory of the colonization of the lifeworld can be characterized as an agency-structure issue because his ideas draw on both action theory and systems theory. The main premise of Habermas's theory is that the free and open communication of the life-world is being impinged on by the formal rationality of the system. The colonization of the life-world involves a restatement of the Weberian thesis that, in the modern world, formal rationality is triumphing over substantive rationality. The life-world is an internal perspective on society conceived from the perspective of the acting subject. Drawing on phenomenology and symbolic interactionism, Habermas asserts that when communicative action takes place in the life-world, it involves a range of unspoken presuppositions and mutual understandings that must be present for it 27

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to take place. He thinks that free and open communication in the lifeworld, with the force of the best argument winning the day, is our best chance at achieving substantive rational solutions to collective dilemmas. While the life-world represents the viewpoint of the acting subject in society, the system involves an external perspective that views society from the observer's perspective. The analysis of systems is attuned to the interconnections of actions and their functional significance. The system includes structures such as the family, the judiciary, the state, and the economy. As these structures evolve, they become more distanced from the life-world, progressively differentiated, and increasingly complex. But they also gain greater capacity to steer the life-world by exerting external control over communicative action. Habermas asserts that the fundamental problem for social theory is how to connect these two conceptual strategies. On the one hand, a social integration strategy focuses on the way in which the life-world is integrated through communicatively achieved and normatively guaranteed consensus. On the other hand, a system-integration strategy focuses on the external control exercised over individual decisions that are not subjectively coordinated. Habermas concludes that each of these two strategies has serious limitations. The social integration strategy has a limited ability to comprehend the reproductive processes at the system level, while the systemsintegration perspective cannot understand the normative patterns that govern the internal perspectives of the life-world. Habermas argues that the both the system and the life-world are becoming increasingly rationalized. The rationalization of the life-world involves growth in the rationality of communicative action. Social integration is increasingly achieved through the process of consensus formation. The rationalization of the system involves the coordination of activities by monetarization and bureaucratization. Habermas believes that these instrumental system imperatives threaten substantive rationality by impinging on the life-world and restricting communication. Agency-Structure and Micro-Macro Linkages One of the key differences between micro-macro and agency-structure theory is their respective images of the actor. Micro-macro theory tends to have a behaviorist orientation, whereas agency-structure theory places an emphasis on conscious, creative action. A second major difference is that micro-macro theory tends to depict issues in static, hierarchical, and ahistorical terms, whereas agency-structure theory is 28

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more firmly embedded in a historical, dynamic framework.

Contemporary Theories of Modernity

Chapter 16 Chapter SummaryMost classical sociologists were engaged in an analysis and critique of modern society. For Marx, modernity was defined by the capitalist economy. To Weber, the defining problem of the modern world was the expansion of formal rationality at the expense of the other types of rationality. In Durkheim's view, organic solidarity and the weakening of the collective consciousness defined modernity. Simmel, while sometimes seen as a postmodernist, investigated modernity in the city and in the money economy. The Juggernaut of Modernity Anthony Giddens (1938- ) has described the modern world as a juggernaut, that is, as an engine of enormous power which can be directed to some extent, but which also threatens to run out of control. The juggernaut is a runaway world with great increases over prior systems in the pace, scope, and profoundness of change. Giddens defines modernity in terms of four basic institutions. Capitalism is characterized by commodity production, private ownership of capital, wage labor, and a class system derived from these characteristics. Industrialism involves the use of inanimate power sources and machinery to produce goods, but it also affects transportation, communication, and everyday life. Surveillance refers to the supervision of the activities of subject populations in the political sphere. The fourth characteristic is control of the means of violence by the state. Modernity is given dynamism by three processes. Time and space distanciation refers to the tendency for modern relationships to be 29

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increasingly distant. Relatedly, disembedding involves the lifting out of social relations from local contexts of interaction and their restructuring across indefinite spans of time-space. In such a system, trust becomes necessary because we no longer have full information about social phenomena. Finally, reflexivity means that the social practices of modern society are constantly reexamined and reformed in the light of incoming information. Giddens thinks that modernity has created a distinctive risk profile. Risk becomes global in intensity and in the expansion of contingent events that affect large numbers of people around the world. Our awareness of these risks gives us the sense of insecurity implied in the term juggernaut. Giddens argues that the reflexivity of modernity extends to the core of the self and becomes a reflexive project of identity formation. For example, the body is subject to a variety of regimes that help individuals mold their bodies. He also argues that intimate relationships have been set apart from the routines of ordinary life (sequestered). As a result, the reflexive effort to create a pure intimate relationship is usually separate from larger moral issues. The Risk Society According to Ulrich Beck (1944- ), we no longer live in an industrial society and are moving toward a risk society. Risk society is a form of reflexive modernity in which the central issue is how risks can be prevented, minimized, or channeled. These risks are being produced by the sources of wealth in modern society. Industry, for example, produces a wide range of hazardous consequences that reach across time and space. Beck also argues that science has become a protector of a global contamination of people and nature. He suggests that subgroups, such as large companies, are more likely than the governments to lead the way when coping with risks. McDonaldization and the New Means of Consumption There are four dimensions of formal rationality. Efficiency means the search for the best means to the end. Predictability means a world of no surprises. Rational systems tend to emphasize quantity, usually large quantities, rather than quality. Finally, formal rationality relies on non-human technology rather than human qualities. Formally rational systems have a variety of irrational consequences, such as dehumanization and demystification. Ritzer argues that the fast-food restaurant brings formal rationality to new heights. He argues that the prevalence of McDonaldization indicates that we still live in a modern world. Ritzer has also observed the rise of new means of consumption, such as shopping malls and superstores, since the end of 30

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World War II. He defines the means of consumption as entities that make it possible for people to acquire goods and services and for the same people to be controlled and exploited as consumers. The new means of consumption are modern because they are highly rationalized. Modernity and the Holocaust Zygmunt Bauman (1925-) considers the Holocaust to be the paradigm of modern bureaucratic rationality. The perpetrators of the Holocaust employed rationality as one of their major tools. Bauman suggests that the Holocaust was the product of modernity, not a result of a breakdown of modernity. Without modernity and rationality, the Holocaust would be unthinkable. Mass extermination required a highly rationalized and bureaucratized operation. Bauman suggests that bureaucracies, while not inherently cruel, are likely to be used for inhuman purposes. There is continuity between the rationality employed in the Holocaust and the rationalization of the fast-food industry today. Bauman believes that the conditions that created the Holocaust have not really changed and that only strong morality and pluralistic political forces can prevent a recurrence. Modernity's Unfinished Project Jurgen Habermas (1929-) believes that social systems have grown increasingly complex, differentiated, integrated, and characterized by instrumental reason. At the same time the life-world has witnessed increasing differentiation and condensation, secularization, and the institutionalization of norms of reflexivity and criticism. A rational society would be one in which both the system and the life-world were permitted to rationalize following their own logics. However, in the modern world, the system has come to dominate the life-world. While we may be enjoying the fruits of system rationalization, we are deprived of the enrichment of life that comes from a life-world allowed to flourish. Habermas thinks that solutions to many of the problems in the modern world could be devised if the life-world had a better ability to steer the system. Habermas is critical of the postmodernists for rejecting modernity. Informationalism and the Network Society Manuel Castells (1942-) examines the emergence of a new society, culture, and economy in the light of the revolution in information technology. This revolution has led to a fundamental restructuring of the capitalist system. The spread of informational capitalism has led to the emergence of oppositional social movements based on self and identity. Accompanying the rise of the new global information economy is the emergence of a new organizational form called the network enterprise, which is characterized by flexible production, new management systems, 31

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organizations based on a horizontal rather than a vertical model, and the intertwining of large corporations in strategic alliances. As a result, the nature of work is being transformed. Castells asserts that the larger society is being reorganized into networks that are capable of unlimited expansion and able to innovate without disrupting the system. Castells suggests that individuals and collectivities whose identities are threatened by this new order actively oppose this new network society. Castells also believes that the rise of the network society means that the state is losing power vis--vis global capital markets. Globalization Globalization can be analyzed culturally, economically, politically, and institutionally. In each case, a key difference is whether one sees increasing homogeneity or heterogeneity on the world scene. At the extremes, the globalization of culture can be seen as the diffusion of common codes and practices or as a process in which cultural inputs interact to create hybrid blends. Theorists who focus on economic factors tend to emphasize the homogenizing effect of the expanding market economy. Some political/institutional thinkers focus on the worldwide spread of standard models of governance, while others suggest that local social structures make more of a difference in people's lives than ever. Douglas Kellner (1943-) states that the key to understanding globalization is theorizing it as, at once, a product of technological revolution and the global restructuring of capital. While the capitalistic economy remains central to understanding globalization, technoscience provides its infrastructure. Giddens emphasizes the role of the West and the United States in globalization. He recognizes that globalization has both undermined local cultures and served to revive them. He also suggests that a clash is taking place today between fundamentalism and cosmopolitanism. Beck defines globalism as the view that the world is dominated by economics and that we are witnessing the emergence of the hegemony of the capitalist world market and the neo-liberal ideology that underpins it. Beck is critical of this conception as being oversimplified and linear. Beck sees greater merit in the idea of globality, in which closed spaces like nation-states are becoming increasingly illusory because of the growing influence of transnational actors. Beck refers to the rise of globality as a second modernity characterized by denationalization. Bauman sees mobility as the most powerful aspect of globalization. He argues that the winners in the "space war" are those who are able to move 32

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freely around the globe. The losers not only lack mobility but are also confined to territories denuded of meaning. Ritzer argues that there is an elective affinity between globalization and nothing. He defines "nothing" as centrally conceived and controlled forms devoid of most distinctive content. It is easier to export empty forms throughout the globe than it is to export forms that are loaded with content. We are witnessing the global proliferation of generic, dehumanized, and disenchanted forms. Arjun Appadurai discusses global flows and the disjunctures among them. He uses the suffix -scape to connote the idea that these processes have fluid, irregular, variable shapes. For example, ethnoscapes are mobile groups and individuals that play an important role in shifting the world. He also describes technoscapes, financescapes, mediascapes, and ideoscapes.

Structuralism, Poststructuralism, and the Emergence of Postmodern Social Theory

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Chapter 17 Chapter SummaryThe concept of modern social theory presents the possibility of a postmodern social theory. Indeed, postmodernism has had wideranging effects on a number of disciplines, including sociology. Because of the multidisciplinary nature of postmodernism, it is necessary to think of postmodern social theory rather than postmodern sociological theory, with the basic distinction resting on the various sources of input in social theory. Structuralism Structuralism emerged from a reaction against the humanism of JeanPaul Sartre's (1905-1980) existentialism. Sartre assailed the idea of structures that overly determine the behavior of individuals, of having actors without agency. Structuralism emerged in the 1960s, and was based on the work of Ferdinand de Saussure(1857-1913). Saussure's work was oriented to understanding the structures underlying languages. Thus, structuralism is associated with the linguistic turn. Saussure focused on the relationship between the formal, grammatical system of language (langue) and the everyday usage of language (parole). Parole was of little interest to linguists, who should be concerned with understanding the determinant laws that govern langue. Langue is conceptualized as a system of signs whereby each sign may be understood by its relationships to other signs within the system. This system of signs is a structure, a structure that affects society by shaping relationships of signs within the system and our understanding of the world. Saussure focused on the creation of difference, particularly through binary oppositions (e.g., hot/cold) , which have meaning only in relation to one another. The idea of semiotics extended the analysis of sign systems to various dimensions of the social world. Structuralism also influenced anthropology and Marxism. In the former case, the work of Claude Levi-Strauss (1908-) exhibits this influence. Levi-Strauss attempted to extend structuralism to anthropology, focusing on communication. He reinterpreted social phenomena for their effects on communication. Structural Marxism took from structuralism an interest in the historical origins of structures, but continued to focus on social and economic structures. Poststructuralism Poststructuralism loosened the moorings underlying systems of signs. 34

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Rather than seeing stable relationships of signs, they saw chaotic and highly variable context-dependent systems. In their view, such structures could not have the coercive power over individuals that the structuralists attributed to them. Jacques Derrida(1930-), perhaps the originator of poststructuralism, has argued against the notion of logocentrism. By logocentrism Derrida meant the coercive, limiting effects of the search for universal systems of thought that would reveal "truth." Instead, Derrida attempts to deconstruct, or uncover, hidden differences that underlie logocentrism. At the heart of the notion of logocentrism is the silencing of voices by intellectual elites in the creation of the dominant discourse. Derrida argues for a decentering, so that previously excluded or silenced voices may contribute. While the ultimate result of this is unclear, Derrida privileges a movement away from any sort of silencing, a movement away from the fallacy of universal truth, and movement towards a society characterized by participation, play, and difference. Michel Foucault Perhaps the most recognizable figure associated with poststructuralism is Michel Foucault(1937-1984). Foucault incorporated a variety of theoretical insights, particularly from Karl Marx(1818-1883), Max Weber(1864-1920), and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900). Like Nietzsche, he was particularly interested in the relationship between power and knowledge. Foucault's early work focused on the structures that underlie the limits of discourse and the ways in which discourses create "truth." Thus, much of Foucault's work focuses on discourses related to the creation of the human sciences, such as psychology. Foucault's work during this period ranged from investigating medical discourses and the construction of normative understanding of people (normal versus pathological) and ultimately into the problematic surrounding the emergence of people as both subject and object of knowledge. In addition, Foucault's later, less structuralist work sought to create a genealogy of power, a type of historical analysis that does not seek invariable laws of social change, but rather recognizes the contingency of history. Substantively, Foucault's genealogy questioned the ways in which knowledge and power interpenetrate in certain types of practices, such as the regulation of the body, governing bodies, and the formation of the self. Thus, it asks how people govern themselves and others through the production of knowledge. Foucault pays particular attention to the techniques that are developed from knowledge and to how they are used to control people. For Foucault, history is punctuated with 35

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changing forms of domination. In Discipline and Punish, Foucault reinterprets the transformation of crime and punishment, shifting the explanation away from humanistic concerns and towards the need to rationalize the functions of discipline and punishment. Foucault attempts to highlight the multivalent, multidimensional nature of this transformation by acknowledging the relationship between the new techniques of punishment and discipline with the encroachment of power throughout society. These "microphysics of power" were based on hierarchical observation, normalizing judgments, and examination, and they were originally taken from the military. These find their ultimate expression in the Panopticon, a structure designed by Jeremy Bentham(1748-1832) for observing criminals. The characteristics of the panopticon are important, because it allows for the shift in regulatory power to the individual, as they now self-monitor their behavior. Foucault is also interested in the relationship between sex and power. Here again he reinterprets history to show the ways in which medicine is more concerned with morality than with sexuality. Actor-Network Theory Actor-network theory extends semotics to focus on material objects rather than just symbols. Actor-network theory sees sign as emerging from the context in which entities are located. Actor-network theory attempts to understand action, less from the perspective of the actor, but rather in terms of its location within a network and its relationship to non-material objects. From this perspective, non-material objects are capable of action (as actants), although objects are considered inferior partners to humans. The interactions of these components are viewed not as consistent and patternable networks, but rather as a fluid combination of interactions at various levels of social life that are performed by actors and actants. Actor-network theory breaks down many analytical distinctions used in other social theories, such as micro/macro and agency/structure, to help make sense of social phenomena. Postmodern Social Theory Postmodern social theory has received a tremendous level of attention and has diversified to such an extent that it is difficult to make easy, overarching generalizations, particularly since there are substantial points of disagreements between various postmodern thinkers. Indeed, it is still debated whether postmodernism represents a distinct phase in history or a new society of sorts, or whether it simply extends modernism. Still another perspective sees modernism and 36

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postmodernism less as competing periods of history and more as sets of principles that critically engage one another. In order to better engage the variants of this discipline, it is useful to distinguish between postmodernity, postmodernism, and postmodern social theory. Postmodernity refers to that which comes after modernity, conceptualized as another epoch of history. Postmodernism refers to cultural products, while postmodern social theory refers to a way of questioning the world different from modern social theory. Understood in this way, the postmodern represents a new historical epoch, new cultural products, and a new type of theorizing the social world, one that emerged from the acknowledgment of modernity's failures sometime between the Kennedy/Johnson administrations and the Reagan administration. Postmodern social theory rejects the ambitions and techniques of modern social theory, moving away from grand narratives and universalistic, rational theorizing and towards a deconstruction of universal truths, a decentering that is attuned to difference and locality. Moderate Postmodern Social Theory: Frederic Jameson Frederic Jameson sees postmodernism as an extension of modernity. In his view, capitalism still dominates social life. Jameson makes the claim that while there have been significant cultural changes, these are still the expression of the same sort of economic structures discussed by Karl Marx. Thus, despite attempts by the postmodern social theorists to use Marx as an archetype of modernist grand narratives, Jameson uses Marx's theory to help explain postmodernity. These cultural changes represent capitalism's expansion into the last uncommodified areas of life that is typical of "late capitalism." Late capitalism follows Marx's market capitalism and V. I. Lenin's (1870-1924) imperalist stage of capitalism. He also identifies cultures with specific economic structures, such as postmodern culture in multinational capitalism. Jameson characterizes postmodern society with four elements: (1) superficiality and lack of depth; (2) the waning of emotion or affect; (3) a loss of historicity; and (4) new technologies. A consequence of this is that people are unable to make sense of an increasingly complex society. He proposes the creation of cognitive maps to help us navigate the postmodern society, including its spatial dimensions. These maps bring about a certain form of consciousness (e.g., class consciousness) to help us understand our position within a complex system. Extreme Postmodern Social Theory: Jean Baudrillard Jean Baudrillard's work grew increasingly postmodern over his life, 37

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and although rooted in sociology, it can no longer be termed anything but postmodern. While his early work sought to synthesize Marx's work and semiotics, he came to view Marx as limited to the extent that his views replicated worldviews and an analytical orientation antithetical to change. Rather than replicating this, Baudrillard proposed the notion of symbolic exchange, involving an uninterrupted cycle of gift giving, as an alternative. Baudrillard sees modern society as dominated by media, information, technology, and their supporting structures. These create a code of production, leading to an explosion in signs. Signs are no longer attached to anything real, but rather are self-referential, imploding the relationship between signs and reality. Baudrillard also characterized the postmodern world by simulations and hyperreality. The former refers to the creation of simulacra, which attempt to reproduce reality. The latter is a description of the social world in which simulations and simulacra are privileged, where they become real and predominate. Unlike Marxists, Baudrillard saw little revolutionary activity on the part of workers or the masses; rather, he saw them as being increasingly passive. They are inundated with signs, simulacra, and hyperreality by a media willing to provide the masses with titillation. Thus, life is led toward nihilism and meaninglessness. Baudrillard promotes symbolic exchange as an alternative to the consumer culture of contemporary society. Despite this proposition, Baudrillard is not optimistic about the future. Postmodern Social Theory and Sociological Theory In many ways, postmodern thought is simply not commensurate with sociological theory. Its aversion to grand narratives refutes much of what sociology has been and tries to do. However, some authors have attempted to apply postmodern concepts to provide fruitful sociological analyses. George Ritzer's coupling of Weber and disenchantment in looking at the new means of consumption helps us understand the processes involved in re-enchantment, such as the use of simulations and implosion in Las Vegas. Criticisms of Postmodern Social Theory Postmodernism is criticized for being untestable, unsystematic, overly abstract, relativistic, pessimistic, and without vision. Nevertheless, there is some question as to what is the appropriate metric of success, as postmodernism has certainly posed a number of important and interesting questions to social theory. 38

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