Thompson Durkheimian Soc and Cult Stud

http://the.sagepub.comThesis Eleven

DOI: 10.1177/0725513604046952 2004; 79; 16 Thesis Eleven

Kenneth Thompson Durkheimian Cultural Sociology and Cultural Studies

http://the.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/79/1/16 The online version of this article can be found at:

Published by:

http://www.sagepublications.com

can be found at:Thesis Eleven Additional services and information for

http://the.sagepub.com/cgi/alerts Email Alerts:

http://the.sagepub.com/subscriptions Subscriptions:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsReprints.navReprints:

http://www.sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.navPermissions:

distribution. 2004 Thesis Eleven Pty, Ltd., SAGE Publications. All rights reserved. Not for commercial use or unauthorized

at KoBSON on October 22, 2007 http://the.sagepub.comDownloaded from

DURKHEIMIAN CULTURALSOCIOLOGY AND CULTURALSTUDIES

Kenneth Thompson

ABSTRACT Alexander has made a major contribution to the development ofa neo-Durkheimian cultural sociology. Two central elements have been: thesemiotic analysis of sacred symbols and rituals that evoke the solidarityattached to the idealized nation; analysis of structures and processes that con-stitute a civil society. Some questions can be raised. The first concerns thetensions between ethnic-nationalisms and the kind of culture of civil societythat is said to be congruent with the liberal-democratic state. Secondly, not allgroups share the binary constructions of the civil code of liberal democracy.Thirdly, more attention needs to be given to the relationship between therational public sphere and the spheres of entertainment and popular culture.Cultural studies of popular genre, such as television talk shows, reveal that,rather than exhibiting universal characteristics of liberal-democratic society,these public cultural performances reproduce the particularities of nationaldifferences.

KEYWORDS civil society culture Durkheim liberal democracy talkshows.

INTRODUCTION

It is not without significance that it was on the eve of the collapse ofthe Communist regimes of Eastern Europe that Jeffrey Alexander publishedthe edited volume, Durkheimian Sociology: Cultural Studies (Alexander,1988). One of the central themes of that book was the political relevance ofDurkheims later religious sociology for an understanding of fundamentalpolitical processes, such as how political upheavals can be viewed asattempts to revive or renew the sacredness of the nation over against theprofanations of the state (Alexander, 1988: 12). (Max Weber made the point

Thesis Eleven, Number 79, November 2004: 1624SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)Copyright 2004 SAGE Publications and Thesis Eleven Pty LtdDOI: 10.1177/0725513604046952

03 046952 (jr/t) 4/10/04 9:34 am Page 16



that the nation is a cultural phenomenon, whereas the state is an organizedstructure; Weber, 1968: 922.) Although few people predicted the suddennessof the political and economic collapse of those regimes, it was becomingevident that they were morally bankrupt and had failed to live up to socialideals, whether of utopian socialism or nationalism. Furthermore, they hadfailed to find a balance between society and the individual. The state hadsqueezed much of the life out of the civil society that should have providedthe space in which individuals could express themselves and might freelycommunicate and debate their concerns.

These two thematic elements have remained central to Alexanderscultural sociology:

1. Semiotic analysis of the binary structuring of the sacred symbols(and rituals) that express and evoke the solidarity attached to the imaginedcommunity of the idealized nation.

2. The operation of structures and processes that constitute a civilsociety.

Before examining how these themes have been developed, it is worthhighlighting the significance of Alexanders efforts to shift sociology(especially American sociology) in a more cultural direction. Of course, hehas not been alone in this endeavour. The cultural turn has been proceed-ing for some three decades at least, most notably in European sociology. Buthe has attempted to propel it forward in a particularly interesting directionand within a professional context (the scientistic ethos of some parts ofAmerican sociology) that is not altogether sympathetic towards such adevelopment.

CULTURAL SOCIOLOGY

In the heyday of sociologys expansion during the two decades afterthe Second World War, there was little sign of a return to Durkheims ideathat essentially social life is made up of representations (Durkheim, 1951:312) and that these collective representations included all the ways in whichthe group conceives of itself in relation to objects which affect it (Durkheim,1938: xlix). At the most fundamental level, what Durkheim called the collec-tive conscience (or consciousness), these collective representationsexpressed societys moral values. In recent years, there has been a decidedreturn to ethical and moral concerns in sociology (Alexander, 2000). Thiswas not the case in the post-war years, when it was believed that moralityshould not be allowed to feature directly in social science. As Alexanderpointed out, that position was possible to hold because the moral seemedimminent in the progressively unfolding historical progress that was calledmodernization, which often included the welfare state as part of its unfold-ing. The first stirrings against this optimism occurred in the radical student

Thompson: Durkheimian Cultural Sociology 17

03 046952 (jr/t) 4/10/04 9:34 am Page 17



movement of the 1960s, which raised questions about the adequacy andreality of this progress. In the 1970s there was a further reaction, this timefrom the economic and political Right, which took the discourse of libertyin a different direction, portraying the welfare state in terms of excessive col-lectivism and a brake on individual freedom and enterprise. Sociology wasaccused of being inherently biased in favour of collectivism. It particularlyprovoked the ire of the New Right politicians, such as the British PrimeMinister, Margaret Thatcher, who once went so far as to assert that there isno such thing as society only individuals and families.

Some sociologists responded by developing new realisms, in certaincases leaving academic sociology for more useful and approved areas suchas business studies and management consultancy. Others reacted in a worldweary way by turning to nihilistic theories of power and violence, or theoriesof postmodernity that pictured the social as a hall of mirrors, where therewere only images, playfulness and relativism. Those who remained com-mitted to the moral project of creating an ethical society, but one not basedon an imminent unfolding process of modernization, have sought to groundtheir claims for a better life in less universal, but more culturally delimitedand specific historical domains. This is the approach of the so-called com-munitarians (e.g. Richard Rorty, Michael Walzer and Charles Taylor). Ratherthan seeking to generalize about universal moral truths and values, they havesought to infuse the micro-spaces of delimited institutional domains, ofconcrete interactions, and of particular religious, civilizational, and nationalcultures, with an ethical light. Emphasizing the historical boundedness andpartiality of the lifeworlds of actually existing empirical societies, thesethinkers have pointed less to justice in the totalizing sense than to theimportance of pluralism, tolerance and simple human recognition(Alexander, 2000: 274).

The communitarians tend to suggest that societies are divided intodifferent spheres, each with its own moral criteria as to how its particularkind of goods should be distributed economic, political, familial,communal. In other words, there are different spheres of justice, and oneshould not try to impose one set of criteria on the others (Walzer, 1987, 1988).French sociologists Luc Boltanski and Laurent Thevenot have a differentemphasis, suggesting that there are frequent efforts by groups to widensupport for their case by appealing to values in other spheres, e.g. workersappeal to political values of citizenship and equality to argue againstnarrower economic standards of efficiency (Boltanski and Thevenot, 1991).

Alexander believes that social movements that aim to gain widespreadattention and support tend to move beyond the boundaries of their particu-lar sphere and appeal to values and symbols that are part of an idealizedversion of their society. He calls this the idealized civil society. It entails dis-courses and symbols that are structured in sets of binary oppositions, suchas between good and evil, us and them, democratic and counter-democratic.

18 Thesis Eleven (Number 79 2004)

03 046952 (jr/t) 4/10/04 9:34 am Page 18



Because of the western worlds shared historical heritage, dating back toAncient Israel and Classical Greece, western societies tend to share many ofthe same forms of discourse and symbols in their idealised civil society.However, as each society also has somewhat different historical components,there are also differences in the forms taken by the binary oppositions andin the ways these are summoned up and articulated in public controversies.For example, Britain and America have some historical elements in commonas well as some differences:

Every nation has a myth of origin, which anchors this discourse in an accountof the historical events involved in its early formation. Like their English com-patriots, early Americans believed their rights to have emerged from the ancientconstitution of the 11th-century Anglo-Saxons, the same courageously inde-pendent and heroic group who had been resurrected to legitimate the Englishrevolutionaries struggle against royal authority. The specifically Americandiscourse of liberty was first elaborated in accounts of the communities formedby rational and self-disciplined Puritan saints and later in stories about therevolutionary heroes. It was woven into the myth of the virtuous, highly indi-vidualistic yeoman farmer who first settled Americas virgin land, then intotales about hard-working, straight-talking, and honest shooting cowboys whocivilised the West; and still later, with urbanisation, into pulp stories aboutdetectives who worked tirelessly for the public good and who resembled thecowboys and Western sheriffs in every way other than name. . . . Later in themid-20th century, this narrative hero became the FBI agent or G-Man, whomRichard Gid Powers describes as that startlingly intelligent hero who playedthe central role in Hollywood movies and later American television. (Alexander,2000: 3045)

There is much to be admired in this depiction of the narratives and dis-course that have enshrined the ideology of American civil society. It isextremely useful when Alexander deconstructs such narratives into binarysets of good and evil characteristics. For example, in his case study of theWatergate crisis and its unfolding as a public drama of ritual cleansing, hetraced the transition from one set of binary symbolic classifications to anotherin the course of the purging process. It is particularly instructive for theways in which he pinpoints and analyses the dynamics of the process,slotting specific personalities and events into the classificatory scheme(Alexander, 1988). Subsequently, he and his former students (notably, PhilipSmith, 1998) have gone beyond the particular case of American civil religionand drawn up binary codes that they take to be characteristic of the demo-cratic discourse of civil society in all liberal-democratic societies. AsAlexander states:

Democratic discourse, then, posits the following qualities as axiomatic:activism, autonomy, rationality, reasonableness, calm, control, realism, andsanity. The nature of the counter-code, the discourse that justifies the restric-tion of civil society, is already clearly implied. If actors are passive and


03 046952 (jr/t) 4/10/04 9:34 am Page 19



dependent, irrational and hysterical, excitable, passionate, unrealistic or mad,they cannot be allowed the freedom that democracy allows. (Alexander, 2000:299)

Smith describes the code of liberal democracy in terms of the binaryopposites of the sacred and profane. The sacred is characterized by anemphasis on: order, the individual, reason, activism, law, equality, inclusive-ness, and autonomy. Whereas the profane involves: disorder, group,emotion, passivity, power, hierarchy, exclusiveness, and dependence (Smith,1998: 120).

However, a few questions might be asked about what it leaves out ormarginalizes, such as whether Alexander is justified in suggesting that it isshared by and appealed to by all groups in the national society, as claimedin his statement that:

Within the confines of a particular national community, the binary codes andconcrete representations that make up the discourse of civil society typicallyare not segmented by the ideologies of different social groups. To the contrary,even in societies that are wrought by intensive social conflict the sameconstructions of civic virtue and civic vice are widely accepted by both sides.(Alexander, 2000: 3056)

However, if we return to the earlier distinction between nation andstate, we are likely to find that, increasingly in multicultural societies, thenational element is not always firmly anchored to, or supportive of, theculture of civil society that is congruent with the liberal-democratic state. Thisbecomes evident once we reflect on the images summoned up by the termnationalism. The highly charged binary symbolic structures that constructnationalisms are also highly particularistic and often opposed to the moreuniversalistic symbols and values that are typical of civil society in liberaldemocracies. In the past we have seen clashes between the symbols andvalues of nationalisms (or ethnicities) and those of mainstream civil society,as in the cases of the Black Panthers and Black Muslims. Now it is likely toarise over transnational diasporic ethnicities, such as the religious national-ism of Hindu Indian-Americans, Muslim Pakistani-Americans, Palestinian-Americans, Israeli-Jewish-Americans. Of course, it is frequently the case thatthese groups seek to broaden political support for their cause by appealingto wider values of American civil society. But this is only part of the story.It tends to equate civil society with normal political processes appeals toa consensual set of values. But ethnic-nationalisms are culturally significantand of sociological interest precisely because of their totalizing, expressive-emotional, particularisms, rather than because they are similar to all otherliberal-democratic political processes.

A further area that deserves more consideration is that of the relation-ship between the rational public sphere, that Habermas and others see ascentral to the civil society of liberal democracy, and the sphere of


03 046952 (jr/t) 4/10/04 9:34 am Page 20



entertainment and popular culture that increasingly permeates civil society.An example would be the increasing prominence of television talk shows(especially on 24-hour cable channels), where moral and political issues arediscussed at length, using various formats, some with audience participation,others with a mixture of experts and ordinary people. (It would be inter-esting to compare the media coverage of Watergate in the earlier period withthe role of the talk shows and cable channels in the coverage of recentscandals, such as the Clinton-Lewinsky affair.) It is at this point that culturalstudies (especially studies of different media formats and styles), viewedmore broadly than that part identified as cultural sociology, may have moreto contribute to sociology than is yet apparent from Alexanders (and Smiths)accounts. It is particularly relevant in developing an appreciation of thecultural differences between various national imagined communities and thesignificance of these differences for the performativity of the sacred-profanebinary codes. In other words, the ways in which the binary codes are playedout or performed varies from one social formation to another.

CULTURAL STUDIES

Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that encompasses Humani-ties disciplines (especially literary, film and television studies) as well associological studies of subcultures and the mass media. Debates about thepublic sphere and the mass media have figured prominently in culturalstudies. The debate often polarizes between those who follow Habermas inbelieving that the 20th century development of consumer culture and com-modified entertainment has produced a pseudo public sphere (Habermas,1989), and those who take a more optimistic view and even talk of popularculture as constituting an oppositional public sphere, in which ordinarypeople can actively participate either directly as in talk show audiences, oras active consumers who can impose their own interpretations and valueson media content (Carpignano et al., 1990; de Certeau, 1984; Fiske, 1987;Masciarotte, 1991).

Studies of talk shows in America and other countries provide someinteresting data on variations in the content and performance of culturalcodes between civil societies in different liberal democracies. We can see theimplications of this if we focus on just two of the polarities picked out byAlexander and Smith: individual versus collectivity/group, and independenceversus dependence. The application of performance theory in a comparisonof American and German talk shows illustrates the different emphases givento these values in the two societies (Krause and Goering, 1995). (In thisdramaturgical approach, performance is viewed in terms of Kenneth Burkesfive key terms of dramatism: Act actor roles, Scene, Agent, Agency, andPurpose; Burke, 1969.) The differences between American and German talkshows in these respects can be summarized as follows:


03 046952 (jr/t) 4/10/04 9:34 am Page 21



American talk shows foreground the personality of the host/hostess(Oprah, Donahue, Sally Jesse Raphael), whereas German talk shows may noteven be hosted by individuals, but by moderator teams, and are not namedafter an individual. Guests in American talk shows are ordinary peoplewhose expertise lies in personal, often traumatic experience, plus expertswho legitimate the performance, and celebrities. German talk show partici-pants are presented less as experts and more as representatives of a pointof view (a group or collectivity). American studio audiences function like aGreek chorus, helping to build the drama of the performance. German studioaudiences are usually restricted to the participation of a theatre audience applauding, murmuring and laughing (Krause and Goering, 1995).

The function of the talk show also differs between the two societies.The American talk show tends to reflect the value attributed to the private,self-disclosing talk usually encountered in therapy. As members of a highlyindividualistic and pragmatic society, Americans believe that people areresponsible for and capable of solving their own problems. Psychologicalproblem-solving via television provides an almost perfect package: the built-in conflict, the gradually unravelling mystery, the sudden revelations, thefinal resolution. In German talk shows, the private level is quickly movedinto the public realm and into agendas for social or political change.

In both Germany and America talk shows are a major voice in thenational cultural debate and reflect the familiar themes of the national narra-tive. In America it is the primacy of the individual, a narrative rooted in thecountrys pioneer past that celebrates the self-reliance of the individual inovercoming adversity. This focus on the individual and his or her pursuit ofhappiness makes room for difference/diversity, because on the talk showothers who may be different are drawn into the fold of the national fabric.After all, even sex addicts, strippers, delinquent children, and homosexualshave rights, as individuals, to pursue happiness in their own ways (Krauseand Goering, 1995: 203). An example would be on the Rush Limbaugh show,where he preaches against anything that limits individual rights.

In American talk shows, it appears as if even the country itself may beregarded as an individual entity, almost completely self-oriented with littleacknowledgement of a larger world community. In contrast, German talkshows constantly feature comparisons with other societies, in whichGermany is being re-narrativized through exploring different cultural charac-teristics. In this respect, the re-narrativizing function of German talk showsresembles that in other European countries. The American case is unusualin the extent to which this form of popular culture promotes difference, andyet contains it within an overall framework in which the existing culturalnarrative is revalidated and reaffirmed. In that respect, the situation inAmerica is closest to the Durkheimian picture of modern society celebratingthe cult of the individual, and employing public rituals to reaffirm its sacred


03 046952 (jr/t) 4/10/04 9:34 am Page 22



character. A Durkheimian analysis of other civil societies, such as those inwestern Europe, might be more complicated.

CONCLUSION

A conclusion to be drawn from studies of talk shows in differentsocieties is that, rather than exhibiting universal characteristics of liberal-democratic civil society, they reproduce the particularities of national differ-ences and guard cultural boundaries. The strength of Jeffrey Alexanderscontribution to cultural sociology has been to apply Durkheimian conceptsand insights to the study of problems of civil society in liberal-democraticstates. In doing so, he has drawn out some of the cultural particularities ofAmerican discourses. It would be interesting to see this contribution furtherstrengthened by taking in some of the findings from cultural studies,especially in the area of popular culture, and from cross-cultural studies.

Kenneth Thompson is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the Open UniversityUK, and was visiting professor at Yale University in 2002 and UCLA in 2004. He is amember of the Executive Committee of the International Sociological Association anda former president of the ISA research committee on Sociological Theory. His currentresearch interests include media regulation, moral panics, ethnicity and religion,sociological theory and the sociology of culture. Recent publications include EmileDurkheim (2nd edn.), Moral Panics, Media and Cultural Regulation, The Early Soci-ology of Culture, and The Uses of Sociology. Address: Kenneth Thompson, Departmentof Sociology, Faculty of Social Sciences, The Open University, Milton Keynes MK76AA, UK. [email: [email protected].]

ReferencesAlexander, J. C. (ed.) (1988) Durkheimian Sociology: Cultural Studies. Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press.Alexander, J. C. (2000) Theorising the Good Society: Hermeneutics, Normative and

Empirical Discourses, The Canadian Journal of Sociology 25(3): 271309.Boltanski, L. and Thevenot, L. (1991) De le justification: les economies de la grandeur.

Paris: Gallimard.Burke, K. (1969) A Grammar of Motives. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Carpignano, P., Anderson, R., Aronowitz, S. and Difazio, W. (1990) Chatter in the

Age of Electronic Reproduction: Talk Television and the Public Mind , SocialText 15(6): 3555.

De Certeau, M. (1984) The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley and Los Angeles:University of California Press.

Durkheim, E. (1938) The Rules of Sociological Method. New York: Free Press.Durkheim, E. (1951) Suicide: A Study in Sociology. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.Fiske, J. (1987) Television Culture. London: Methuen.


03 046952 (jr/t) 4/10/04 9:34 am Page 23



Habermas, J. (1989) The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. Cambridge:Polity Press.

Krause, A. J. and Goering, E. M. (1995) Local Talk in the Global Village: An Inter-cultural Comparison of American and German Talk Shows, Journal of PopularCulture 29(2): 189207.

Masciarotte, Gloria-Jean (1991) Cmon, Girl: Oprah Winfrey and the Discourse ofFeminine Talk, Genders 11: 84108.

Smith, P. (1998) Fascism, Communism and Democracy as Variations on a CommonTheme, in J. Alexander (ed.) Real Civil Societies, pp. 115137. London: Sage.

Walzer, M. (1987) Interpretation and Social Criticism. Cambridge, MA: HarvardUniversity Press.

Walzer, M. (1988) The Company of Critics: Social Criticism and Political Commitmentsin the Twentieth Century. New York: Basic Books.

Weber, Max (1968) Economy and Society. New York: Bedminster Press.


03 046952 (jr/t) 4/10/04 9:34 am Page 24



Documents

Thompson Durkheimian Soc and Cult Stud